caffeine and dopamine

a journey or something. we all suffer diseases we can't cure and this is where i write about it.

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

I. 

the first time I told you I loved you we were drunk on your living room couch. six shots of tequila in my stomach, liquid courage, gave me the boldness to tell you.

I meant it.

II.

you cried because you felt sad, or maybe because you felt scared. maybe it was too soon for you. you said it back anyway.

we fell asleep with the lights on.

III.

loving you was easy. it felt like nothing else i’d ever known. most days i questioned when the hard part would come.

the honeymoon phase, they call it.

IV.

as time went on you grew cold. the light that once shone from your eyes, now dim. you said it’s nothing but i knew better. you had to leave, this time for good. clutching my chest i begged, please, don’t.  i choked out the words you dread the most.

i meant it. 

V.

there is nothing left of me.

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

you called me this morning

on your 45 minute walk to work,

or to group therapy

or wherever it is that you go on wednesday mornings 

in the early morning light

when you can’t think straight

and you’re scared but need to hear my voice.

i smiled when i woke 

to see that photo of you laughing

on my phone screen,

the gentle hum of a long forgotten song in my ear.

my “good morning, love,

how are you?”

met with stifled sobbing on the other line.

it happens every day,

you wake up and feel uncertain,

uncomfortable and afraid,

and you call me to try to make the hurt go away.

it pains me to hear the ache

in your voice, your heart,

as you ask me if i’m sure this love is meant to be.

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

journal entry ii

you checked into the hospital on 10.29 because you don’t care about anything, can’t feel anything. you told me it feels like it’s not worth it, the work you were putting into feeling better. you said you didn’t want to try anymore and i said that’s the only option to stop suffering. “but there’s an easy way out,” you told me. “no. there’s not. you try or you suffer. that’s it.” i was short with you because i was exhausted, i’ve been working with you on this for weeks and i felt like i wanted to give up. “if you really think that’s an option, you better find someone to take you somewhere safe. i mean it.” 

a few hours later i got a text message, “hey i’m worried about him. we’re taking him to the hospital.” i felt guilty, i should’ve been there. i should’ve been the one to take you but i wasn’t because i was selfish. i went to my appointments and carried on with my day as if nothing was different. The appointments ended and i checked my phone. Missed calls and texts from your family. friends, my sister. Suddenly I panicked. I needed to get there and I needed to get there immediately. I got to the hospital and you had been there for a few hours. you were happy to see me, but i cried the whole way there.

flash forward to 10.30. i skip work to spend the day in the ER triage room with you until they admit you in inpatient adult psych. i’m hurting, you’re hurting. your parents come to visit. it’s the first time they’ve been in the same room in years. they don’t argue, but it’s certainly tense. they finally admit you to the hospital and i’m a mess. i’m fucking devastated. i can’t believe it’s come to this. how did it happen so fast? i’m so sorry.

i talked to you on the phone today, you sounded really rough and scared. i don’t know what to do to make this better. i don’t know if i can. i feel too drained to think about it anymore. i thought journaling would make it better but i feel worse off now. maybe i’ll feel better after i visit you, i hope so. 

i’m sorry.

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

your voice is soft and frail as it comes through the phone. you sound so far away, miles away. what time is it there? have you eaten breakfast yet? did you have a morning cuppa as you watched the news? st. elizabeth’s is down the street  but it feels across the country. i can’t reach you there, but i guess that’s how it is these days. you’ve been gone for so long, lost in a sea of your own thoughts. i tried to hold your hand, tried to ease the pain, but you couldn’t feel me. i feel you slipping, falling, i can’t catch you. are you even in there?

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

journal entry i.

i like to write in free-verse poems, light, abstract, and separate. in poetry (or half-hearted sentences) i can write as though the problem isn’t me, or the problem isn’t happening to me. i can detach from reality in a way that i can’t through anything else. detaching from reality, however, is not going to cure me. it’s not going to help me process what i’ve been through and how much i hate myself and blame myself for the suffering of others. this is going to be a complicated and stressful journey. i’m already struggling enough on my own, not to mention my partner’s recently developed rocd and my never ending desire to fix everyone around me who hurts. i started to journal about my experiences and how i plan to grow and learn from my hurt. i didn’t know where to start so my therapist sent me an insanely long list of questions to consider.* The list is so long and overwhelming. Half of these questions don’t feel applicable. I think I need a new therapist to help me balance my co-dependency, trauma, relationship issues, and everything else i’m dealing with because the current one doesn’t feel like she gets it. sometimes she says things that are helpful, like learning to love your inner child... but doesn’t every therapist hit the nail on the head sometimes? I don’t know, everything just feels like too much and she doesn’t seem to hear me when i tell her what i’m struggling with and working on. Things are heavy, but it’ll get better, i hope.

*the list of questions:

- With whom have you had a good bonding relationship in the past? What were the characteristics of that relationship?

- Who hurt your ability to bond and trust? What did that person/those people do?

- Which personality traits were hurtful to you?

- What inner beliefs did you develop about yourself and others as a result of these hurtful attachments? What do you believe about relationships in general?

- What parts of your bonding self (for example, your ability to be vulnerable, express feelings, share needs, reveal weaknesses) did you bury as a result of these hurtful experiences? Are they still buried? If so, what are you afraid would happen if you showed these parts of yourself?

- With whom do you now have a healthy relationship? What things have helped create this bond? How can you increase these elements, i.e. take more risks, be more open, be vulnerable, etc.?

- Who is showing his/her real self to you? How are you responding to this person's vulnerability?

- How much energy each week do you invest in creating healthy attachments to yourself and others?

- When are you best at setting personal boundaries? Why?

- What distortions of boundaries are currently present for you?

- What are you doing to develop boundaries you have let crumble or never had? For example, what are you doing to develop your confrontational muscle that you never thought you could exercise?

- Whose boundaries are you overriding? Why?

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

it’s always been easier writing about you than me not you as in you but you as in everyone that isn’t me: the girl at the coffee shop with the raspy voice that reminds me of a modern macy gray mixed with the preppy girl from my high school bible studies; the man and his wife who are bickering as they walk down the street (we later learn their names are larry and diane, which seems fitting); the hipster waiting at the bus stop that looks a lot like you that year we first moved in together.

it looks like you and i stop dead in my tracks in the middle of the street. i can’t think. i can’t breathe. i understand now what it means to be stricken with fear. i don’t know if i have it in me to put my head down and keep walking to my car. i haven’t seen you in four years but my heart still stops whenever i see an isuzu (they haven’t made the model you drove since 2002). the wind is knocked out of me and i am gasping for air  because i don’t know how to get past this and i fear that i’ll be paralyzed forever.

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

obsessive compulsive disorder is nothing like what I was told

they said you’d be afraid of germs sinking into your skin and you’d wash your hands til they bled. you’d sanitize the raw skin and it would burn, but the burning means you’re safe. 

they said you’d be afraid that the cough from the woman down the street would somehow find its way into your lungs, that it would poison you, that the poison would fill your lungs, that you would die. you’d avoid public places, order groceries online, never leave the house despite the risk of losing your job, your friends, your future, but at least you’d know you’re safe.

they said you’d be organized and painfully so, that you’d put the books on the shelf in alphabetical order by title, by author’s last, author’s first name, by publishing company, by first word of the novel, but nothing would feel right. you’d spend hours trying to settle the racing thoughts but when you finally figure out the right order for the books -- alphabetical by last word of the novel -- you’re safe.

they said you’d that you’d lock the door and lock the door and lock the door because you just aren’t sure if you locked the door right, that you’d be so afraid of a break-in you’d spend all night checking and locking the door, disturbing our slumber and ignoring my pleads to just come to bed but locking the door fifteen, twenty, thirty-one times you’re safe.

they don’t know anything about this obsessive compulsive disorder.

they didn’t tell me that the sound of my voice wrapping softly around “i love you” would be painful, that you’d cry because you just don’t know how to love in return, that you would ache for me but shy away from my touch, that our sex would be an experiment in exposure therapy, that you’d buy me flowers because every fiber of your being told you not to.

they didn’t tell me that i would be the poison that fills your heart, that chokes the breath from your lungs, and drains the life from your eyes. that i’m the one that makes you feel so unsafe.

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

A list of things that made you question if you still loved me:

i called you on your way home from work

i said i love you

i love you too much

i told you that my mom can’t wait for our wedding

i told you i felt hurt by your silence

i asked you if you were angry with me

honestly, i’m just kind of annoying

i joked that i am kind of annoying

i laughed at my own joke

my laugh

[oldpoetryandwhatnot]

Reason doesn’t exist in our love anymore. Overtired, burnt out, exhausted. You ask me when it got so Complicated. I’ve been asking myself the same thing for months. Does it ever get easier?