Update: Nothing Has Changed (And It Probably Never Will)

I'm tired of being a useless, lazy, stupid, 'entitled,' 'out of touch' failure.

 

I'm in a busy season in my life right now -- a job I enjoy, doing a show that's been on my bucket list since I first saw it in 2018, finally making some measurable progress toward what I've always wanted to do with my life, actually managing to keep up with the household tasks 95% of the time (thanks, meds).

However, despite trying for over three decades now, I have never figured out how to stretch time, or pause it, or beat it, or whatever it takes to pack more activities/responsibilities into every day. And as a result, I sometimes have to prioritise some things over other things. Last week, I prioritised cleaning the kitchen floor over putting away the (already washed) laundry. It's worth noting that every single household chore that I am responsible for got done except for putting away the clean laundry. What did I get for my efforts? An eight-hour lecture that has now bled over into a second ongoing, multi-hour period of silent treatment because I also dared have the audacity to pick the 'wrong' flavour of ice cream for myself.

Yeah. I'm just as confused about this as you are.

I've spent the last 24 hours remembering all those plans I made to disappear, to catapult myself past the wall of sleep, beyond the stars. I stand in our kitchen doing dishes, listing all the reasons I should live... I'm doing a show that I've wanted to do since before I met my husband, I want to go shopping with my best friend again, I don't want to make my parents and siblings have to lose me like that, I want to see all those goals I have set for my dance career get met, I want to see things get better because even after spending thirty years watching my life spiral deeper and deeper into hell with no sign of stopping I'm still dumb enough to believe that it'll get better someday.

I can't talk to anyone about this, I burned all those bridges multiple 'rough patches' ago. Even my best friend snapped at me last time I told her I wasn't doing well mentally, insinuating I was selfish for thinking I was the only person in her life having problems. After that, I realised if I wanted to have any kind of relationship at all with any human being ever, I would have to hunker down and get through depressive episodes entirely alone (my husband made it abundantly clear LONG ago that he was going to be personally offended every time I even alluded vaguely to being depressed). That had worked just fine until now.

Those are all great reasons to live, on paper. But they don't seem to connect with the bruised, bleeding, hacked up remains of my broken heart that's already mangled by third-degree burns. I know logically that those are good reasons, but they don't mean anything to me at this moment, even though I know they do (or at least they should).

Right now, all I can see and hear and feel and taste is how EVERY. SINGLE. TINY. INSIGNIFICANT decision I make is somehow the wrong one. It does not matter what it is, it is always wrong. Even if I ask for clarification a thousand times, everything I do is still somehow wrong. I'm so tired of always having to defend myself and always having to walk on eggshells and giving 275% of myself every single day of my life and still being reamed out for 'not even trying.'

It's just like freaking college all over again. I very nearly didn't survive that. I'm not sure I have the energy or desire left to survive this too. What's even the point? The longer this goes on, the more likely it seems that nothing ever will actually get better, and there's no big reward coming for hanging on to breathing like this.

So how much of my blood do I need to spill to make right the wrong I have done by existing?

Mental Health Update, Year Twenty

The depression is hitting hard lately. I'm so tired and I had a thousand thoughts in my head before I sat down in front of this page and now they're all gone.

This pain is turning me into an animal. It's hard to even walk upright now, the physical pain and the palpable weight in my heart pull my chest to the earth like an anvil hanging off my sternum. I've cried at work three times in the past two days. Nobody noticed. I know my work has become positively shoddy. I feel like if anybody saw the sniveling, growling, barely-human creature I am when I'm alone, I would be sent to a mental institution immediately. I can barely string together a sentence even in front of people. I feel like the persona I put on in front of people is more and more incongruous with who I really am now. And who I really am is this bundle of pain so deep and so intense that it threatens to physically rip my heart out of my chest -- and I would welcome the day.

I'm tired of walking on eggshells. I'm tired of hearing the voices of the people who were supposed to love me in my head, calling me 'stupid.' Maybe I really am stupid, but that doesn't make the word hurt any less. I'm tired of looking in the mirror and not even recognising the person I see. I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of steeling myself for manipulation at work and I'm tired of steeling myself for manipulation at home. I'm tired of having to censor every thought. I'm tired of having to be on high alert to do damage control constantly.

I want to lay down and close my eyes and never wake up again.

They tell you things will get better. They tell you tomorrow's a new day. They tell you ten years down the road, you'll be glad you didn't kill yourself.

It's been twenty years.

Twenty.

Years.

I regret staying in the chair in 2009. I regret walking back to my dorm in 2017. I regret putting the knife back in 2020. I regret putting the knife back again last year.

I regret every single time I didn't take that chance to get out. Because it's been twenty years since depression first entered my head and things have NOT gotten better. I think twenty years is a more than reasonable amount of time to wait it out.

So what's my reason now, all-knowing ones? I've waited. The better life, the hope and fulfillment and peace that all of you PROMISED me would come has not. So why should I wait longer? It hasn't shown up in twenty years, it's not likely to show up now.

And I'm so worn out and I'm so tired of waiting for a better day that will never come.

Why I Make Art, Part II

Written 2 July 2021, 12.26am.

This past month, I took Andrew Nemr's online course, 'The Encounter,' and while some of it went over my head (as I suspected it might; this was a course marketed to professional dancers and I'm at best an intermediate-level tap dancer), the last two lessons opened up a window into my own soul that I never knew existed.

He talked about establishing trust with the audience -- how one must start with the common knowledge that the audience has (in terms of music, rhythm, body language... anything) and said that from here, you lead them across the bridge to the meaning that you want to convey. He went on to explain that you know you've succeeded if the comments you get afterwards are less along the lines of 'wow, I could never do that,' 'how many years have you been dancing?' 'I used to dance when I was younger,' and more along the lines of 'what were you thinking about while you were dancing that? it was so intense.' He gave several examples of the former and I related to every single one of them -- so intimately that I heard them in the voices of the people closest to me as he spoke them. Those are the exact phrases that annoy me so, so much and make me angry that they're clearly just trying to make conversation and weren't impressed at all with me or my work. They're just stock phrases, and if there is one thing on this planet that I hate (besides Hillsong music), it's stock sympathy/caring phrases. It would be almost better if they would just come out and say they hated my performance.

And in a flash, I understood what I had really been after.

It wasn't love -- as I thought it had been in Part I -- or at least not exclusively. It was understanding.

That's what I've been chasing after all these years. All I wanted was to be understood. Not just brushed aside or given a flippant 'yeah, I hear ya' -- understood.

That's what I've been missing this whole time.

That's why I always feel so unfulfilled whenever I leave the theatre after a show with the stock phrases of my friends and family ringing in my ears. This is why I've been suicidal for most of my life. This is why, when Brittney and my cousin died, I repeated the story and rehashed how I was feeling over and over and over, probably literally millions of times, like a stuck record, for YEARS until I was mentally abused into silence and a deeper self-hatred for 'not getting over it' immediately. This is why I wasted my entire life bending over backwards, allowing myself to be manipulated by directors and churches in hopes that if I could just be subservient enough then they would love me and I would finally have what I wanted... except I wouldn't have.

I had love, at least in an imperfect and patchy way. I look back on my life and I can see moments where my parents and maybe even a couple of friends really did care about me. But I cannot think of even one single moment where I felt understood. Not by my parents. Not by my friends. Not by my husband. Not. Anybody.

This would have been a crushing blow -- maybe nobody will ever understand me -- except that Nemr had already paved the way by saying that you start with the common knowledge that everybody has before you lead them across the bridge to what you actually want to say. It's the exact opposite of what I usually do -- I usually just jump right into the deep end because I honestly prefer other people to do that as well. I hate small talk and pre-amble (big words for somebody who's spent a full eleven years posting rambly drivel on this very blog). But Nemr not only showed me what was wrong, he gave me a solution to try. It may be very much against my entire personality, but clearly the personality I have wasn't working anyway. I can handle being something I'm not if it's only temporary. If I have to fake something for ten minutes onstage before becoming my true self in order to make people understand, that's something I'm willing to try. At least there's hope of being understood. That's something that I've never had before.

(TW: suicide.)

I always had this daydream that if I killed myself, those who truly loved me would sift through every one of my documents and papers -- a huge undertaking to say the least -- and finally, finally know and understand me and what I needed. That daydream has actually fueled some suicidal episodes -- being understood only after death was better than never being understood at all. Hastening my death would hasten understanding. I was literally willing to kill for it.

I kept saying I don't feel love; I must be broken because I literally can't feel it. Maybe that's at least partly true. Maybe it's not true at all. Maybe I just mistook love for understanding and it was almost a fatal misunderstanding. Maybe there is a way out and maybe I can learn it. I don't really know where to start, but at least there is an option.

Thank you, Andrew Nemr. Maybe this isn't what you intended for your course to do, but I'm glad this is what it did.

Sources: Nemr, Andrew. 'Lesson 16 - Communicating Meaning.' In The Encounter (online video course). 2021. https://andrewnemr.teachable.com/p/the-encounter

The Long Lonely Crisis

Originally written early 2018.

This is something that's been on my mind for a while now.

(Trigger warning -- suicide.)

Most of you probably know that I attempted suicide in March 2017. A month later I finally had the opportunity to ask for help and subsequently began counselling. I 'stabilised' -- in theory. But you know when the suicidal thoughts were at their absolute worst? Do you know when I was the closest to ending my life?

It was eight months later -- November 2017.

I was still in counselling once a week. I was still attending all my classes. I continued my rigorous practice schedule. But in late October there had been a serious incident involving a close friend of mine and that was all it took to break me. The fragile progress I'd made vapourised in the aftermath of one horrible text. I doubled the frequency of my counselling appointments in the wake of what had happened but I would still go back to the house for lunch every day and sit there in the living room, staring out the window, visibly shaking, rage coursing through every capillary in my body, literally not even sure if I would survive the next twenty minutes or if I would snap and end it before then.

When I attempted suicide in March 2017, that was actually a more spur-of-the-moment thing. Certainly the anger and frustration that triggered it had been building for some time, but I didn't sit there and plan it that day. I didn't even really realise that I was about to attempt suicide until my feet were already moving. But in November, I was literally planning it out in my head... the details of what I would do, how I would do it, and -- most importantly -- the reactions of others ('maybe then someone would finally be sad for me'). You're not supposed to give those thoughts space and I knew that, but I was too completely, utterly exhausted/spent/depleted/frustrated/beat down to steer them in another direction. All I had the energy to do was just sit and let them run their course, winding my nerves tighter and tighter, increasing my internal tension to the breaking point.

From my counselling, I knew that I should say something. Text someone. Go to a friend's house. Call 911 if necessary (I knew I would not survive the drive to the hospital if I tried to drive myself). That May, when I had started telling people close to me about my attempt in March, they had all said things like, 'you can talk to me if you need it.' They spent time with me, checked in on me, told me I needed to live -- for a while.

But when I hit bottom in November 2017, I never called anybody. I didn't send any texts. You know why?

Because the phrase 'I'm here for you' has an expiration date. Always. I'd learned that after my cousin's death in 2015, and I knew I'd passed that date. Quite a few of those people who had been so concerned in the weeks following my March attempt had already, by November of that same year, told me I was wallowing too much (as if one can 'wallow' in a medical condition that's outside of their control!). I knew if I tried to contact anybody -- including those that helped me the first time around -- they would just assume I was looking for attention or perhaps overreacting. 'You've been in counselling. You know people care about you. That was months ago -- why are you still not better yet? Why aren't you trying hard enough?'

I knew my condition was serious, but I had no way of convincing anybody else that it was. I'd been in treatment for seven months. I was supposed to be better, right? And if I wasn't better yet, then obviously it was all my fault. I wasn't trying hard enough. And nobody wants anybody to do with somebody who's 'lazy' and 'doesn't try...' (Perhaps it is better for that person to be dead...?) (Don't tell me you're not thinking this sometimes when I'm struggling and seem exceptionally needy.)

Listen to me, just for a moment. Recovery is not linear. Recovery is not instant. Let me say this again -- recovery is not instant.

Please get this.

There is no quick fix for depression. Yes, there is counselling, and yes, there is medication, but neither of these are quick fixes, and neither of these is guaranteed. At this moment in history, depression is incurable. If you don't understand this, you cannot say you understand depression. You cannot understand the weight of knowing there is no end to the fight, ever, for the rest of your life. Recovery -- especially from a suicide attempt -- can take years. Literal, calendar years. And if you say you're going to be there for us through that time of picking up the pieces, you need to realise how long that really is. It's long. And it's hard. And it's slow. And it's lonely. And it feels pointless. And because we're already depleted from actually getting to the cliff edge of our lives and clawing our way back up over the edge of our own demise, we don't have a lot of strength left. It's like how you're depleted and listless after a flu -- it takes time to get your strength back. In the very earliest days of my 'recovery' (April 2017), I had zero will to live -- I was in fact still actively planning to die. It took a lot of people pouring their determination into me for a long time (we're talking every single day for months) before I began to even reflect any of it myself (it took even longer than that for any of that determination to truly get inside me). I have said of one friend who was there at that time that she fought harder for my life than I did. I had well and truly given up the ghost, but it was people like her who doggedly insisted that I needed to live and stayed close to me to ensure that I did.

But the thing is, over time, they begin to drift away. They think you're better and they begin to drift away and assume you're in remission. But just because the initial emergency has passed doesn't mean that you're cured. You're now at 20% battery instead of 1%, which is of course an improvement, but that 20% can -- and does -- get depleted quickly. Meanwhile everyone assumes that you're now permanently at 100% and gets upset with you if you so much as hint that you aren't.

A crisis is not solved (though, yes, it can sometimes be temporarily alleviated) with a ten-minute text friend-therapy session. A mental health crisis can last -- even with treatment -- for years. The suicidal thoughts that nearly killed me in 2017 actually started in early 2015. I was in full-blown crisis for two years -- BEFORE I even made an attempt. And don't make the mistake of thinking it the crisis ends immediately after one attempt (even with treatment).

Even now, there are still more dark days than I let on. There are fewer now than there were in November 2017, yes, but there are still days where I am frustrated and lonely and feeling like nothing I ever do will be worth any of the time I'm putting into it and I start thinking, 'why even bother?' Because of my personal history with this cocktail of depression/perfectionism/suicidal ideation, this little phrase alone opens the floodgates to dark things very quickly -- as soon as that question comes up, I can go from neutral to suicidal in literal seconds. It's such a fast slide that I often don't even realise it's happening until I'm already planning what my imminent death will look like. Basically, because I've been to the edge of suicide before, it means I can wind up back in that state easier and faster than others who have never attempted. It's become a sort of muscle memory.

But I consistently don't contact anyone because I know that nobody is going to take me seriously -- they're just going to roll their eyes and ask why I'm not trying harder. I've gone through a lot this past year, but I kept pretending I was fine. At the moment that's doable. But if I start sliding again, that means I'm not going to contact anybody.

This is why checking in is SO imperative, even if somebody looks fine. If we don't feel safe to say we're struggling, a lot of times we simply won't. And that's dangerous... it means we won't warn you, we'll just fire the fatal shot and hope someone cares enough to bury the body.

Art and Fog (The Raft In The Sea)

I forgot how much I love the performing arts.

I'm into my third week living alone in a bigger city than I ever have before, and last week did NOT go well. As I suspected would happen, I felt unseen and unheard and trapped, not in the concrete/steel jungle, but in this huge empty house. I didn't (still don't) even have gas money to go out to a bookstore or something (nor would I have had money to spend at said bookstore). Longtime readers know this is a recipe for disaster, and by this past weekend I literally did not care about anything. I think I ate a total of three actual meals from Wednesday till yesterday (Tuesday), supplemented by Pop Tarts, watched TV for literally three straight days, and went off my asthma meds completely (mostly by accident, but that did not help matters).

At some point during that fog, between episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I followed every actor/dancer/theatre Facebook group I could find in my new city. Between those and some groups I already follow from elsewhere, I found a handful of auditions, and most of them would accept video auditions.

Most were due this weekend and I'm gone this weekend, so I set aside today to film all of them in one go (I discovered if I pray enough, that piece-of-trash memory card does work intermittently. At this point it's better than nothing). And afterwards, as I sat sipping my peanut-butter smoothie, I felt... just a tiny little bit better. Acting and dancing for the camera all day had distracted me from the dark fog long enough to catch a breath.

I've hinted at this but never actually come out and said it publicly -- in April I decided to quit the arts. I had three shows outstanding at the time I made this decision, and I planned to finish those and then... fling myself into the artless abyss, whatever that looked like. I literally do not have any interests or passions outside the arts. Literally none. I assumed I'd die shortly after finishing my last show (which I suppose is still not outside the realm of possibility as I haven't finished that show yet). I stopped auditioning, I stopped looking, I stopped practicing, I stopped trying.

But today, having spent all day acting and dancing... I don't know if turning my back on all that training and joy is wise... or even sane. I often think I'm exaggerating when I say I can't live without the arts, but today reminded me that's actually true. It keeps me at least somewhat afloat in this dark heaving sea of life and depression that pulls me down into its depths with full intent to smother me.

To quit the arts is a literal suicide mission. But so much of the performing arts is dependent on someone actually casting you.

Say what you will about autonomy and self-sufficiency and independence and all that crap, my life is in the hands of the local casting directors.

Too Personal

I've touched on this rant before. However, I've reined myself in in those instances. Here, I am going to give you the full, unadulterated, 100% pure-from-concentrate rant.

(Buckle up.)

In the more immediate aftermath of the Year from Hell (2015/my second year of college/when literally everybody I ever loved was dying), I was so consumed by the pain that admittedly, it was all I talked about. I was trying to process it, trying to hash it out, and as a result, I talked about it incessantly. I was angry, I was wounded, I felt like everybody was abandoning me (dying) and I was crying out for somebody to just not. I felt like everybody was leaving, despite my cries for them to stay -- it was like nobody heard me. I call this phenomenon 'screaming into the void.' I was screaming for someone to stay and they kept walking away, without even glancing back or checking their pace. As if I wasn't making any sound at all. As if they never even heard me. As if I wasn't even there.

So, in a desperate attempt to get some measure of sympathy or attention or even some acknowledgement that I wasn't invisible, I kept telling the story of my pain. Over and over. I was waiting for somebody to really, truly hear me. To listen. No-one did, so I kept rehashing the story. I wanted somebody to hear it, and I would keep telling it until somebody did or die in the attempt.

In May 2016, somebody who I had considered a friend told me through text (somewhat rudely) that I was getting 'too personal.' I was too stunned by his rudeness to ask what that meant, but I made a mental note to not bring up anything but fairy floss and unicorns around this person again (which, when your life is a living hell as mine was at the time, means you're never going to talk to them again). As best as I could figure given the limited context, 'personal' meant 'not ecstatically happy.'

Two months later, a very good friend of mine said the same thing -- the exact same words -- after I confronted her about blocking me on social media. This person knows pain very similar to mine, so this one hurt especially deeply. Our relationship still has a rift in it, as I now feel I can't talk with her about anything lest it be deemed 'too personal.'

In November 2016, in an email that was a direct factor in my suicide attempt four months later, a mentor said to me, 'you are being too personal. Nobody wants to hear about your troubles.' To me, this translated directly to, 'nobody will ever love you because your life has problems.' (Even though it was not my fault that everybody around me was dying.)
Even though I didn't attempt suicide till the following March, this email was the point where I mentally/emotionally gave up and these words were ringing through my head the night that I actually attempted suicide. Those words sent a very clear message that I was broken beyond repair and that nobody would ever want me in their lives.

What do we do with things that are broken beyond repair, things that nobody wants?

We throw them away.

People ask why I tried to kill myself. How could I be so selfish? they ask. Answer: Because I was broken and nobody wants a broken person. Broken people are a drain on friends, family, society, and -- I was told in no uncertain terms -- churches. We take energy and joy and hope from people and replace it with bleak despair. And Nobody Wants That. Don't lie to me -- you all told me that yourself, in those 'nobody wants to hear...' messages. I was going to throw myself away -- the way all broken things should be (sayeth society).

'Too personal' bothers me because it means that you think you can impose on me what I can and cannot say. You're trying to censor me. Everyone else gets to pull the 'free speech' card, so -- where's my right to free speech? More than that, it shows that you don't truly care about me. A true friend is there through everything -- good and bad, thick and thin. Yes, tough love is a useful tool, but it should be a last resort, not a wall you put up the SECOND a friend starts struggling. (Also, side note -- tough love really only makes sense if said friend is actively hurting themselves. However, if life is beating your friend down through no fault of their own -- you know, like if someone close to them dies -- that is not, not, NOT an appropriate time for tough love. THEY ARE IN MOURNING AND IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT THEIR FAULT THEIR FRIEND/CLOSE RELATIVE DIED. STOP PUNISHING THEM FOR BEING SAD ABOUT SOMETHING OUTSIDE THEIR CONTROL.) The instant you throw out the 'too personal' line, you have permanently placed your friend at arm's length and told them that you are not a safe person to come to if they need it (for more on that, read this). I have literally ended friendships over this line (and it takes one heck of a lot for me to end a friendship -- I've only ended two or three friendships in my entire life, but they were all over this or very similar issues).

There's a quote that floats around the internet to the effect of 'If you can't handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best,' and that is SO true. Either you're with me through it all, or I'm done with you. I don't have the time or energy for fair-weather friendships who only want my perfect, happy life. If you love me, you love all of me, no matter how sad or frustrated or discouraged.

That being said, please hear this -- you don't have to fix me.

I'll say it again: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FIX ME.

I don't expect you to make my life perfect again -- that's not possible for anybody. You just have to love me. If I trust you with the information of how difficult things are for me at the moment, that means I trust you. Take that as an honour. Don't destroy that trust by telling me that you have arbitrarily decided that I can't talk about a certain topic or issue in my life that I just want to hash out or verbally process.

Now, that's all frustrating, just on its own.

But even before you get to all of that crap, there's the fact that from an English-speaking standpoint, the phrase itself doesn't even make sense -- at least not in the context of me talking about something that's happened to me. It makes sense if I'm asking you questions about yourself and your life and you say, 'that's kind of a personal question, I'd rather not answer it.' That makes sense to me, but if I want to tell a story from my own life, how is that 'too personal?' What does that even mean? You're asking me to avoid something that can't even be properly defined. And a person who's struggling -- especially if they have a condition like depression -- will tend to swing to the opposite extreme. They will stop sharing their pain -- entirely. To anyone. Full stop. They -- we -- will carry it alone and bottle it up.

And bottled up pain, just like bottled up anger, will eventually explode, and sometimes pain explodes into a suicide attempt. And sometimes suicide attempts don't get thwarted -- sometimes the thing we try actually does kill us. Sometimes nobody calls. Sometimes the person doesn't find us in time. Sometimes telling someone to stop talking about their pain means that we listen -- permanently.

Spring

These are the days that make me miss home. The blue sky, the sun, the smell of damp grass as the snow melts, the overwhelming brown of dead grass, mud, and last year's leaves.

I've noticed in the past few years that my depression worsens in the spring. Winter has always been my favourite season, and with each passing year I despise its departure more and more. I hate the mud, I hate the brown, I hate the slush and the damp and the receding snow. And I hate more than anything the fact that everybody gets so darn excited about it. Everybody everywhere suddenly starts celebrating the drab brownness everywhere and the mess and the fact that you can't take one step outside without getting covered in mud. How is this something to celebrate...? It's like they're rubbing the horribleness of the season in your face. Just when you thought you'd forgotten it's not crisp and clean outside anymore, someone comes up to you and says, with eyes brighter and wider than any human's should naturally be, 'ISN'T IT SO NICE AND WARM OUT TODAY BOY I THOUGHT WINTER WAS NEVER GOING TO END DON'T YOU JUST LOVE THE SUNSHINE THEY SAID IT'S SUPPOSED TO GET UP TO PLUS FIVE TODAY I'M GLAD I WORE SHORTS.' It's like a firehose of fake cheer in my face, trying to drown me. Have you actually looked outside? It's BROWN. No colour. No life. There's nothing beautiful about it. Don't tell me spring is when the flowers bloom, Martha, that happens in June. This is March.

And the statistics bear me out. Suicide rates spike in May. Not November. Not February. May.

For me, I realised today that one of the reasons my depression bottoms out at this time is because for whatever reason, days like this remind me of home. And I'm not home. And I won't be for the forseeable future. Ach, der mich liebt und kennt / Ist in der Weite.

Smaller

Last night, on a long-ish solo drive, I got thinking.

I've kind of been not-talking to a lot of my friends lately. It's not that I don't like them or have any problems with them, it's just that I know most of them have a LOT going on and I'm terrified to be a further drain on them, even more than I already have been. Of course, hot on the heels on this thought was the time-worn logic that's been dictating my life for over a decade -- if you were dead, you wouldn't be a drain on them anymore.

If only I could somehow make myself smaller. If only I could make myself need less. If only I could be even more self-sufficient. If only I didn't need SO MUCH people-time. If only I could be happy with the same surface-level relationships that everyone else manages to be happy with. If only I could somehow apologise deeply enough for the fact that I need so much from so many -- without immediately regressing back into the same behaviour that I'd just apologised for. If only I could apologise enough for taking up even the little 5'3 amount in time and space and oxygen. If only I could apologise for wasting the time of everybody I've ever said 'hello' to. If only I could be smaller. If only I could need less.

And I realised that I've been thinking these things, in some form or another, for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid. Even today, I'm constantly making myself small -- I draw my knees to my chest, I keep my things piled high rather than spread out and I keep them close to me, I tuck my feet under the chair, ankles crossed, I stand (against the wall) rather than sit, I keep my elbows tucked against my ribs and my hands close to my chest and face. I've been looking for ways to take up as little physical space as possible for so long that I do it without thinking now, and I feel guilty when I make any kind of expansive movement or step into the middle of a room or even raise my voice or start a conversation.

I'm tired of apologising for existing. But I don't know how not to feel guilty for breathing.

Tell Me You Know

The following was written 13 October 2018, three weeks after M's death. I was talking about this with someone not long ago and decided that yes, I am going to post this -- I believe it needs to be said.
This is the original, unedited post from that time.

If you know someone is grieving, please say something. Please acknowledge their existence. Even if you just say, 'I heard what happened. I'm so sorry.' Just tell me you know.

Three full weeks after my good friend's sudden death, I'm only just finding out now that all my professors and teachers found out the same day I did. They didn't know her at all -- the one person I told first told all of them. I don't mind all of them knowing... but I wish they would have said something to me. For three weeks I've been carrying this and while yes, I do have close friends who are checking in on me, it would still be helpful to know all the rest of you know and are in my corner. At least say 'I'm sorry...'

I don't know why this bothers me so much. I feel like they just let me struggle alone. I feel like they all said, 'ah, she'll be fine.' And maybe I will be -- but not in a void, and not at the moment. Don't ignore me now -- being ignored is exactly what leads to suicide in the first place. If you want to prevent other suicide deaths in the memory of this fantastically bright person you never knew, then make sure nobody slips through the cracks. Make sure nobody else feels abandoned, or ignored, or stigmatised.

Yes, I have been putting on a brave face. But that's exactly what I've been doing -- 'putting on' a brave face. It's not real, and it's exhausting -- trying to keep up this facade so you don't abandon me just because I'm grieving something beyond my control.



The following was a Facebook post I drafted that same week and never published. In retrospect, I wish I had. It won't have the same effect now because of the time that's passed between her death and the present day, but maybe it'll be helpful to you all in the future as your other friends lose people in tragic ways.

Can I rant for a second?

Let me be clear: I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm about to write the kind of post that ends up with a million people commenting stuff like 'wow thanks for sharing' because they feel obligated in some way to acknowledge it rather than because they actually feel anything. I'm telling you -- don't comment unless you actually mean it. I can tell from a mile away if you don't and it just makes everything awkward for both of us. I would prefer that you not comment at all rather than say something insincere or off-topic. I'm not looking for sympathy. I just want to say this.

(Also, trigger warning.)

So -- most of you apparently know by now that two weeks ago I lost a very good friend to suicide. This is the fourth person close to me that I've lost in three years and from past experience I knew that if I said one word about it, people were going to start coming out of the woodwork telling me how I'm not trying hard enough to get over it and how I was being 'too negative.' So for the past two weeks I have deliberately put on a brave face. I have said nothing. I have asked for nothing. I have continued to live my life as if everything was fine even though there's a MASSIVE hole in my heart. Believe me, I wanted to say something. I wanted to at least give people a heads-up to the pain I'm in, to explain why I might seem a little 'off.' But I knew people would think I was just milking for sympathy and they would resent me and treat me even worse so I kept my mouth shut.

And now I'm beginning to find out that literally EVERYONE around me found out the same day I did. I know it's a small town and rumours spread, and I honestly don't mind that people know -- but the thing is NOBODY, not one of these people, reached out to me to see how I was doing. Most of these people know I have a history of similar struggles. I would assume most of these people are aware that copycat suicide is a thing and be at least slightly concerned for my safety. But nobody checked in. Nobody even said, 'hey, I heard; I'm so sorry.' Even that would have made me feel supported. But now I just feel ignored and abandoned. You knew I was suffering and you turned a blind eye. And I think that almost hurts more than the knowledge that my immensely creative, fun-loving, talented, vivacious friend ended her own life.

You know who commits suicide? Those who feel alone and abandoned.

You know how I feel right now? Alone and abandoned.

Just SAY something. It doesn't have to be much. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just let me know you see me.

The Hardest Thing

The hardest thing about an invisible/mental illness is the fact that it's invisible.

It's not the cowering beneath the whip of self-loathing, it's not the constant calorie-counting, it's not the paralysing fear of interacting with another human (though all that is certainly exhausting).

The hardest part is that nobody sees.


Oh I've played the game of hide-and-seek
When all I wanted was for them to see
See the lines upon my face
The memories have left their trace...

~ White Heart, 1990 (Storyline)

Day 31

They tell you grief is weird and unpredictable. You'd think I'd know this already, having grieved so much in the last three or four years.

One month and one day since M's death, and this one is not at all like the others. With the others I sobbed uncontrollably for weeks. I spent months in a fit of rage -- how could this happen? -- and literally could not function for a long time. I completely stopped writing and choreographing -- only very recently have I begun to take these things up again.

But this time it doesn't hit me in tsunami waves like it did with my cousin and with Brittney. It's not a crushing heaviness like it was with my grandpa. It hits me in little needling moments, death by a thousand cuts. I have shed tears over M, but not all at once in full-blown sob sessions. The tears this time have been a collective, unobtrusive effort -- one or two at a time, and you'd miss them if you weren't looking directly at me and if the light wasn't just right.

Today I was thinking about one of my writing projects. There's a character who does highland dancing and of course my first, instinctive thought was, I'll ask M about highland stuff... and then I realised I can't. There was a window of opportunity -- years of it -- where I could have (if I had thought of this aspect of the character sooner), and I thought that window would stretch on forever, but it didn't and that somehow blindsided me.

The question that keeps coming to mind is not why? I know why -- or at least I have a pretty good idea. I've been on the edge of that cliff. The wind just happened to push me the other way. (For now.)

The recurring question is: is this how the story ends? All that enthusiasm and vigor and energy and life -- is this the apex? Does it all end here? Apparently it does -- it already has, thirty-one days ago -- but somehow I'm still haunted by this question. Is this really it? Is this really the end of her story? This? It feels so incomplete.

It scares me a little how quickly I've been able to just continue with my life, so unaffected. On one hand I'm waiting for it to bowl me over, and this is a possibility -- I tend to not fully process things immediately. It took me a full three years to process my cousin's death (how has it been over three years?), to return to some kind of normalcy after literal years of being almost literally paralysed with grief and rage. But at the same time, M's death has so far has almost zero effect on me, though I was much closer to her than I ever was to my cousin. Have I just grieved so much for others already that I'm out of grief? Have I spent all my life's emotions? Am I numb now?

And then the next little moment hits me that I'll never be able to tag her in another writing or dance post on Facebook, or I'll never be able to ask her a highland dance question, or I'll never be able to be a part of her dance shows again, or that we never did do that dance video I had started teaching her choreography for, or we'll never again spend 25 comments on her Facebook status talking about music, and I feel a tiny twinge of that huge hollow breathless ache that I know so well. It reassures me -- at least I'm feeling something -- but it also scares me. I only catch glimpses of it, but it seems somehow bigger than I remember it, and should the curtain be fully pulled back, I don't know if I can stand under that much nothingness.

Deleting Humans

I'm having such a hard time deleting you from my life.

I've done this before -- too many times. A text comes through and you just sort of mentally scratch another person off your list of friends to call when something terrible or wonderful happens. You mentally note another anniversary. You read the obituary. And they just sort of fade out of your life -- just gone, irrevocably gone, incommunicado, with no explanation. You go back home and don't happen to see them and you think maybe next time.

Sometimes the funeral helps make it real. But yours didn't. It's still not real. I was there, in the pew, and I heard your brother and your teacher and your friends give the eulogies. I heard -- I felt -- the thundering bagpipe lift a mournful cry to the autumn heavens. I watched the still lifes of your now-still life float by me, mere pixels on a projector screen, trying and failing to capture and contain and give back to us the experience and essence of your life, the vivacious energy you carried. I watched the singers' faces crinkle, I saw them clasp each other's hands, holding tightly -- eyes closed, ribcages shuddering -- knowing they knew they could no longer take yours. I heard your mother weeping, howling like no creature in the world ever could -- the haunted, hollow cry of a mother's gutted heart.

And then I went out into the balmy fall day, into the coloured leaves and the blue sky -- I somehow assumed all the colour would die when you did. Maybe that's why my heart doesn't feel it yet. The world is still too bright for you to not be in it. How could you possibly be gone if the sun is still shining? I would think it's some dramatic trick for attention, but the echo of your mother's visceral sobs in my memory tells me otherwise.

I look at the pictures I have of you -- thank goodness I knew you during my take-pictures-of-literally-EVERYTHING phase -- and I study your face and I can't reconcile the fact that I will never see it again in real life. I can't remember your voice, but I remember the words you'd use on our Facebook chats -- I'd recognise your writing voice again in a heartbeat.

If only you still had a heartbeat.

I still do -- why don't you? How is it possible that I'll never -- truly, never -- see you again? How can I look at that face in the pictures, the face of my friend, and delete it from my life? That's so cold, so heartless, so final -- even though you've already deleted it from my life. It seems impossible to just take it as fact that I will never hear from you again. There's always hope, isn't there? The prodigal always comes home, don't they? Love conquers all, doesn't it?

How then can I look at you, that wildly expressive face, and say definitively that hope is gone, and you'll never return, and my love for you -- our love for you -- could not conquer your demons? To do so is to admit defeat. It means I've given up on you and I can't find it in my heart to do that to you; you who have been through so much and meant so much to me. You're not gone -- I just haven't seen you in a while. Like so many others in my far-flung life. They haven't died, they're just geographically far away. Can't you be the same? Can't I run into you at some gala twenty years from now and revert to overexcited fourteen-year-olds again as we catch up on shows, and men, and recent projects? I'll be waiting for that day.

I'll be waiting a darn long time for that day.

Music Day - Numb

This is a song that probably doesn't need much introduction -- one of the few songs in my library that other people would actually know. But I'm listening to it now and I'm dedicating this Music Day to the lovely but trapped M -- lover of performing and writing and rock music, victim of the hell that is perfectionism.

I loved her. I know her brain was sick and she couldn't receive it, but I loved her all the same, and I hate that I'll never see her light up a room again -- nobody could do it like she did and I daresay nobody ever will.

This is how I feel right now. My mind is screaming and clouded like the guitars, but my heart is numb.

Title: Numb
Artist: Linkin Park
Album: Meteora
Year: 2003
iTunes here; YouTube here.

And I know I may end up failing too
But I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you...

Upheaval and Music (A Snapshot)

Life has been in upheaval lately.

I am preparing to graduate this coming April (and none too soon, according to the powers-that-be...). I have planned several auditions for productions outside the college over the next couple of months -- hoping to hit the ground running so I don't experience the post-grad psychological crisis (because it's a real thing and it almost killed me last time). Also I actually managed to land an actual role with actual lines at the college (I know, I was shocked too). And I've now attended the funeral of a suicide (my very good friend -- a brilliant dancer and fearless writer).

I find myself re-evaluating my life quite a bit in the wake of all this. I am definitely ready to graduate -- not angry-ready, just ready. I sense I've more or less gotten all I'm going to get out of my current post-secondary stint and it's time to move on.

And my friend's death has redoubled my passion to live my life the way I feel called to rather than be pressured into spending it at some soulless desk job. I feel a bit of a burden in my spirit to live the life that she never will -- to dance just as brightly and passionately and to write with just as much verve and abandon as she did. It's up to me now to take up that mantle she left behind.

I don't know what any of this looks like. I guess I'll keep practicing and keep auditioning and keep performing. After all, that's basically the life I've always wanted anyway.

Tonight I'm listening to Michael W. Smith's brilliant album i 2 (EYE). This is the album that fits this night, this moment of my life, with its themes of providence and life (warts and all), and darkness and light and loss and sadness and camaraderie. As I've said before, where people cannot grasp the feelings in my soul, music can, and tonight this album is that music. I can't really describe it -- it's a strange mix of what MWS actually wrote coupled with my long bank of memories associated with this album and they all come together in this particular listening tonight. I wouldn't quite say it's bringing me comfort -- in fact as I Hear Leesha plays it's kind of ripping the hole left by my friend's death even bigger -- but it just fits. It makes emotional sense, on some deep subconscious soul level. It accompanies the upheaval with a sort of peace even at it brings me temporarily back to the times before everyone died, sitting in the Dodge Spirit in a Fabricland parking lot with my dad, playing this cassette over and over.

I'll help you find your way
When you're lost in all the madness
When you're blinded by your doubts
When you need someone to be there for you
I'll help you find your way...

I Know The Drill

Do you know what I hate?

I hate being in my mid-twenties and getting a text saying that a dear friend of mine has died and knowing exactly how the next few weeks will look for me because I've done this all before. I hate that I know exactly which music to listen to and what to avoid. I hate that I know how long it'll take for the news to hit home. I hate that I'm planning a roadtrip for a funeral on Thanksgiving weekend. I hate that I'm so matter-of-fact about this because I know the drill -- I hate that I know the drill.

My friends are celebrating weddings and birthdays and anniversaries. They're going on dates and having children and going on vacation.
And I just keep attending a steady stream of funerals.

I came across a picture the other day featuring myself, my sister, Brittney, and one of my dance friends.
It's a candid shot (though Brittney had seen the camera and was posing), taken by my sister at my birthday party in 2012. And I looked at this picture and realised that two of the four people in that photo are dead, a mere six years later. Brittney, at twenty, was the oldest person in that photo. None of us should be dead, not yet. We're all too young, and yet we're dropping like flies. I've almost come to expect that everyone I've ever loved in going to die young and I'm going to outlive them all, lonely and angry.

When one of my good friends attempted suicide last year, I distinctly remember writing in my journal, 'next death, I die too. I'm not taking this anymore.'

That next death happened this past Thursday.

Yesterday morning one of my very good friends asked me how I was doing. I told her I wasn't doing great and she gave me a hug and there was this strange moment in my head -- both this friend and I have survived suicide attempts and here she is, comforting me in the wake of another friend's suicide. Why did the two of us live? Yet... how strangely beautiful that we did, and now we have each other. We have both been through Hell and back.

The moment reminded me of the old Burlap To Cashmere song...
You have one wing and I have another
Seeking shelter like sister and brother...
Hold my hand and we'll make it all right
From this hell that we live in...
It's a long and lonesome ride
When your friends have all gone home...
(Eileen's Song, Burlap To Cashmere, 1998)

When The Circumstances Are Right...

I told someone once that my depression always dips a bit when a performance run ends. Rehearsals are over, I see my friends less, I don't have stage-time... if I don't have a job (as is the case at the moment), I have literally no reason to get up in the morning.

About a year and a half later, I was in a serious depressive state and this person said to me, "You told me once that you always feel depressed after a performance ends. So just get over it."

And that actually made things worse.

See, she clearly knew that circumstances were right for me to be struggling, but instead of using that information to come alongside me and comfort me and be there for me and encourage me, she weaponised it -- she used it to trivialise the pain I was in.

This incident, in this depressive state, was an extremely large factor in my suicide attempt not long afterward. She knew I was struggling, but she didn't try to help. She knew that conditions were right for something to happen but she did nothing to even try to help cushion the blow.

Don't do this.

In the same way you encourage your loved ones to watch a good film or go for coffee if they've had a stressful day or take a nap if they were up late the night before or bring/make them food if they've not stopped to eat in a while, take note of factors that may trigger or worsen your loved one's depression and take steps to combat it/soften the blow, ESPECIALLY if they have deliberately told you what those factors are, and ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if the factor is something predictable (for example, the end of a performance run). We do what we can, but sometimes we're not strong enough, or sometimes we just don't know how.

In my case, a good way for someone to help combat my depression is to just spend time with me. We don't have to do anything expensive or crazy. We don't even have to talk (just please note that if you're on your phone it very clearly sends the message that you'd rather be talking to someone else right now and I'm not worth your time and attention -- which actually worsens my depression even more than if you weren't even there to begin with). Just sit with me or walk with me. If I want to talk, let me talk. But please do not say that you did not know. Don't pretend that knowing it's coming makes the pain any easier to handle. News flash: it doesn't. If anything it makes it worse BECAUSE you know it's coming and you spend two weeks dreading it before it even arrives.

Grace

'God, why the hell am I doing this? Why am I trying so hard and failing every. single. time? Did You or did You not give me an aptitude, a gift? And if not, say it to my face. But if so, give me some indication, some encouragement. Because I am --ing DONE trying and failing. I am DONE seeing absolutely zero improvement. And I am DONE screaming for You, somebody, anybody to hear me and hearing only crickets. I am tired of being the outcast among Your so-called 'loving and welcoming' people. I am tired of being ignored and being on the --ing outside. And I am tired of having my frustration minimised and 'fixed' by everyone who is supposed to care about me. Why am I here? And why should I stay?'
-- Excerpt from my journal, one year ago today.

I wrote that following a dance practice during which my skills seemed to dissolve before my eyes -- the same as my dance practices had been going for weeks. I had already had a difficult voice practice earlier that day, I had been doubting my calling and abilities for months, and after years of dancing alone on the razor's edge around it, I finally hit the breaking point. In a fury, I sat down and wrote those words... and those words were very nearly my suicide note, the final record of my thoughts before my last breath. My church had given up on me, my friends had abandoned me, my family was too wrapped up in their own drama, and I was tired of fighting for nothing.  I had used all my energy, poured out so much of myself, and nothing had come of it.

'Today is grace. ...There was a hug. There was completely unexpected and lavish encouragement. There was Faith, and Mel, and me, being blown away.'
-- Excerpt from my journal, today.

That memory of last year weighed heavily on me this morning as I ate breakfast. It seemed heavier as I walked to school and warmed up my voice. In chapel today, they had us gather in groups of three and pray together, and I confessed that today was hard -- how I don't want to leave the darkness that I remember from last year because that's all I know and I don't trust God to take my hand and lead me to anything good beyond it. I confessed that I didn't even want to pray that.

After that I had a voice lesson. It went quite well -- my teacher grew more excited as the lesson went on. "This is what I've been hearing from you in my head for a year, but I've never heard it in real life," she said. And I had to admit that it did feel nice. Normally when I sing it feels awful. It certainly did a year ago... in my practice journal that day, I wrote, 'Why do I keep doing this when I'm so mediocre at it?' And that question haunted me for the rest of that day, through my dance practice that night, and exploded into that first journal entry.

As I walked to school this morning, a song that I had listened to over breakfast seemed to haunt me instead...
Through the tired eyes of faith
You'll see your resurrection day
Resurrection day will come
As surely as the rising sun
Death will fight a holy war
It will live no more
Love will even the score
Resurrection day...
-- With The Tired Eyes Of Faith, Swirling Eddies, 1995.

The phrase thrummed through my head as I approached the school, and all that it would hold today. Resurrection day will come / As surely as the rising sun... Resurrection day will come...

The skills I thought I had lost or would never attain are not as far gone as I feared they would be. My dream has not yet died, as I feared it would if I lived. There is still hope that maybe I won't be mediocre forever, that maybe my life will mean something to someone.

The best thing I can do
Is to clearly say
I'm thankful for today...
-- Today, Imperials, 1985.

Trust, Continued

As I mentioned around the end of last year, I was thinking a lot about trust.

It's a word my professors here use often -- 'trust yourself,' 'trust the process,' 'trust God,' 'trust your practice,' 'trust (teachers)' -- and I couldn't do any of it. Years of manipulation and emotional abuse had told me very clearly that nobody could be trusted. The decimation of everyone I ever cared about in 2015 led me to conclude that even God could not be trusted.

When you can trust nobody else -- not even God -- all you have left is yourself. This terrified me. I knew I would let myself down, but I had nothing else. So I trusted only myself, and if I screwed something up, I did what I had learned in childhood, the only way to maybe escape a tiny amount of the consequences of failure -- I beat myself up about it. (If you beat yourself up about it enough, sometimes the person you've disappointed/angered will be placated... Sometimes.) There was no forgiveness until there was improvement. Of course, this kind of pressure makes improvement almost impossible, but I knew no other way. To forgive myself for a mistake before I had seen improvement felt like accepting mediocrity. I have been overlooked and ignored and passed over my entire life because there is always someone better than me. Mediocrity is a death sentence. To accept it was unforgivable.

In the end, I could not really even trust myself, and I knew this. I kept letting myself down, but in the absence of any other viable options, I kept re-placing my trust in myself... knowing it was fruitless and I would end up frustrated. Trusting myself wasn't the ideal option, but it was the best option out of a very limited pool of choices.

This cycle wound me up so tightly that all I wanted was to make it stop. I wanted off the merry-go-round of constant failure. And the only way to stop failing is to stop trying...

I attempted suicide on 8 March. The knowledge that I could no longer trust myself took on another, very vivid, meaning.

By the end of the month, things had gone about as far as they could go. It was no longer a matter of if I was going to die, it was a matter of when. Something had to give. I could not trust myself, and I could no longer pretend that I could. I had to find someone.

At the beginning of April, I expanded my circle of trust to two -- myself, and a prof. I told him what was happening -- trusted this prof literally with my life. And then I trusted another teacher with the story. And then a counsellor. And then three friends. I could almost physically feel weight coming off my weary heart with every retelling of the story, every connection with someone who -- it turned out -- cared about me.

But trust isn't a switch that flips on and off. It's a habit. I had spent twenty years building a habit of not trusting anyone, of questioning everything anyone said (especially if it was nice) because they were likely to go back on it anyway, of figuring things out for myself because sooner or later those who said they'd help me would give up on me. There were moments now, acts of trust, but not a habit. I still didn't really believe any of these people who knew the story were in it for the long haul -- nobody ever was. I figured I might as well plan to keep carrying it myself, because eventually that was what was going to happen anyway. Twenty years of being used for sympathy had taught me that the phrase 'I'm here for you' has an expiry date.

I was trusting a select few now, but I was cautious. With my heart in such a fragile state, I could NOT afford to have my trust broken again -- it would mean almost certain death. They say to choose your friends well, but everyone looks good on the surface, How do you know who really will stick with you? Does any human even have that much patience?

Although the darkness I was in in March never really lifted to begin with, in September it made another violent assault, and at the end of October, its fury increased tenfold. I lived for weeks on the verge of complete (mental/physical) collapse. There were about five consecutive days where I would sit in the living room and wonder if I should call 9-1-1, if I would survive the next twenty minutes.

Trusting only in myself for so long means I can be very self-disciplined. Last school year I had begun to be particularly intentional about daily habits like dance and voice practice, eating healthy, and getting fresh air (most of these I was trying to do anyway, but last year I began to keep track of how much I was actually doing any of this). Upon returning to school in September, I returned to more or less that same routine -- practice voice, practice dance, walk to school and back, keep track of nutritional intake and make meal adjustments throughout the day as needed, at least attempt to go to bed earlier than 2am, doing all of these even when I really did not feel like any of it mattered to anybody.

After a while, I found myself thinking, 'if you do this (daily discipline mentioned above), you'll feel better.' At first a common retort was, 'no it doesn't. It never does.' But by the end of November I actually began to feel joy again -- for the first time in a long time. I distinctly remember bouncing around the kitchen one day, then suddenly asking, 'what am I so excited for?' I still don't know what I was excited for, but I decided not to question it. For the first time in literally years, I was happy.

And I realised that implementing all these little things, even when I didn't feel like it -- that was trust, on some level. That little voice saying 'you'll feel better' was onto something. I was trusting that maybe eventually it would result in something or mean something. It's fairly widely known that singing, dancing, fresh air, and good nutrition all improve mood from a scientific perspective... and over time, they actually do. They don't tell you that sometimes the effect is cumulative. I feel like that knowledge would help a lot of people, so here it is -- keep doing these things. Trust that the benefits come after consistent practice, not after one session.

Once that clicked in my head, suddenly a bad practice session was no longer cause for suicidal thoughts (I am not kidding -- a bad practice session would literally end with me writing a prototype suicide note. This was not an infrequent occurrence -- my attempt in March happened immediately after a frustrating dance practice). I was suddenly able to tell myself that one rough warmup did not mean my voice (or my body) was shot for the rest of the day -- and I was actually able to believe that.

Make no mistake -- everything is not perfect. I'm still reluctant to say it's even 'okay.' Trusting all that practice to actually result in improvement sometime down the line is still difficult, especially in singing. I still feel so far behind to begin with, and because I was in such a dark place for most of the semester, my singing suffered greatly. As a result, so did my performance. As a result, so did my self-confidence. As a result, so did my professors' trust in me to take on any responsibility at all onstage. I may never get another speaking role at this college (or possibly anywhere) because I showed very clearly this semester that I do not deserve one. And as much as it pains me to know this: that is absolutely fair. That whole downward spiral this semester makes singing so much harder now, with all those horrific performances in my very recent past and my instinct to beat myself up -- to only forgive when improvement is made -- still so strong. I'm trying to take solace in knowing that the concept of 'trusting' -- in the way my teachers/professors describe it -- makes more sense now.

I only hope it isn't too late to do anything with this understanding -- that I haven't managed to sink my career for good.

Life Update

Written 16 November 2017, 11.52pm.

It's November and I haven't posted a single thing about NaNoWriMo... for the very simple reason that for the first time since 2009, I'm not participating.

I wanted to -- I really did. But I had no story idea whatsoever. The last two years of the event were a huge struggle for me already... I felt so little connection to my 2015 novel that I often forget it exists, and in 2016 I failed to make 50k for the first time ever. On the back of those two years, I knew I would not be able to force a novel out of myself this year (though I have more free time to write now than I think I ever have).

I decided to do a self-imposed 30-day choreography challenge instead. I made a rule to choreograph no less than 32 counts (four sets of eight) per day and post the results on my Instagram page (for accountability). I'm not even halfway through the month and I'm seeing huge amounts of growth in my technique and creativity (I figured out nerve taps!), but the response of the public has been growing steadily less enthusiastic.

On a personal level, this was just the challenge I needed. I've been wanting to choreograph the 77s' Ping Pong Over The Abyss for forever, and I finally did it this month. I've also done some of Michael W. Smith's Christmas music, a sizeable chunk of Prodigal's I Don't Know Who You Are, and a duet that my sister requested. Currently I'm working on The Kimberlites' Gigajig and -- although it hasn't hit my social media yet -- the Piano Guys' Where Are You, Christmas? I've wanted to do this for a while as well, to encompass how broken Christmas feels with so many people missing. A lot of loss has surrounded me in the past while -- my own, certainly, but a lot of others around me have lost people close to them too. I've had two friends lose their fathers unexpectedly in less than two weeks. The growing, rushing waves of grief in the instrumental half of the song pretty accurately capture the yearning and fury that swirl around us who grieve; who have to put out one less table setting at Christmas dinner.

School is okay. I'm quite frustrated actually. This was supposed to be my penultimate year, the year when all the hours and hours of hard work (especially last year) would finally begin to pay off, to blossom. I had a few pretty lofty goals, and previously attaining difficult things has not been a big problem for me. I hoped to land a place in the elite-level choir, to get a larger role than last year in the massive Christmas musical, to maybe even get a singing part in the Remembrance Day and opera shows. The opera show remains to be seen (it's in February), but I didn't even get called back for the choir, and not only did I not get a larger role in the Christmas musical, I actually got a significantly smaller one. No lines, nothing. It's a half-step from no role at all. In my angrier moments I'm almost tempted to drop out and not even bother. I asked the director how to improve my acting in general (because I would assume that at least most of the people who actually got roles must be better at acting than me) and long story short, he literally told me to be more cheerful in my everyday life (this directive makes more sense in the context of multiple conversations we've had over the past year).

I was so desperate I actually tried it. It worked for a week, and the effect was dramatic. Both the director and my voice teacher commented on the difference in me. Even I was beginning to see a difference in myself.

But a week after that conversation with the director, at the end of my first week of actually trying, my dear friend attempted suicide. In one text, everything that was still going for me was undone. If she could kill herself, why couldn't I? What was to stop me finishing what I had started last March at the side of the highway?

I broke. There was no point to anything. I was going to die anyway and it's not like I would be missed... it wasn't like I had a role in anything. I gave up, and the director saw that immediately though he didn't yet know what had happened. Because of the nature of the whole thing I was not allowed to say anything about it to anyone -- including literally all the people in my support network who I would ordinarily go to immediately to keep myself from spiralling down again. Because I couldn't tell anyone, it all just kept rattling around in my head, growing quietly bigger in the dark silence that was imposed on me.
But I did say something, two weeks later -- I was so messed up by the whole thing that I was at the point of physical collapse. I'm a master secret-keeper (I was suicidal for twelve years before ANYBODY knew about it), but privacy rules or not, I could not, for my own safety, keep this inside. It was affecting me far too deeply. If I kept quiet, I was going to end up dead. My heart was literally starting to fail. So I brought one of my instructors into it. She brought the director into it. There were repercussions for me for telling either of them about it, but I was beyond caring. My own suicidal thoughts had strengthened and multiplied and I was caving very quickly in the onslaught. To say nothing kept me out of trouble and kept everyone happy. But to break the rule -- to say something, even to a very select few, kept me alive. Which was the more preferable option...?

But I can't help but think that now it's too late. Because of my dramatic improvement and equally-dramatic crash within the space of ten days, I succeeded only in proving myself as wildly inconsistent. And the inconsistent performers are the first ones cut from the list of potentials. I have five months left in the fourth year of my undergraduate degree. And it's very possible that I have destroyed my second chance at the only thing I ever wanted to be -- a performing artist.

I instituted the choreography challenge partly as a way to distract myself from my own desire to die and to get away from the sound and the press of everything crashing down around me. Since I'm not in any upcoming shows, I have no lines to learn or rehearsals to attend to keep me distracted so I had to manufacture my own distraction. And since apparently nothing's going to be handed to me on any kind of a platter -- never mind a silver one -- I have to manufacture my own fanbase somehow. It's on me now to create my own job experience, to develop my own craft on my own time, and drum up interest in my creative endeavours without any outside help or promotion. I'm not sure how it's working because, as I mentioned earlier, the enthusiasm on both my Instagram and Facebook accounts seems to be fading fast. Maybe they're all just 'hiding' my posts and not even looking at them at all...

But the process itself is keeping me distracted. And I have accomplished a fair bit. Maybe one day this will all be useful and one day all these long hours of thankless practice and all those tears (so many tears) will be worth something to someone.

The Survivors of the Survivors

Last week someone very close to me attempted suicide. I was the last one to see her alive before they found her unconscious on the couch three hours later. I have not seen her since.

She survived -- by pure luck. This incident has made me fully realise that I don't really believe in grace anymore. There's luck, or chance, or fluke, or whatever you want to call it, but grace -- grace is unpredictable. It's almost never there when you need it. That changes grace into chance, because honestly, that's what it is. It's a desperate hope, but there are zero guarantees. While she survived this time, the thing is, I get the sense that she is at risk to re-attempt. They keep pushing back her hospital release date. I get that they need to take every precaution, but the fact is, she is still in danger. They won't admit it. But that's why. I'm not stupid. I've done enough research and have enough experience to know that the nonverbal cues and psychobabble codes mean.

Nobody outside of the hospital staff thinks of that. Nobody thinks of the crippling fear that she may re-attempt -- that I may miss it again. I feel bad enough for missing it the first time. I call myself her friend, yet I wasn't there for her when she clearly needed it. I know suicidal thoughts. I know depression. Even if there were no signs, I should have sensed that something was off.

You're expected to just be happy that she survived. You don't question how or why or how to stop this happening again. You're just expected to be happy and carry on.

The thing is: You. Can't.

I said this (on a daily basis; for two years) after my cousin died. Everyone kept telling me to get over it because after all, God is sovereign, right, so that means you automatically cannot be sad about it because God figured it was best to kill a nine-year-old for no reason and you just have to accept that with no question. God figured it was best, so you must paste on your happy face and go out and be happy. No tears. No sniffles. No sadness. Welcome to Cloud Cuckoo Land, everybody. And I fought, with heart and soul, this crap idea that it was 'too negative' to be upset over the DEATH OF A NINE-YEAR-OLD CHILD. I have pretty much lost that battle -- still nobody believes that it's a big deal. They certainly don't believe it's a big deal that my mid-twenties friend attempted suicide and survived. She survived, right? So what's the problem? She survived.

Yes -- this time. But we have absolutely zero guarantee she won't pull this stunt again.

I hate music right now. Usually I turn to music for comfort, but lately I play any song ever, no matter what genre or what the subject matter is, and by the time they hit the first chorus I hate it and myself and everything else on the planet. The only thing that turns my brain off long enough to keep me from following in her footsteps is watching Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on YouTube. Literally the only thing keeping me alive is a cheesy '90s sitcom.

Because of who it was and the situation, there very quickly became counsellors and residence directors involved and they're all pushing me to 'talk about it.' I want to... but I don't know how. They all say they want to be there for me. But nobody was there for me when Brittney died. Nobody was willing to listen to me after my cousin died. Nobody insisted I get counselling after my grandpa died (suddenly, when I was out-of-province. I was the only grandchild who did not get to say goodbye). Why are they all of the sudden so concerned about me now? It's too late now -- I've already learned to internalise everything. I've already forgotten how to talk about how I'm grieving. Nobody wanted to listen before, I'm not about to delude myself into thinking people want to listen now. Everyone's so concerned about whether or not I'm okay... listen, I haven't been okay since my uncle was diagnosed with cancer in August 2014. I haven't been okay for three years. I'm not going to suddenly be okay now, less than a week after my good friend attempts suicide with the WORST timing possible for my mental health.

There are resources up the wazoo for people who actually lose someone to suicide. But nobody talks about those very close to someone who attempts and survives. How do you deal with the fury that consumes your every waking thought? How do you quell the desire to scream obscenities at them because no other words are adequate to describe the gut-wrenching heartache they have deliberately caused? How do you deal with the sheer terror that they'll re-attempt? There is relief, yes, but it's so, so fragile. You know they're still in danger, but you don't know for sure how much because you are at the mercy of what they actually tell you. And she told us nothing before her original attempt. Nothing. Because of how we 'freaked out' this time, she'll say even less before the next attempt and she'll probably make her plan more watertight. How do you deal with the guilt that arises from the lack of gratitude in your heart even though you know you should be thankful that she is still breathing?

One of the people trying to help me wants me to come up with a suicide safety plan for myself. Excuse me? Where was the safety plan for my friend? I'd worry about that first. She's more important than me right now. After the crap I've gone through for the past three years, now suddenly you're worried about me? Sorry, it's too late for me to believe you'll honestly be there for me through all the crap. I've had enough people give me the 'I'm here for you always, in everything,' and then when I vent to them they turn around and tell me 'you're too negative; get out of my life.' Are you there for me in everything or not?

Sorry there's no real ending to this. I can't think in a straight line right now. Too many thoughts are running too fast and I can't catch them and hold them long enough to follow them to their logical end -- all I have are fragments.

Plus I can't stand endings.