I read an article last night, about a project a young woman with Bi-Polar II is doing, showing the dual lives people who live with mental health diagnoses often deal with. One photograph shows a well put-together person smiling, and ready to face the world. It's juxtaposed next to a photo of the same person frozen by their depression and anxiety. It really is a beautiful and truthful contrast. It is a duality I myself live with every day. It's easy to smile and appear put-together at work, and even to a degree in front of my family so they don't worry about me. The problems at work have solutions. They may be complicated, but they always have an answer eventually. Life outside of work is not quite so cut and dried.

This project will be a series of short stories with a running theme of living with mental health issues, my anxieties and struggles often coming through in my writing, so I can keep the illusion of being a happy, healthy person in my day to day life.

Message in a Bottle

The truth had always been unsafe. The very people who advised her to lie and not to tell under penalty of great harm, were the very people who would yell at and punish Ginger when she lied to them. It was incredibly confusing to a 6 year old. She eventually learned everyone had their own truths, and some of them were not true at all.

Ginger was not an attractive girl, always too tall for her age, skinny and gangly, thin... always too thin. People thought she was malnourished. Even when she went to a home where they fed her well she was thin. Her nose was a little too large, and she had an odd shade of blonde hair. No one really knew what color to call it. Her truth was she was someone else, someone beautiful, someone important, who could sing and talk to animals... a princess everyone loved. She lived her truth when she could escape her nightmares.

She knew though, her nightmares were the real truth. The taunts of being called ugly by other children. The way her family skirted around why she had a different last name, and would often blame her first when something bad was done. She didn't care if she was the one who had done it, it hurt that hers was the first name screamed out in anger and frustration. Her nightmares came at night and during the day, in pain she couldn't describe, visited on her by the people she knew were supposed to protect her. Her truth was she had loving parents who adored her. Her nightmares... well those were someone else.

Ginger began to find her nightmares overwhelming, but no one believed them. Everyone thought she was a liar, making things up for attention. So she made up a language, a code, and began to send out messages, like a spy. Messages in a bottle from a castaway on a faraway island she would set adrift in the seas of nightmares, somehow hoping someone would read them and recognize the truth in them. She hoped someone would come to her aid. While she waited she closed her eyes until the nightmare passed, and she could resume living her truth.

Those messages saved her life over and over again. Coded communications sent out in hopes they would find someone who understood them. She went from one nightmare to another, and wrote her messages and kept them safely stowed away until someone needed to see them. Those messages brought about two criminal convictions.

Those messages went out on a blog for 10 years as she became an adult, and traded one nightmare for another which looked less scary, but was no less a nightmare. Those messages helped her get out, with the children she'd brought into it.

Ginger's messages had become an important part of her life. They were a part of who she was. Now that her truth was becoming her dream, she wondered if she still had messages to slip into glass bottles and toss upon the waves. They wouldn't need to be coded anymore, and they wouldn't be sent out in hopes of rescue or escape. They would finally be messages simply saying, "I'm o.k. I'm Just living the dream over here, and that is the truth."

Escape Velocity

Clara walked onto the set of the interview, all of her numbers and statistics close at hand. it was not her first appearance on television. It was unlikely to be her last. There was another woman there to also present statistics and facts, Mildred. The moderator was an old friend. The interview was going along, information being presented for the viewing audience when something in Mildred seemed to change. She turned from the moderator, red curls framing a pale angelic face, and lips colored with a lipstick that was perhaps a shade too red began to address Clara directly.

"Clara, I've been a little afraid. There is a fear that some of the others are silently passing away, or falling asleep."

Clara didn't miss a beat. Mildred, or someone like Mildred was reaching out to her, although she was uncertain how Mildred would know anything about her own history. "That's not uncommon," Clara replied reassuringly, "It's actually rather normal, and it's something I would be happy to discuss at another time, but for now we need to stay on the topic at hand." She said the last firmly.

Mildred seemed satisfied and turned back to the moderator to continue the discussion, although he appeared utterly baffled. When the break came John tracked her down. "What in the hell was that?" he demanded of her.

Clara raised an eyebrow,"What was what?"

"What was Mildred just babbling about? It sounded utterly insane."

"Not insane, John, just a survival mechanism. My guess is she has some form of Dissociative disorder."

"Dissociative disorder?"

"Multiple Personalities. She was asking if it was normal for alters to seem to die or disappear suddenly."

John's eyes went wide, and he seemed incredulous. "Why would she ask you?"

"Because I've functioned with it most of my life."

She watched the disbelief bloom on his face. She could recite his thoughts as if he were saying them aloud. No way! Clara didn't act like Cybil. She had it together. She was a diverse and gifted person. She wasn't crazy... was she? There was no way Clara could have multiple personalities. People who had that belonged in a psych ward.

Clara turned and walked away, leaving her old friend to try to reconcile what he knew about her with a disorder that could be so pervasive, and yet could ultimately become a healing coping mechanism. She went looking for Mildred hoping to offer some of that healing to her before the interview resumed.

It was the same with many of her friends and family. They didn't want to know the gravity, the details. They couldn't even handle the synopsis. But Mildred needed someone who did understand the gravity, and she was reaching out, trying to find someone who could help her reach escape velocity before it pulled her in.

Clara imagined John would want to do a televised interview regarding the topic. She supposed she probably had plans for whenever that might be.

Inevitable

Everyone must face who they are.
It is an inevitability of life.
Every person must look in the mirror,
And see every blemish and stripe.
We all come face to face,
With all of the things we've done.
Try to deny, try to hide,
But you are the only one you can't run from.

Exercise: A Conversation with Myself

"You won't do it."

"Yes I will."

"You say you will, and you mean well, but you won't."

"Today will be different!"

"You say that every day.

"You'll see!"
...
...
...

"You were right. I'm too tired to exercise."

"I told you."

"I'll do it tomorrow."

"No you won't."

Tall Tales

"I will write a piece of flash fiction every day for a month," she told her self.
"Quit telling such tall tales," her self replied.

Not Mine

These tears which spill from my eyes,
Run down my cheeks,
But they aren't mine.
I did not make them.
I did not cause them.

Your words precipitated the cries,
But they escape my lips.
They are not mine.
I did not want them.
I did not ask for them.

Why are my cheeks wet?
Why is my throat raw?
Why must I pay for your misdeeds,
With the most precious of things?

Precious fluid which should only be spilled joy,
Falls from my eyes.
Your words and actions put forth to destroy,
Why isn't it you who weeps?

These belong to you,
Not to me.
I send them back times two times two.
I have no precious tears left to waste.

Termination

My mind is not at work today. It’s on some highway running away. My version of ending my life as I know it is to simply disappear somewhere, walk away without a word, and never look back. I want to go hide, lick my wounds and re-emerge when I feel good and ready to. Unfortunately, I haven’t the luxury for that. Life goes on, and so must I.

Bitch-Face

This is my bitch-face.
I'm grumpy and I want to be left alone.
Know I really would rather not be at work,
I really wish I could have taken a Personal Day to stay home.

This is my bitch-face.
Don't fuck with me today.
In fact you might just steer clear of me all week,
Because for the moment the bitch-face is here to stay.

I want to disappear... not talk to anyone... not deal with anyone.
This is my bitch-face.
Go the fuck away!
Don't ask me what I'm doing.
I don't want to be touched, and I sure as hell don't want to play.

Don't bring me tasks you can do yourself,
because I might tell you to go take a piss.
Don't tell me you can't help me with a task at work,
Before hearing what the problem is.

This bitch-face is not here to be your doormat,
Because you don't want to do your own work.
It's not here to listen to excuses,
Because you don't want to look for the solution when you're not sure.

Bitch-face says, "Goodbye, you stupid fucking week,
I'm glad to see you on your way out.
Don't let the fucking door hit you in the ass,
And lock it behind you on the way out!"

Bitch-face gives this week a big middle finger,
As her parting wave,
And mutters a few more deleted expletives,
Before hiding safely away.

Ugly Girl

I believe I'm an ugly girl. I need to challenge this belief. Where I've learned beauty is not an important thing to have, I do know it’s always been a desirable thing to have. So it’s time for us to let go of this belief. It’s time for me to believe something else about myself. I have to retrain my eye, to see what is beautiful where the world has told me I'm an ugly girl.

A Note From a Body

You think I'm ugly. So what? What have I ever done but take care of you, all of you? I carried you through things which should have killed you and I both. I ran when you wanted me to, climbed to heights when you asked it of me. I've been a lover when you wanted, and a fighter when you needed. I've allowed you to experience pleasure and pain. I've allowed you to experience new places, to taste wonderful flavors, to feel wonderful things, to see, and to hear wonderful things. I've protested mightily, the people who have harmed you and I, or did you forget the spontaneous start to your menstrual cycle upon being forced into seeing  the ex-husband at a Parent Teacher Conference?

I carried our babies for you, and nurtured them when they were born. I delivered them as safely and healthily into this world as I could. I've been there to provide a physical and safe connection to the people you love, including your spouse, your children, your mother, your friends. I've warned you when you were in danger, and I've given you a sense of when we are safe. I've developed the skills you are using right now, to speak in your hidden and silent voice.

These are such wonderful and beautiful things, and yet you believe I am ugly.

I have done everything I have been supposed to do, and everything you have ever asked of me. You repay me with neglect and abuse, because I am ugly to you, because you no longer care how I look... how you look. Why do you betray me so? Is it any wonder I've stopped working the way you want me to? How much do you think I can stand to be neglected and abused before I just tell you to go to hell?

All of you may think I'm ugly, and fat, scarred, and bearing stretch marks. Have we not had this conversation before? Need I remind you that every mark on me is a story of a moment you lived. Some of them are good stories, happy stories, and funny stories. Some of them are heartbreaking. For every mark you consider ugly, I am an open diary of your life, and every mark tells of a moment where you not only survived, but truly lived. That's what you want to be remembered for, right? That you didn't just saunter through life casually, but that you really made an effort to LIVE.

I AM BEAUTIFUL! No matter what you have been told about me, I am a beautiful thing, a thing to be loved, and cherished, and cared for. I am worth your time. I am worth your effort. I need to be nourished, not fed. I was made to move, so move me! But be kind, because I've also suffered much, and I cannot do as much as quickly as you would like anymore. I am happy to carry you to your mountain tops, but you must give me the tools I need in order to do so. I am a feat of bio-engineering, but like any other machine, I must be maintained. I need work. I need care.

I will only fail you, if you decide to keep failing me. This is a relationship, and you've been doing a whole lot of taking from me. Now it's time for you to give me something back. I will remind you again and again until you hear me, or until I have nothing left to give you. I am beautiful, and don't you forget it. Take care of me, and I will take care of you. The choice is yours.

The Fraud

I often congratulate myself on how well I’m doing, how well I keep my life together with having multiple people live in my head. I like to congratulate myself for establishing a normal life despite what I’ve survived. Look at me! I’ve done so well. Look at me! I’m so sane considering what I’ve been through.

Then there are days like today where I feel like a huge fraud. Who am I kidding? I’m not keeping anything together. Sanity is a mask I wear, like every other one in my life. Do I love my husband, or am I just grateful that he treats me with decency and respect? Do I love my children, or am I nothing more than a glorified nanny, content to make sure their basic needs are met. Do I really even connect to anyone or anything, or am I truly just a sociopath beneath it all that goes through the motions but doesn’t really truly let myself feel anything? I would be content to just be left alone with my alters to keep me company some days, our fantasies and delusions. Our body could be an island all unto itself because I carry my own community within. What a relief it would be to be isolated, to never worry whether or not I’m doing what I’m supposed to, or if I might hurt someone, or if someone might hurt me. How simple it would be to disconnect from all of the reminders, from the world. I could be self sustaining, and it wouldn't matter if I was crazy.

Why the hell is sanity so damned important to me anyway?

Dead Air

Marcelene sat in her car behind a large truck, bordered in by bright orange construction pilings. She hadn’t turned the radio on, she realized, and she still didn’t reach for it now. It reminded her a bit of a story she’d read somewhere, about a young teenager who took a job as a radio DJ. He had a tendency to be quiet and get lost in his thoughts and would forget to cue the next song, resulting in that dreaded phenomena in the radio industry called “dead air.” Except he began receiving calls from listeners, not complaining about the dead air, but complementing him on his thoughts and opinions, the ones he never voiced but still somehow seemed to have been transmitted on radio waves to the station’s listeners. He freaked out and quit his job.

The line in the construction lane, lined with pilings and signs reading, “Construction Zone, Speed Limit 30, Fines Higher,” began rolling slowly forward again. That was how the space between her ears felt today, like “dead air.” She glanced at the radio, briefly thinking that even if the device could somehow transmit her thoughts all it would pick up was static. Her internal DJ had forgotten to cue the next song, to make the next announcement. Inside her head there wasn’t even an annoying drawn out tone to indicate temporary technical difficulties. It was simply silent.

The traffic stopped again. She was three cars up to the traffic light, and she briefly glanced at her watch, fleetingly concerned about the time it would take to run her errands before getting back to work. She was on auto-pilot, her body going through the motions of driving, as if her body was its own person. In many ways it was.

As she rolled forward, this time clearing the light and navigating through the rest of the construction zone, she began pushing through the dead air, reaching out within, seeking connections. Most people didn’t know she had Multiple Personalities. People had their own ideas about what such a diagnosis was supposed to look like. She doubted people understood just how many folks there were in the world with the diagnosis who were driving cars, maintaining long term relationships, parenting children, and holding down jobs while living as an unrecorded number of different individual people in one singular body. Still, “dead air” was not a good sign generally. Generally dead air meant no one was communiating, and so therefor even driving on auto-pilot could be incredibly dangerous.
The truth was she’d only been actively doing all of those "normal" life thigns for the last five years. Her life before that looked very much more the way people might stereotype a body with multiple people running around in its brain. She scoffed as she accelerated down the high way. Five years out of a little over 30. Such a small percentage of her life had been spent in a “normal” state. So much of it had been spent in craziness.

Who was she to judge others for their judgments and stereo-types?

“That’s a good point,” one of the folks in her head thought aloud, startling her out of her reverie. Making her have to make a slight correction to stay in her lane.

Marcelene wondered how the thought had transmitted without her intention, and she promptly considered quitting her job as the host. Instead she took a moment to flip on the radio, and began singing along to an old song, something to drown out the thoughts she wasn't quite ready to share with anyone else.

Mind Altering

She was done. It was over. The medication had completely and totally altered Taryn's life. She was not herself anymore.She couldn't write. None of her characters would breathe a word to her. Conjuring a scene for a story was like walking through a dry valley in the desert, where the wind rattled dried dead plants, and blew sand around so that it half covered everything that had expired there.

She'd become insipidly happy with her life... her real life. That was a good thing, right?

It was one night going to the restroom she realized how utterly she'd changed. She sat on the toilet thinking about slipping out to the living room to do exercises in order to wear herself out, because she was having trouble sleeping. She realized on any other given night  she would have instead masturbated without thought to induce that drowsy feeling. The meds had taken away orgasms. So why bother? Exercising was a better option anyway wasn't it?

She felt like she was turning into someone else, someone who appeared normal. She would be inundated with everyone else's ideas, morphing into an insipid lemming, smiling and bantering about mindless things. She wouldn't even care she had changed, as if the medication were an alien life form infecting her body and controlling her mind. She would comply with the expectations of happiness society expected because of it, and her passions would be left in the dry valley, their skeletal remains showing half naked above the blowing sand. She wouldn't even shed a tear.

Hope and Fear

I spoke to her as she drifted to sleep, the chemical bonds in her mind loosening her, loosening me. I was trying to get a message across, silkily sliding through the silence of a mind half asleep. Crickets chirp somewhere distant outside her window, and her lover breathes softly, his presence a comfort to her... to me. I whisper to her of things desired, sad that they may be forgotten

She hears me, acknowledges me. She knows I'm bound each day, unable to make my voice heard. "It's regrettable," she mumbles, fending off the sleep that is so difficult for her to resist. "Talk to me in my dreams."

And so I do. It is the only place I have left. I can hardly blame her for wanting to be happier. She doesn't want to sacrifice me. So I talk to her in dreams, whispering my words, singing of hopes and joys, and fantasies, hoping they will be remembered as she wakes and kisses her lover good morning. I hope she remembers them before the little orange bottle is opened, and the little pink pill is swallowed, before I am once again bound in chemical chains, and silenced. I, her dreams and hopes are sentenced to the same silence as her fears and worries, because we are often both one and the same.

The Note

Suicide was not something Clare ever discussed with her counselor. She'd been raised by someone who ranted and raved about how selfish and weak a person who committed suicide was. So she never talked about it, not directly. Her counselor had tried to get her to come out and discuss it openly, but she refused. So instead they talked in metaphors, in a language that seemed privately shared now, because Clare was afraid that the thoughts she entertained proved her father right, that she was selfish and weak. He'd spat those things at her as the Bailiff led him away from the courtroom. As he yelled, she stared at the chair she'd sat in while she woodenly told the judge what her father had done. 

He'd always said "those people" were weak, but he never seemed to consider what hopelessness and despair could do to a person. Pain, some days, seemed harder to face than death.

"Fine, Clare," her counselor sighed some time ago, after asking her directly if she ever though of killing herself, "You won't come out and directly say that you're thinking of killing yourself, but the behavioral rating scales you've filled out have red flagged all over the place for suicidal ideations. So here's what I want you to do. Keep a calendar. Every day you have a 'bad day' I want you to draw a picture of your choice to signify it, and every day you have a 'good day' draw something different to represent that."

Clare didn't know why she picked the Beetle for the "bad days." No. She did actually. Those days made her feel like an insect and she wished someone would just come along and crush her. 

The "good days" felt like forward momentum, so she chose an arrow to represent them. It was a code between her and her counselor. But there was a piece of the code she hadn't shared... she'd secretly given herself an out. Every month she counted the arrows and the Beetles, and she'd decided that when there were more Beetles than arrows, it would be time to do it.

She had it all planned. She would take one of the sedatives she'd been prescribed, and she would follow it with a poisonous tea. Poisonous herbs were not hard to find, many of them were sold as homeopathic remedies, and in small amounts they were therapeutic, but in larger doses they were deadly. She'd spent a lot of time learning about the medicinal properties of plants as a a child, and she knew which ones killed quickly, although not altogether painlessly. So the sedative was important. She would take it before the tea, and she would simply fall asleep and never wake up again. She'd planned to lay out a tarp for easy clean-up, and she would lower her air conditioner in case it was a while before she was found. She didn't want to stink up the place. After all if she was going to be a bitch and pull the most selfish act ever, the least she could do was be courteous in how she went about it.

Deadline

I worry about it every now and then. Well now really, as I stand in the shower washing myself, trying to wash the guilt away. I can write a manifesto like some do when they go on shooting rampages, and then kill themselves. Honestly though, how can someone justify so much loss of life when it was theirs they wanted to end? I can write pages and pages I suppose of why I’m doing this, how sorry I am, how cruel the world seems, and how I just can’t go on any more. What’s the point? I’m too tired for all of that. It’s not like it’s going to make anyone I leave behind feel any better about it.

But I worry. There’s always so much emphasis on the note. All the crime dramas have taught me that suicides always leave a note. If I don’t leave one, will my husband become a person of interest in my death? I don’t want him to go through that, publicly crucified as a suspected murderer. And my children, will they grow up thinking that they drove me to do it, if I don’t explain to them somehow that it is not their fault that I am so weak? What can I say though, beyond I’ve just had enough? It’s someone else’s turn to carry the torch.

I’ve made my preparations. The house is clean, I've fasted and deprived myself of fluids to mitigate as much of the natural byproducts of dying as best as I can. It will be so easy to slip out to the garage, take the sedative, and let the car do the rest. The cool winter weather should keep things from becoming too grotesque.

I step out to my bedroom, where the clothes I’ve carefully selected lie on the pristine bedspread. I dress and I open my blinds, the sun spilling down on my face. Who cares if it causes cancer? It’s a warm, comforting sensation that’s too precious to waste. Maybe, I’ll do it tomorrow. After all there’s no rush is there? It’s my death. It’s the one thing no one is rushing me to get done, unlike the other million and one things on the to-do list. Besides, waiting buys me some time to think more about the note. This is the one thing I can set my own deadline for.

Guilty Pleasure

Cynthia slipped into her nylon stockings, the ones with the seams running up the back of her calf and ending at little bows just above the knee. When she sat in her office chair the bottoms of the small bows played peekaboo with the hem of her skirt, which came below the knee when standing. Dark hair spilled over a red silk blouse and she slipped dainty feet into defiantly high heels. She felt dangerous today. Let the red serve as a warning to everyone.

She bristled beneath the surface, although green eyes and a serene face would lead others to believe otherwise. It would be best to just stay at her desk and avoid people if at all possible. Particularly that damned annoying chick on the other side of the wall. Cynthia wondered what gave that bitch the right to be such a chipper Pollyanna in such a fucked up world. The only thing she could conclude was Sharon must be in denial. Sharon obviously knew how shitty life could be, considering how shitty hers was, but she always had this saccharine sweet smile Cynthia just wanted to slap right the fuck off her face. Why couldn't she just accept her misery like the rest of the world had to?

Cynthia sighed, grabbing her keys and her expensive purse before heading out the door, turning up the stereo full blast as she made the drive. She quietly settled in at her desk, smiling to herself about the appreciative glances she received from the men walking by, while pretending to be unaware of them. Oh yes, she felt dangerous indeed.

”Good morning, Cynthia!” Sharon called cheerfully as she breezed past. If Cynthia were a cat, her back would have arched and her hair would have stood on end.

”No, it’s not.” Cynthia said firmly.

Sharon hesitated mid-step by Cynthia’s cubicle. Her dumpy frame was swathed in a deep shade of brown, broken up stylishly with a light neutral jacket. The embellishment at the collar and the natural stone jewelry she wore served as minimalist accents. Gold hair framed a pale face and wide blue eyes. Cynthia barely contained the urge to smile at the absence of one on Sharon’s face. “What’s wrong, Cynthia?”

”You. Why do you have to pretend your life isn't shitty and that the world is rainbows and sunshine? We all know you went through a shitty marriage, your kids have issues, you have issues, and that you’re really quite miserable, just like everyone else here with their shitty lives. You’re not kidding anyone.”

Sharon’s face dropped, and suddenly the bags from sleepless nights became conspicuous, the worry lines around her eyes seemed like trenches in the skin, and he frame drooped looking haggard. “Whatever,” Sharon grumbled and continued on. She didn’t say good morning to anyone else. In fact, Cynthia heard very little from the other woman the rest of the day. She was unnaturally quiet. Cynthia caught sight of her leaving in a hurry, proffering none of her usual wishes of a good evening to any of their co-workers.

Cynthia smiled all evening, proud to have given that cheerful bitch a good dose of reality. The next morning as she arrived at work she was met with long faces and the office was as quiet as a tomb. She paid no attention and got to work. Her boss approached her. “I just thought you should know we're looking to hire someone to fill Sharon’s position.”

Cynthia knit her eyebrows in confusion. Had the fucking cheerful bitch quit just because Cynthia had called her on her bullshit front? Cynthia thought it delicious that Sharon was not able to handle the dose of reality, that she caused Sharon to quit. What a fucking wimp. What a guilty pleasure it was to feel so powerful. “Did she resign?”

”No,” her boss responded in surprise. “I thought you would have already heard the news. Sharon committed suicide late last night. Everyone’s very shocked. None of us would have ever suspected she was suicidal, she was always so positive and pleasant. We've heard very few details, but it sounds like it was messy and her children found her. No one’s sure who will take care of them. It’s a really awful mess. I can’t think of what might have... I just don’t understand it. None of us do.”

”I’m sorry,” Cynthia murmured. The pleasure melted away, and only the guilt remained.