borderlineconfessional

[borderlineconfessional]

Searching the eyes of the strangers we meet. Asking will it get better? Will we be alone?

I remember standing at the screen door, itchy and hot, crying as I watched my dad drive away. My first memory, one of feeling left behind. It was a hot July evening, and my night shirt rubbed roughly against my chicken pox, itchy, sticking to my back. I remember my hair was pasted to my forehead, sweaty with fever, with summer heat. He drove away in the big green car, like he always did, and I stayed behind.

That same summer, standing on my bed, watching everyone play soccer in the field. Again in my pajamas, this time supposed to be asleep. It was light out, why should I be asleep? My second memory, a feeling of injustice, of unfairness, watching them play as the sun dipped behind the houses.

Do our oldest memories shape us? Do I have such strong core beliefs of justice and inclusion because I've held the absence of them in my heart since before I had the words to describe them? Do I expect unfairness, injustice, abandonment and exclusion? Am I a self fulfilling prophecy?

She told me 1-2-3 hold your breath. Cold, but held tightly in the dark. Fear, distrust, but also wonder and excitement. She never swam, she never so much as dipped a toe into the lake, but she held me tightly as I burned with fever and she lowered us into the cool water, under a sky filled with stars. My third memory, one of conflicting feelings of distrust and love. I can hear her voice so clearly, see the stars so brightly, the poplars trembling in the wind. Poplar leaves in the breeze will always sound like summer. They fill me with a nostalgic love that makes my heart ache.

A vast, snowy expanse, straw colored stalks and brush along the shore, drifts of snow piling in seemingly random spots on the ice. Boys laughing, whooping and hollering, a small girl's voice joining in. I'm far away, the snow deep and my boots heavy, hand-me-downs, the wrong size. My hair in my face, hat falling off as I hurry to catch up. I reach the beaver dam they had been climbing, but they've gone on ahead. I catch my breath and resolve to make my own games, make my own fun. I pretend I'm a wolf, stalking around the dam. I pretend I'm living hundreds of years ago, when our people lived alone, and beavers were food and clothing. I laugh and shout. I watch birds fly overhead, hear the creaking of the ice, the crunch of the snow beneath my feet. I remember marveling at the beauty. The silence then makes me realize I actually am alone. My fourth memory, of being forgotten, left behind, tinged with conflicting feelings of awe and feeling small in a big beautiful world. I remember being cold, having snow in my boots melting into my socks, wet mittens that smelled like dust. The sky bright with a blanket of winter clouds, the dogwood branches red against the straw colored stalks of rushes, impossibly beautiful. Feeling so infinitesimal. But also like I was being let in on a secret, one meant for me, lonely little me. I can close my eyes and see it all like it was a moment ago. My chest tightens at the memory, a confusion of overwhelming awe and feeling hollow, forgotten.

Strong emotions make the strongest memories.

[borderlineconfessional]

No, I ain't happy yet, but I'm way less sad.

I have survived every moment I've ever experienced.

Lately every moment has been hard. Divorce. Ending my relationship with my best friend, my love, the woman I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with.

Overwhelmed by grief. By feelings of loss and sorrow. You can be the one to end it, and still mourn.

I find myself so overcome without warning, hot tears spill over my cheeks and I am startled, surprised I still have tears left to cry.

I find solace in the revelation that I have in fact survived every moment I've ever experienced in my life. I'll survive this too.

I never thought I'd get this far.

My therapist told me that the running refrain I have in my head as a solution, that I could always just end it, is essentially a cop out.

It's a way to distance myself from feeling. It's a way to tell myself that it's okay to avoid pain. It's how I get over the hurt.

And she's right. I don't want to feel the pain, the agony of heartbreak, the hollow pit in my stomach when I think about how lonely I am going to be (or admit that I've been just as lonely for the last four years). She's right. Sorrow is painful, and I'd rather not feel it.

I have survived every moment I've ever experienced.

But that's the crux of it, I've survived. Surviving isn't living.

I don't know how to do this, it's new. To not just simply keep going, but instead to move forward. I think there's a difference.

I was washing my face before bed and noticed, for the first time, wrinkles near my eye. I'm surprised. I'm strangely elated. [I never thought I'd get this far.] I realized that it all just keeps going, and I've just been going along too. But I have agency. I can move forward with intention, if I try. If I'm brave enough.

I am brave enough.

[borderlineconfessional]

Feel heavily, no gravity. You're the way I go.

I want to be wanted. I want to be desired.

Is it too hard to love someone who doesn’t love themselves? [love yourself first]

Internalizing everything. Blaming my imperfect body for being undesirable [dysphoria, dysmorphia, loathing, disgust, internalized unattainable societal perfection] Wondering if it’s my inability to be perfect that is causing disconnect and detachment.

Ugly. Fat. Weak. Crooked teeth, lopsided smile. Inability to dress stylish, uncertain what to wear how to stand how to walk what to say. [I can never figure this out] Feeling like a stranger in my own body. Feeling like an alien not sure of how to communicate, be friendly, be less weird, be comfortable. [always a performance]

Uncertain if admiration adoration lust or envy. Be her, be with her, be friends, be normal. Wife partner best friend roommate. Wondering why I painted myself into a corner, so stuck so trapped so caged. Feeling like I don’t know myself anymore [if I ever did] and wanting to run run run.

I love you. I’m in love with you. What’s the difference. Is there one? Stability and dependability. Excitement and fun. What happened. Where did we get lost? [I miss you, I miss me, I miss us. You’re a stranger, where is my girlfriend my lover my partner in crime].

Pulling away, shying away, startling at my touch. [I want, I want, I want] Why is this one sided. Not knowing what else to say or do. Buy flowers, buy gifts, send messages, clean the house, walk the dog, say I love you, I want you, caress, grab, kiss. You pull away. [I’ve stopped trying, it hurts, my heart breaks every time]

I want to be wanted [you don’t want me] I want to be wanted [maybe she will want me. Even if it’s a fantasy, all in my head, at least it’s something, at least I can pretend] I want to be wanted [who would even want this, broken, damaged, ugly, imperfect] I want to be wanted [I don’t deserve it] I want to be wanted [I wish we could go back to before] I want to be wanted [why don’t you want me anymore] I want to be wanted [I can’t keep doing this] I want to be wanted [I don’t want this anymore] I want to be wanted.

[borderlineconfessional]

I'm like the wind in a canyon. I'm there then I'm gone in a second.

Venlafaxine.

I can’t think I can’t think I can’t think.

Thoughts feel slippery and I can’t grasp them. Am I just tired? My chest feels tight like someone is perched there, all their weight causing me to gasp and struggle. [Anxiety.]

[I miss the sun.] Winter light, today it feels anemic and lacking. How many days will be spent wanting, yearning for brightness? [Conflicted feelings.] January brings bright light, endless blue skies, frigidity and wind that bites your face. November brings clouds like a fleece blanket dragged across the sky, no definition, just flat grey.

[I can’t think.] It’s like someone keeps coming along and brushing away crumbs of ideas, cleaning the surface of my consciousness, so that nothing remains. Where do these words come from? Hesitation, starts and stops. [I worry for my creativity, my soul, my expression.] It’s hard to follow. I thought this would help, but it’s as though I am just pouring out onto the page, no conversation within prior. Is this better? Is this how it should be? [I worry.]

Instead of fighting with myself for what task to do, it’s like I can’t think of a task. The epitome of no thoughts head empty.

Maybe I’m just tired.

[borderlineconfessional]

Don't stop, never give up, hold your head high and reach the top.

I lived my childhood the only way we were allowed, the only way we knew how. I lived a girlhood, where I assumed we were all learning how to pretend to be something we're not. But I didn't know that then, I didn't have the words.

I have the words now, and the blessing of perspective; 25 years is a long time to ruminate. A quarter of a century, which has held the full fledged boom of the internet; 25 years of books, articles, forums, Tumblr, Reddit, JSTOR, PubMed, magazines, Autostraddle, PinkNews, fanfic, deviantArt. My adolescence and adulthood, spent unpacking and turning over each moment, each memory, like a long forgotten object that's spent years gathering dust in an attic, finally coming back around to look at my girlhood with interest and desire to understand, rather than bitterness and confusion, without feelings of unfairness, residual regret and shame.

I was a girl, a confused and lonely one, always on the outs with some other girls, always called names and bullied. I was a girl, always bullying someone else in turn, pushing the pointing fingers towards someone else, someone who wasn't me. I was a girl, always afraid that if they looked too long, pointed too much, they'd finally find the thing that I knew was wrong with me, we'd all have to see it, and I'd have to face it, alone. I was a girl, and I was always afraid. I was always watching, trying to figure it out, what clothes to wear, what boys to like, what shows to watch, what words to say. How could I be a girl when I didn't know how?

It was exhausting, trying to be good at being a girl. I wanted to climb trees, play sports, get dirty, jump my bike off stairs, scream with wild abandon while running through fields with bugs and mud.

But the girls in my life didn't want to get muddy. We put posters up of boys, pretended to kiss them. We sang Spice Girls and S Club 7, and no one wanted to be Sporty or Jo, they weren't sexy, they weren't cute, they were too athletic, the boys liked Ginger and Posh, liked Hannah and Rachel. We played Sailor Moon and all vied for the love of our Tuxedo Mask (the irony of the anime being very queer isn't lost on me). We played Barbies and they had fabulous parties, outfit changes, steamy love triangles.

I had a girlhood, filled with going along with the crowd, making the right sounds of approval or disgust when required, when expected. But I had a secret childhood too, as I'm sure we all did. My secret childhood held whispered love affairs between Barbies, with the Kens nowhere to be found, other than to raid their clothes, elastics and tape forming their suits to my Colour Splash Barbie's curvy hips, my Skipper doll's hair cropped short, sporting Ken's lifeguard visor and jacket. My secret childhood held kissing games with my best friend, for practice with boys we told each other. My secret childhood held envy, wishing I could play lacrosse like Derrick, wear a jersey and cheer for hockey teams, look handsome in a suit like Jesse on his way to church, run around without a shirt on in the sprinkler like Travis and his friends. My secret childhood, a girlhood that wanted to be anything but.

My secret childhood did try to live in the light- baseball caps with my long hair shoved under it, boys runners, baggy sweaters from my older brother's closet. A scratched up pink bike that flew over jumps, that made impressive skids in the road dust, that took me to the dirt tracks where the boys raced their RC cars, or the tangle of trees and brush where we built forts and had battles with stick swords. But girlhood always found me, with braids and tights, crimped hair for holidays, skirts for church, and hairbrushes for microphones.

My girlhood left me lonely, never certain, always wondering how to act, how to stand, when and how to laugh. It always felt like I was in a play without knowing the lines, never knowing stage entrances or exits. I was a small girl child, always in the front row, always the first on stage, always standing under the hot stage lights in front of microphones that picked up my high voice.

My girlhood prepared me for discomfort, gave me unease like an unwanted gift from a distant aunt, it forced me through and I came out still standing. I'm not thankful, but I'm grateful. I'm grateful because I know what it is to stand in discomfort, in humiliation and fear, and know you'll live. My girlhood prepared me for the discomfort of adulthood, gave me strength and conviction that would see me into my gender dysphoria and out the other side into an identity that feels like a comfortable sweater. My girlhood gave me sealegs, where I can ride waves of uncertainty like a seasoned sailor, where I can feel the waves rolling under my feet and they don't take me down. I can get through the most uncomfortable of conversations about gender and pronouns, discussions of biology and sex, be misgendered and dead named, experience micro aggressions and hate crimes, and still be myself, still certain I am who I am, and the strength to remain so.

My girlhood taught me that a moment is just a moment, another one will come along whether you're ready or not, whether you know your lines or your stage exits, so you might as well ad lib, because we all make it up as we go along.

I wish I could tell all of this to the girl I was. That in that next moment you'll know how to stand, you'll feel at ease, you'll cut your braids, you'll say you don't think Nick Carter is cute but Jo from S Club gives you butterflies, you'll throw your hat backwards and then land that jump, and your skinned knee will be a reminder that you did something unexpected, something brave. That this time you'll take a deep breath and scream with abandon, running full on through that field, mud puddles be damned.

[borderlineconfessional]

Nowhere to go and every desire for going there.

A restlessness in my chest, tight, heart beating against my ribs like a bird flying against the bars of a cage. I've always been a runner. Emotionally. Physically. [run to run away run with run for]. Directionless and unsteady, fixated and determined. Things get hard, I want to take flight. Things get easy, they get boring, I need to tie my shoes and hit the ground running. There's a fine line between comfort and pain.

Pendulum thinking. Therapy makes everything so clear yet so confusing. It's like being shown a diagram but without any reference as to what it's for. Trauma response, obvious, less obvious is how to fix it. My heart hurts and all I can think to do is stop the source of the pain. Black and white broken thinking, idealization/devaluation. Maybe it's not a pendulum swing. Maybe it's been a gradual uphill run, taking some jaunts back down to sea level and feeling fine, catching my breath, but then back up again, where the air is thin.

I've been sitting here for five minutes, starting to write and stopping. What I want to say, what I need to say, it's terrifying. I left my session info bombing my therapist with this rock that's been sitting in my stomach for over a year [has it been years?], and waved my hands like a magician and said next time! cheerfully as though I hadn't just said what I'd said. [deflection- I'm always the funny guy, the jokester, everything gets a laugh]. I'm a blurter. She's agreed.

It's hard to know what are my real thoughts and what's bpd. Maybe I'm trying too hard to make a differentiation. [maybe there isn't one]. As I reread this, psychoanalyzing, risk taking behaviour. I imagine red lights and sirens going off. I can only imagine what my therapist is thinking. [hey, don't mind read, you're not psychic- I can hear her saying that.]. How to explain that this is not reactionary [god I think it's been three or four years, not a year.], that it's been a slow, painful, burning jog?

Facts, they're hard to dispute. I've tried to understand this heavy rock of a situation. Cried, yelled, sat with it, pleaded, tried to understand, tried to talk it out, talk it through, name feelings, give possibilities, talked about trauma, nothing changes. Maybe it's just me, maybe it's my wife. Maybe it's just us.

I feel like a cliche. Circling around and around the root of it, finally breathing out that I don't want to be my mother. [it's always childhood, isn't it?] Now I'm worried that I'm just as damaged, maybe moreso, and as unlovable as my mother.

Is that why I've been carrying this rock for so long? Refusing to admit that I'm wrong, that we're wrong together, that we don't fit like we [or I] thought? Questioning motivations. I'm so brutally aware that everything will fall apart if I let go.

Maybe I'm not so different from my mother after all. Cliche. [run run run].

[borderlineconfessional]

Pick yourself up kid, I can't bear the weight.

I went to therapy looking for an answer, but failed to see, to understand, to even consider, that the answers would just bring more questions.

I went to therapy yelling "give me a diagnosis, the diagnosis, something that will tell me why". Not really understanding that I was demanding that someone tell me what was wrong with me so that I could nod with satisfaction, so I could have something to point to that would sum it all up. Something I could put on a shelf and look at every day, absolved.

"There, see, that is the reason."

I wanted an excuse, something to blame, something I couldn't possibly be responsible for. Something that I could make someone else's fault; that explained all the heartache, heartbreak, tears and rage, inadequacies, failures, underperformance and imperfection. Something I could push with the toe of my shoe, nudging it with disgust, "see, that is why I am a disappointment and a shame to myself".

Instead, diagnoses I was not prepared for. An explanation that I recoiled from, subconsciously internalized bias, a wave of shame, of hopelessness, a gravity I had not expected to feel the weight of.

Instead, feeling blindsided and angry. You mean to tell me that it's all turned around now, that I'm now responsible for fixing this fucking disaster of a psyche? Now I have to feel these feelings, name them, unpack all of the shit I've shoved down deep into the basement of my heart? Drag it up into the light, molding and stinking of damp and neglect? And I have to pay for the privilege? [Capitalism. Privatized healthcare. Mental health care is a privilege not a right.]

Good god, I have paid so much, and yet I know I will continue to pay for the privilege, with pieces of my soul and torn off scraps of my heart, with my Visa and my tears.

I see that bratty hood kid- dirty knees, freezie stained mouth, that crabapple stealing inner city know-it-all, with an absent woman who calls herself a mother, she tells you that you think you're better and they're less, you think you're something special and above it all- yeah you are going to pay, you have the privilege. [A Visa is a magic wand.]

So, here I sit, with this heavy, wet blanket of a diagnosis. A commonly misunderstood, shunned, pitied, concerning diagnosis. A collection of symptoms, what even is my personality under it all? Who am I under all of the trauma responses, the shield of sarcasm and perfectionism, overwhelming anxiety and self doubt? Picking myself apart, every sentence uttered, every fleeting thought.

I feel hopeful and despondent all at once. I'm responsible. This me that has turned everything they touch to ash, burning it all down even when I don't mean to, like a 6 year old with matches. How am I supposed to be the one to save me from myself? How do I stop burning my fingers with every breath?

There's this childish feeling that everything will be different, like I can walk out into a world of fresh snow, everything bright and clean, not seeing the discarded detritus of my life heaped in dirty corners. Then, realistically [pessimistically], the thought that nothing will really change; snow melts, turns grey, freezes again and solidifies the garbage in the ruts. I'll just learn how to fake it better- step wider and higher, don't slip, don't trip, silent and knowing that the cold can burn just like fire.