i took a shower today.  

I said these words and thought these words when trying to quantify an achievement for the day.  It wasn't today.  I have not showered yet.  It is one o'clock in the afternoon.  

Depression has definitely been a factor for a few weeks and simple things like showering, washing dishes, even putting dog food in a bowl to care for the critters with whom i live - it's just exhausting. 

And i've done stuff.  i've gone to work, bought groceries, even went to a few social outings.  And in all the minutes i'm [sleep] walking through life, all i could think about was hiding under blankets again with or without eyes closed and with or without silence.  when the blanket is the important bit, it matters not if i'm sleeping or awake. 

And the blankets smell like dog.  (because i have these monsters laying on me - which is quite lovely and i miss them when they nest up on the comforters they stole across the room.)  So i smell like dog.  Everything in my house is covered with dog hair and dog smell.  A little one i work with said, "you smell like puppies and perfume."  To which i replied, "Puppies is my perfume."  It was enough of a jest to make her laugh and enough to convey that i hold no embarrassment about the fragrant scent wafting from my skin.  But the cause of the smell is .... the cause of the dog smell is simply because i cannot do a simple thing like cleaning my skin some days.  

I like being clean.  i like lying in a tub of bubbles and smoothing oils and creams on my skin to soothe any ache in my muscles and open my pores to remove the grime of the world.  And most days i am.  Most days, i can get through a shower or bath and pull some clean clothes on my body, brush my hair and even get mascara all the way to my eyelashes.  But on the days that i can't - the days i don't give a fuck if anyone can smell the stink i can.  (my nose is closer to me than anyone else - i know i smell bad.)  Those days are days of unease.  again it's not embarrassment.  i'm good with puppies being my perfume.  But it's an unease.  it's the cycle of why can't i function in a manner which  i expect others?  how can i have this derision in my thoughts manifesting itself with a crinkle of nose and a furrow of brow with the perplexing question of why can't they be clean?  it ever occurs to me that on some days i am not. 

There is a bit of --  that which we don't like about others is the thing in which we hate about ourselves.  i hate seeing bad parenting because i question my parental skills.  I don't like talking to obstinate people without a clue because i fear that in my stubbornness, i'm dumb and bullying my way into acceptance of my opinions. 

So what about this shower thing?  i am a blamer.  I say the words that i am explaining, not excusing; but, in contemplation [and among other mad folks] i can be honest with myself and use the word blame in relation to my behavior.  I can blame not having time or energy to do this thing that seems regular.  That's not true though.  i have water.  i have a hot water heater.  i live alone, so i never have to wait for a turn.  And yet? 

It takes three minutes to shower and thirty seven to fret about the process.  In the time it takes me to silently grouse about going through the process, i could have showered, made and drank a cup of coffee and read a short chapter of a book.  

The shower is not the only thing.  (and again, it's not every day)  It's washing dishes and cleaning the floors and doing laundry and making dinner.... And to be clear, this is not a joke where it's like, by the time i get out the shampoo, conditioner, soap, razor, scrunchy sponge, face scrub, foot scrub, and sugar scrub for my relaxing bath i can only fall asleep in the tub.  (not getting clean at all)  This has never been a joke.  When i think to myself, 'i took a shower today.' it's to reassure myself that i did something hard.  i did something my brain was fighting against.    

So right now, six hours after i woke up, i am lying on the couch on a dog-smelling blanket with my feet on a cane corso.  i have not showered today.  i have cleaned the floors and learned a new knitting stitch.  

I don't know why mental illness beats us up so hard.  I look at the pill bottles sitting on my coffee table and read the names to ensure i'm taking the right ones for the time of day and still it's excruciatin to remove the lids and count the pills while avoiding the slivers of light from the blinds covering the windows.  I'm afraid if i go outside, someone will see that i am mad.  Someone will know that i couldn't shower today.  And truly there are days when i don't give a fuck.  I'm not sure it matters with the dark cloud if i care or not.  it's hard to appear normal.  It's hard to do regular.  

   Last night, i left work relatively on time, took the train into the city, walked down the street to the bank, withdrew money from my account and walked down another street with intention to get a beer before watching a movie. 
   I knew the bar i intended to sit my ass on a stool to drink a pint and watch the minutes.  It was one that is not real busy and i could definitely hide in there without talking to anyone.  Still, i started about two blocks from the bank.  Should i go to, a thousand others on my way?  Should i text the remaining six people in the world i like to join me?  Should i stay on target and just get to where I wanted to be? 
    It was already starting and i didn't see it.  I went, ordered my beer, slid my dollars to the waitress and sat at a corner table alone.  I sipped from the pint watching people pass the open window, others at the bar talking about whiskey and work.  My heartbeat was calm.  Temperature reasonable.  Head at peace.  I read some emails, exchanged some text messages and was relatively content. 
   I walked to the movie theatre and bought a vegan cookie to eat outside while i waited for more minutes to tick and tock.  A sparrow dove at me from the tree under which i sat.  I startled and moved.  My heartbeat was still calm.  My temperature reasonable.  Head was at peace.  I ate my cookie.  
   I checked in to the screening and took my commemorative magnet and pin before getting a seltzer and taking my seat five rows back and in the middle.  Fifteen minutes to dark.  I was still fine.  People flooded in, but i had a buffer.  Two seats to the left.  Two seats the right.  Two people directly behind me, but no one between me and the screen.  Ten minutes to dark.  I was fine.  
   Then my eyes hurt.  i took off my glasses.  My head pounded.  I grew hot.  My heartbeat raced.  My thoughts raced.  My airway closed and my breathing became labored.  I looked  around and no one else was panicked.  Nothing changed in the theatre.  We were not under invisible attack.  Well, I was being attacked.  No one noticed and no one came to my rescue.  I had to get out of my seat.  i had to get to some place with more air.  I had to get someplace where the force pressing against my ears and eyes had room to move away from me.  I picked up my handbag and looked to my left, then to my right.  I had to pass five people on the right and two on the left.  The right was closer to the door.  The right is the way i came into the theatre.  The right way was the only way that made sense.  I excused myself over their legs, purses and popcorn hoping i didn't bump anything or anyone, not for the embarrassment of spilling something, but because if anything touched my body i will have known i made the wrong directional choice and would have to turn back to go left.  
   I pushed the door open and tried to breathe the outside air.  I still could not open my lungs.  I walked away gasping and holding my bag wanting to fall on the ground in tears.  I looked for my sunglasses to buffer my eyes from the setting sun in the overcast cloudy sky.  Left on the coffee table at home.  I told myself i could do this.  I couldn't feel my legs beneath me.  I couldn't see the traffic i walked into while i made my way to the bus.  I took my seat and put my little bag on the seat next to me to indicate, no you may not sit next to me, and watched out the window as the streets moved to the back of my periphery. 
   I stepped onto the blacktop.  Just two more blocks until home.  i can do this.  I walked in front of another car without apology.  I turned the corner and looked up to a porch to a neighbors house that usually gets a hello.  no neighbor.  breath.  i didn't have to choke out any words.  Walked in the middle of the street to buffer myself from the kids playing on the sidewalk.  Two more neighbors on their porch.  Can i get away with a wave?  I sighed heavily and made a noise as my hand went up into the air.  Not a word, but enough of a salutation to pass.  The Carolyns are sitting three doors down calling out to me.  I try to just wave and pull my keys from my handbag.  There's a red cup on my step with two ice cubes.  i turn to the cat in the car behind me.  "Is this your cup?"  He looks at me as if I used foreign words - and who knows - maybe i did?  I repeat myself using all my energy.  "Is this your cup?"  He responds, "nah, you can toss it."  I place it upon the trash from the weekend in the trash bin i haven't had it in me to put away since last week.  If it was his and he wants it, it's not spilled out, but it's not on my step to coax ants for a visit. 
   I turn the key, yell at my dog to stop jumping.  She jumps on the couch with ears down because she knows she forgot we don't do that anymore.  I shuffle to the kitchen to give her a cookie for remembering, even if she messed up at first, turned the container's lid to pull out food for her bowl.  I put the other dog in another room to close the door and let him eat without her interest in his bowl.  Turn on the tub and sink thinking the warm water will cycle through my pores and relieve the anxiety.  It didn't.  I'm not sure if the water made it worse, but it certainly didn't help.  The steam was choking me.  The pungent fragrance of rosemary and mint cut through my throat and I was mad at myself for buying that scent of shampoo.  I let the water out beneath me and feared falling when i stepped out from the slippery ceramic.
   Wrapped in a towel, i opened the door for my guy and sunk into the couch with two dogs at my feet.  I just needed to breathe.  I just needed air.  I still was struggling.  I took a quarter dose of my anti-psychotic, looking at the time, knowing it was too early in the evening to take the full dose.  I considered that this was not anxiety.  I could not reason why my body was shutting down although it was speeding up in every way.  My skin was prickly.  My eyes burned and tears fell from my cheeks. my nose felt swollen.  I looked at the bottles of medication and knew none of them would help me. 
   A sweatshirt and underwear was excruciating to  pull onto my body.  I wrapped up in a comforter and smelled the moisture being pulled from the air by the machine in the window.  I had to get out of the house, but outside was worse from what i remembered the evening to be. 
   It was that moment - when i wanted to be out of the house, but needed to be in it more - that i realized it was an anxiety attack.  Or a panic attack.  It was an attack.  From the inside.  I wanted to write then about it, wanted to get it out, but the thought of stringing words together in any cohesive form was overwhelming.  I couldn't' even look at my laptop.  I just sat there in silence helpless against the attack. 
   I know that was a long way to go.  I know that was a lot of words.  But that is what i experienced from the onset of the episode until i can't remember what happened to end it.  I woke today exhausted.  I can't remember my dreams which have been vivid since i started taking seroquel.  I still feel like i'm walking through a cloud and i imagine today is going to be completely non-productive.  I expect it.  
   On the train today, i considered the moments I survived last night.  I labeled it anxiety.  And then i remembered i used to use the words anxiety attack.  i sometimes used the words panic attack.  I used the word attack.    Attack:  an aggressive or violent act.  Attacked from my insides.  I keep saying it because i thought those words over and over while i sat sipping my iced coffee in my routine. 
   It's the kind of attack in which no one runs to rescue.  And if they do, it sometimes makes it worse.  It's the kind of attack one must battle on their own.  It's the kind of attack that movie goers and bus drivers and neighbors can't even see.  It's a forceful and viscous assault on my mind and body.  It's a punch to my spirit and stability. 
   I don't know what i'm getting to with this - many times I don't.  I suppose it's just another explanation of my madness.  A journal of bedlam.  I wish it ended here.  i wish that will be the final attack I feel.  It's doubtful that's true.  And for those looking for a reason, or claiming there is something external that causes this, know that it strikes without warning.  It happens while in a routine.  Within the benign that i carry myself through a thousand times (and also when chaos is an external factor), there is an attack, and there is nothing i can do but fight to get to a safe place where i can heal before going back into battle.                                                              

d  It’s been two weeks since I got a tattoo of a nickel on my right wrist.  It’s a 1973 P Jefferson Head.  As a guide, I could only find a ‘73 D and I don’t know if nickels were minted in Philadelphia in that year.  I intend to get tails with Monticello on my left.  Anyway, my dad said, “If you have a dime in your pocket, you’re never broke and you always have a way home.”
I was fond of dimes for quite a while.  I think I liked the magic three on the tails.  It could have been it was the smallest of the coins in my pocket.  It may have been the words from my father.  
   I don’t know when the fondness of dimes fell away to nickels, but I have enjoyed them for years.  Lucy Van Pelt of Peanuts fame charged a nickel for a psychiatric appointment.  When finished, I’ll have one for now and one for later.  And still there is that thing my dad said about ten cents. 
   While helping me fix my house, my niece said, “When you have the time, you don’t have the nickels.  When you have the nickels, you don’t have the time.”  She could have said any coin or dollar or the generic word, money.  She chose nickel.  And still there is that thing my dad about ten cents. 
   It’s no secret that I was in a horrific abusive relationship.  It’s no secret that I have this mental illness that feels like a list of disorders when I quantify the ineptness of my brain and body. And if you know me - really know me - you know that I have terrible financial wellness.  I still have that thing my dad had about ten cents though. 
   It’s all money.  There’s a heavy sigh while I sip from my cup of coffee and consider if I really am ready to discuss money and mental illness.  Invariably there will be discussion of abuse and money in my words.  I’m not sure I can separate for me the abuses I experienced from my mental illness.  I have no clue still if my mental illness caused the abuse or if the abuse caused the mental illness, or even still if they are separate but related.  I guess I will Venn Diagram this shit later.  
   Money.  My childhood.  It turns out we were not crazy poor, but neither wealthy by any means.  We were middle class.  Probably the middle of the middle class.  We- I mean my parents.  However, my mother would say things to make me believe we were poor.  Like on the low end of lower class.  The groceries we had in the house were the store brand and we never ordered pizza from the parlor down the street.  She would remind us all the time that we didn’t have money for everything we wanted and sometimes things we needed.  Looking back, we had too much on holidays.  She took us to five different fast food restaurants for lunch so everyone got what they wanted and she didn’t have to cook.  I could go on about the things I remember that doesn’t fall into the lie, “We can’t afford that.”
   Money.  My adult life.  I always worked and always had a paycheck that was coming.  I remember specific times when my pockets were flush and other times that my pockets didn’t have a dime, two nickels, or any coin to equal ten cents.  I was broke and there was no getting home.  
   So here is the analysis.  How can I have grown up with financial insecurity pressed upon my wants and needs and then not protect my pockets from emotional abuse? Maybe before this analysis, I should share what has been churning in my head and life before I ruminate on all that.
   Yesterday I paid my cell phone bill.  It was my payday.  My phone had been turned off for four days for non-payment.  I wasn’t worried.  My electric bill got paid eight days ago when I received a notice threatening disconnection if the bill wasn’t paid within ten days.  I’ve talked to four car dealerships so that I can have a little more flexibility in commuting and running errands.  I can’t figure out how to pay the down payment and quite honestly although I know with my wages, I can afford the monthly payments, but if I don’t have the discipline to pay the light bill on time, how can I keep current on vehicle payments? 
   And then reflecting on those shortfalls, I scoop up the coins in the bottom of my purse and drop it into the country rose vase that was given to me by my life partner’s mother.  It’s been half full for three years.  I realize that my wallet has enough dollars to give my adult children adequate spending and vacation money even if I’m pulling out nickels to pay for a chicken sandwich a day before my payday.
   Big friggin’ deal… right?  It is.  
   My doctor asked me one day what I spent my money on.  It’s not uncommon to go on a spending spree with mania.  It’s not uncommon to spend on things one does not need and cannot afford.  This is not just buying a diamond ring in the middle of February because it’s pretty, but it extends to spending habits so subtle that one may not even see it’s part of the madness.  So whatever I needed or whatever I discussed, my doctor asked the question, “Why can’t you do this?”  

Me:  I don’t have the money.  
Him: What did you do with your money?
Me:  What money? 
Him: You work and earn money.  What did you do with your money since you got paid?

   My brow furrowed.  As my dad used to say, I got my back up and I was insulted at his accusation that I was not wise with my choices over those two weeks.  My heart whispered to my brain, that’s not his business.  And then I justified whose pockets I moved my coins to, “I paid for groceries and my train pass to get into work.”  
He pursed his lips and his silence drew out the truth.  Today I cannot remember what I spent my money on, but I remember that was the day I became more mindful of my spending.  I have not changed my habits again, but I do watch my hand as I open my wallet now. 
   I lived with a drug addict for close to twenty years.  I supported a drug habit for close to twenty years.  I also lived with an abuser for twenty years as an adult and before, all of my life.  If anyone has heard me talk about it, they may think I believe I am a victim.  I’m just trying to open about it.  I am a sum of my parts and this is a part of me.
   One may think the financial abuse was a part of the drug use.  He took every penny from the house to buy his fix.  But then why were there days when I walked seven miles in and home from work while he had bus fare to go to the other side of the neighborhood?  Why was I shopping at the dollar store and giving my kids hot dogs, when he was out buying dinner for his friends?  Why was I hiding video games I bought for my kids so he didn’t pawn them when he bought another game console on a whim?  So yes; on the surface, using money for drugs must be the reason the finances were up and down with her.  But it goes deeper.  He took money and lied to me.  Had me at a bank crying because my debit card had been cloned.  His bike was stolen, he said because I didn’t lock it up.  My bike was stolen because I left it in the backyard and someone must have hopped over two fences and then taken it.  The television was stolen because I left the front door open.  All of those things needed to be replaced.  He controlled how much money we had even though it was in my name.  
   So it sounds like I’m blaming.  It sounds like I’m blaming my mother and my life partner for habits.  At this point in my life, it’s not a habit.  I understand it’s part of my brain.  There are weeks when I don’t buy groceries and I don’t eat at home.  There are weeks I spend hundreds of dollars in cleaning supplies.  I spend money until I don’t have it.  And other days I get through four and twenty hours without a penny leaving my fingers.  
   My money this past pay period, for anyone asking, I had this tattoo put on my arm.  I bought groceries and dog food.  I bought cleaning products.  I filled my Wawa card, my Dunkin’ card, and my Starbucks.  I bought two books I haven’t started reading yet and tickets for a show.  I gave two of my four children money for vacation and groceries.  And the most boring of my expenditures, I bought a couple pair of pants.   
   My vase is still half full of change.  I wanna say that again.  My vase is still half full of change.  I totally say the words half full now.  I’m not sure it was a conscience change from half empty.  But I know that now I say half full.  My vase is half full of change.  I’m changing, even if I am only half-way there.  My vase is half full of change.  I’ll take half instead of none. 
   I am probably not poor even though I never have any money.  
   I don’t know why it’s so uncomfortable to talk about money.  To admit the state of one’s financial health.  Coming from someone who just started (relatively speaking) about the state of their mental health is pretty ballsy.  I too find discomfort with it.  I heard a friend say, money is only important if there is not enough of it.  At the time, I thought that was true.  It was at the waning end of the abuse mentioned above.  But now without anyone to blame about the emptiness of my wallet, I am beginning to understand that money is important even when there is enough.  Money is the means by which we live.  We trade money for needs as well as wants.  In a case where the mind is not with all it’s wits, I’m considering that money is behaviorally tells of mental instability.  This is not to say it’s just empty pockets.  When I was ghost writing, I wrote tens of thousands of words which translated into nickels while manic.  Full pockets could be a result of working more in mania or spending less because the only thing we feed is our exhaustion in a depression.  It’s not necessarily one way or the other.
   A friend once said, “If I have a bed, you have a floor.”  And recently I have said to a few, “I would rather you not struggle if I have it in my pocket.”  In this acceptance of the importance of money, there is a corresponding irrelevance for it to hold onto it.  I’ve known people who have more than me and who hold their nickels so tight, Jefferson is gasping for air.  I knew someone who said the most generous are those who don’t have it to give.  I don’t think it’s true to say with absolution that the wealthy are less generous, but I believe that there must be some introspection with one’s financial wellness to decide what relationship they have with their wallet.
   So what is this all about?  I suppose, I put this nickel on my body to remind me of all that, in all the chaotic twists and turns it has been shaping the person I am.  Maybe my vase is only half full, but it’s not empty anymore.   

    I was swimming.  Not floating, but swimming.  I started struggling yesterday late and i sat to reflect on the things i wanted to get done this weekend, and the things i had accomplished.  I felt like i did nothing, because i have this monster of a mess i have to sort through.   I literally did eighteen other big things that needed to get done in my life, but not the monster.  
    Today, i'm exhausted.  The kind of exhaustion leaving my vision blurring and my mind foggy.  The kind of exhaustion where i'm afraid to blink, because my lids are too heavy to open again.  
    I have my gym clothes in my bag.  it's been three weeks and i'm pleased to say that i'm riding about ten miles each time i go, which has been four times a week.  I feel like i'm getting fatter.  I was told that seroquel puts weight on some.  I've been reading all the side effects again and i realized it's not the medication i thought it was.  I'm wondering if the half life of this is contributing to this exhaustion today.  There are sexual side effects and irregularities in sleep/wake patterns as well as the slowing effect to the metabolism.  I'm an eater.  So i'm sitting and eating for energy instead of taking a nap.  I can't take a nap.  i'm at my place of employment that provides, if nothing more, fancy dog food and health insurance.  
    And then five minutes before i started writing these paragraphs, i felt it.  the tears welling up in my chest, trying to meander their way around my body so i don't notice them making a path to my eyes.  I don't want to cry.  I feel like I've been slammed down with this invisible force.  It's depression.  I know what it is.  I've done this before.  
    I don't want the swing into the darkness right now.  i can't deal with this.  (which is making this weight heavier.) 
    There was a song a hundred years ago, or three lifetimes, i can't remember when - this song had lyrics, She's a brick and i'm drowning slowly off the coast and i'm heading nowhere.  She's a brick and i'm drowning slowly.  I feel both like the she in the song and the he who feels the suck of her weight upon him.  Another song just rotated into my ears with lyrics, I"m lonely and i'm tired and i can't take any more pain.
    I don't want this cycle anymore.  i'm so tire of it.  i'm tired of crying about it and feeling helpless.  My medication is making it better, but i'm hardly well.  Am i going to keep going?  Yes.  Am i going to be miserable for the next few days with a quiet longing for my blankets and sleep.  A hundred percent. 
    I'm in a place in my life where things are better around me and for me.  I kind of hate myself for feeling all of these things... the brick and the thing being weighed down, lonely and tired with an inability to take on one more prick of pain. 

I feel I should begin this post with some trigger warnings.  Rape, Violence, Anger, Sexual Misconduct, General Misconduct, Predatory Behavior, Intimidation, Social Acceptance of Repulsion, Politics, Economy... 

Complacent is not the word for how I feel toward the rape culture in which I live; but I feel like when I express my opinion about events in my life, my attitude may be viewed as such.  I was reprimanded by a favorite last night and was asked to stop talking.  I wasn’t finished talking.  I wanted to delve into why it was an uncomfortable conversation.  It certainly wasn’t a revelation that these things occurred in my life.  I didn’t think there was anything my friend was hiding.  And then the words were said, “Just because it regularly happens, doesn’t make it right.”  I used the word normal.  I’m big on mot using the word normal and try to use the word regular.  And when offense was taken to the word normal; I realized I meant regular, because it should not be normalized. 
I am wrong.  I wish I could express the jumble of apology with as much depth as I feel to this friend.  It wasn’t very nice of me to persist when I was asked to stop. 
And so I have been unraveling the feelings and memories I have.  I shared at least four times in the few minutes we spoke of physical or sexual violation using the word ‘first’ in each story.  And then this morning, I realize my words weren’t true.  There was a time before that I recall and a time before that.  It’s just a piece of who I am.  Some of it is what gives me the strength to walk around.  And some of it is what gives me the fear to - yes, walk around.
This is where it’s going to get detailed and personal and probably a little political. Unlike sitting at the bar and asking me to be quiet while I persist, you can shut off now and stop drawing in my words. 
Upon reflection, I don’t know if any of these are ‘first times’ but I’m going to try to make this a linear cohesive expression of what I’m thinking.  In eighth grade, I sat on the bleachers in gym class with shorts that were probably too short and too tight.  From under the bleachers, someone in my class touched the skin on my thigh and when I was startled, I shifted in my seat, enough to allow a finger to be inserted into my vagina.  Eighth grade.  I just noticed I wrote the word allow.  And I’m going to leave it there in that sentence.  But I didn’t request it, nor did I allow it.  My cheeks flushed and a tear formed in the corner of my eye.  I knew who was under the bleachers and by the end of the day, I knew which of the two penetrated me without consent.  I had to look at them in school that day and every day after for years.  I spoke with him on the phone outside of school.  I never confronted him about his finger.  I never told anyone I was in school with about it.  Three people, to my knowledge, knew it happened.  Me, and the two under the bleachers.  It was never addressed.  
In eleventh grade, someone who sat behind me touched my hair.  I sat in history class knowing the person behind me would sit for the forty five minute class and touch my hair.  He sat behind me in other classes, but the only class I noticed he touched my hair was history class.  I was afraid of him.  I’m not sure why.  He made me feel ooky when he looked at me and when he asked me for my phone number, I was strong enough to decline.  I was the weird girl in the back.  It would seem like I would welcome any attention I could get, right?  I didn’t want to feel ooky.  It occurs to me now that I did not consent to this hair touching.  I also did not consent to him cornering me near my locker, or following me home.  Other than the hair touching, there was no physical contact, but I was intimidated.  I was frightened.  
At the same time, I had a friend who made a false rape claim.  The situation was bizarre and this was the tipping point to alleviate myself from her friendship.  She had been lying to people with whom we worked about dating someone because she disliked being single.  (Eleventh grade)  There was no boy.  Of course those with whom we worked wanted to meet (the non-existent) boy.  She had to break up with him.  But why?  She claimed he raped her.  And her story convinced all of us.  She called me crying and short of breath.  And when I realized she was talking about the boy she made up, I was worried that she lost her grip on reality.  Understanding she lied to cover a lie and took it to a crazy dark place was not something I could handle.  I abandoned our friendship and did not try to make sense out of it.  We had friends who had been molested by family members and were witness to boyfriends and girlfriends treating each other poorly already. Middle school and high school.  Who was she lying to?  Who was she lying for?
I was in high school and a stupid thing we did was pick up the pay phone when it rang at the mall and give people our phone number.  Girlfriend who lied about her boyfriend wanted me to have my own.  She gave a caller my number.  He called and I was curious where it would lead so I talked to him.  Until he sat across the street from my house and watched me.  That was terrifying.  My father was a police officer and I felt like if I told him about this person, I would get in trouble for being stupid.  And trouble in our house didn’t mean being grounded.  It meant physical and emotional pain.  It was easier to deal with this alone.  After all I was almost an adult.  He became more aggressive, calling with sexual requests and masturbating while I was on the phone.  If I hung up, he called back.  It was a time of house phones.  It was easier to take the call than explain to my mother that I didn’t want to talk to someone.  When he knocked on the door when I was home alone and walked into my house and pulled me onto his tense lap in a chair I had to look at every day, I let him.  I didn’t want a fight in my house.  He left minutes later.  I can’t remember what stopped that situation.  I think I moved out of my parents house soon after. 
The first time I was actually raped, I was at a party.  Or I was under a party.  Someone at the party told me he would take me home because I was in no condition to be around people.  And to this day, I preface the tale with, it was my fault, and then I hate myself for post-consenting to the violence.  I was led down to a mattress in a stone basement and penetrated in both vagina and mouth by what I remember to be four people.  I was held down, but wasn’t fighting.  I just wanted to be sleeping in a safe place.  I remember thinking, I’ll just get through this and then I’ll get to go home.  But I blacked out.  Shut down.  My mind didn’t want to be there and powered off.  I woke up bloodied and bruised and alone.  Walking through the house to leave, one of the faces told me I should come around more often and I did everything I could to hold myself together until I was in the shower at school so that no one could see the tears stream down my face.  I was in college.  I just turned eighteen.  I saw the boy who said he would take me home later at a bar/club we frequented to dance.  I watched him dance with a statue and have a good time.  My body was frozen and my eyes could not leave him alone.  The friend I was with questioned me and when I pointed out that I didn’t know how to deal with the feelings I had thought I forgotten, he got into a physical fight with the rapist while I stayed frozen on a bar stool.  I don’t know how I got home that night.  I saw the rapist a few times after and each time I kind of black out while I was around him. 
Then I lived with a brutality I’m not prepared to share right now.  I’ve worked with people who have assaulted or intimidated me physically and sexually.  I’m also coming to terms with the fact I probably have post traumatic stress disorder. 
The friend I was out with last night reminds me that my life is terrible all the time.  It makes me smile.  Not that I’ve gone through it.  But that I’m still alive.  There’s a sense of pride figuring out the survival mechanisms to breathe.  And when I can’t figure it out, my brain just powers down so my body can work out the necessities without being paralyzed by something as stupid as fear. 
I know this is a long way to get to the political climate of the day, which precipitated the discussion last night.  
Last night, I watched Caberet for the first time ever.  I say I don’t like musicals.  I think I may really like musicals.  But that introspection is neither here nor there right now.  (actually, I’m going to explore this on the writing in a row house page in a bit.)  Caberet, for those who don’t know, has a gradual progression into intimidation with a backdrop of sexy naughty girls and boys.  Traditional gender roles were questioned, words were key for innuendo, and in this production, there was a blatant parallel between events leading to the Nazi rise to power and the Trumpian world I currently reside.
A movie mogul is accused of rape and sexual misconduct.  Our President treats women with disgusting depravity.  One has been ousted from his position, while the other remains…..  
I’m not surprised by the casting couch revelations.  It all seems regular to me.  I was in a pool when I was in second grade and the older boys in the neighborhood pulled my swimsuit away from my body.  One of them commented about the pubic hair he could see through the yellow spandex.  As an adult I hear family members and friends talk about their girls enticing boys.  It’s all a game of sex.  Everything seems to be sexualized.  And in my world, that comes without consent.  
So, I’m spending a lot of time in the past few weeks thinking on the matter.  And trying to sort it through with one of my favorites didn’t turn out to be productive.  
I had lunch or brunch or some kind of food with an old friend who told me that one of the best things they remember about when we first met was that I said they had a nice neck.  I was behind someone and felt it was appropriate to say, ‘your neck is beautiful’.  I remember the neck.  And I think now to when my hair was being touched.  It was around the same time in my life.  Was I the intimidating jerk sitting behind someone in class giving unwanted advances?   
There’s countless stories like that I’ve recalled over the past few weeks.  Sometimes it’s a word that I know makes people uncomfortable, yet persist in using for shock or to hurt, when that’s my intention.  Sometimes it’s an action that gets out of hand.  Still I’m the jerk face acting.  
I’ve had times when I’m sitting with someone and I think I’m reading signals, or I’m sending signals… there’s a sexuality present in many moments shared between people.  Except when it’s not.  Except when there is no thought of sexual attraction.  This consent though, this non-consent, this mutual intimacy only occurs when both parties are cool with the attraction.  But how does one tell?  Certainly a movie mogul who meets young actresses can’t believe there is an attraction to all of them.  He knows that he is a predator.  The president knows he is a predator.  Right?  
I’m as offended at the shirtless men who are ogled by women as I am by topless women ogled by men.  And then I go to a show like Cabaret where the boys are wearing corsets and garters while kissing one another and I’m aroused.  I’m aroused and I’m curious what their mouths feel like on each other and I think sexual thoughts about the scenes I’m witnessing as the Nazi’s are moving in to restrict who is allowed to perform in the theatre and go to the theatre and marry in Berlin while an American who doesn’t think these heavy things are his fight, turns to run home because these terrible events will not affect him at home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Sex sells.  Sex is pleasure.  Sex seems to be a part of everything.  
But I’m considering, as I have in the past, that it’s not the pleasure side of sex.  It’s the control part.  And in my experience, when sex is the best is when there is a release of control.  There is a freedom in not being held down and not holding anything back.  There’s an impassioned crescendo allowing the purest of breath to pass through and relieve all the senses.  Sight turns to darkness and sound blurs within ears.  Whatever the science is behind an orgasm, it has nothing to do with being restrained.  
I feel like we’re taught - not just girls! Everyone!- I feel like we’re taught to be desirable to others.  To what purpose?  And I feel like we’re taught to endure some abuses because the assumed benefit outweigh the atrocities to our spirits.  I feel like I’m at fault for learning these lessons as well as teaching them.  I struggle hard to get to the next sunset, I can’t take on the enormity of coming to terms with all the facets of sexism.  I don’t know what my place in this morass of depravity.  If I ever made anyone uncomfortable, not only with my actions, but with my words, or a look… if I am responsible for anyone questioning their worth beyond their dick or their pussy, then I am guilty.  I can’t fathom that I’ve lived so long without being in such a position to cause pain.  
And then I think about intention.  Intention is big with me.  The intention of the movie mogul (I assume) is to get the physical release of an orgasm, the emotional charge of being in control, and the sensational gain of another movie on the screen.  The President in his misogyny is, in my opinion, more despicable.  Since his days in the limelight, he has used his money and name to become a character in his own depravity.  No reports of rape have surfaced yet for him, but he has said things to imply his daughter was sexually desirable to him.  He has said on record that women allow his sexual assault because of his societal position.  Society is completely dismantling one man’s career and then providing excuses for another who is in a position to allow an egregious devolution of consenting society.  Is it because no one has confirmed he penetrated them?  It is because all of the other things I have experienced except penile penetration were not rapey enough?  Am I being sensitive when I talk about it and admit these things happened or am I apathetic when I ignore that which I don’t think I have the strength to change?  I’m consenting to silence because I’m repulsed when I admit these things occur.
Consent.  (My fingers kept typing the word condescend.  Maybe it is a condescension.  It absolutely is condescension!) 
I was forcing myself on my friend last night.  I was forcing him to listen to me as I spoke on the matter when he did not want to listen to me justify predatory behavior.  My intention was to explain.  Not excuse.  In realizing, I don’t think an apology will help.  I disregarded his consent. Truly the best person I know and I was a jerk to him.  
I’m sick about the state of the world.  And feel helpless.  I’m scared.  I’m scared that the the things that have been regular abuses facing people will no longer be shameful acts that people hide.  I’m scared of some big things, because of how small some things make me feel. 

​A few weeks ago, a friend who knows many of my mental illness struggles sat with me at lunch and I explained to her how I managed to deal with some everyday life issues.  Specifically, my home.  Aside from the metaphoric home that represents security and peace, the physical house in which I live – my home – is a mess.   The house is in need of repair and we live in it, so there is constant upkeep.  It’s a house.  It’s a home. 
So, specifically, my dog pee’d on the electrical outlet in which my refrigerator was plugged.  When you stop laughing at this and read on, I’ll tell you that I handled this situation with grace and intelligence.  I had a short-term plan and a long term plan.  A temporary fix and a permanent repair plan.  And I was able to do this without interruption of the day.  Literally moving the fridge to another outlet.  Easy right?  Well I tried to explain, and my old pal understood that on a different day, that action would have been excruciating. 
Yesterday morning, when I flushed the toilet, the handle popped off.  Just broke.  These things happen.  I take a breath, but instead of exhaling a plan to go to the store, buy the piece and replace the broken bit, I broke down.  I sat and drank a couple extra cups of coffee and fought against crying because regardless of all the things I pretend to be capable of dealing with, I feel like the mask of normalcy cracks, and I’m not even sure why I try at all.  I went to work, stopped at the home improvement store and bought the piece.  Waiting for the bus to get home, I wanted to collapse.  The piece weighs less than half a pound.  It’s a toilet handle.  Just the handle.  It seemed unbearably heavy. 
I was starving.  I wanted to eat.  I wanted to put the piece on the table and make something to eat first and I knew that would leave me exhausted and I would promise that I would change the piece the next day.  After all, the toilet still worked – just not the way it should. 
I took another breath and walked upstairs to the bathroom, opened the package and twisted the nut off the handle.  I slide the rod through the hole in the tank, twisted the nut back onto the threads.  Done.  Test.  It works.  Even running down the street for the eight dollar piece, all in, active time for this fix was less than a half hour.  It was exhausting.
These two things describe my complacency and agony with my brain.  Today is the agony. 
I used to scratch my skin until it bled.  My ex said, ‘you’re horrible to your skin,’ even though I knew I would use rich and expensive lotions and oils to keep it soft and elastic.  And yet, I scratched it open.  Frequently.  I was treated (in error) for kidney failure and next for a bum pancreas, with doctors explaining to me that my body is suffering malnutrition along with the anemia I knew I had.  I became enlightened to the fact that malnourished individuals have a habit of rubbing and scratching their skin as a means to stimulate nutrients to get to the extremities.  A survival instinct.  And I looked at my fingernails with an understanding that I had to stop scratching my skin open.  I reasoned that I could not keep bleeding.  And at my most recent doctor appointment, I was told, ‘no you cannot donate blood right now.  You don’t have enough for you.’  Quite honestly, I may be doing a disservice to those relying on the blood banks by giving them a batch of mine.
And today, years after I’ve begun wearing acrylic all the time on my nails so they are not sharp enough to cut, and I have lessened the habitual scratching, I feel a feeling that I know was a piece of that cutting and scratching. 
I’m crazy.  Or anxious.  Or manic.  I don’t know exactly what this is but it is what I know.  It’s a part of the home that’s inside me.  It’s a part of what makes me too uncomfortable to sit among the normals.  It’s a feeling that I want to peel off my skin.
I received a notification for a Halloween even.  It’s a burlesque show celebrating a performer who shows graphic sex and violence in his work.  Brutal bloodletting and torture as well as sex and anger.  I suppose there is a pleasure in the release of the heavy emotions associated with this type of act.  This type of art.  So, my brain went to work, skimming through my slim list of friends to invite to a nudie show that is going to be challenging to watch with my past experiences and the current state of my brain.  But I want to.  I want to go to this show because it sounds interesting and I want my brain to stop shutting down when experiencing the sights and sounds of brutality.  I want to train it to be better than it is. 
And then, as I sit and get on with my day and drink another cup of coffee, I realize, I’m completely mad.  I’m crazy.  I’m anxious.  I’m manic. 
I’m on the brink of tears without the strength or calm to reason why.  I feel dumb and brilliant at the same time.  I feel like this mass of blood and flesh is getting in the way of letting my brilliance shine.  I want to tear off my skin and be truly who I am without the mask everyone sees and judges.
I wish I had a lifestyle that allowed me to cocoon up and wait for this to pass.  (I do still have faith that these periods of insanity pass… or at least wax and wane with the movement of the moon and earth)  I’ve considered that if my lifestyle did allow such hibernation, it would be detrimental to my health and extend these periods of chaos.  For crying out loud, I was frozen stiff at an historic tour because there were birds crunching in the dry leaves of the park.  I know if I didn’t force myself to face the sunlight on the days my brain is most unprepared… well, I think I would devolve into a corpse with a ferocity slowed currently by the sheer will to see one more sunset. 
It’s hard.  It’s fucking hard to be crazy.  It’s even harder to be strong through it.  I feel weak and small so often and then I have to remind myself that I am strong.  I carried a heavy thing yesterday and did an important thing.  The perception of others that it was small doesn’t change the greatness it means in my life. 

“Look at the date,” a coworker who was obsessed with watching the news said.
I said the words, “September eleventh,” while I nodded, not understanding what she was trying to show me. 
“Nine eleven,” she said and then walked back into her office.
I sat looking around me for someone to explain.  I wrote the numbers, nine, eleven, oh-one.  I didn’t understand.
I had never referred to our emergency service as nine eleven.  I always said Nine One One.  I was in shock and didn’t understand the symbolism.  All I knew was the world changed.
September 11, 2001.  We all have a story about our morning sixteen years ago.  We all have a memory about where we were and how we found out and the aftermath of significance to our lives.  This is my story.
Now to interject, I should tell you that I’m not sure I’ve ever spoken about this with the gravity of my intention today.  It may be a little emotional and this may contain triggers. 
In my lifetime, we had become a global community.  As a child, the only way I would speak to someone on the other side of the world, barring an international excursion would be mitigated by a postal worker.  I had pen-pals in other countries.  I put pen to paper and mailed letters to recipients across the state, the country, and the world.  I was pulling in information, personalities, current events, right from the kids who experienced it.   I loved the exchange of paper, photos, and words.
And then the internet exploded.  More connections.  Everything became digital.  We shared photos in an instant.  My pen-paling lessened and new international friends were made with instant gratification. 
Information as well as entertainment flowed with ease.   
“A plane crashed into the World Trade Center,” a voice in the office announced.  My myopic brain scanned my memories.  Did I see this building?  Was that the observation deck I visited?  I didn’t understand it was an attack.  
There was an odd air that morning.  I felt like something was off when I boarded the train to commute.  But with my mental illness, I can’t always honor those guttural feelings I have.  I heard thousands of stories where people weren’t feeling right that morning - a collective unease with the sunrise and tick of the clock. 
 “A second plane crashed.”  My mind raced.  Something is not right.  I whimpered the words, “Is this on purpose?”  My fingers went to work dialing up news on the computer.  Any news channel.  All news channels.   
I remember feeling dark with an unease that I couldn’t explain.  I had no idea what was happening and how it would impact my life.
I worked in an historic building.  I discovered one of our related buildings was threatened.  We were told to go home.  I sat and looked at the news reports on the computer.  It was hours before I left the office and when I finally did, downtown Philadelphia was a ghost town.  Everything looked grey.  There was a veil of ash in the clouds from New York.  There were exactly three people on the train with me at one pm.  I sat in silence with my eyes darting back and forth to ensure none made a sudden move.
For weeks I sat on the floor of our apartment and looked at the television screen.  Over and over I listened to the same words trying to reason what occurred and what the result was.  I had babies in my care and I couldn’t even care for myself. 
“I don’t want you to go to work,” my six year old said to me. 
“I have to go to work,” I squeaked when I mustered the courage to face the world again.
“I don’t want a building to fall on you.” 
I couldn’t promise that wouldn’t happen. 
I grew up with an overbearing father who would boast about the strength of America.  He was a bombardier in World War II and got a pass for a lot of his opinions, although I challenged him as much or more than he challenged me.   I was afraid of the monsters in my home and in my head; not the ones roaming the streets of the world. 
To compact the protection I felt, I grew up in Philadelphia.  We had five hundred homicides before April one year.  I saw people with weapons on the streets, while riding mass transit, and have had more than my share of encounters with guns and knives and fists and steel-toed shoes.  Still, I always felt safe walking the streets to get where I was going.  I always felt removed from the situation, even when I was victimized.  My father was a cop.  There was an inherent sense that he would protect me from anything outside.  We were strong.   We were the strongest.  Come at me!
I suppose growing up in a house where I heard enough stories of atrocities but saw enough of a strong police presence; I somehow believed I was safe.  Certainly there was some insulation between me and any evil of the world. 
Militant killing happened in other countries; on other soil.  I grew up knowing America to have a defensive military strategy.  No active military bases in the contiguous states.  I grew up with an understanding of international war without having to live through the tension directly.  I was a Cold War Kid.  I didn’t understand how different an outside threat is from an internal conflict.
Nine Eleven changed all of that.  Today I can’t think of the numbers without remembering the blackness of that day.  I can’t say it without reliving the hollow feeling in my belly and helplessness I felt for weeks while I tried to pull myself together and do anything other than breathe.  I was breathing.  Some no longer could. 
Streets were closed off.  Homeland security was a new faction of protection present and the guns, bullet-proof vests, and handcuffs were brazenly displayed on officers whose presence noticeably increased.  Park Rangers were stationed on streets of the city, requesting we walk out of our way to control the pedestrians as diligently as they directed vehicular traffic.  Identification was newly necessary to move anywhere that may have been threatened by what was broadly referred to as terror. 
Terrorists. 
A new racism emerged.  But this racism was reasoned.  People were hiding their faces.  They were hiding their country of birth.  They were hiding their affiliations.  And the fact was and remains, the terror is as much within as it comes from outsiders.  Those who are not like we.  It became tolerated to be prejudiced at everyone who was not only different than we, but exactly the same.  It was frightening and infuriating.  Myself included.  There were too many sheep and the wolves weren’t easy to see. 
There was a time when I became angry with my dad.  He was well on his way to Alzheimer’s.  I think this may have been the cancer years.  But my dad who was always good at the very least of causing unnecessary fear about the mundane had missed this completely.  I remember avoiding him.  I couldn’t face him.  I couldn’t listen to a racist rant.  I also didn’t trust myself to not feed into it and become afraid – I was already disappointed and numb.
Today is sixteen years later.  I still hear my baby’s voice through tears ask me not to go to work.  I stayed home that day with her.  But when it was time to go back, I walked in fear that a building would fall on me and she would have to live whatever years she had remaining with the aftermath of that specific fear.  Every year since, I have reflected on the horrors of the day and wearing gloves and mask to process receipts and looking hard at where a stranger’s hands fell with their backpack on the train.  I think about the horrors I endured from my own reflection.  There was a psychological meltdown far greater than having a building fall on me.     
I read something that fear is being afraid and courage is walking through it.  I think the change of climate as a result of these attacks for me as an American is a courage that through the years I’m trying to honor within me.  I’m afraid of so much and I realize all the frightening things that I wash off and walk through daily.  And still, when Nine-Eleven rolls around, the numbness returns and I can only breathe.  
​

​Today I woke without alarm and without ache or pain.  Seems a lovely change of pace.  I lay.  Noise outside my rowhome was regular - a newspaper hitting the door, car engines whirring, a boisterous good morning from the porch houses.  None of it was deafening.  I lay.  I lay and watched the local meteorologist encourage me to get out and enjoy the day as summer handed the baton of season to autumn and a sunbeam cascade through the blinds onto my cheek.  
I could not bring myself to rise.  And the mere thought of getting pants on was not conceived in any synapse of my brain, also lying, in a laze, pain free and unaffected by the tick or the tock of responsibility. 
I lay.  
It is regular to be pained - even moreso when the sunlight illuminates. 
So why then, I wonder, on a day free of the inside noise and ache, do i lay in apathy for the world? 
Eight - thirty happened.  Nine o'clock did too. I was not a participant.  I lay. 
My head is in motion now.  It churns with the unease of being free of pain and chaos.  I sit at the train station with cicadas buzzing in my ears, waxing and waning in cycles of sound and think curiously about the one who isn't ready to make noise yet.  The one with the broken wing who may be ready tomorrow or the day after.  
I am that bug.  I am surrounded by noise and chirp through days because it's expected.  I power through the days I hurt and on the rare occasion when I don't, I'm not sure exactly what to do with my body - but there is a piece of me that just wants to lay.  
On the train, I hear the white noise of the air conditioning.  I see the flueresent lighting and overhear conversations.  Someone sniffles.  Someone turns the page of a graphic novel I strain my neck to read.  A woman whose bun is bigger than her head shakes in laughter at the absurdity a fellow commuter shares.  Another day, these noises would be uncomfortable.  They would hurt my ears and my thoughts.  Today, I'm at peace.  
And it seems strange to go on so long about it, but the very ease at which my eyes and ears are participating in my journey is alarming to me. 
For those who are normal - for those who don't understand there is a regular in which some take comfort because a normal is unattainable - there will never be an understanding of the rest of us.  
It's not quirky or cute - Its a struggle.  It's bizarre and wonderful and terrifying and disheartening and every other feeling there is, all jumbled up as a ball of knotted twine ... without the capacity to foresee what will be unraveled before it vomits out making a mess. 
Today I feel normal.  And perhaps I lay so that I could feel that?  Perhaps I lay so that I could file away everything associated with normalcy?  I think I finally understand why it's lovely to be in such a state.  
Thursday August 31.  The day seems important in a memory somewhere, although press me and I will not conjure up the truth or a lie about a moment that had occurred.  But this morning, I think the sheer complacency of inner peace is enough for me.