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On Today.

Published on July 14, 2011 by Corinna Carlson | 6 Comments

Today how overwhelmed I am from the happenings of the weekend decided to nail me at the best time and place, the gym. Tuesday’s workout was fine I felt great, I was still in denial happy la la land, but today as it generally goes I was triggered by something small and innocent and bam apparently I have to deal with my feelings. Fucking feelings always making me feel shit.

Doesn’t so much matter what happened but for the first time ever on Friday evening I admitted on Twitter that not only had Adam and I had a fight but that he wouldn’t be coming home that night. Many people were very quickly very supportive and I can’t thank you enough we are both very lucky to have the friends we do. Sometimes I just get to a point where I don’t care, if people want to pretend their marriages and relationships are perfect fine so be it that works for them but I think it is unrealistic to think that an eight year relationship / [almost] five year marriage wouldn’t have a few hick-ups. Since last July, we’ve been going through the first real rough patch in our marriage and I’m quite frankly tired of pretending everything is fine. I don’t feel the need to elaborate further but I do feeI that I needed to be honest with myself about it. At this point all that really matters is that we want our marriage to work.

Friday evening also brought the horrible news that a friend had again tried to take his life. This is a friend who I’ve visited in hospital before, someone we both care for deeply, but for me when they get to the point of hospitalization there is a part of me that sometimes shuts down, I simply cannot handle it and I feel physically ill. When you are dealing with friends who suffer from depression and you yourself suffer from depression and have tried to take your own life on multiple occasions, in some cases you have no choice but to protect yourself first and immediately pull down the oxygen mask, but in others you have to put the triggers and nausea aside and step up to the plate walk into the fucking ward and visit or in this case you and your husband who you’re not really talking to spend the day following day with them.

It took a few hours for my body to relax on Saturday, for me when I hear someone say something to the affect of “a few people would’ve missed me, some I’d really hurt, most not.” I can’t deal because already losing someone to suicide was by far the worst pain I have to this day ever felt in my life, I know for a fact that any variation of that statement is bullshit. And from the most selfish place in me I won’t lose another person that way, I fucking won’t. But I also won’t not be friends with someone or abandon them because they suffer from something outside of their control.

And so today I’m freaking out a tad and feeling yet again unaccepted for my depression because I tweeted my feelings today and was instantly unfollowed by someone I’ve met so yes, I take it personally. Now, let me be clear, if someone doesn’t want to follow me on Twitter I’m fine with that, long gone are the days I’d freak out, I didn’t even understand social media back then, but fuck it, whatever, that was until today because you know what? If you know the person, even if you don’t like the person show some fucking tact, wait a few hours, don’t make it so glaringly obvious how big of an asshole you are. I get it, not everyone wants to see people who suffer from depression talk about their depression but that’s actually kinda funny too, because most people will keep following the person who suffers from Cancer and support their battle but unfollow the person struggling with depression. I’m trying to calm down and relax I obviously know I’m not in this bad of a rant mood over Twitter, I’m honestly sort of amazed I cracked this soon, normally I can hold shit it and make it a fuck lot worse before I explode so I guess I’ll call that a baby step in the right direction of feeling the feelings.

Now I cried a lot.

Published on February 9, 2011 by Corinna Carlson | 14 Comments

You know how sometimes someone will say something to you about yourself and at the time you think you don’t care? Like say someone said, “and people hate you for it too” [in this case the topic was how I tweet]. I know I said something back to the affect of, “if I cared about numbers I’d have changed how I tweet a long time ago”. And that is true, if nothing else I’ve made a point of becoming even more myself on Twitter and tweeting out the most random of random shit that comes into my head, because in general I tweet how I talk, I also write in a very similar fashion to how I talk, but only to a degree, I don’t talk in under-punctuated run-on sentences [very often]. I’m well aware that my form of humor and almost constant sarcasm and/or realism in my tweets is an acquired taste.

This comment has stuck with me. It’s been bugging me. I guess I don’t understand why anyone would read or follow my tweets if they hate me. I also don’t really know why when I’ve clearly separated myself out from the Vancouver Social Media scene why I’m STILL a hot hate topic. I have made some friendships with people inside the scene but I hang out with them outside of it.

It makes me feel bitter and bullied, like people are just sitting back and waiting for me to lose it, hospital style. If I get upset to any degree on any public forum, including my blog, it feels like I can’t just be upset, it feels like the haters are sitting in anticipation of when they can declare that I haven’t changed.

I have a temper, no matter how hard I work on myself I’m always going to have a temper but I’m not going to blog from the perspective of forcing all the progress I’ve made down people’s throats, I simply write how I feel on whatever medium I’m on. If you have to ask yourself why someone would be as open as I am about my life, and my trials and tribulations then you aren’t my target audience.

Normally I wouldn’t even address this because it feels like I’m defending myself, but I’m feeling pretty down right now. I suppose it only makes sense, to me anyway, given the posts from January that I am feeling a certain amount of insecurity online. I make a point of not checking my stats unless I’m under attack, which I was and so I know that my parents are stalking both my blog and my twitter page. I don’t know if they think this will intimidate me into not posting and if they think it’s been working, when in reality I’ve been super busy with a new kitty who came to us with some health issues which lead to me being pretty down and having a tough time going from taking care of my sick old best furry buddy to taking care of a sick kitten with no one but myself to blame for my emotions. Feeling like I got a new kitty too soon but knowing I couldn’t give up on the little guy. Breaking down somedays out of emotional exhaustion and feeling like a fucking loser because it was triggered by cats. But coming home to an empty apartment after Christmas was hard on us both. I had no way of knowing, thinking we were rescuing a healthy cat, which was naive in and of itself, that the wee Roy Kucing being a bit sick for over half the time we’ve had him would take an emotional tole. I do have an introductory post for Roy in drafts but never got it finished.

I would also be a flat out liar if I were to proclaim that certain aspects of things happening or rather not happening with my immediate family weren’t bothersome. The fact that I’ve made three attempts to obtain my grandmother’s new address and phone number and have been ignored on all fronts. But yet my parents stalk my site. It makes me sick. Regardless of what is going on between my parents and claims that I never contact this woman and then refusing to let me contact her when she’s dying doesn’t even make sense to me. It certainly isn’t making me want to have any sort of civil conversation with them, but if they actually think I’d bring any of this up to my almost 89 year old dying grandmother, fuck it, I can’t even entertain these ideas because it simply makes my blood boil. The fact that they are stalking me instead of giving me a simple fucking address speaks volumes to me.

For me, right now, I’m dealing with the fact that I AM dealing with things. I’m dealing with feelings. I’ve never kept it a secret on here that I’ve abused prescription drugs in the past. This has gotten me into A LOT of trouble online and in my personal life. It made me feel invincible and I got behind a computer screen a few too many times under the influence and well, I think the majority here know how the rest of that story goes. Even this time last year I couldn’t sit in my feelings. That is why it is ok if I simply do sit in my feelings and don’t exercise, don’t read, don’t write, just sit, I can’t do it forever but it’s where I’m currently at: because at least I’m sitting at least I’m not fucked up on a stash of clonazepam and seroquel. Having real feelings is a trip, it has allowed for many breakthroughs with my psychiatrist but it is incredibly hard at times. I’m used to freaking out and then freaking out some more with maybe a bit more freak out thrown in for good measure but not freaking out means the pain has to go somewhere and if it isn’t going into the drugs and it isn’t going into freaking out then where it is going is where I’m going right now and those places suck balls but if I don’t go to them then I can never get better, I will never know if I can be one of the lucky ones who does recover from this at times debilitating illness.

This morning when I woke up feeling suicidal and outed myself with my dailybooth photo I was glad to find myself with words not going straight to draft because I won’t suffer in silence, I will put it out there so that I don’t do stupid shit and end up in the hospital again or have friends running around trying to find me and contacting Adam and afraid for my safety because I know having lost someone who stayed silent and from the life I’ve lead that if there is one thing I’m not no matter how shitty I feel is alone in this and if I have to put my pain out on the internet to keep myself here then I’m going to put it out on the fucking internet and haters gonna hate no matter what, but the people who love me are also still going to love me.

this is my heart bleeding

Published on July 30, 2010 by Corinna Carlson | 18 Comments

I don’t even know where to start, or what to say. Hold On by Tom Waits is playing and the lyrics

when there’s nothing left to keep you here, when you’re falling behind in this big blue world

will not stop running through my mind. That song was on our wedding CD and it took me years to realize exactly why Adam had put it on there. It wasn’t as obvious as his other Waits pick, Blind Love.

There are obviously things that I have for the most part chosen to not get into on my blog. Mainly my marriage but I fucked up really bad. I did something horrible. I more than hate myself right now. I’ve been granted forgiveness from Adam but forgiving myself and the other person isn’t coming so easily.

We are just like any other couple, we aren’t perfect. I love Adam more than anything on earth. I can’t even picture my life without him, we’re talking about a man who in 2003 picked me up from my psychiatrist’s office for our second date. But we still have some serious issues.

I met Adam after a year of events so fucked up I was still recovering but I was doing fine in general and I wasn’t suffering from any post traumatic stress anymore and I also wasn’t looking for love and so when we started to walk past each other on our way to work. Things happened to put us where we were at the times we were, it was just one of those things I guess. And I remember that I trusted him almost right away and I honestly can not say there are very many people I trust, period. I never worried if he would call me, I never doubted if he was into me I never had any anxiety I just knew.

This has already been a whirlwind of a year, we’ve been working hard on keeping it together financially and I was happy or as happy as I ever can be, for a while, for longer than I ever remember being before. When I was in Bali last September I felt better about myself than I think I ever have, I missed Adam like mad, but there are things that happened there that reassured me that the odd feeling I was having was indeed a form of happiness. Sure my temper still reared and rears its ugly head at times but I have had so much peace come into my life in that last few months that I never saw coming, situations I thought were never going to end, resolutions were found, because that is who I am, I am forgiving almost to a fault.

I’ve been able to keep pretty happy, until now. And instead of doing what I always do which is fucking talk about it, or write about it, I let it allow me to do something that isn’t me, that isn’t who I have ever been. I told Adam everything that happened because I have always told him everything. We haven’t been married seven years but we’ve been together for seven years and a lot of shit happens in seven years and with the combination of our pasts we’ve ended up in a tough spot and I handled it in a way I never saw coming.

I am so lucky to have a man who stays with me when I am so damaged. When I fight suicidal thoughts almost daily, I fight them fucking hard, I talk about it, because the tattoo for the friend I lost is on my fucking arm and there is a fighter in there somewhere who does not want to die but my brain won’t shut the mother fuck up. And having lost someone to suicide I need to be able to say “I can’t stop thinking about just renting a car and driving away and doing what PH did” and you don’t even want to know about the other demons haunting my head. Adam is always there for me, I don’t even know why, I don’t. He has seen me almost unconscious and put into an ambulance and I could have once again died because I’m a fucked up freak.

I knew that I was in a weak place re: my last post and what happened which was not an internet bully situation left me pretty upset, I have been told by more than just my psychiatrist that the way I was treated would mess up someone who suffers from no mental illness. I allowed myself to be vulnerable where I generally never ever allow myself to be and the fallout from the biggest mistake I have ever made – and I guess I should at least say that NO I did not sleep with anyone, I know this is a cryptic post but more than just my feelings and emotions have been affected by what happened.

And then I made it worse in the most idiotic moment of insecurity I ended up making myself look like someone that is so far from who I am that I’m having trouble even processing some of the cruelty that was tossed my way today. Shit happens in life it is what you do to fix it that really matters and when the other person refuses to take responsibility for their actions and puts it all on me I’m not going to fucking take it. It takes two to tango and I’m quite frankly sickened by the attitude of the person. I say really stupid shit when I’m hurt and upset and I was hurt and upset and confused and that lead to me being called so many things I again just don’t believe I’m needed here. I’m horrible, I hurt my husband. But I resent people who will not take responsibility for their actions it drives me insane. Of course I know I can’t make anyone do anything, people do what they want to do when they want to do it, I learned that lesson years ago. But it doesn’t make it any easier. The things that were said to me today I may have deserved at the time but it was the first time I think maybe ever where I felt helpless in the sense that someone, anyone, thinks that I am a terrible, horrible person. I hate myself enough I just don’t need it. I thought I was making a new friend, I thought no matter what happened that this person was at least my friend, although a new friend, still a friend.

I fucked up, bad, in a lot of ways. I’m really struggling, I’ve been hiding it, I was afraid to admit I was starting to slip emotionally because I have been able to handle everything that has been thrown my way better than I ever have before and there have been genuine moments when I’ve been proud of myself, and I just took a million steps back and I hurt, Adam hurts and I know we will get through this, that has already been discussed and as I’ve mentioned before nothing is posted on this blog that Adam doesn’t read or edits before it goes up. I will learn a lot from this, I believe very strongly that whether it is a positive or negative situation that comes into my life that it holds lessons that I must find. Every person I meet is a teacher of sorts. Some are seriously shitty ones, but man do I learn a lot from the douche bags and bitches. Thankfully there are no bitches in my life at present.

I was already being eaten alive by my anxiety because of the bullying trigger and I fucking hate myself for showing weakness in a place that I’ve never shown it before. I’m just sorry, sorry I did what I did, sorry I’m being so misunderstood, sorry I’m alive. I know I have it good but the smorgasbord of triggers I’ve had is bowling me over. I’m hanging on for dear life right now. I see my shrink again on Monday because I’m on a suicide watch of sorts which is even MORE fun for Adam. yeah worst fucking wife in the world award.

So, I guess, go a head, let me have it, I deserve it.

please don’t hurt me just because you can

Published on March 25, 2010 by Corinna Carlson | 9 Comments

One of the things that really stood out to me when I was in Bali last September was my mother. When my parents lived up North in Prince George I was never there for more than two weeks and from May 2002 until the middle of last year I was in and out of a serious state of clinical depression. I know I’ve always suffered from depression but after I lost a friend to suicide, was sexually assaulted in my own home, found out my dad was dying then wasn’t dying, and had a three year relationship with a man come to a dead end over email and there was absolutely no communication between us for months – it became unbearable. These incidents all took place in just under a year, it has taken a lot of therapy for me to accept that even the strongest person would have cracked under all of that and crack I did, it was too deep and wide this time, and I didn’t think I was going to make it, through a lot of it I honestly didn’t want to make it I couldn’t stand to be in my skin and set on the path of finding the psychiatrist I still see now.

In 2004 my mother started to deal with her own depression issues but because I was so depressed, up until I went to Bali I never noticed. She was just mom, a bit mopey but being in such similar states I didn’t see just how much of a struggle she was having I just knew we were both struggling. But when I went to Bali I was in a really good place, one of the best places I have been in mentally since I started to seriously deal with my mental illness. It was on that trip that I saw just how depressed my mom was/ is, I’m not 100% sure with them so far away how she is really doing but I was flabbergasted. It was like staring myself in the face. One day she was ok happy in great spirits, the next totally quiet, not very responsive or interested in conversation BUT trying her very best to enjoy every moment she had with me, which I appreciated more than I think she knows because seeing her like that, I knew how much she hurt, how badly she wanted to be happy and chipper and YAY lets all drink Bintang Birs and be a family again. But some days she just couldn’t muster it and I understood, I understood her better than I think I ever had. It also made apparent the work I had done to have been in a head space so positive I only had two bad days where I thought please no, I don’t want to be depressed, please let this day be just that – a bad day – and I didn’t do anything stupid.

When I returned from Bali, I was still in a great place. After all that happened with my parents around this time last year it was just nice to feel like I had a family again. But with anything in life there are challenges and we are always left to make our own decisions as to how we deal with them leaving those around us to try and define, interrupt, perceive correctly or incorrectly what we are actually doing or saying. And in my opinion no matter how hard you work on yourself mentally ill or not you are bound to fuck up at times, sometimes worse than others resulting in steps backwards. With myself, when I feel myself slipping when I think I’m gonna lose it I slip right back into what I want least to become – what or who people perceive me to be, a sort of a typecast if you will. With anything that happens in life that leaves you feeling negative it is going to have triggers that set your blood on *temperature setting* HELL. It’s hot, it hurts, it burns, tears just sear the pain in further. And what would you know it, last Friday almost losing a friendship brought the asshole I’d been playing; no excuses to make, only the glaring assholy facts. I just wanted to cry and get high. Oh right I did. It has been a long time since I have gotten myself so worked up that I had a full sleepless night of night terrors, and three straight days of prescription drug abuse to say I was wasted would be an understatement, I’ve already been warned I abused them enough in the past that I could have a heart attack during an episode and even that can’t stop the beast. By Tuesday I was still a fucking wreck crying uncontrollably, mentally double fisting myself in the face, so mad at myself, fire retardant anger pants where the only saviour I had. Between yesterday and today I have regained my sanity. I’m still pretty pissed at myself but I’m not known for going easy on me. But for the record, I’m done. I’m not over it, I haven’t let it go, but I’m done allowing myself any inappropriate behavior towards this situation I’m dealing with regularly in therapy. I’ve been working so hard on this I even read a bloody self help book. I’m going to get there, I’m just going to KEEP my big girl pants on now. Fuck this high school shit, tricks are for kids.