Can you say stuck in my head. Not that I really drink much myself. However, that’s not really what I’m thinking about. I do love myself. Even despite the depression. I have been counselled to not get into relationships until I am whole as a person.

One thing: I am not bipolar because bipolar implies upswings. There are times when I am relatively normal and there are times in the abyss. The meds I am on, if I don’t take them correctly can make me seem a bit bipolar though.

I am prone to major and minor depressive episodes. There is the depressed woman in me who has anxiety attacks due to no self-worth or to the pervasive negative self talk and critical thinking.

Not critical thinking like I go to school to learn I mean thinking of myself in critical, demeaning, devaluing terms.

But on the whole, this voice speaks to things I know aren’t true. Most of the time, I think I’m pretty awesome. Other times, I don’t care. I tend to enjoy rebelling and finding my own way to things.

I love me and I know that I am a valuable person. So I don’t need to have things like alcohol. I just need the chemical makeup of my brain balanced a bit and the negative self-talk to shut it.

I definitely went through the five stages:

1. Denial – zomg I was so in denial for like a week. I was really, really in denial, that is, until I found out she was seeing someone else and that they were doing well. All of a sudden it hit me, I switched like a light from denial into anger.
2. Anger – I was angry at myself for failing the relationship and angry at her for not loving me like I loved her. I blamed all of our problems on her and I wanted to hurt her back.
3. Bargaining – did bargaining behaviors with myself for a while. I decided I could get her to love me if I fixed the superficial things she didn’t care for. I subconsciously began avoiding meat cause she’s a veggie. I looked for a job. I thought her new relationship couldn’t last and I would be there for her, better than ever, to pick up the pieces.
4. Depression – While I went in and out of this state between and around all of the others, that one night that spiralled out of control was a real depressive breakdown. I purged a lot of my grief for the relationship and I reconciled all of those leftovers from the three above steps. Even though that night was horrific, it finally led me to the last stage.
5. Acceptance – I am now able to reevaluate our relationship with some perspective. I’m not sure I am fully here, but I am getting closer. I still have short cycles through or to one of the other stages, but, for the most part, I am feeling better. It doesn’t hurt as much, I am not crying or mourning any more. It still aches, and I will always care deeply.

I see now though all of the issues our relationship had. All of the things that were wrong, that she drove me nuts about. Everything I was able to set aside for the benefit of the relationship is cleared. I understand now, why we didn’t work and more of what I am looking for in my next relationship. I really am ready to move on. That is rather a good feeling.

Perhaps my decline in mental state has something to do with the fact that I am basically a lover and sex without emotions causes stress on my need for intimacy to achieve desire. On the other hand, I was almost always at least somewhat reluctant to have sex. I love to talk about sex endlessly. I will flirt and be the tease, but the physical act of sex has always been somewhat hard for me to get into without connection. I am especially reluctant with guys, because, although I thought I was attracted, I was never really very interested in sex with men.

I want to clarify. I was never raped. Not ever. My consent was always fully obtained. However, the small (very) number of men that got past basic making out with me had to employ some very persuasive tactics to get me into it. My consent was never enthusiastic really. How could a lesbian enthusiastically consent to sexual activity with a man? I never knew why I was hesitant, something inside me just always said that it didn’t feel right.

I broke up with guys cause it didn’t feel right. I even pretty much cheated on a guy, cause it didn’t feel right. Nothing has ever felt right. At the same time, I sought out fleeting or more casual encounters with men. I could go through the motions of heterosexuality. I love to kiss; I will make out with anybody. Kissing for me is just a closeness and a fun connection.  And going further on wasn’t that hard.  I was good at phone sex, and I knew how to masturbate, so that wasn’t that hard either. From there it would start to get to gray areas and I would sort of lose interest.

Even worse though was evidence of some sort of emotional attachment, I ran from that faster than a fat chick runs toward free cake. And I can say that cause I am a fat chick and free cake is one of the few things I will run for.

So the point is, I don’t think that there is a direct link, but I must recognize that my discomfort with my sexuality prevented me from finding the comfort of a relationship with women, likely the only sort of real relationship I could be happy in. So, my loneliness as a depressed person was definitely exacerbated by the fact that I was so discouraged that I couldn’t ever seem to find someone to connect with. I have still only ever really connected with the one person, and she did not connect with me, so I dunno what that means in the end anyway.

Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs

Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound,

And my blood strengthens, and my veins abound.

I pray thee sigh not, speak not, draw not breath;

…

I feel thy blood against my blood: my pain

Pains thee, and lips bruise lips, and vein stings vein.

Let fruit be crushed on fruit, let flower on flower,

Breast kindle breast, and either burn one hour.

Why wilt thou follow lesser loves? are thine

Too weak to bear these hands and lips of mine?

I charge thee for my life’s sake, O too sweet

To crush love with thy cruel faultless feet,

I charge thee keep thy lips from hers or his,

Sweetest, till theirs be sweeter than my kiss:

I am weary of all thy words and soft strange ways,

Of all love’s fiery nights and all his days,

And all the broken kisses salt as brine

That shuddering lips make moist with waterish wine,

And eyes the bluer for all those hidden hours

That pleasure fills with tears and feeds from flowers,

Fierce at the heart with fire that half comes through,

But all the flowerlike white stained round with blue;

The fervent underlid, and that above

Lifted with laughter or abashed with love;

Thine amorous girdle, full of thee and fair,

And leavings of the lilies in thine hair.

Yea, all sweet words of thine and all thy ways,

And all the fruit of nights and flower of days,

And stinging lips wherein the hot sweet brine

That Love was born of burns and foams like wine,

And eyes insatiable of amorous hours,

Fervent as fire and delicate as flowers,

Coloured like night at heart, but cloven through

Like night with flame, dyed round like night with blue,

Clothed with deep eyelids under and above —

Yea, all thy beauty sickens me with love;

Thy girdle empty of thee and now not fair,

And ruinous lilies in thy languid hair.

…

Ah, more to me than all men as thou art,

Shall not my songs assuage her at the heart?

…

Ah that my lips were tuneless lips, but pressed

To the bruised blossom of thy scourged white breast!

Ah that my mouth for Muses’ milk were fed

On the sweet blood thy sweet small wounds had bled!

That with my tongue I felt them, and could taste

The faint flakes from thy bosom to the waist!

That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eat

Thy breasts like honey! That from face to feet

Thy body were abolished and consumed,

And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed!

Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites,

Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites.

Ah sweet, and sweet again, and seven times sweet,

The paces and the pauses of thy feet!

Ah sweeter than all sleep or summer air

The fallen fillets fragrant from thine hair!

Yea, though their alien kisses do me wrong,

Sweeter thy lips than mine with all their song;

Thy shoulders whiter than a fleece of white,

And flower-sweet fingers, good to bruise or bite

As honeycomb of the inmost honey-cells,

With almond-shaped and roseleaf-coloured shells

And blood like purple blossom at the tips

Quivering; and pain made perfect in thy lips

For my sake when I hurt thee; O that I

Durst crush thee out of life with love, and die,

Die of thy pain and my delight, and be

Mixed with thy blood and molten into thee!

Would I not plague thee dying overmuch?

Would I not hurt thee perfectly? not touch

Thy pores of sense with torture, and make bright

Thine eyes with bloodlike tears and grievous light?

Strike pang from pang as note is struck from note,

Catch the sob’s middle music in thy throat,

Take thy limbs living, and new-mould with these

A lyre of many faultless agonies?

Feed thee with fever and famine and fine drouth,

With perfect pangs convulse thy perfect mouth,

Make thy life shudder in thee and burn afresh,

And wring thy very spirit through the flesh?

Cruel? But love makes all that love him well

As wise as heaven and crueller than hell.

Me hath love made more bitter toward thee

Than death toward man; but were I made as he

Who hath made all things to break them one by one,

If my feet trod upon the stars and sun

And souls of men as his have alway trod,

God knows I might be crueller than God.

…

That we should live and loathe the sterile sun,

And with the moon wax paler as she wanes,

And pulse by pulse feel time grow through our veins?

Thee too the years shall cover; thou shalt be

As the rose born of one same blood with thee,

As a song sung, as a word said, and fall

Flower-wise, and be not any more at all,

Nor any memory of thee anywhere;

…

Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine,

Except these kisses of my lips on thine

Brand them with immortality; but me —

Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea,

Nor mix their hearts with music, nor behold

…

But in the light and laughter, in the moan

And music, and in grasp of lip and hand

And shudder of water that makes felt on land

The immeasurable tremor of all the sea,

Memories shall mix and metaphors of me.

1. The post on the dark passenger was when things began to get weird.
2. This post led to uncontrollable crying
3. and, then the worst, suicidal thoughts
4. The combination of my broken heart and the withdrawal from paxil can be attributed to this altered state of mind.
5. For the first time ever, the pain of slicing skin with a exacto-razor helped.
6. Somewhere in there, I dyed my hair red as blood
7. The pain and the sight of the cuts jolted my head out of the concerns of my heart.
8. I began contacting friends, talked to Meg a bit.
9. Went downstairs and cried in the dark for a while.
10. The next person I reached out to was my sister. She held me while I cried a long time and finally talked it out and exorcised some of those daemons haunting me.
11. Much more clear headed and clear hearted after that I was finally able to sleep.