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stannamarsh · 7 years

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Souvenirs From Hell

Souvenirs From Hell, by H.R Martin, (AKA YokoKoko on Tumblr, though this is the best edit.) I worked all day on this and forgot to eat. ----------------------------------------- Maya Angelou once commented that, "There's no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you." A certain person who will be mentioned later gave the opposite advice. Don't tell stories. Stories make one accountable. . Anyway, this story is unapologetic and it is all mine. What I learned recently has to do with the difference between life as a messed up 24 or 25 year old and one as a messed up 29 year old, aka me. It starts with knowing what you want and planning how to get it. Knowing that your fuck-ups are your responsibility. Knowing you're a mentally ill bitch who says harsh things, making the granary of truth in your words harder to hear. It's frustrating that you were attempting to communicate but somehow you got it all wrong. It's wanting desperately to be more thoughtful, helpful, intelligent, necessary and kind with your words. It's striving for the best in every action I choose to take. I want to be a decent human being. Due to my flaws, it's a struggle. Knowing isn't the issue. Doing right is the challenge. As for the five years growth between 24 and 29 I never believed it was that big of a difference until I lived it. That gap, in my experience is filled with codependency and attempts to train or fix someone. This is how we drive ourselves crazy. It's their journey. Not letting others walk their own journey or not being left alone to walk it is 90% of our therapists' jobs. We should work on ourselves. Because many, if not most partners that we try to prod and improve, and love into what we need them to be are stubborn idiots, and frankly so are we, for attempting to do this. I don't want to waste my fucking energy trying to train them to man/woman/non-binary up and be friggin grownups. Not my circus, not my monkeys, and most certainly, not my cage. Now that the intro is finished, the goals. I want: 1) A home that is mine. Not living in a hippie garbage can or benign drug house, albeit one with a chill vibe, in a nice neighborhood full of little-free-libraries, with nice people who are doing their best so you can't really blame them. But goddammit, I want different. It scared me that this was becoming my life. Is this my scene? What about my goals? I got negative and bitchy, and eventually exploded despite your stellar hospitality. I'm trying to work on these things at my own place, but humans are influenced by their friends. I need to distance myself until my living space at Hawk's Ridge is up to my standards, I need to work on that. Yours can be whatever you want it to be. And the hypothetical me with my shit together would give zero fucks about that, once I'm confident that I have my own standards in place. Otherwise, I get very anxious. 2) A solid community of friends and family who are "going places" in life, to the best of their individual ability (which does not mean under the constant influence of recreational yet legal prescriptions.) I'm not judging, given my penchant for these, and the fact that I'm starting NA tonight. Legal drugs that become a grey area between therapeutic and recreational are fun, but they won't help you achieve you goals. Anxiolytics are for anxiety, or the dentist. Vicodin is for pain and don't mix either with copious amounts of alcohol. That's why you spend too much time throwing up instead of doing fun things, like a cancer patient with much nicer hair. Also, drink water if you want to keep up with Mexicans, working in the hot sun without getting heat exhaustion. Common sense, people. I'm not saying your pain isn't real but some of it is your doing, just like some of mine is my doing. We have to hold ourselves accountable, better ourselves, drink and smoke weed socially and responsibly on VACATION (not stupidly or ever before getting behind the wheel.) Get with the program. People with more obstacles than solid doctors, helpful family, and a paid-off home do it every day. This was what I was keeping to myself until I said it in the wrong way while crying in your bathtub, "communicating" why I was harshing your buzz with my negativity. At the time, I had had a Klonopin, a Xanax, a Vicodin, another Xanax, another Xanax, and alcohol. I'm not a puker. I'm a cathartic, brutally honest crier, which is as bad a vomit in its own way. It smells better but takes longer to clean up. I'm sorry I hurt that sweet boy's feelings through the wall and seemed ungrateful for your hospitality. It's my fault for taking all those drugs, but I wasn't comfortable, something was wrong, I couldn't put my finger on it, and I repressed it with anything available to keep from being rude. It didn't work. There was truth in what I said, but the way I put it was mean, and unnecessary. Holding stuff in is bad for me. You said communicate. I said what I said and if I hadn't said it then, I would have done so eventually. Yes, I am grateful to people who open their homes to me, go on adventures with me, share their possessions with me. Catharsis can be cruel. I can't hang around you when I have 99 problems to solve already. Whether you would even want that is a mystery to me. I'll be busy but I still care. Though, I expect at this point, it's tl;dr for the both of you. That's another thing. Friends are people for whom tl;dr does not exist, unless they've had a stroke or something. 3) If there is a love mate out there for me, a soulmate if such a thing exists, I want to encounter this person on my adventures. I don't chase or look, because it depresses me and reduces love "such that it is" to consumption, or a meal ticket, a housing situation, a drug connection, a business deal, or a codependent puddle of mutual enabling. It's worse than any drug, save needles, meth, or crack, and all too often often, "love" drives otherwise healthy people down that road. 4. I want to go to Boulder, CO, my own personal Mecca. My condolences that police and a drugged hippie were mutually stupid and it resulted in tragedy. I mean the guy was strung out running naked in public. The worst child murder/ rape in recent memory went down there too, but people move on and this is where I want to live. This is my goal and I'm strong enough to not let news reports stop me from achieving what I want. 5. I want my MLIS and I will get it in December. When I get my debt and income under control, I want to participate in a BA to MD/PH.D program because once I'm stable, and clean, I know I can buckle down, tear through that MCAT and make it happen. See, when I was messed up, I at least knew enough not to hurt myself or spend the next day vomiting. Let's turn this sad, low-rent talent of mine into something that can help people. Want to be: medical librarian, doctor, medical PH.D (You heard me: MUD/FUDD), writer,Gonzo blogger, adventurer, world traveler, and at times, gainfully unemployed. These will all happen if I go to my meetings and follow Dr. Robert's advice: Get clean, hang out only with stable people who are tackling their goals, and achieve my scholarly potential, which truth be told, is at least a Masters' and an M.D/Ph.D. Not to brag, but that potential is somewhere between Lisa Simpson and Malcolm in the MIddle. (Meaning I'm probably a crazy genius, and if I'm retarded, John is a vegetable, organic I hope, so as compost he can me useful.) People say all the time that you're too old to start over. If someone can't do it they want to tell you that you can't either. Age is just a number. And truth be told, I'd rather die learning than being stuck in mediocrity. 6. I want happiness, stability, freedom from drama. attachment issues, an end to envy that a friend or acquaintance has someone, no matter how messed up the situation. I want independence, to control my compulsive, self destructive need to help others when there's shit I have to do for myself, just to prove my worth and keep them from leaving me. I end up burnt out and I become unnecessarily honest at people. I need to trust my vibes. If a situation feels icky or grasping or just plan dirty, I'm out. It's been real. Thanks for having me. Time to go slay the other goals. 7. MONEY...ENOUGH money that I have everything I want and need,within reason and accounting for storage space: a home, a housekeeper, or at least some kind of professional organizer to help me with cleaning and beautifying my abode, which is not my forte. My wonderful parents Susan Coleman and Donald Jeff Martin are helping me follow my bliss. They are the absolute best parents. I can never do enough to properly thank them for giving me life, taking a great risk to do so, for my dad taking the time to give private preschool quality education to me as a toddler so now math and languages are easy, for my mom who taught me about feminism, and whether she knew it or not, supercharged my innate qualities of forthrightness, justice, and the desire to fight for what's right. Thanks for teaching me right from wrong,and taking care of me. I had an enriched life, despite our initial lack of money. That is a miracle. My parents (and my pets, and my goals) are, together MY EVERYTHING. Gratitude. Balance. Best Life. That's what I'm after. Money is the tool to reach goals, not the goal itself. 8. Lastly, I want adventure....safe, but not so safe that it isn't fun. Exploring the world, writing, experiencing, living. This alone will keep me from getting sucked into any sexist bullshit or dysfunctional "love" vortex. When I achieve THAT, the desire to hurt myself, check out, or die will be OVER forever. I know this instinctively. That's the GP. Hell. I might become a GP. But, I'd prefer something more Housean, such as Pathology or Internal Medicine, I am the queen of my castle. But, to paraphrase Marley, that castle is in my MIND. To paraphrase Thoreau, my castles in the sky are the shit. Now they and I need a proper FOUNDATION. None of this is meant to be a mean dig at Jexi. I call you this because I know you as a unit. Who are each of you individually?(Also, I don't think either of you are notorious enough to be figured out by that alone, so I'm attempting discretion.) This is just my perspective. My truth. Thank you's to: Gino Dykstra, Amy, the therapist, Doctor Robert Wesner, Dr Widitz, Dr. Don St. John, and Linda the P.C, and all the people from Partial Hospitalization and STEPPS. If I forget someone, add yourself. Oh, Lori Parrish Niemi, Christina Morris Penn-Goetsch, William Niemi, Jexi, for helping me gain this insight, and Keith E Gatling. Weirdly, I am also grateful for that squirrelly, two-faced bastard, John Trachsel, who made himself useful for the first time ever, by convincing me to abandon my impulsive suicide gesture. He didn't know who he was talking to so he treated me like a person/ possible lay for a while and pretended to care, right up until the point where he learned he had called me. I could hear him backtracking because he doesn't want people to know he talks to me. When I called him out on this, he called me crazy, "retarded", and finally admitted that he didnt want people to know he talked to me. He, in a his glory thinks he's too good to talk to me? I have his mugshot on my hard drive, named "ThereISAGod.jpg." This is bullshit because most people have no problem acting like a god-damn human toward me. Anyway, this is proof that even a shmuck-a- fuck like him may sometimes do good things by accident. Of course, if he'd caught on quicker, I think that he would have hung up immediately. If he, for one second believed that I, Hanna Martin. was distraught, suicidal, and in need of help, hell, that was his goal anyway, right? But screw you, I didn't kill myself. My point is that even though you badly need therapy and other help, you are not completely useless. There may still be inpatient help for you and I no longer wish you dead. Thanks to all who have helped. One day at a time.

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theartofblissfullydrowning · 6 years

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Day One: Part 2

I ended this year ready to start the fuck over and have a new start to everything. I wanted to be what he would have wanted me to be. He was tired of seeing me suffer and I was as well. I was tired of constantly struggling emotionally, socially, financially, and mentally. I wanted things to be better for myself and so far, almost 20 days in, they’re shaping up that way. I have a lot of new beginnings opening up for me right now. My medications help with my moods and motivations. I’ve started exercising and trying to take better care of myself. This is part of that. I cut off social media because it was doing nothing but causing me harm and serving as an unhealthy distraction. I wanted nothing more than to just feel free. I’m getting there.

The one hang-up is Bryan. I fucking hate him so much sometimes. I wonder where I would be now if he wasn’t around. So many people have told me to “get out”. Friends have been concerned and I know every time the cops get called they sit there and wonder why they’re here again and why I still am. I do, too. I need to stop letting myself have too much sympathy. I need to put better boundaries in place. I need to stop taking care of people who take advantage of me. He emotionally and financially abuses me and uses me and that’s been going on for quite some time and yet he accuses me of doing these things to him. He refuses to get help for his issues. I deserve so much better than this. I don’t deserve this at all. It’s hard not to give in to the things he screams at me sometimes and not give into his temper tantrums and acting out but I feel like I’m at a place where I can separate that from myself. He can call me a liar and say I’m using him all he wants. It’s not true. I just hate when he tries to sit there and threaten suicide because he knew how much it affected me when Kyle did it. He knows that’s my one huge weak spot and he exploits that when nothing else seems to work. I’m tired of it. I don’t deserve that either. It’s the ultimate form of disrespect. I can’t believe anyone would do that to another person. And he knows how scared I get when he starts punching walls and breaking things. And yet he still does it because he can’t handle his emotions and has no other coping skills other than smoking weed and being passive aggressive towards me. I cannot express how much I want to leave or what him to leave. More than anything else I want him to go. I still care about him as a person but I can’t keep letting myself and my life suffer the consequences of me ‘caring’. It’s a bit selfish because I don’t want to be alone but it’s the opposite of being selfish because I do so much more for him than he does for me. And then he turns around and complains when he has to do dishes or other things around the house. He turns it around and makes me feel like shit. He has been helping me in small ways like going to get me things from the store but honestly if I had to I could do that, myself. I think he enjoys the codependency. I really don’t anymore. I just renewed the lease with him and I felt stupid as shit for doing it but there really wasn’t another choice. I just need to step up my boundaries and not let him step on them anymore. I’ve already gotten to a point where I can not take anything he says personally as cruel as it can be sometimes. Part of me wishes someone can just come and rescue me from this situation, but it’s mine and mine alone and I need to be the one to do it.

And that brings me to something else. The budding new relationship I have with Joel. He’s such an impressive person. I feel a little intimidated by it but he doesn’t seem to think any less of me. We talked about our ways of coping with feeling inadequate. He pushed himself to achieve things, I pushed myself to help other people because of my martyr complex. Sadly, I don’t have as much to show for it as he does. Part of me is like “go for this and stop hesitating so much on someone who seems to be what you’re looking for” but the other part of me is anxious and wringing my hands, not because I don’t want to be hurt, necessarily, but more because I’m just terrified and nervous about things not working out in person. Both of us have said we need a friend more than a lover right now but I can’t help but be attracted to him for who he is as a person. It really saddens me that he feels so incomplete and unhappy and empty sometimes and the nurturing person in me wants to rush in and cling to that and make him feel better but that’s what’s gotten me into a lot of shitty situations before, especially the one I’m in now. My goal needs to not be to support or help or fix him, even though I never want to fix people, but to be there by his side so he doesn’t feel alone. He says he doesn’t have empathy but I think he does. He’s shown that to me. I’ve felt it. And he enjoys the company of empaths. I don’t think because he abuses it, but because he enjoys experiencing the warmth. When I told him what I wanted to do with my life he told me I wanted to do what his mom does. Do I remind him of his mom? He doesn’t really compliment me much on my personality or tell me what he admires about me. I get that he does, though. He just doesn’t speak it much and it’s something I like to hear because I need the validation. I hate that I even need validation but I do sometimes. But when I told him I needed someone in a “daddy” role he immediately took that on but not in a sexual way like people use it these days. He knew exactly what I needed. Someone to help guide me and scold me for not doing the right thing, encourage me to do better, and tell me that they’re proud of me. It meant a lot for him to tell me he was proud of me for working out and putting forth the effort. That’s all I want sometimes. Validation and someone to tell me that they’re proud of me. I don’t know why I need it because I’m proud of myself, but it sure is nice to hear sometimes. The fact that he could do that in such an effortless way and really seemed to understand what I need without me saying much really says a lot. I’m sure I could tell him that I need validation sometimes just in who I am and what I’m good at and what he likes about me and he’d be there to do it without much effort. He seems like the type to want to please others. He wants to be a husband and a dad so it seems like he’s looking to build something valuable. I think at this point I am, too, even if I’m conflicted about having kids. I think both of us are on that “not right now but eventually” mentality.

I’m just so worried though. What if he sees me and it’s not what he imagined? What if he sees my teeth and is immediately turned off and thinks it’s a deal breaker? I’m so insecure about it and don’t know how to explain it so I just don’t but I want to. Sometimes I’ll bring up that insecurity to people but I also don’t because I don’t want them to really pay more attention to it and I can hide it pretty okay for a while. And what about him? I’m not sure. I always sit there thinking “Well I don’t really like his beard at all” and I’ve told him about it without trying to be too rude. He looks so good without it though. But is that enough for me to just sit there and disregard everything else? Would that be some strange thing that I would be too superficial about and lose attraction to him for? And his hair is thinning a but I think? But is that really an issue? I sit there and think about it and stop myself and think about how ridiculous I’m being when I do that. He’s still attractive. I’m still attracted to him as a person. I can’t let stupid little nitpicky details get in the way of someone I’m confident might be a good match for me. I’m just so nervous. What if there’s no chemistry. What if he’s compulsively neat and finds my lack of organization repulsive? Or my teeth? There’s just so much riding on this right now. He seems to be the type I want and I know we haven’t talked for long, a little over two weeks, but non-stops. He loves metal and that’s not my thing at all. His sense of humor is cheesy and kinda lame at times. But what about the physical chemistry? I’m just so afraid this isn’t going to work out. I feel like I’m already at a point where I’d be a little heartbroken if it didn’t but also I know we said both of us need a friend way more than we need a lover. But I know if we sit there and figure it’s not going to work that we’re already at a point where both of us will always have that little seed planted in the back of our heads about each other. We’ve both sat there and talked about our experiences with that tonight. We’ve already made so much of a mental and emotional connection. I don’t feel like if we somehow end up as just friends that that bond will be broken. I feel like he’s someone I’ll have around for along time regardless of how it goes, but I know if we take a step back now or step further in and back out too soon that there will always be that thing in the back of our heads. It’s in our personalities. I don’t want another situation like i had with Kyle where both of us are just dancing around it forever, just like he said he was doing with his ex.

I already have this stupid wild fantasy that we’ll end up getting married and having kids and I know that he probably has that too by the way we’ve talked. When I said I had a dream that I was pregnant and had a daughter he said “what did we name her?” even though I said nothing about him being involved in it. We’ll have a pretty house and make dinner for each other every night and lie with each other and fall asleep every night. We’ll go out on adventures and do nerdy stuff. Have a Viking themed wedding. He’d absolutely be the doting father when I’d be pregnant and run out to get my cravings in the middle of the night and hold my hair back as I puked. He’d be so excited. He’d constantly have a hand on or be talking to my belly. He’d absolutely spoil our child(ren) (if I can even have them, I don’t know.)

That’s another thing that worries me. Maybe I won’t ever be able to have kids. With all the risky shit I’ve done I haven’t gotten pregnant since that first time at 18 that I terminated. Who knows what the fuck else has happened since then and I’m getting older so it’s becoming less and less of a chance as I get older. I know having kids is one of his biggest dreams. It’s been something always on the backburner for me, maybe even as a defense mechanism, but I do want them at some point maybe. I think I’m just so overwhelmed with life as it is right now and my own mental health (and he is, too) that I just tried to convince myself I didn’t want it. Maybe I do. Maybe when I find the right person I will.

I really want this to work out. I want to be done with this whole “getting to know people” bullshit. I want to be done with failed relationships. I’m getting too tired and old for this. I want something to stick for one. In a way, it’s like trying to get pregnant and failing over and over and over again and you start to wonder what’s wrong with you. What IS wrong with me? Why does everyone I’m with end up having some mental breakdown at some point? I feel like I suck the life out of people. As much as I try to be the one to give them strength and help them heal.

But Joel and I are meeting up on Sunday for the first time and there’s so fucking much riding on that i feel. I’m so fucking nervous. I really want for everything to fall into place and for it to feel as comfortable as it is when we talk through text. I know my wish that we meet in person and suddenly it feels like home is unrealistic and obnoxious. I want to get over my stupid superficial bullshit. He has a beard, yeah, but what is that in the long term? What is it to me other than something that’s not my preference? It’s something he has pride in and that’s something that I should respect and appreciate about him even though it’s not necessarily my taste. Is his hair thinning? Maybe. Is that something I should judge him for? Absolutely not. His hair is gorgeous and I absolutely love long hair. It’s just an imperfection just like I can’t help my hip dips. (I could have helped my teeth though, and that just makes me insecure as well.) I shouldn’t write someone off for such stupid shit. He IS attractive even though he might not cross of everything on my ideal physical quality list. It’s not a reason to consciously or subconsciously write him off. Kyle was absolutely handsome but something with us just didn’t really click that way. Maybe Joel isn’t the most photogenic person or takes bad selfies but I can tell he’s still very attractive and I think who he is as a person is incredibly attractive and the type of person I’ve always wanted. That’s why my gut says “go for it regardless of how you feel about those stupid things”. I mean, I loved to death a guy with bad acne, a guy with bad psoriasis. It didn’t stop me and that’s nothing like this. I just need to stop being so stupid and superficial. He seems like an amazing partner from what I can tell so far.

And god, the fact that we both have herpes and got to avoid that whole awkwardness. It was such a relief. Neither of us has to feel insecure or embarrassed about it.

I feel like I’m thinking way too much about this. But that’s just how I am. I over-analyze everything.

What we have right now is so delicate. He’s someone I can talk to all day every day about anything, really. We make each other laugh, we open up to each other, we encourage each other, we both have our roles which seem so effortless. He seems like a caring protector and I am the soft and delicate creature who needs protecting and he loves that and so do I. But then I’m the nurturing one when he needs a soft place to lay his head. Both of us have been very open from the beginning. He did tell me he felt like I was understanding and wouldn’t judge him. I am and I don’t. That;s what I need to remember. He said I am not judgmental and I shouldn’t be.

I wonder how the “first date” is going to go. I kept saying “don’t forget the flowers” and “pixies love flowers” hoping he’d pick up on it and maybe bring me flowers. I don’t know why I want that from him. I never asked for that before or planted the idea in anyone’s head before. But part of me is wishing he would bring me flowers when he comes even though I know it would probably be lost on him. On second thought, I do have flower tattoos and he did mention that the other day. It would mean a lot to me but it’s not something I’m going to put a lot of thought into. It would be great if he put forth the effort and listened but if he didn’t then that’s okay, too. I let him decide where he’s going to take me and what we’re going to do and he’s okay with that. That’s a really nice thing.

But so much of me just wishes we’d feel comfortable with each other and he’d take me back to his place where we could be alone and that he’d just hold me. I need that so much, especially after everything I’ve been through in the last year. Just someone who cares and feels safe to hold me. I don’t have to question his intentions at all which is a blessing. And fuck, how he’s always telling me he wants to make sure I feel comfortable with things, whether it’s where we go and what we do or when it comes to being sexual in person. He just wants to make sure I’m comfortable. That’s more than I can say for anyone else. I want to wait with him for a while and do things right this time. I don’t want to create that false intimacy. I don’t want to skip steps. I want it to be sweet and innocent and a build up for once. Even though we’ve seen each other naked in pictures both of us have said we don’t want to jump into things.

Speaking of which, I hope things go well and he asks me to be his girlfriend. I would totally say yes. I don’t want to be the one to ask though because that hasn’t gone well for me in the past. And he seems to have a bad track record as well. Both of us just want things to work for once. I have a good feeling about this. But then again I’ve had a good feeling about a lot of things that ended up terribly awful. I just want this to be it. I’m so done with everything and he has so many qualities I look for in someone but I haven’t seen him at his worst. I haven’t seen him when he’s angry. I haven’t seen him when he’s upset. He hasn’t seen me when I’m drunk and crying and making myself puke from it.

I feel like I need to cry for some reason and I don’t know why. I’ve felt like that a lot lately. For several different reason in several different moods. Why do I want to cry over this situation? I don’t know. Probably a mixture a feelings. How am I feeling? Hopeful, charmed, blessed, intrigued, appreciated, but also nervous, anxious, and like all of those feelings of disappointment from the past are coming out to tell me “it’s not going to work. I don’t know why you think it will. You’re going to hurt yourself again. Good luck!” But then I also want to cry out of relief and happiness that I got a job I wanted so much and I feel like I have some sort of direction.

With my new job I’ll have some sort of respect for myself again in a financial sense because I’ll be able to have health insurance again. I’ll be able to afford things like nice food and treat myself to things. I can buy gifts for people. I’ll feel comfortable paying bills and won’t have to stress about it all the time. An the company seems amazing to work for.

Maybe I want to cry because things are so different from where they were a few months ago when I was hopeless and at rock bottom.

I just really hope things work out.

I want to come out of this with a good and stable job I enjoy, a boyfriend, a fiance, a husband, and a father to my children. I want stability. Happiness? I might not ever find that, but contentment surely seems like a possibility if things continue on this same track.

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