Label Me

Thursday, December 12, 2013

No matter what I accomplish in life, to my family, who watched me struggle with a mental health diagnosis from an early age, I will be a fuck-up. When I was 12 years old I swallowed an entire bottle of migraine medication and laid on my bed, waiting for the painless sleep to wash over me - naiive from to much television and looking for an escape. It hurt. It hurt so bad I cried out, I begged for a quicker death. I got the ER, an empty stomach, and a hospital stay. The moment they closed those thick metal double doors behind me as I shuffled to a room, shaking and wide eyed in blue paper scrubs, my fate was sealed. I was officially the family fuck up.

If I cry, Oh its just her bipolar. If I am angry or offended, it is just her bipolar. I enjoy sex, didn't you know that Bipolar patients are overly sexual? Its a impulse thing, I'm a medically certified whore. I respond sarcastically or defensively to something you've said, no matter how rude? Oh, I'm having a mood swing. Name a medicine, any medicine, I've tried it. I've been sat on and small beige pills forced down my throat. I've been threatened until I swallowed white horse pills dry, gagging on the chalky taste - scared of "the group home" which was my mother's favorite method to shut me up.

I'm a grown woman now, a full time college student with a 3.8 GPA, two small children, and two grown men who wouldn't know what to do with themselves if I stopped finding their keys, doing their laundry, and cooking their meals. I'm still a fuck-up. My aunts and mother joke that they should come teach me how to shop, how to cook. They make excuses for my bad attitude when I don't find their humor funny or I disagree. She can't help it, she's crazy.

I'm so tired of this label. Tonight I got in an argument with my sister she "jokingly" yelled down the hall way how it wasn't fair that we paused the movie so I could put my 6 year old to bed while my husband wrangled the baby. I told her she was being rude and it escalated, she went to storm out and I told her to just take her shit and go, I didn't have time for the bullshit. I was rude. I admit it. I was snappy. I told her she was being bitchy. " Fuck you, you bipolar cunt, take your meds." .........

Label me.

Caged

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

I feel like a wild creature shoved into a cage two sizes to small. I press against the cold iron and bare my teeth but what good is simmering rage against the strength of my prison? I have caged myself in love and hunger. The perfect prison. While you may rage against its hold and all the indignities of your capture, freedom is just as painful if not more so.

I married a man who I love. Who makes me laugh. Who is capable, when he so chooses, to be as sticky sweet as any RomCom hero. And he is flawed. As all humanity is flawed. He is self-centered, lazy, and defensive. He has an uncertain temper, a shallow stream of romanticism that runs dry more than it flourishes, a spoiled, me me me attitude about life, and a strong refusal to ever accept blame for anything, ever. And I love him.

I love him when he's in a snit and every word that escapes his scowl is rude or hurtful. I love him when he's making a horrible mess and then blaming me for the filth. I love him when he forgets what I've said or isn't listening. I love him. I love him for the unexpected sneak attack kisses. I love him for the goofy sense of humor. I love him for his loyalty. I love him for every random act of kindness. I love him for the beautiful, growly, little beastie he gave me. I love him. I hate him. I can't live without him, but I'd love to shake him until his little pea-sized brain rattled around in his head.

I am trapped.

Talking it out doesn't work and I won't resort to the silent treatment or throwing things. I struggle through day after day, in pain physically and emotionally and the world at large is unaware or simply uncaring.

If I could turn back to dial, would I do any different? Would I change my life? I don't know. I simply don't know.