a little less vague?
2002-12-03 ~ 12:40 a.m.

to be honest to oneself is to face your innermost demons.

having been faced with the seemingly impossible task of catching up old friends on the last year...i have given it some thought, among other things...this is about that...more or less.

the little mouse woke me up...finally.

only missed a dozen calls or so...probably bill collectors and my mother...

we talked at length...about "flow" and formal wear...and looking back i think we talked several hours...about "flow", you know, and formal wear...

so i am sitting here now, having sent the few emails that will leave my desk...

listening to five for fighting and humming absentmindedly...drinking yet another crown and coke and having a smoke. i am lost deep in my own thoughts somewhere...

part of me wants to let the veil drop. let the vagueness go. but part of me is clinging to it and holding it upright...sheer though it may at times be.

if i were to tell you what i really think...

what i really know...

the things i have done...

the things i believe...

the few things i believe in...

if i were to lay it all out without the muddled reflections and vague obscurities...what might you see?

what might you think?

then again, why do i care?

those of you who are friends... or acquaintences, or friends of acquaintences... of course i care.

but in this case, where is the line drawn? how far in do you want to go?

then again, how smart are you?

i started this thing in june...and i have hundreds of entries, most of which say very little. i started it for different reasons than i kept it going. i started it to give outlet to passion. i kept it to give outlets to many things...but mainly to remember.

the last five months have become a blurred blink...and without this timeline, i would have been lost long ago.

i wish i had started it sooner...truly documented the journey in to madness, rather than struggling to document the climb out of it.

i have other resources though...and i can look back on files from this time last year and remember what was happening. it hadn't gotten bad yet. but it was starting.

by the week of december 15, i was almost gone. fruitcake, nutjob, insanity city...and then january and february rolled by and the boat capsized and i pretty much drowned.

because this has, if nothing else, been as painful as being born. which is fitting, obviously.

march, april and may are practically nonexistent to me, i don't recall more than a few days. june and july were a fucked up tidal wave...that ebbed out in to august. struggled in the undertow in spetember...and november washed me ashore.

who knows what december will be. but things have changed, and will continue to change until i look around and recognize myself again.

and while there were people involved along the way, relations gone awry and such, this was my own thing. my own insanity.

*playing fetch with mo*

i said all of that to resolve myself to perhaps not being so damn vague.

to saying what i intend to say without backspacing, without fearing backlash or hurt feelings or making a fool of myself or pissing you off...or who knows what else.

because life is all about choices. and your choice is the little bar to the right that scrolls...or the X at the top of the page.

but do sign my guestbook regardless!

today i ran in to an old agent of mine. he couldn't believe i remembered his name...we spoke for a minute. he noticed my arms...asked if i had been in a car wreck. i smiled and said no...he pushed a little. so i told him it was more like a train wreck without the train.

because i was tired of explaining this before i started to. before i started to have to.

so, carla, tell us...why did you lose your mind?

and it goes something like this...*with as little vagueness as i can muster*

my life was okay. work was going really well, ashley and i had the house, we had just gotten gizmo...

the only shadows that were hedging in were my old demons and the fresh scar of our friend, ashley's, murder...

and i will never be able to explain fully how that impacted and impaled me. why it drove me to my knees the way it did. left me a hollowed out shell casing. bits and pieces that i can spit out now consist of things like...i know what it is like to be raped, to be violated, and the thought of it happening to someone i love is the single worst thing i can imagine. i would close my eyes, and see pictures of it juxtaposed at funny angles with pictures of me...and then the emotions would swell up and swallow me...

but i was still making it.

and then i got sick. had mono. couldn't work. lost my one big distraction and the source for inflation of self worth.

i had to lay in bed, lay around...i read and did a few other things. but mainly i thought. and the more i thought, the worse it got. depression, that is. the agoraphobia had already set in months earlier, the mono just gave me a new excuse. i remember the day the slate cracked. ashley was at work. and i was lost, flailing in a torrentous downpour of shame and fear and anger and pain.

i have never told anyone, but i contacted a psychic that day...someone i used to know.

and she argued with me about the monstrously large and very black thing that was creeping up behind me...she said it was real, i said it wasn't. she said she was worried, scared even...i said i wasn't. she tried hard to find something of light, something of merit around me...and she came up empty handed and frightened by what she saw. i went away angered...thinking that i was on the right path and had just played dangerously close to fire.

my office was dark and i sat in the darkness, too afraid to reach for the light switch. i closed my eyes and let it have me...

i was also involved in all kinds of odd, twisted little things at the time...webcams and such. highly dissociative, yes...but here is a lesson learned. *take note*

if you take any kind of precaution or measure to prevent someone else from finding out something you are doing...

then you are aware of what you are doing and part of you knows it is wrong.

chew on that.

it might taste bitter, but truth may very well be a root.

and i am ashamed, of all of that. i would do it differently if i could. i have no idea to this day why i did it, so i can't explain...but i can't live in shame either.

regardless, most all of the really bizzare behaviour stopped that day...it was sometime in april or may?

and what i did next, well...it was a double edged sword that even managed to fell a few innocent bystanders.

and i could justify it all day long, make excuses, etc...it doesn't change anything.

and if i had needed an extra shove off the cliff...that was it.

because the crux of it all lies directly in the heart of shame...and i am damn ashamed. i hurt everyone involved, including myself. hell, it was a free for all in the field of hurt and i don't think anyone walked away without some mud in their eye.

so, while i was supposed to be getting better...i was focused on other things. god, i am the queen of distraction. but it had to come in its own time. and come, it did.

tonight on the phone mouse mentioned helping yourself because you can't help other people if you aren't healthy. and while i disagree to some extent, her point is right on the money. you can't. that was another big struggle for me. funny when she just opens her mouth and talks without thinking. funnier still how i had that battle this very weekend.

the thing is, i am better.

i know it. i know i need to stay on medication, quite possibly for the rest of my life...but i deal with that regardless due to not having a gall bladder anymore.

i have been ashamed of this year, of what i became, of what happened...i was ashamed of losing myself the way i did. i am still sometimes ashamed of it all. my arms and thighs make me wince at times...especially when i know that i am probably not done. that as much as i want the scars gone, i keep adding them. but that is the least of my self destructive patterns...

i am gaining weight again, albeit slowly. i eat everyday...and lately, several times a day. i can almost nail down a sleep schedule as long as i have my meds...and i haven't woken up recently huddled in the corner with knives chanting words in a language i don't speak.

and yes, i took a tumble this weekend.

the events speak for themselves...

i was scared out of my mind for a very dear friend. because the desire to "get away" is one i know well. it dead weighted me to the bottom of a lake and held me underwater for a while, crashing my lungs in like sponges.

and then last night, she called and asked me to do something. something that is not easy for me to do, though you might think it would be. in fact, it is taxing and draining and my little experience in it has usually left me spinning...and last night was no exception. i stood on the back patio at the bar with tears welling up as i heard her voice...the plea. knowing, as she must, that i understand and will always do what i can. and so i sent the cry out to the dead...and put forth a request...and the images hit me immediately. rapid succession, no sense whatsoever...i stayed still. i prayed silently to friends gone, to what i know and believe to be real and true...and when i got what i went for, i crawled back in to the bar doubled over from the blow...ordered two shots, drank one there and the other back at the table...and sat down as bella started to sing a little black crowes. am i sounding vague? i don't know what to say about this folks...i know precisley now the message i got. it is the same thing i got last time. yet never has it been delivered with such ferocity. regardless, it doesn't belong here...we need to discuss it, she and i. there is much good to come from this i think...but once again, change is looming on the horizon and i am not sure if it will be well recieved by any other than myself.

i thought it ironic that bella sang "she talks to angels" at that moment. knowing myself the way i do, and knowing the others involved, i think the song was not ironic at all...but rather quite fitting. i held on to the pain and the darkness, even as i said i wasn't. you have to bridge the last gap...and that last gap really isn't the last one if you are indeed walking forward. tis the way it is.

think i am humming "it's not a habit, it's cool...i feel alive" for no reason?

we develop addictions to things...and hold on with tenaciously tender fingers. why do we compulsively need to feel pain?

and change is fast approaching...again.

i got too tired to fight it sometime in october...and decided to just let it be. and i have been all the better for it.

i have friends again, and that alone is worth more than most anything to me.

admittedly, i am poor and starving and still in need of a roommate before i end up living under a bridge...

but i am smiling more often...making memories that are good instead of those that make me want to bury myself...

i think i might have just typed myself out. so there ya have it...me, trying to be a little less vague. should i be vague again? what do you think?

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