My big sister's wedding

 

 

 

Peace Poem

This is my poem on promoting INNER peace, and the struggle to accept inner peace in a person fighting a mental illness.  It’s about my struggles with an anorexia nervosa, depression, and borderine personality disorder… but it is about far more, it is about the silent killer that plaguese every demographic....

 Battleground

I have a secret but if I tell you

I'm afraid you would leave as they always do

I can try to explain in a few words

‘I’m fighting for hope in a lost world’

 

You may see no reason to be fighting

And it’s sad to say, but sometimes I see no reason for living

I’m constantly fighting the demons inside

I’m begging for them to rest so I don’t have to hide

 

 You can’t understand…

There is war around every corner

But I live in a land

There there is no one but this loner

A girl who cries at her own reflection

A girl who begs the voices to stop

A girl who starves for perfection

 

… Breathe….

 

This is the world I live in

A never ending battleground

Of voices telling me I will never be good enough

Voices of all the people who have hurt me

Voices of all the pain inside me

Yes, they can talk, they can even scream

Sometimes they are so loud

That I forget how to whisper…

 

“Please be quiet”

“Let me sleep”

“I want to make it through tonight

Without giving in to the war I keep

Bottled up inside

I pray for inner peace”

 

 

My college is hosting a poetry contest and I thought I might enter something if I did well enough.  This is my first draft, what do you think?  It probably still needs some more work though.

Minimizing

I hate the "There is always someone worse off than you" and the "You should be grateful."  Maybe someone else is going through hard times but there is only so much a human body and soul can endure and I know I have come close to the edge of the cliff many times.  So yeah, maybe a child in Ethiopia is malnourished, maybe an elderly man just lost his beloved wife, or maybe a neighborhood burnt down yesterday, those are all horrible situations, but just because the severity of the situations may be a big deal, it doesn't mean the severity of my situation isn't a big deal.  I guess what I'm trying to get at is this; an empty wallet to a wealthy person who has never known anything but luxury can be devastating just as a loss of a child can be devastating.  I'm NOT trying to say that a child is as important as wealth because given the choice I think most people would chose a child.  But just hear me out, just because some one's troubles don't sound 'bad enough' to you, does not make them less 'bad' to the person enduring them.  Am I making any sense?  I'm not trying to discount anyone, in fact, I'm trying to do just the opposite.  If you are hurting for whatever reason it means that you are hurt, the circumstances don't matter, it means you need something that you don't have, whether it be food, money, health, family, friends... to every person what you need and don't need is different so stop discounting people when they say they aren't okay, because even child born with a silver spoon in his mouth can feel hurt and pain.

Black Sheep

I can't forget the day I was pulled out of AP calc to go to the counselors office.  I thought I knew what was coming, another dead end, but what I found was different than I anticipated and slightly frustrating.  Two police officers, my school's social worker, a concerned teacher, and an outreach social worker were waiting for me in a big room.  I don't remember much of what happened that day, but I remember feeling like I was being yelled at by one of the police officers to "tell my secret."  They all insisted they knew there was a skeleton in the closet and I was hiding something big.  Maybe I was, but to me I wasn't hiding anything.  Yes, my family had dark secrets, but doesn't every family?  I didn't know where to go with the question "What are you hiding?" and then he threw in the "You can trust me" shit.  Sorry, but it really was a bunch of shit.... how was I supposed to trust a complete stranger and spill out not secrets, but memories that I couldn't decipher as good, bad, or ugly because to me they just 'were'?  Was I supposed to tell him my life story?  And then I came back with "Even if I did have a secret there is nothing you could do about it."  Which was true in my frame of mind, and I was getting help already from my therapist.  I still had to respect this man because he was an officer, her was an authority, and I knew he was trying to help me.  He thought I would be more comfortable telling just him instead of the half a dozen other people in the room, so he sent them out.  I refused to tell him anything and he gave me an ultimatum- tell him my secret and let him help, or be brought somewhere they knew I'd be safe.  After a couple of minutes they were all back in the room, one guy was calling in to find me a bed at the nearest psych unit, another was asking for my insurance information, and another one was getting out a pair of handcuffs.  I'm pretty sure I could have gone without the cuffs... even if I wanted to pull away I was so frail I would have broken.  At least I got to ride in the front of the cop car. 

So someone told me that it is common for the middle child to be the "black sheep" of the family.  The one that wants to expose all of the 'imperfections' of an otherwise flawless family...  I have never felt like I belong here, where ever 'here' is.... it's just not me.  I don't fit in.  And even if I tried to tell my family "secrets" like I wanted to, no one would believe me because all anyone ever saw was "perfect."  I remember all of the car rides home, day after day, something either happened at school or happened at home that I couldn't handle.  I didn't have a voice so I bit my tongue, stared out the window, pulled down my sunglasses, and cried in silence.

It's weird to say I have a voice now, or at least I'm working on having a voice.  I still have to bite my tongue a lot but I am learning to process things.  I'm building my army to help me fight for my voice.

Mindfulness

My electric heater is buzzing away as it is working its hardest to keep me warm.  Nothing seems to help though.  My room is an organized mess, I really only have half a room because it's in the middle of being painted and all of the furniture is clustered together in the middle like a weird barricade.  I'm sitting on my bed with tons of soft, fluffy pillows and underneath the bed is no monster, but a elderly white "puppy" dog named Angel Bear.  She's almost death and pretty blind, but her smeller still almost works though and despite all of that she knows something is different when her Mommy comes home.  When she is home alone and I come home she is usually in the kitchen howling until she realizes that somethings different, then she searches frantically to find me with nothing but a sniffer.  I call her "drunk puppy" when I wake her from a nap because she can barely walk she is so excited... and let's face it, probably lethargic. 

I'm finally learning that I can drink calories now!  Next to my computer is a cool glass of Silk almond milk that I'm sipping away, slowly but surely.  There are some old jeans on my bed that I need to fold and put away... I'm being mindful so I can't judge them right now.

Tonight as we were talking about mindfulness in group I realized that mmaaaaayyyybbeee, just maybe I am the healthiest one in my family. Ha!  At least when it comes to the emotional and wise mind, I may not have it all together but gee do I have it at least a little more put together than the rest of my family.  The first step is ADMITTING you have a problem, so far I'm the only one amongst my family to admit (even though I was somewhat forced into it) that I have a problem.

I guess I will leave with that.  Three more days until my sister's wedding!

The grudge?

My big sister is getting married to the man that kicked me out of their apartment in the middle of a snowstorm and laughed about my eating disorder then half way through my treatment broke up with her and crushed her heart.  The wedding is in five days.  Funny thing is, I've for the most part forgiven him.... but yet there is this urge right now to go egg my "friend's" house... the friend that was supposed to stick with me through everything but left me alone when I needed her most and took away every one that mattered to me and turned them against me..,  For some reason I can't let that grudge go but I'm okay with welcoming my new brother-in-law into the family.  Weird how the past haunts you.  I just can't let go no matter how hard I try.  No matter how much I want to make it stop hurting it still does... people say it's a process but I don't ever want to let that grudge go, maybe it wasn't her alone, but she was a big part of what led me to almost ending it all.  It feels like a fresh wound and tonight it hurts an awful lot.  My fear of abandonment is no laughing matter.

Dreaming....

I want to travel the world....
I want to see the Great Pyramids in Egypt and the African Safari in Kenya.
I want to hug a baobab tree and pet a Galapagos Land Tortoise,
I want to see the lemurs of Madagascar and the Komodo Dragons!
I want to swim with the sharks in the Great Barrier Reefs and tour the Australia Zoo,
I want to hike through the mountains in India and learn about culture around the world
I want to feel the rush of standing next to iconic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, The Colosseum, Stone Henge, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, The Trevi Fountain... I want to see it all!
I want to learn about people, study them and find out what makes us all so unique and special. 
I want to understand people on a level that most of us don't explore. Culture is so interesting to me, what is it that makes us all so uniquely different?  Where did our traditions, perception of beauty, and belief of spirit come from?  Why?  It's beautiful to think about... I'm tired of being stuck in this hillbilly Bible-beater city.  I want to explore and learn and utilize the brain I was given, even with it's flaws.  Most of all I want to help people realize how beautiful they are.  I want to promote peace, peace within a person that brings peace to the outside.  I want to help people find things that makes them happy.  I want to share laughs with African Tribes and a European mime and a Chinese Geisha.

I want to finish college and major in psychology, as soon as I can I would like to get a job at a domestic abuse shelter or a homeless shelter or group home.  I want to start there, save up enough money to move out, keep going to school and get a great job as a behavioral therapist and make a difference in peoples lives like the difference my team has made in my life. 

The good news is, these are all things I can NOT do if I am tied down to my eating disorder.   So someday I will learn to let ed take a back seat and drive down the road to recovery.

I don't want my life to come and go and nothing happen.

Just....

Just
Be
Happy
Don’t cry when you’re sad
Hold yourself together
You can’t feel bad
 
There’s no need for tears
Stop complaining
You can’t have fears
And you don’t need saving
 
I want you to stand tall
Chin up and grin
Life is a game of ball
You better win
 
Just
Let
Go
Leave your troubles behind
The more bad you forget
The more good you will find
 
What’s done is done
You can’t live like that
Wallowing in lost love
There’s no time for that
 
You have to be thankful
For all the good things you have
Some people aren’t so cared for
To have both a Mom and Dad
 
Just
Think
Positive
Don’t let the bad guys win
One day you will regret
Letting the demons in
 
This is not helpful
Please hear me cry
That this hurts too much
For “just’s” to stand by