I miss myself

Thinking about old friends lately, wondering what happened to them and why we can't talk anymore. I remember how much it hurt, bridging the gap between where they were going and me, feeling the differences stretch between us like fabric caught on a nail, threading apart and losing strength.

I miss you, butterfly girl, with your sweet ways and fake British accent. I miss your warmth, how you enveloped everyone with your motherliness. I don't know where you are now, but I hope you're happy. I couldn't follow you to the path of the occult and you needed too much for me to stay neutral.

I miss you, lock boy, with our mutual interests in video games and movie quotes. I miss your solidarity and your determination to be melancholy. We lost touch, lost focus, moved out of similar spheres and now we no longer talk. In the silence, I wish you peace and love, the lasting kind.

I miss you, cat girl, with your attitudes and unapologetic in-your-face facts. I miss NCIS and House, curled on the couch together. I miss pranking our bad roommate and you educating me on the world, on how to think. You're one of the first people who taught me how to think. I miss being around you, but I know better than to wish you luck. You make your own luck.

I miss you, cigarette girl, so effortlessly cool, but nerdy, not afraid to flaunt the laws of college, unafraid of your love of the macabre, willing to do anything for love. I miss our laughs and how you could always get me to be a little bit more than myself. I know you're happy, but I wish we had more to talk about than trading likes on Facebook.

I miss you, bunny boy, the way you just accepted me and were always there when I needed a friend. I miss our classes and how you taught me 'cool' skills, like long-boarding. I miss not talking about things with you, just walking, or getting cheap pizza. I miss how you made me feel confident enough to reach out to others. I hope you found who you're looking for. You deserve every happiness for how you made me feel.

I miss you, Reaper. I miss your love of ghosts because you thought they needed love. I miss the way we could finish each other's sentences. I miss your nervous smile because you didn't think you deserved to be happy. We had to leave because we flew too close to the sun. I'm so sorry. Of all the friends I've loved and lost, I regret you the most. I did not know what happy was until we met. I hope you have found your peace, your happiness, your strength.

Maybe I miss who I was when I was with you, all of you. I miss my bravery and self-confidence, the way I could walk into a room and not be afraid of what would happen next. I miss my past for different reasons, and maybe that's why I'm afraid to move forward... moving into another chapter means leaving the one I was in, getting further from the time when I didn't have to worry so much about what was going to happen next. I miss not thinking about the future. I miss putting off decision-making because it didn't have to happen just then. I miss my childhood, the way time slowed down and everything was hard and there in the moment. The past didn't exist and the future seemed as far as the horizon. I miss my life before, and those who made it happy.

I couldn't take them with me because... my future happiness depended on them being absent. I wish we could have gone back to the way things were, or kept them the same. I don't like change because it's cost me some of my favorite people. I can wait for something new and try not to hold it to the same expectations.

That's Not Love

"My boyfriend was abusive, so I broke up with him, but my relationship isn't as fulfilling, even though he's a great guy"

"I keep checking up on my ex-girlfriend over social media. I just want to make sure she's happy."

"I don't have a relationship as exciting as with my ex."

"It feels like they're the only person I'm going to love forever."

Sound familiar?

You're in luck! Today I'm going to break down why people feel this way!

First off, let's get one thing out of the way. You are NOT a bad person for breaking up with someone who was bad for you. Sometimes people just don't click. That's not a bad thing. You're not a bad person. Even if they abused you and seem to be doing better with someone else, that doesn't mean you breaking up with them was wrong. How do I know? Personal experience. Let's take a look at 'The Office', in particular the scene where Jim and Pam (stupidly) go to Roy's wedding. Pam notices how fancy everything is, much more elaborate than her own wedding. Roy seems nicer, he owns his own successful gravel company, AND he learns how to play the piano just to serenade his new wife. Does Jim ever play the piano? No. Does Jim give her a super fancy wedding? Well, Jim makes her grandma think she's a slut.

But we love Jim! Pam loves Jim! Why does she suddenly feel so awkward in her own relationship? Because abuse is addictive, and addictions take a lifetime to break. Look at how Roy treats her in the first season. He ignores her, talks over her, won't let her make her own decisions, and forces her to do things she doesn't want to do. He doesn't even see Jim as a threat because he's so confident that he knows Pam's limitations. Granted, Pam isn't perfect either, but we're looking specifically at Roy's side of the relationship. It's obvious they're just in this because it's comfortable.

Is Pam a bad person for breaking up with him? Would he eventually have learned how to play the piano for her? We'll never know and we never HAVE to know. It's logical to say that he probably wouldn't have, but that's not the point. The point is that Pam married Jim and is happier with him now than she was with Roy then.

Need another analogy? I'm allergic to basil in a psychological way. I loved pesto and ate it at every opportunity until I got sick. Now I can't have what even looks like it because my body is so sure it is poisonous to me. If I even think basil is in a dish, I get sick, regardless of whether or not it was used in preparation of the meal. Does this mean basil is bad for everyone? No. My Mom still loves basil and grows it to make her own pesto. My husband eats basil in his pasta, my friends enjoy it with fresh salads or pizza, and that's ok. I'm allergic to something that not a lot of people are. That doesn't mean I should try and force myself to eat basil to convince everyone else I'm normal.

You can have a bad relationship with someone even if others get along with them. That does not make you crazy or a terrible person. My ex and I were horrible for each other. He cheated on me regularly and while I was nowhere near a model girlfriend, I never cheated on him. We broke up and he dated the girl he had cheated on me with. Does that mean I'm crazy for breaking up with him? I don't think so. We weren't good together; it doesn't mean he couldn't be good with someone else. Orange juice and toothpaste do NOT go together, but that doesn't mean chocolate and mint, or chocolate and orange don't taste great.

Why do we feel the need to check up on our exes? Why is it so wrong that they're happy with someone else?

Most people would say it doesn't matter that they're with someone else, they just want to make sure they're happy. Why does it matter? Why does their happiness matter to you? Millions of people exist, love, hate, and die without you being aware of them, why is this person who caused you so much pain worthy of your notice? Is there really nothing else you could be doing besides making sure your ex is happy? How will you ensure their happiness, if you care so much?

What about missing them? Sure, they cheated on you, but the sex was great, or they were the best kisser you've ever been with. Maybe they were a pathological liar, but you two could talk about anything and everything! Now you're looking at your current relationship and saying, "Well, she's a nice girl, but she's just not as exciting as my ex." or "He treats me really well, but I don't feel the same way about him that I felt about my ex."

First off, you're admitting you should be attracted to the better person you're with. You've acknowledged that your current relationship is healthier. That's a good thing. Now, think back on what could possibly make you want to go back. Selfish desire for passion in the moment? Or maybe it's an addiction.

That's right. I said addiction. You're addicted to your ex. When you're in an abusive relationship, you become addicted to the person because they're constantly disappointing you, so when something good actually happens, it tastes a lot sweeter than it actually is. All those times they came home late, reeking of alcohol and tripping over themselves, all those nights you held your feelings in, or maybe you let them have it, either way, you were disappointed. It became normal. Then they come home early one day. You come in the door, and there they are, ready for a night in with you. You're ecstatic about the change in behavior as opposed to expecting it from a relationship. You no longer expect your significant other to respect you or your wishes for time with them. And you miss that? No, you miss the high you felt when they did something unexpected and good. Just when you were about to give up hope on them, they dump their side chick and say you're number 1. You shouldn't be happy about that. You should expect to be number 1, not wait for them to decide that you're worth it.

You're addicted to an allergy, someone that causes you pain regularly. And if you compare your happiness now to your happiness then, you'll see that it's more stable and better for you. That's not going to stop some people from going out and dating toxic people; people have their own choices after all, but it should prevent you because you need to look out for yourself. You don't start sniffing peanut dust if you're allergic, you don't cover yourself in honey if you're allergic to bee stings, and you definitely can't stay at the top of a roller coaster forever.

If you go in for a crazy relationship, you're going to end up right where you started, and probably a little worse for wear. That's the nature of bad relationships. You might miss the highs, but the highs come with lows and you are not a bad person for not dealing with the lows. This, 'If you can't handle me at my worst' nonsense detrimental to psychological and emotional health because the person is acknowledging their worst is something outside of the norm, not worth handling. The worst should be something outside of their control that you weather together, not a 'quirky' personality trait they bring up. It's one thing to be aware of problems; it's another to be aware of them, yet refuse to fix them. Acknowledging the problem is not the same thing as fixing it.

Break free of them, or at least stay away from them. I say these addictions are lifelong because they're going to consume you for the rest of your days if you let them. The key is to resist the urge to look up your ex, resist the urge to see who/how he's doing, what she's up to with her work. They can be happy without you knowing about it. Someone in India/China/Ireland/Canada/New York/your hometown could be happy without you knowing about it, and it does not detract from your happiness one iota. Be strong for yourself. Be strong for your future self. This will either be a day you look back on and regret, or a day you remember for staying strong.

You are more now than you were with them. Every day you exist is another day you were more than they said you could be. Addiction is not love. Abuse is not love.

YouTube and Aphantasia

I'm jealous of people who can draw. I've never had a talent for drawing and my voice isn't particularly pleasant to listen to. I had a lateral S lisp when I was little, which means my s's came out like the soft 'th' sound. It's still around, but gets more pronounced when I talk faster. I also have a nasally voice. I want to change it, but I haven't had the money to spend on making myself talk pretty... too much going to keep me alive.

Which is why I watch YouTube, particularly the YouTubers who draw... which is most of them. YouTube is an auditory and visual experience, both things I'm bad at.

I don't know if I've ever written about this here, but I can't picture things in my mind's eye. I don't even have a mind's eye. I didn't know this was a thing until I was reading a meme about it online. It said, 'My mind was blown when I realized other people couldn't see things in their head'. Wait, what? You can actually do that? And... I can't?

For all the research I've done, there's varying degrees of aphantasia (can't see with your eyes closed) that register differently. Some people can see, but not hear. Others can only do certain colors or only remember the smells. I...see words. That's it. I'm a huge reader, and most readers say they like reading because it's like watching a movie in their head.

Harry Potter movies came out when I was little and all my friends expressed how different the actors were from what they had pictured in their heads. I thought they were talking about the illustrations in the book and was like, 'Yeah, those are caricatures, nobody actually looks like that'. I know what words mean because my brain words like an 'AutoFill' feature on a phone with a thesaurus linked in. I read that Snape had sallow skin. My brain fills in 'yellow' for 'sallow' and if somebody asks me what skin means, I can break it down in several different ways which is why I'm a good story-teller. However, when thinking 'sallow=yellow' I don't actually see the color yellow. Writing this, I have no idea what my husband looks like, but I could describe him because I remember him with words. I have written his face into my memory and I recognize it when I see it, but I can't... pull it up.

This has been great when getting over people because I have no idea what my ex looked like when we dated. I know what I wrote him as, but he doesn't appear behind my eyelids. The only time I see things is when I dream, which is every night. I have very vivid dreams and I have a lot of trouble separating myself from them when I wake up because my brain only sees when I'm asleep or have my eyes open; nothing in between. I can describe the color 'red' or things that are red to you, even putting a poetic spin on it, but when I close my eyes, I can't see it.

I thought 'picture yourself on a beach' was a metaphor. When teachers said, 'Close your eyes and go to your happy place', my happy place was a description of a place I thought would be cool to go to, not actually a place I'd been before.

My mind is like watching a play between the scenes. You hear the scrapes so you know people are moving set pieces around, but you can't actually see anything going on. I have thoughts and my brain words, but I don't have visual proof that things are happening. My thoughts seem to spontaneously appear, but I can trace where they came from by the 'sounds' they made to get there... if that makes sense. Logically, they came from somewhere, and I can backtrack to the source if I have to.

Anyway, this is why I'm so bad with art. I can't picture things in my mind that I want to draw. I know a description of what I want to have happen on the paper, and if someone else did it, I could point to it and say, 'That!' but I can't replicate it. My biggest learning curve happens when I have to visualize something, or remember what something looks like when I don't have time to form a word description. I'm terrible in sports because I have only words as a way to help me. If I make a basket in basketball, I have no idea how my body was contoured to make that happen. Playing any musical instrument requires me to play it several hundred times and commit it to muscle memory before I can achieve it. I can't visualize a piano or a guitar, so the only way I can practice is with an actual instrument. If I work with a different instrument, I'm lost because I've committed that description of that particular guitar/piano to memory and associated it with whatever playing skills I have.

Overall, I didn't know this was different than other people until I started researching it. I didn't know I was missing out on anything. I'd like to feel somewhat sorry for myself, but the truth is I've gone so long without, and I literally can't picture my life with that ability. I can describe it, but I have no idea what it would be like.

Side note: I'm terrified of Alzheimer's because I have no idea how it will make me forget things. Will it erase the words I know, or just the descriptions I have? Once those descriptions are gone, will they only be partly gone, so I can recognize my husband's mouth, but not the rest of him, or are they a package deal? I have no idea... maybe I should research Alzheimer's patients with aphantasia...

Returning to YouTube, I would love to be able to make enjoyable content for people, particularly on a platform I spend so much time on. I love cooking and writing and I feel that, with lessons, I could communicate on an understandable, if not thoroughly enjoyable, level. I want to share what I have with others. I've been told that I'm a great story-teller and I believe it. One of my passions is taking complex stories and breaking them down so the content is not lost, but the stuffiness is. My husband wants to make YouTube videos of me telling stories like Greek Myths or breaking down Shakespeare, or even my take on news stories. However, my limitations mean anything audio or visual I create won't be perceived as I want it to. I'm not sure where writing falls on the scale of the senses because you read it with your eyes, but you can technically read it with your fingers and ears too... language is an experience, not a sense, yet me writing 'yellow' and saying the word 'yellow' will conjure the same mental picture (I'm assuming) of a color you'd compare to lemons or sunshine. Language doesn't have a sense, so relying on a specific medium to transmit my ideas doesn't work since I don't understand exactly how they're being perceived.

I write 'Harry Potter' and Daniel Radcliffe probably jumped to a lot of your minds, or the cover of your favorite book, or a scene from the movie, or even just the fact he has glasses and a lightning bolt on his forehead. So many ideas encapsulated in one word.. and I evoke those reactions, memories, sensations, just by writing 2 words that, prior to 1997, weren't related at all.

There isn't really a moral or a point to this post, just some things I was thinking about at 1:30 at night when I should be sleeping because I have to get up super early tomorrow to go shopping with the family... but I'm learning to take the moments for myself whenever I can and make the most of them, even if they're inconvenient. I need me time and I need to express those feelings whenever I can.

PS, it's also really confusing for me when someone I know makes a big adjustment to themselves because it's different than how I've described them in my head. I usually don't recognize them at first unless I concentrate on the parts they haven't changed. That's how I ALWAYS know when someone got a haircut or styled their hair slightly different or is wearing different makeup. I always notice. So... never feel like your efforts to improve yourself are wasted because I will notice if you change yourself in any manner.

More Time

I'm running out of time

But that's not right.

I'm really running out of energy. The right energy.

Growing up, we sometimes make up things to get the sweet stuff, like, 'I have a dinner tummy and a dessert tummy' to try explaining that we didn't want any more dinner, but we had plenty of room for the ice cream. I feel that way about my life sometimes. I don't have any energy for the stuff I don't want to do, but I can stay up all night reading or something. Right now my baby is asleep on my bed and he didn't get a shower today. Not a huge deal, but he did go swimming, so he has chlorine on him. He ate crackers and a cookie in bed, so there are crumbs everywhere, plus my tool bag from playing keep away, a mostly-clean diaper that I took off before we went swimming, a book he was reading to grandparents, and clean laundry that still needs to be folded and put away.

My husband has been gone for almost a week and I feel like I haven't gotten anything done that I wanted to. The room is still a mess, there is still laundry everywhere, and I feel like a failure.

The thing is... just existing in the morning is exhausting. Just running around after my kid is exhausting, not just physically, but mentally, I am responsible for this child, his mental and physical well-being. Before having kids, I could go to the store and NOT think about things. Walk into the store, grab a cart, grab things, buy things, leave with things. I probably wasn't going to be kidnapped, so I could rule out that, and as long as I kept my giant wallet in my cart right by my hands, nobody was going to grab it from me. Plus, I didn't let anybody get close enough to try it. With a kid, I have to worry about where he's going, what he's next to, if someone gets close to him. Even being home, with nobody else around, I'm worried about him falling down the stairs or getting into the trash when I turn my head, something happening to him. I'm conscious of myself without thinking, but I have to force myself to remember him, constantly, and it's mentally draining.

I take a nap near the second half of the day, not the middle, but sometime around 2-3 because that's when my brain shuts down. It doesn't matter how early I am awake or how early I go to bed, I am exhausted around that time and will remain exhausted until I collapse into bed.

My energy for reading, for typing, or for watching YouTube videos seems never-ending though. I feel bad that I can't transfer that energy, the energy that would let me play Skyrim all night, or read a book until 3 in the morning, but I can't. That energy exists in a place untouchable by my real duties and obligations.

I've had to allow myself the privilege of relaxing and taking a break. I have to coach myself through the day, which is humiliating, but it's all in my head, so thankfully nobody else can hear me telling myself it's totally ok to take a nap today, or eat a muffin instead of a piece of fruit. Totally ok to drowse a little and let your child wreak havoc on the room. I can get ready to go swimming, get my child ready, Skype friends and family, make that hard phone call. Sometimes I have to grit my teeth and just do something, but there's nothing wrong with a little self-love. Treat yourself like you would your best friend. When you see that you're struggling, give yourself a break. You'd tell your friend to do the same, maybe even force them, so extend yourself the same kindness. Think of yourself as a friend, project your actions onto a friend and see if you'd still judge them so harshly.

And if you do, maybe counseling is the next step in your self love process. That's fine. We all need help and there's nothing wrong with a therapist when you need to fix your relationship with somebody, even if that person is yourself.

Crisis of Faith

I've been going through a crisis of faith recently, doubting the existence of God, or rather not wanting to believe the logic of what I was dealing with. While I was dating my husband, I realized he came with a lot of baggage. He was frequently angry over little things, didn't have a good relationship with his parents, and frequently went 3-6 days without texting, Facebooking, or contacting me in any way. Obvious red flags.

Originally, it was just supposed to be a fun fling, something just for physical purpose's sake. Then we went down to meet my parents (on their request) and my Mom asked me if I had prayed about marrying him. Since we had dated for 2 weeks, I said no. With regards to religion, I'm LDS, which means we pray to God for inspiration about important things because He knows everything and, as such, would know how to deal with whatever situation is at hand. It took me a long time to pray about it because I really didn't want to get married, but I finally did. The answer was to marry him. I was confused because I felt God wasn't respecting all these red flags going up in my relationship, but, again, God knows better, so I went forward with something I figured was going to resolve itself eventually.

Almost 3 years passed before I humbled myself enough to really search for an answer. During that time, we fought almost constantly.

My husband is a good man with a good heart. I have to get that out there before I go on. He really is a nice guy, but he's been abused and hadn't come to those terms before the events I'm about to mention. He cares about me and has never abused or cheated on me, nor do I think he ever will.

We had a son during that time, and the stress of being a mother and being tied to someone so needy when I'm so independent and anti-social was so frustrating, but the straw that broke the camel's back finally came when he moved away for a month. We've never been close, so the fact that we didn't see each other every day made it worse. I chalk it up to the fact we weren't friends before we got together, it was something that just kind of happened, then God said, 'Yeah, wife that' and made it permanent. We don't 'click' and communication is NOT our strong suit since we communicate so differently, it's like we're speaking different languages. I'm not talking about how I normally talk one way and nobody else comprehends I'm even speaking a language except 2 people, no, I'm talking about how I'll present something and he interprets it completely differently, reacts to what he thinks is happening, then I'll react to him without knowing why he's reacting that way, and we blow up repeatedly until we're too tired to fight anymore. We are rarely on the same page and I say rarely, not because I can think of any times where we've been on the same wavelength, but because I'm pretty sure it's happened, it just isn't coming to mind. The conversation does not 'flow' between us, so when you remove face-to-face contact, it pretty much grinds to a halt. We only talk about surface level stuff, we only progress when one of us is depressed; then we go down the path of maybe friendship until the other person is pulled out of their depression and BOOM! back to surface-level again. A month apart made it so much worse.

Another facet to this conversation is that I am a largely sexual person and my husband is not. I placed a large part of my identity into my sexuality as a person and defined myself by my sexual nature. I am not flirtatious (anti-flirtatious, I hate being flirted with and I hate flirting), but I am sexual. My husband, on the other hand, prefers cuddling and gentle touching. This has been a huge trial since, as an LDS person, we are taught sex before marriage is inappropriate and dangerous, particularly because those feelings of intimacy are supposed to be reserved for marriage. I struggled with this growing up because puberty and hormones hit me as hard as they can hit a person (and societal shaming made me uncomfortable admitting I had sexual feelings, leading to repression and subsequent abusive relationships where I could act on my desires without feeling guilty) but was constantly comforted with the thought that this was temporary because all guys love sex, and whoever I married would be thrilled to have a wife eager for sex.

So, at this point, I'm sexually frustrated in my marriage and feel 100% neglected by God because I'm in this situation in the first place. I was promised something, right? I was promised an end to my suffering and even though I wasn't perfect, I hadn't actually 'done the deed' so where was my reward? I had 3 situations I was considering, and only 1 of them could be true.
1) God loved me, knew everything, and placed me in this relationship specifically to help me grow. Things were tough now, but they would be better.

This is the most comforting because God exists, He loves me, and my trials have a purpose. All the bad stuff happening just happened because I wasn't spiritually close to Him, which I wasn't since reading the scriptures and praying wasn't high on my to-do list. 

2) I tricked myself into thinking God said I could marry my husband. As plausible as this sounds for the religious people reading, I prayed about it every day afterwards and even on the day of my wedding, pleading for a sign to know whether or not this was the right thing. I had gut feelings of nervousness, but I needed something more, something more tangible that could be linked to heavenly intervention and not 'I've got a bad feeling about this' that comes because I'm a commitment-phobe.

In this scenario, God exists, but did not care about me making the biggest mistake of my life, and so did not intervene, which would mean I didn't want to worship Him or listen to anything He had to say since He didn't care about me or my life.

3) God does not exist and I had lived a lie my entire life, especially trusting my future to gut feelings and random bursts of synapses.

This one sucks because who wants to find out there isn't an all-knowing Being Who loves them and watches out for them daily? I was raised to believe I was a Child of God, a god in miniature, a growing god, and to find out I was just a meaningless human with a meaningless life and the good/bad in the world were relative? Horrifying.

My friend saw me struggling (read: having a panic attack) and offered to give me a comfort blessing. A comfort blessing in LDS terms is when a priesthood holder (male) asks for inspiration on the part of the person they are blessing. I accepted, thinking it could only help the matter. In the comfort blessing, he said that God loved me and was aware of my trials and they had not gone unnoticed. I would find love and affection in unexpected places and I should look to the future with hope, not fear.

A lot of other stuff was said, but the thing that hit me hardest was when it said I had to fix my relationship with Heavenly Father by approaching Him through Jesus Christ. At first, I was confused because I thought I did that by ending my prayers in His name, but as I thought about it, I realized it meant that I had to develop a relationship with Christ in order to further my relationship with my Heavenly Father. I had never considered this before. Growing up, Christ was someone Who suffered, bled, and died for us, but we didn't necessarily pray to Him, and people were always saying vague things like, 'Give your burden and sins to Christ!' but as a person who can't imagine things (seriously, can't think of what my son or husband or even best friend looks like right now) I have no idea what that means. I can't picture what my face looks like, let alone handing my burden to someone I've never seen an actual picture of.

So I decided to do research. I went to church and listened to the talks, actually listened, and a woman said if we actually trusted our Heavenly Father, we would do what He says without complaining because we would have faith that He knows better than us. Ok, definitely not something I do. I'm more a grudgingly-do-something-until-I-see-the-benefits type of person. I'll follow orders, but I'm not going to skip while doing it unless I see the reason. While driving home, a phrase stuck in my head, 'Deny yourself of all Ungodliness' and I decided to research the topic when I got home. You can't exactly type those things into Google, so I looked on lds.org for help. It pulled up a lot of talks, but I only read the first 3. I can't remember which one is which right now, but I remember two of them talked about how this life is not meant to bestow happiness, but everlasting joy. Happiness is something temporary, like eating Nutella or taking a hot shower. Everlasting joy can ONLY come from following the Gospel of Jesus Christ to death.

Another interesting concept was that Christ was always the Master of Himself. Even when He was throwing the money lenders out of the temple, He was in control of His anger. There was no hormonal function that was stronger than His will power. I instantly thought of my crazy hormones and how randy I'd be for basically the entire day, every day, for 20 years. I don't say this lightly, I was literally consumed by sex and it touched EVERY corner of my life. I was constantly holding myself back and forcing myself to play innocent when guys would make dirty jokes because I didn't want to admit I understood what they meant and could make a better one. I don't remember much about high school because the classes were so easy, I spent basically the whole time thinking about sex. It's where my mind went, and if it didn't go there, I was so bored, I fell asleep. I don't think any of the people who told me how lucky my husband would be realized how deep I was in it. I think they thought, 'How sweet! She actually thinks she wants sex.' when really it was, 'AHHH!!! She's a sex monster! Hide your sons!'. But really. At this point, I had been praying for over 18 years for some kind of control over my hormones. Different spurts of reading scriptures, trying to pay attention in church, go to the temple, fervent prayer when the temptations overwhelmed me, I felt I had turned over every stone looking for Heavenly help in the self-control department, but it had never happened. I had never been strong enough and, for some reason, I had never had Heavenly help in suppressing those urges, and had given up trying. Mostly I kept it from getting out of hand, but otherwise I let the monster do its thing. The revelation of control hit me harder this time and I craved it... I can't really say more because I'd be in tears (specifically thinking of when I was 12, but it happened multiple times a year) begging for release from this darkness... so while I can't say I craved it more, I can say I started wanting to control myself completely again. 

I prayed about it and Heavenly Father basically said that He had never given me the end goal of marriage and that was the folly of others who were trying to get me to keep the law of chastity longer. Instead, my battle was similar to an addict where it was a struggle for the rest of their life. I've compared it to a lot of things when explaining this to others, but I'm going to go with the hopefully inoffensive smoker analogy. A smoker can do what they do and clean up all signs so others don't know about their addiction. They can be as secret as they want to about it. It's easy to start, but it's so hard to quit, as many addicts will tell you. Even if they become successful, the smell of something burning will set them off for the rest of their life, even the secondhand smoke becomes something they have to avoid. Heavenly Father has promised that all wrongs will be rectified in Heaven and the spirit that possesses our body upon death will possess our body in the next life.

This means a smoker who still smokes will still have cravings for it, even if they don't have a body anymore because their soul is conditioned to seek that comfort, even if it does nothing for the soul. They've gotten into the habit of addiction and those things are a lot harder to kick without the body dulling the spiritual pains. For me, the addiction I have is sex. It's so bad, I can't have a normal sexual relationship with anybody and I have struggled to find meaningful relationships with others that don't have a drop of sexual tension. This is really hard, especially when the other person is a guy. I've tried, and it's not impossible, just really hard since that's where my brain is conditioned to go first. HOWEVER, there is hope for me. If I spend the rest of my life fighting my natural urges, I won't have to deal with it when I die.

Might sound like, 'Ugh, that's too bad! I'm so sorry for you! What a drag!' but really, I was relieved to have a deadline at all. At first, it was like I had finished running a race, crossed the finish line, everything I was supposed to do, all the boxes ticked, where's my trophy? But the trophy never comes and I have to keep on running. Instead of being able to concentrate on running, I'm looking around wondering where the heck my prize is. I crossed the finish line, didn't I? I was promised a trophy and to be able to stop running, I went through the tape, so why am I still moving? The answer is because I just passed a milestone, not the actual finish line like everyone said. I'm not alone, not unloved, not forgotten, not ignored, not irredeemably sinful, I'm just not done yet. With that in mind, I can focus on the race and on the running, not on the supposed prize I missed out on.

My husband, snuggle-bug and asexual as can be, is the perfect spouse for me. Part of one of the talks mentioned how marriage isn't supposed to be easy, and your spouse is supposed to make you better. Most people are better because they love their spouse so much, they want to be better for them. They push each other to be better. I think, in my case, that me and my spouse are together specifically because we don't take each other's crap. My husband doesn't let me push him into sex and I don't let him push me around with his abuse. If he was with a stereotypical girl, he'd walk all over them or they'd get a divorce. Either way, he's not getting better, so he's not learning Christlike control. If I was with a stereotypical boy, he would either keep up with my libido (HA!) or never admit he found me exhausting because it hurt his manly pride. Either way, I'm not learning to control myself because my husband would indulge whatever drive I threw at him. I could never have been like Christ if I had married anyone else. I was specifically put with my husband, not to experience temporary happiness in marriage, but to finally learn to control my urges and control myself while I was at it, to become as Christlike as I can. This might sound sad, but bearing in mind that earthly existence is only a few seconds in the eyes of God, how bad is it really? Sure, temporarily sad I didn't marry my best friend, but on a grader scale, we're both going to be SO MUCH BETTER by the time this is all over. My marriage is my personal refiner's fire tailored to make me as exquisite as I am meant to be. I can either take this change for perfection, or moan about how we don't communicate effectively. I can have a conversation with most people, but most people can't push me to change the way my husband does. Most people think I'm pretty awesome the way I am, but my husband sees ALL my flaws and doesn't let me get away with any of them, which is pretty great if your eventual goal is perfection and life eternal, which mine is.

The third and final piece to this puzzle is Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Obviously repentance is a huge part of this, and I'm not saying it's unimportant, but I know a lot about it already and how it's supposed to work, the steps, most everything. I don't know exactly everything, but having been a lifelong member, plus a missionary, plus reading Jesus the Christ about 15 times on my mission, I have a pretty good idea about sin exchange. The point is that I had never considered cultivating an actual relationship with Him. I thought He was always listening over Heavenly Father's shoulder, that I didn't have to talk to Him in order to be heard by Him, and the Old Testament is always going on about how God is a jealous god and we can't pray to anyone else over Him, so Christ was someone I invoked at the end of prayers, but otherwise unattainable for a relationship, like Heavenly Father was standing in the gates of heaven and communication to the other side had to go through Him. So, after asking a lot of people their opinions about how not to offend God, I prayed to Christ. I called Him 'Brother' throughout the prayer because it felt awkward to say His name every 3 seconds when I wanted to address Him and also a little bit like swearing. That first prayer was amazing. I told Him I couldn't take this sexual energy and tension anymore and He had to take it because it was killing me and the relief I felt was instantaneous, like a bolt of lightning hit me and all the sex just melted away. I still haven't found a satisfactory and natural way to end my prayers to Him yet because it feels weird to talk to Someone, then end in Their name, like...He already knows I'm talking to Him... but I go with it since that's the form of prayer I was taught and I haven't come up with a better one yet.

So there we go, start of my spiritual journey, the beginning of the beginning, the moment I realized I had to die to experience peace, but that didn't mean I couldn't strive for it. Some people would look at it as a tragedy that I couldn't be married to my best friend and my husband and I joke we have an 'arranged marriage' that neither of us wanted in the first place. Kind of horrible if you've been brought up in a culture of 'love marriages' but for us, it's our reality and something that happened and couldn't be helped without offending the powers that be. So we're both going to do our best in this life and if we happen to fall in love along the way, awesome, and if not, we'll both be perfect at the end so we get our pick from the cream of the crop. The priesthood 'binds on Earth and in Heaven' but there are temple divorces and although they're not ideal, I don't think God will force me to stay married to my fire if we don't work out. So either we fall in love or not, but either way I end up perfect, so it's a win-win for me.

I still feel like this explanation won't work for some people out there... people who look at me with pity in their eyes that I don't have this magical and epic love connection with my husband and all I can say is people went through arranged marriages ALL THE TIME in the OT, NT, and probably in the BOM too. Marriage is rarely about starting from love and more about coming from similar backgrounds so you can raise the kid in the same faith and starting from a place where having a family is plausible. It's romantic to marry for love, and I'm not knocking those marriages that have that. I think it's beautiful and amazing and wonderful that you have something like that. I can't personally be jealous though because my husband is a good man and I can grow from our relationship. I have learned so much about myself with him that I couldn't have learned with someone else. I have always been very comfortable in my identity (most parts of it) and unwilling to change. If someone had a problem with me, I just didn't talk to them anymore because they obviously weren't ready to deal with me. That's who I was. Now, I'm much more flexible. I'm looking to God for more answers. I thought I had all the answers, I had a plan, I had life figured out, and I didn't go into uncomfortable situations willingly. Now I'm married to an uncomfortable situation, and I'm growing! I'm growing so much, and it's forcing me closer to my Heavenly Father and it's amazing that He trusts me enough to put me in this situation when I could easily have decided to claim atheism, gone with the easy divorce, and married someone more... congenial.

This is a trial and I'm grateful to have it. It's hard and there will be times when I want it to end, but for now, I can see the end goal, I can see what He sees, for a brief moment, and it's a perfect me. A me in control, a Christlike me, a me that doesn't struggle to have a normal conversation with someone that doesn't involve genitals. That is my future, if I am brave enough and strong enough to seize it and it's thanks to my Father in Heaven, Who trusts me when I really feel like He should know better by now. Eventually, He pulls me through.

I hope this helped some of you who are struggling, maybe even with the same thing. If not, it was cathartic to get it out there and who knows? Maybe one of you is in a sexless marriage and feels abandoned by God and cheated out of a promise. Maybe this will inspire you to give Him one last chance. I promise He's listening, even to the weird things.

Lie Line

Connected
a pulsing beat up and down the screen
wires throbbing to the tune of an electronic heart
and I am helpless
throwing questions to a dark mind
and counting blinks

Knock knock
I'm still outside
feeling green velvet powder into snow

Doughnut eyes
watching everything and seeing nothing
I found you like this
and I thought my company could bring you out of it
a whisper of humanity
the touch of flesh

Knock knock
I'm still outside
only feeling 1/2 myself

A halo of hardwood
circles you, high on linoleum
measuring your breath
memorizing flickers
and sometimes I think you hear me

Knock knock
I'm still outside
watching lace turn to gold

Drugs keeping you alive have kept you from me.

Knock

Knock

Knock...

The Office Jam

Most of the articles I read about Jim and Pam from the Office are written by people who have never been married. They say it in their article, 'not that I've ever been married' or 'I'm not married, so I don't know' yet they pretend to know how Jim and Pam, 2 likeable people, seem to morph into monsters after they get together. 'Lazy writing', they say. Somehow, the writers have twisted the characters into unrecognizable monsters to fit their weird narrative. I've even read one claiming Jim is cheating on Pam because that's what everyone on the show does and the film crew wanted to tell a specific narrative, which is why he's unaccounted for most of the time.

They must do yoga because they're really good at stretching. I'm married. I know a little bit about the realities after 'kiss the bride' and the truth is that Jim and Pam are not perfect and they're not supposed to be.

Being married is hard. It's really really hard. Beforehand, you're expected to love fun and goofing off and have all these hobbies to make yourself interesting. Laundry? Yeah, single-person style. Do you do your roommate's laundry? No, you do yours and they do theirs. Although there's a shaky balance and some people want to group things up (you wash everyone's dishes tonight and I'll do it tomorrow) there's still the unspoken rule of 'every man for himself'.

All that changes after the ceremony; not after living together, after the ceremony. Why? There's suddenly a HUGE pressure to make things work. You probably didn't throw a catered party to announce that you were moving in together, you just did it. Things flowed naturally and you acted like roommates who have sex. After the ceremony, there's suddenly an audience to your relationship. All the people you care about watched you formally induct this person into their lives, marking your territory and saying, 'I am now in a package deal with this person'. If you divorce, it's going to be messy because you just involved all these people in your lives. They are now a part of your relationship. That kind of pressure changes people.

Being married is not about maintaining independence because if you wanted to be truly independent, you wouldn't have gotten married. Marriage is not about independence, it is about meshing your life with someone else's and realizing you are no longer a 'you' but an 'us'. It's hard to divide your lives down the middle and a lot of marriages fail because the couple does not seem to realize they are no longer roommates who have to put their names on everything. You compromise in marriage, you give things up, you do things you don't want to do, you go through rough patches where you wonder why you're with this person, you do the hard things because THAT is what a couple does. You are both in this together and sometimes you have to accept that 100% is not always what will be received or given. We, as humans, are not capable of 100%. As a couple, your output will only occasionally be 100%, especially to each other.

Guess what else changes people? Kids. That's right; Cici and Phillip changed Jim and Pam. How? Speaking from experience, being married and having a child, it's really hard on a relationship. People complain that Jim didn't miss his wife and kids when he went to Tallahassee, or that he liked living in a bachelor pad too much. I would LOVE an excuse to be away from my family for a few days a week, to spend selfish quality me-time and NOT feel guilty about it. As it is, I have to lock my kid out of the bathroom to take a shower and laugh all you want, but that is absolutely horrifying to come into as a previously independent person who worked in a factory and provided for herself. I had a life plan that did not involve a husband and children and now I have a child who screams if he is not within a few feet of me. If I'm gone, do I miss my family? Absolutely. Do I relish my alone time? Absolutely.

 Kids change your personalities because you are no longer solely in charge of keeping yourself alive, but another human being. And dogs are not kids. 'Fur baby' is not a thing. You have an animal you keep for companionship. Just because you spoil your animal and treat it like a human does not make it one. Your dog obeys your commands because it is genetically programmed to be a pack animal and respond to leadership. A child has no such inclinations. A dog will not be emotionally scarred if it sees you and your spouse having sex. A dog will never grow up. You will never be judged because your lab-pit mix did not grow into a German Shepherd. Most people allow their dogs to defecate in public and do not clean it up. There is no pressure to name a dog or force it to socialize. Your dog's future does not rely on the obedience school you send it to. Your dog will not leave the house to pursue a future and you will not be judged if your dog has an off day. Your dog cannot become an alcoholic or druggie in spite of your training. You can control whether or not your dog reproduces. If your puppy starts whining, people will not start complaining about how you shouldn't bring animals into public places.

More pressure. Most of those scenarios involved the judgement of others, which is emotionally draining. Not only does it involve you, it involves your child, which people use as a mirror to your character. If you have a bad kid, you must be a bad parent. This is true with animals, but not with children. Adam had Cain, who was bad. You'd think that makes him a bad parent, but hand on, he also had Abel. So either his actions were interpreted differently by these two siblings or children just happen to have their own personalities that parents can only vaguely shape. My sister has never enjoyed physical contact, even when she was an infant. She only nursed to eat, never for comfort, and slept by herself from day 1. She did not use physical affection to comfort herself and was never touchy. She is still like this. Our Mom is very cuddly, especially with children, and it hurt her to have one of her children so opposed to the idea. I was the complete opposite, constantly wanting to be with her and in her presence. This might be because I was the oldest, but fast-forward to my youngest sister who was soothed by rubbing the arms of my Mom and Dad, specifically those two. So it's not a parent thing, it's a child thing.

Tangent over, point is, Jim and Pam are judged for the actions of their children and neither one of them feels fulfilled in their lives. Pam wanted to be an artist, but gave it up for her relationship with Jim. People sacrifice, it's what they do. Jim gave up on moving to Philly to be more involved with Athlead for his relationship with Pam. The difference is that Jim is the primary bread winner in the family and he was working to make his passion a viable financial opportunity for his family, not find an outlet to express himself.

People change when they get married. You have to. You're taking 2 people and making 1 couple. Sacrifices have to be made. Sometimes he has to watch you play Skyrim and sometimes you have to listen to him ramble about politics in the Middle East (ok, all the time). That's what married people do. If someone bored you before, you could just stop hanging out with them, but you can't do that in a marriage. Sometimes you have to crawl on your hands and knees and chase your baby around, or take him for a walk when all you want to do is sleep. Sometimes you have to change a dirty diaper, or listen to them screaming at the top of their lungs because you're not looking at them while you chop an onion. That's what parents do.

I'm not a perfect person and it's easy to look at what I am now as a failure. This isn't what I wanted for my life. I didn't want to be married, I didn't want to have kids, I didn't want to NOT have a job and follow my husband around with no real goals or aspirations on my own because that might interfere with what my husband needed to do for his career. If I compare my past and my present, I'm a failure.

I have to change. I had to change. I'm not who I was back then and if I had been prepared for my spouse, I wouldn't have had the same past. I wouldn't have been the same person. It's hard not to compare because that's how I've been gauging my success, but my life hasn't found a balance yet. I write infrequently because my son naps infrequently and when he does, there are a lot more important things to do than writing, such as taking a much-needed nap myself, or doing the dishes, or catching up on the library books I swear I'm going to return on time this week.

Jim couldn't be who he was. Pam couldn't stay the same way. They went to marriage counseling, which is awesome news. How many dysfunctional couples on TV go to counseling? How many of them actually try to solve their problems? How many of them turn to weird hijinks and distrusting each other until they come to blows? Why not go to a counselor, why not get professional help?

Even as I write this, I don't have to convince you Jim and Pam don't belong together because nobody does. Nobody belongs to anybody because we are perfectly capable of a single life, sans romantic relationship. We spend our single lives attempting to fulfill ourselves with hobbies, then are expected to transition to finding fulfillment in a relationship with a single person. Of course we have hobbies and interests, but those must take a back seat, or even trunk, to our primary relationship with our spouse. A relationship is not satisfying in the same way that creating a work of art, or getting to the next mission in Halo is. They are 2 separate experiences.

All this culminates in the resounding nugget of truth that Jim and Pam were written by people who were likely married and likely had kids, allowing them to present 2 flawed people struggling to experience life and find happiness while compromising their dreams.

Where is Me?

My days have fallen into a rut and not in an enjoyable way. When I used to dream about my life (pre-marriage) it involved a routine: shopping once a week, deep-cleaning the house once a month, nightly runs, quietly reading every day... things I could do for hours without getting bored or irritated.

Then I got married and had a kid and suddenly my life is filled with boring, repetitive, frustrating activities. I wake up to my prodding child, I try to read the books I want to read while trying to defend my house from an intruder I literally brought into this world, I try to walk him to stimulate his mind and give him a taste of the outdoors, put him down to sleep, get a few chores done (but not too loud or he'll wake up) then I'm struggling to make dinner while he screams and pushes me away from the counters before bathing and putting him to bed. All the while, Netflix runs in the background so I don't ram my head against the wall in the silence.


And I have to ask myself where I am. Where is me? Where are the things I like to do, the time I take for myself? When do I get the luxury of being selfish, of taking a moment to do something simply because I want to do it and not because I feel obligated by someone else? When have my solitary times not been cut short by the whimper of my son? I can't take a bath without him feeling left out, can't crochet without him pulling the yarn out, can't read without defending the book from his salivary glands... the only avenue left to me is to look at stupid pictures on my phone but even then, I have to hide it. It's exhausting being part of a couple, but I think it's worse being a mom to a clingy baby.

'Treasure this moment!' I don't. We all need a balance and I don't have that. I don't appreciate being drowned just because I happened to be in the middle of a desert earlier. I don't think, 'Well, at least I have water!' No. Where is the balance? Right now, my life is lived solely for others and I am not the Savior, I am not Jesus Christ, I cannot do this without going insane! I don't feel pretty because I don't get to take care of myself. As I type this, my son is crying in the other room while my husband blasts some boring documentary on British castles. Our son isn't happy, my husband isn't happy, and I'm pretending this is sufficient time to do something I want to do... but I don't even want to write this blog post, I just feel obligated to talk to someone, something, about my problems because nobody else in my life listens.

I am not a happy person and I have never been an optimist. I do try to look at things logically, but the only bright spot I'm seeing is that, one day, my son will go to school and unless I have more kids, that means a temporary reprieve to my torture. That means a little solitary me-time between my husband's work and my son's school. I don't know how some women find joy in this, how they can magically manage their time and be the perfect wives, but I feel like it's an impossible, insurmountable task because one minute I'm trying to put him down for an afternoon nap and the next, he's nursing himself into oblivion and it feels like he'll be nursing for the rest of his life. Not even my life, I could probably die and he'd still be there, waiting for me to make his life better.

I am writing in my journal more... and I have started reading my scriptures and praying more. I don't think it's helping, but it's something I do that's not for my husband or my son... pretty much the only consistent thing I do for myself.

The Word

6 years. That's the last time I saw you pulling away in your car and I cried because I'd ended my first real relationship with my best friend, but it was better for me. I knew what you were and I knew what I was becoming.

I couldn't follow you down that path. I tried. It wasn't me. I couldn't be in an open relationship. I care too deeply, too much, too possessive, some might say. Is it wrong to expect your boyfriend to remain faithful? To only touch you, who had never denied him? Everything you asked, I did; so much more than I was willing to do. Unwillingly, I knew you.

Unwillingly, I left you. I had defined myself by what I meant to you, years of calling myself yours and identifying myself by the fingerprints you left on my skin, your breath in my hair, the blood on my neck. I kept myself alive for you. We shattered -no breaking- a powder keg, a grapeshot fired into tender flesh, bone confetti dusting the grass like snow, so over, there would never be a zombie of this relationship to shamble back.

You destroyed me, my better self, stole my soul and threaded it through your chest hair, close to the heart that never beat. You drove away to her. I cried and disposed of what I forgot to give you. I sent a letter, a cease and desist. We could never speak. I thought you honored that.

3 years. That's when you sent me a message that tore my heart out. You asked how I was, what was up. Had you changed? It didn't matter. You never apologized. We have nothing to say. We know each other, had wiped the slate clean, and there is nothing to say, no letters that fit together or words that make sentences. When you know everything, there is no mystery.

You asked if I meant the cease and desist. I did.

Today. You followed me. Stop. Why toy with me? What could we possibly say to each other that would mean anything? My body seized up, like a released spring, all tight metal still hot from kinetic energy. It is quick to remind me of past pain, like I'm allergic to you. I block, I remove all thought, all trace, of you. Because if I can't see you, you can't see me.

I write to erase the ache, to ease the stress I feel just thinking about you and what you did. I don't know what you've done with your life; I've carefully refrained from checking up on you, content in the idea that your happiness does not depend on me knowing about it and vice versa. I supposed you to be in a new life, one where I had never existed. I talked about you to new friends who never knew your name as if you were a caricature of a real person, a mosquito made human, a louse with a mouth. They laughed as I regaled your abuses in comedic fashion, "Isn't it hilarious how I paid him so he wouldn't feel bad after the break up? I know, he cheated on me with 6 other girls, I don't know how I stayed with him either." So funny, the pains of yesterday. How easily they come when there's no immediate threat. The delivery says everything about the story.

And you're in the past, the ghost of bad Mexican food resurfacing all these years later.

What would I say? Thank you for being a jerk, you made it easier to let go? I learned how to be independent by reminding myself that a relationship could go so incredibly wrong? I prevented interest because I couldn't fathom attraction to another male, let alone a functional one?

Once we considered binding ourselves in sickness and in health... I submit a simple reversal of the sentiments in that we repel each other in life, til Death do us meet.

Believe every word of this last sentence, for I mean it sincerely and in no other circumstance: I'll see you on the other side.

Midnight

I've been thinking a lot about motivations and decisions, mostly how they affect someone close to me. We've been friends for a few years and I've noticed he never makes a decision. Whether it's where to eat, who to date, or what to do while playing a video game, he will always do the opposite. This is completely unlike another friend where he does stupid things just for fun. This particular friend will do stupid things in video games just to see how it turns out, the kind of kid who turns the Bunsen burner on high in science to see if the glass will actually explode.

The guy I'm originally talking about will turn the burner on high just because he was told not to. There is a stupid-stubborn streak and I've tried puzzling out why he does those things and I think I'm onto something based on the people I've met who are similar... but I don't know.

His background is sad and private, but it follows the same characteristics as other men I know who act this way, meaning one of hi dddddddds parents was overbearing and a tyrant and the other was a doormat. 1 person in the household made all the decisions for everyone else and the other, who should have protected him, wouldn't even protect herself.

Science-wise, there are plenty of examples of males reaching adulthood who challenge their rules and role models, specifically their fathers. Male lions are kicked out of the pack, male orcas swim alone, male elephants form bachelor groups who are constantly on the prowl for loose (unattached to a harem governed by a more dominant male) females... males often get the rub when it comes to staying within community protection. Puberty is when everyone is discovering themselves and for most boys, this means figuring out where they stand. If they hate their parents, and most children of the aforementioned dynamic do, they try to choose the opposite of the dominant parent in an attempt at individuality. If the parent was religious, the child becomes atheist or anarchist. If the parent hated art, that child will pursue a career in it. The same thing can be seen in younger siblings to a lesser degree, but to a lesser extent as they are not distancing themselves from something/someone they despise, but trying to stand out of the crowd. They will be different enough to be noticeable in a bid for attention, not in a bid for completely cleansing themselves of what they view as an inferior upbringing.
ddddddddddddddddddddd
Examples? I dated a guy who had a domineering mother who bossed her boys around like they were in the military. Praise was rare, they were constantly flip-flopping on crazy diets so she could lose weight, and she controlled every aspect of their lives down to home-schooling them. His father was a porn addict who excused himself by saying his wife was never interested and it wasn't cheating if they never physically hooked up. He constantly undermined his wife, throwing parties when she wasn't around and giving the kids anything they wanted as long as she wasn't within earshot. Yes, they eventually divorced. With this background, my boyfriend was constantly conflicted at what he should do. Dad said stay home from church while mom said to go, mom said to eat your vegetables while dad said pizza with mushrooms was ok. He was an anarchist, believing in no government and that people should do whatever they want whenever they want. (For the record, he was a good guy that changed. It's possible. It happened. I was also a bad girlfriend. Many factors went into the break up, I am only examining how he was before everything fell apart.)

The indecisiveness in his upbringing forced him into a mental corner, where he could only choose to be wrong because that's the only thing that he COULD choose: anything else would be a point for either side and he didn't respect either one of his parents. He couldn't go to church because his mom would win, and he couldn't stay home because his dad would win, so he decided to go sometimes when he felt like it and not when he didn't want to. I would ask/tell him to do something that would benefit his life, such as wake up on time for class, and he would only do that if there was a reward involved. I was constantly pointing out the right thing to do, as were the people around him. It wasn't morally right, it was 'logic' right, as in there are concrete, solid, logical, scientific reasons to do these things, completely independent of a moral god or God. Regardless of the reasons, he chose the wrong thing just to prove he could.

You see this a lot in toddlers as they assert their independence, especially when you tell them not to do something and they do it anyway. Teenagers are the same way. As we transition into what we view as being more mature, we kick against our traditions and in some cases, this is a good thing. Slavery was bad and needed to end: sexual harassment had to stop; these are all traditions that humans fought against. Not taking your medicine simply because your doctor ordered you to is one of those things pushing humanity's IQ into the toilet.... case in point... anti-vaxxers. No amount of scientific evidence will convince them their BS-spouting, tree-hugging, mentally-inbred excuse for independent thought....

Ugh... bane of my existence, those people.

Anyway, my boyfriend came from a background that pushed him into bad decision after bad decision and rendered him woefully indecisive the rest of the time.He was pushed from one friend group to another, from one class to another, and eventually he was pushed into jail. His life spiraled out of control and he let it happen, even encouraged it, because it was different.

I'm worried about my friend. It's midnight, and I'm worried about the decisions he's making and not making. He says he likes this girl, then he turns around and says he doesn't know. He only loves women when they've left him completely, it's only when he doesn't have it that he realizes what he was missing out on. He refuses to connect with people and it's infuriating to watch him push everyone and everything away because he's trying to achieve some douche bag vision of himself. 'He's a heart breaker who loves all the ladies and they all love him, he's a successful businessman who has no time for romance, he's a writer who spends no time writing, a reader who chooses not to read' things like that. Complete lack of commitment.

And he's screwing up a relationship with a really good girl because he's too chicken to dump her face to face.

This is venting, and I don't care, it's frustrating not to talk to him about these things because I should let him live his own life and make his own mistakes. I would like to drum these things into his head until they're the only thoughts left, but I'm trying not to nag or interfere in his life. He's such a good friend who has never learned to commit to anyone, even his own dreams. He is

Dear Depressed Person

I don't know how to help.

I've been reading a lot of things online, mostly those long tumblr posts where people comment 'THIS!' or 'RELATABLE!' because that seems to be what people identify with most. I read the descriptions of not being able to taste anything but mashed potatoes and feeling like there's a rain cloud over your head, or a glass wall separating you from everyone else. I've even read the comments of people who are depressed on Facebook, read through the articles they post and the comics with social anxiety beating you up and not letting you go outside, or wearing a paper mask that melts in the rain...

And I still don't know. I can't butt in and force you to go to therapy. I can't even communicate that I know you're depressed. You deny me every time. You pretend everything is ok when I know it's not. You don't text me at 3 in the morning. You don't text me at all. I message you every now and then and you joke about death.... maybe if I joke too, you won't take it seriously.

But now you're offended... 'Suicide isn't funny!' 'Don't make fun of something you don't understand!' It's a club that I'm not a part of, a dark pit I can't see the bottom of because I'm on the surface. I don't 'get it' and you won't let me in, won't let me get it, won't let me understand.

You won't get help.

'Why don't people treat mental illness like a physical illness?' Because I can see your blood with my eyes. You can't deny it because it's right there.When you're depressed, if you decide it's not there, nothing I say will change your mind. I can call the police to indicate your harm, there are reliable tests they can run to say, indeed, you have a physical injury.

When it's mental, when it's inside your head, you need to tell me how it is because I can't see it. I'm not in the pit, so I don't know; and you tell me all the time that I don't know.

1/2 the time, I think you're proud of your mask and 'pretending to fit in with everyone else' #relatable. You get irritated when I ask you to do things, you push me away again and again and maybe not everyone can keep coming back to that kind of abuse.

That's right, I said abuse. If neither one of us had depression and you pushed me away constantly and refused to do anything with me, people would tell me to stay away from you, that it was an obvious social cue that you wanted nothing to do with me. And you say 'But depression makes it different', and that's true, but you keep telling me you don't have depression...

So which is it?

What do I believe?

How do I help?

I can't call the cops to come to your house because all they'll see is a sad person. How do I explain that this person went colorless and doesn't know it and won't help themselves? With all the pointers and reminders and love around them, this person is blind and can't see the love that surrounds them, can't feel it, only views my concerns as annoyances, shuts themselves away and wonders why we don't talk... I see a broken wing on an otherwise resplendent  bird, a hiccup in a hero, but what do the cops see? What do you see? A sad person who cannot motivate themselves. They'll lecture me for wasting their time and you'll shun me for almost exposing you as needing help.

I tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, to take up a new hobby, to look on the bright side, to exercise and smile more and go outside and talk to someone

because I can't do those things for you. I can't make you happy. I can't make the colors come back. I can't pull your head up or call attention to the things that you'll miss.

If you die...

What is everyone going to say? While I'm busy beating myself up for not dragging you to therapy, everyone comes down and asks why I didn't see the signs. 'She was such a happy soul!' 'He was so selfless!' And all those things are true, those and so many other wonderful qualities you don't believe you have. How do I explain to them that I saw you dying every day and tried to hold up a mirror, how do I explain that you refused to acknowledge you needed help, that you pushed away the suggestion that you might not be ok? That even with the stigma of mental disease, I tried to reassure you it was all right and it wouldn't change my love for you, but you needed the approval of the world over mine. And the world would never approve. I see the beauty and the potential and how lucky your crappy coworkers are to be around your brilliance. And you know the one thing I don't know?

Why you didn't see it. Why I wasn't enough. Everyone thinks '1 person is enough' '1 person can change your world' and I've been trying for years, doing everything from the tough love to soft love to not-there love to too much love. I've been there and everywhere else trying to make you see how much you mean to me and everyone else in your life.

The one person that's going to change your life is you. I've tried so long and so hard to make you see the light and when people talk about that '1 person' they're really talking about something inside them that changed. I compliment you, I ask what's wrong, I try to be there for you, but after a certain point, maybe I'm part of the problem.

Maybe I'm why you're sad because I can't make you happy, I can't make you smile, I try to ask you to do things or go places and you just push me away and maybe it's because you don't want to be around me.

I love you and I'm sorry I couldn't make you smile. I tried. I really tried. Just like I can't tell when you're depressed, I can't tell if you like me, like being around me. I'm not asking you to change overnight, or really asking you to do anything. I don't know what being in the pit feels like, but I can imagine and even if it's not 1/200th as bad as it actually is, I know the pit is an awful place to be. Maybe if I go away, you'll come out. But maybe if I stay, you'll decide it's nicer on the surface. I can't take you to the doctor or force pills down your throat.

Sometimes I'll stay, sometimes I'll go. I'll carry you with me forever, though, and no matter what happens, I'll always wonder if there was more I could have done, even if I did everything.

Sincerely,
Your Friend