i feel you in my dreams and i don’t sleep

Today in small group, it came up (in a roundabout conversation that I don’t want to get into) how memories from the college campus still haunt me. I could see by the way Joel met my eyes (which he’s doing a lot lately – tangent) that he understood in a way no one else could. He too suffered some difficult times at that campus. Yes, there are good memories for us both, but still things haunt us. I mentioned some days when even driving through campus, past my old dorm that is extremely difficult. Other days are easier.

One of the other women in our group, Rhonda, asked if there was a way I could avoid those places, preventing my depression from spiraling out of control. I resisted. She pushed it later again with me. I don’t want to be chased away by the ghosts of things that chased me away so long ago. Even when I came back to campus a year ago with Mouse, I was still haunted. We walked over to my old dorm and stood in the lobby. The doors were locked and so we didn’t get up to my old room. Perhaps that was best. I know it wouldn’t have looked the same, but I wanted to know that I could stand there and not lose my mind. It was hard, and I was grateful for Mouse’s support on that trip. I didn’t lose my mind walking through the FAC or wandering around campus, but even then I knew it wouldn’t be easy to return here.

I knew it would be difficult to be here. I know I will always be haunted by past memories here, just like I’m haunted by memories at my high school. But I went back. I refused to let those ghosts rule my life. I refuse to let bipolar completely rule and control my life. For me, this is the struggle. It would be easy to give in. It would be easy to check myself into a hospital until all this is over, as I know it will eventually be. Its cyclical and comes and goes. This is my life. But I will not give up and give in. I will not do what I’ve done for the past three years and curl up in bed until the pain passes. I don’t want to give up. I want to find a new way to cope, a new way to survive, a new way to live with this rather than just survive through it. I want to grow stronger, better, healthier. The disease is only going to become stronger, so I must learn to adapt.

I think I actually am finding new ways. For the first time, I’m seeking out help before my world crumbles around me. In fact, I told my secrets before the fire started, before the monster started to roar. So I don’t know how my friends can help, although I’m trying to point out to them and recognize to myself what they have done that does help. But I’m reaching out. I’m letting them know things are not okay, and I’m fighting. I’m asking for their help. They might not know what to do – and nearly all have admitted they really don’t – but they are all willing and aren’t running scared.

I’m not going to give in to the pain. I’m not going to give in to the ghosts of my past and allow them to chase me from this place. I overcame them once before in a different setting, in different circumstances. I nearly lost my oboe, my music due to the damage of McN. But I fought it. It was painful, and I didn’t know what I was doing back then. Still, I got my music back. I was able to reclaim that part of my life.

I’ve always said that my heart has never healed from heartaches. I’ve just learned to breath around the holes. I don’t think I’ll ever completely destroy the ghosts of my past. But I’ve learned to live with them, around them. This is a shorten summary, but there is a West Wing episode in which the issue of the vermeil, which does not have a very nice history, came up. Abby Barlet’s response was "It’s our history. For better or worse, it’s our history. We’re not going to lock it in the basement or brush it with a new coat of paint. It’s our history." This is how I feel about my ghosts. I don’t want to lock them all up, though I try to only deal with a small number at a time. I don’t want to change them into something they aren’t. They are my history. For better or worse, it’s part of who I am and how I came to be today. I won’t deny their existence nor avoid them at all costs.

Stoplight, lock the door.
Don’t look back.
Undress in the dark,
And hide from you,
All of you.

You’ll never know the way your words have haunted me.
I can’t believe you’d ask these things of me.
You don’t know me.

You belong to me,
My snow white queen.
There’s nowhere to run, so let’s just get it over.
Soon I know you’ll see,
You’re just like me.
Don’t scream anymore my love, ’cause all I want is you.

Wake up in a dream.
Frozen fear.
All your hands on me.
I can’t scream

I can’t escape the twisted way you think of me.
I feel you in my dreams and I don’t sleep.

I can’t save your life,
Though nothing I bleed for is more tormenting.
I’m losing my mind and you just stand there and stare as my world divides.

Snow White Queen ~ Evanescence