Soul Sharing - Relapsing

I've relapsed so many times. I lost count of how many times I've attempted suicide after the 6th grade. I've lost count of how many times I've cut after that one week I cut 10 lines on each arm and leg each night. I've can't remember how many meals I've skipped or forced myself to throw up.

I've never been one to write down or remember important days or milestones. Birthdays and holidays aren't even that big of a deal to me. But I wish I could remember the last time I've cut, the last time I threw up on purpose, the last time I seriously considered suicide. I'd through myself a party every year, hell, every month. When something has so much power over your life for so many years, that victory, every victory however small the increment, is worth celebrating.

Relapsing is one of the worst feelings in the world. Even if it's only after a day, I've been trying to stop. I've been trying to be better, to get better. And then I lost myself to myself. I felt so defeated, hopeless that I'd never fully recover. No one else can know how much effort I put in to not doing something that was my default therapy. No one else even knows that I screwed up again, or even in the first place. No one else knows and that's what makes it so hard. It was all on me. I didn't have a sponsor. I didn't have anyone. It was the world against me. But I just had to be that much stronger. And I'm not strong. I became strong. I found a courage inside myself that I didn't know was there. A courage, a strength that's in all of us. We just need help and time to find it again after so long of forgetting it for whatever reason.

I'm only a few years clean. Maybe less for certain things. The pain, the memory, the temptation are all fresh. I still have to be careful. I still have to guard myself, my heart and mind. I have to keep a careful watch my emotions. I have to know my limits and avoid certain situations. I'm good and getting better, but I'm not completely free. I may never be. But at least now I know I can win.

Suicide Songs: Wednesday

Andrew only walked through the quad on Wednesdays 

It’s the one day his roommate didn’t drag him to the cafe

Wesley was nice enough to Andrew so he had a hard time saying no

He would say he wasn’t hungry but Wes would still insist that he go

But he reluctantly went because he needed Wes to force him to eat

After class they walked around the quad to avoid to the sunny heat

Andrew was too depressed to eat on his own

When he did try, he would vomit before he went home

Next semester Wes had practice on Wednesdays so Andy skipped lunch and cut through the quad 

It was the quickest way to get back to his dorm, but he nervously gave everyone a frantic friendly nod

When he got home, he threw out half of his food so Wes wouldn’t suspect

He left crumbs on his bed and at his desk in case he ever tried to inspect

Andy told Wes he was anorexic and depressed over the break

He was trying to get better but the best he could try was to fake

Wes was nice but he wasn’t enough

Life was getting unbearably tough

Andy wrote a note for his roommate

Left a voicemail telling him to come home late

Locked the door. Said a prayer.

Tied the knot. Kicked the chair.

Suicide Songs: Intro

The last few weeks were an introduction to poetry and to myself. I started writing poetry because I was hopelessly depressed and I had no voice. I had no one to talk to. No one I trusted. I was alone. Alone in my pain. Poetry kept me alive. Poetry gave me life. Poetry gave structure to my chaos and confusion. I was mentally ill but wasn't sure. I didn't want to accept myself because I was afraid of what my family and church (i.e. everyone I knew) would do to me if they found out I was gay. So I tried to drown myself when I was 11. I started cutting myself when I was 15. I also stopped eating. I don't know how I would have survived without poetry. If I couldn't say everything I needed to say without actually saying it.

But as I mentioned in the mini-memoir, I did end up in a mental hospital when I was 16. It really was the best thing that could have happened to me. Even though the boy broke my heart and I let that screw up my most important friendship, I was no longer alone. There are so many people out there just like me. Suffering from the same depression and oppression. But that's where traditional therapy ends. It gives you the tools to overcome obstacles. It provides a system that reduces your risk of relapsing. But it can't make you forget. And I'll talk more about this next week.

For these next 7 days, I'm just going to share 7 stories. 7 completely different souls. 7 completely different circumstances. 7 same "solutions" to those 7 very different problems. Just 7 ways suicide happens in our society.

Therapy Tactics: Understanding Poetry and Therapy

So the straightforward theme that can be talked about in "Apathetic Artist" is cutting or self-harming. But as I revealed in the Soul section and my video post, the more subtle maybe even invisible theme of the poem for me is being polar. A mental illness that's invisible to everyone else, in my case at least since I've always had to hide my real emotions for other reasons which I'll talk about through other poems. So poems like this one made it possible for me to write down how I felt about deep personal shit that I wasn't ready or wiling to openly share with anyone because I didn't want to be seen as damaged or broken even if that's how I felt. But I can post my poems on Facebook and have my friends "like" it and comment on it. I can share the emotion without sharing the specifics.

Well, it's always a challenge trying to think of the best way to start about talking about a single issue of mine since I'm so complicated with so many issues that overlap and intertwine. I've been through so much in such a short amount of time. I'm only 21 so it's been a whole decade since my problems manifested in a significant life changing way. It's taken me some time to look back and see what was cause and effect and what was independently compacting my problems. So I'll try my best to focus on my bipolar issues for this post. Like I said in the last post, I knew something was wrong with me mentally when I was 15.