Sometimes I envy my clients.
Sometimes I envy my clients.
(I work in a residential eating disorder treatment center)
Here I am having everything I prayed for…
I graduated DBT and since then I have done so much
I have my license and a reliable car
I graduated college, I got my degree in nursing,
I got accepted into the #1 program in the country for my masters, and I am doing well in my classes
I will graduate in less than two years with a job that makes over 100k a year
I received a full-ride scholarship plus stiped that will save me over $100,000 in loans
I have a decent-paying, respectable job where I make a difference (I’m a psych nurse)
I have had my own safe and affordable apartment with just my daughter, my pets, and someone who loves me for the past 5 years thanks to this transitional housing program while I’ve been in school
I am going to be moving out into my own townhome or house soon. Yes I can afford my own whole place at market rent with my part time job and scholarship
I can afford to go on vacations and adventures
I can afford to go out to eat and I always have food in my house
I have a huge collection of tarot decks and books
I have healthy friends who care about me
And yet…part of me just misses being sick.
I miss being able to focus on nothing but healing my wounds
I miss having zero responsibility or accountability
I miss having nothing to lose
I miss having nothing to live for…
I miss being able to spiral out of control,
Just do what feels good even if it hurt
not having to feel guilty about it
I miss being able to let go,
I miss being able to give up.
I think maybe what I really miss though
Is being able to rest
I feel like I’ve built this empire. I built this huge life. And it’s impressive when you look back to where I used to be. If you read the rest of this diary, what I suffered in for most of my life in filith and chaos and poverty and disability.
But I feel so weird still. Like is that really me? When people ask me “what do you do” and I answer “I’m a nurse” and when I tell people I’m on my way to becoming a nurse practitioner….it doesn’t seem even real. I don’t even want to mention where I go to school because it feels embarrassing. For some reason telling my accomplishments embarrassed me…perhaps because I’m afraid people will laugh because they will remind me that I’ve been wrong this whole time, that I tried so hard to fit in somewhere that I don’t belong. I still feel like I’m a fraud. Like I’ve been faking this whole time. Don’t yall know I’m really just this out of control disabled girl with bpd? It feels like I blinked my eyes and I was here. Especially before I started DBT, those first three years, after I got pregnant…I don’t remember a lot. How did I transform so much in what seems like such a short time but was actually… a decade? In some ways I feel dissociated from it all because I don’t remember who I was why I did those things, I look back at old me and can’t imagine myself being like that. But I also don’t feel like I quite belong here. I feel like I went through this transformation without really noticing and now I’m sort of stuck in this in between phase.
But the thing is now that I’ve built this up so much around me….there is so much pressure to keep it up. To not let go. To not fall.
And sometimes I envy being able to fall.
Because this life is heavy and scary and sometimes I just wish I could curl up into a ball in my blankets and watch Netflix for days or weeks instead of having to have a different panic attack every day doing something I’m afraid to do because “the only thing to fear is never being scared” and “everything you want is on the other side of fear”. Well that all sounded so inspirational when I first started to change but now I’m tired of facing my fears. Can it just please be enough for now? I’m exhausted…
But the thing is that even if I did stop everything. dropped out of school and quit my job and took the section 8 (by the way I didn’t write on here yet that my name finally came up on the list for section 8…how fucking ironic…when I don’t need it anymore…for the first time in my entire adult life)…it wouldn’t stop. This feeling will never stop.
Because I’m a mom.
And that will never stop even when she turns 18. So when I decided to get pregnant 10 years ago…I really gave up that forever. A slipt second decision in the heat of the moment (debatable, I planned it all) that gave birth to everything I am now. Because now even if I gave her up for adoption, I would always think about if she’s okay. I’m bound forever now by my maternal instinct. That’s the most overwhelming thing. All day everyday to be trying to think how I can be a better mom and how I can help her be a better her. And always trying my hardest but still never doing it perfect. Still having an imperfect child that throws her shoes at me and tells me she hates me and cries and refuses to go to class. It’s the hardest thing I’ll ever do. At least in school if I try hard enough I can get a 4.0. There is no 4.0 here in parenting. It’s just doing the best I can with what I have and trusting everything will turn out okay, that she doesn’t fall victim to her genetics. It’s like I’m playing chess with the genetics. Thinking how each action and word and program and school and move will affect her as she grows and if she will become an addict or cut herself or if she will struggle but become an artist or performer and do amazing things…or even just be in the middle and play video games all the time and get a job working as a vet tech. I just want her to be happy and healthy. But accepting that its okay if shes not happy. It’s okay if she struggles with mental health, so many people do and it doesn’t mean I failed, because shaming myself for that would be like shaming her for it and that isn’t healthy either to deny that your child could have mental illness. It’s finding that space between acceptance and change. And it’s so hard because I don’t know the future and I can’t really control it and parenting does not come with a rule book or an answer key.
I try to be an eclectic parent, using advise that works and makes sense and also backed by research. Like I know that physical punishment is proven to be harmful. But today after kendrah tried to push her way into my fridge after screaming at me and then threw a shoe at my fridge, I told her that I was going to slap her. However she screamed and ran so I said go sit down on the couch then and show me you can not hurt me or my house because I won’t let you hurt me. I think it’s reasonable to use it in this way because if a kid was hitting my daughter, even she knows sometimes saying “please stop” doesn’t work, and you gotta show them that you wont let that happen. It’s not like I’m beating her, or even giving her the light slap. I’m threatening to snap her out of it. It did and she sat down and she calmed down after she sat for a while. Part of me thinks I handled it great because I stayed calm with my voice and I asserted my boundaries and I deescalated the situation and I didn’t give in and I got her to understand what she did wrong. But part of me thinks I’m fucking her up for life due to the threatened slap :/ Thats like everything in parenting. Always second guessing.
Anyways,
I won’t ever get to be like my patients ever again.
I won’t ever get to fully let go and rest and just be me with no other expectations or responsibilities.
That part of me is dead. It died when I gave birth. It was on life support as I was pregnant. And then I pulled the plug.
And I feel like I want to mourn her.
She was so wild and genuine and authentic and free
I need to honor her still
By finding ways to incorporate rest into my days.
Maybe journaling
or watching a show
or painting
writing a poem
reading a book
something anything that isn’t for gain or because I have to to become “better” or for someone else
Just something that helps me let go and be free again.
I need to find that part of me again
I know her memory and her legacy are still in there
because I feel her ghost screaming at me and shes crying tears of pride and joy and fear and …..
she wants me to remember where I came from
never forget
because she was the foundation for all of this.
Afterall, her wildness is what caused me to get pregnant out of passion on purpose when “who I am now” would NEVER without a perfect plan for everything and that will never happen…
And to loop back…the only reason I got pregnant was because I was my patients…
I went to eating disorder treatment
and I gained enough weight to get my period back and get pregnant for the first time in years of not using condoms
I guess everything happens when it is supposed to
While I try to mask my chaos with perfection.
I need to remember the universe
It’s all perfection masked as chaos.
or maybe the other way around?
no one ever knows
and that’s the beauty of it