Dear Diary,
Doc and I have been on “suicide watch” all night. Watching me. I asked him for bus fare to the psych hospital, but we can’t afford the $1000 deductible, so I couldn’t go. So Doc put on his figurative scrubs and played Orderly for me all day and all night. No closed doors. No disappearing. No sharps (things that are sharp or just generally made of metal). It’s been a long day and night. I lay down at 2am to let him get some rest, he has to go to work this afternoon, but I could only stay laying down for 2 hours. Now, I’m up, wide awake, as I’ve been since the “incident” (a long night of talking/screaming/laughing that may have broken our marriage).
I can’t sleep, I don’t dare dream. I can’t know right now what my psyche is going through. I have a hint, and it’s just ugly. I’m keeping up with my meds, so as not to make the whole thing worse.
Yeah, I decided to go out Robin Williams-style with a belt in the door jam. I had the moment of lucidity that led me to put the belt down and walk into Doc’s room to ask for help. No matter what was said the other night, somewhere inside, deep, we still love each other. We still care.
And he has been a big ball of compassion. He let me touch him when I was needing it, I went over and sat down next to him on his couch, thighs pressed together as we sat there. He said it was okay. He’s as “don’t touch me” as I am. It’s amazing we ever had sex, really.
The sun is coming up. You know how happy that makes me. I’ve just been assured by a new weather lady that there will be no clouds today. And the temp will get up to 64, even though it is 27 right now.
That Medicaid denial earlier in the year that failed because they claimed I didn’t receive SSI, has triggered a cut off of my phone (I have a free phone for emergencies that I get through a govt. funded foundation), they now want proof that I was accepted for SSI. Back in 2000. They want the original letter of approval. Ass hats. I can get an electronic copy of the letter to send them on the SSA.gov site, I just have to wait out the security cut off for entering too many bad passwords. Then I can get my phone turned back on. It scares me, not having a phone here while Doc is gone. I think I will ask him to leave his phone here tonight.
I cried through the 11 o’clock news last night as I switched channels back and forth, looking for voices I liked. I got an email full of lies and bullshit from the cable company yesterday. I have to pay $8 a month for ESPfuckingN, which I have to have, according to them. But they can’t pay a CBS affiliate. This isn’t some rinky-dink station outside of town. This is the highest rated channel on the line-up. They have won more Emmy’s and journalism awards than ANY other station in town. They have a helicopter, you don’t shut off a channel with a fucking helicopter. Doc says they won’t agree with my helicopter argument.
I just posted this on FB:
This will be the first major release by my future punk band, Emotional Pus. If I had the guitar already, I have a few riffs in mind. Maybe a bass line. BTW, I think this is the best thing I have written in about 12 years. Sorry, not sorry about the swear words. Trigger warning, and all of that rot.
Whiskey breath
hot on my neck.
Condensation building up
with sweat and stench.
Whiskey breath
has his whole weight on me.
Grunting like a hurt animal
with each fruitless thrust.
My cunt hurts
from lack of lube.
And I try not to wretch.
Whiskey breath
can’t make it happen
and it’s all my fault.
My pussy is too big.
I’m not reacting to him.
My tits are flat when I lay down.
Whiskey breath says
I’m unfuckable
as he grunts like a hurt animal
with each tearing thrust.
This, they tell me,
is love.
That’s about where I am. I am ashamed to ever admit to Doc or Kelli just how many times I have been raped/sexually assaulted by members of both sexes. I have always walked into the most dangerous of situations with my eyes focused on something shiny. Breaking out of the serial-victim role is hard. Had we known the extent of my illness from the beginning, I think a lot of it could have been avoided, after all, I may have been watched more closely. On the other hand, I don’t even know if a diagnosed schizophrenic teen could have made my parents care about me. The bi-polar didn’t phase them, they just had themselves a solid scapegoat for life. Everything bad that has happened to that family, even since I left, has been blamed on me. It amazes me when I hear about supposed bonds between mother and daughters, especially biological ones. I can’t believe something like that exists, is real, not just a delusion of the people who talk about it. The concept is so entirely strange to me. That’s not the way the women in our family work. Never has been.
I once inquired if I had been breast fed. She laughed in my face and then bitch-slapped me for being a “vulgar dyke”. I just assumed that was the way it worked. Mother’s discarded their daughters right after birth and through life.
Huh.
And here is the story of my wrist damage, as stories in verse go.
He stood at the end of the long hallway,
sizing me up, what was most vulnerable?
He was stronger than me then,
but I was wiry
and I bit.
I saw his eyes widen
as his dim mind seized upon it:
my wrists.
Thin, bony, unprotected,
and absolutely necessary to my work.
He races forward before
I have time to react
And his right hand is on
my left wrist, above the joint.
Squeezing like a vice.
And then I am on my back,
across the room,
head against the coffee table.
My wrist swells up first thing.
So he grabs the other to pick me up,
with an apologetic smile.
Then I am on my face in the kitchen,
under the heavy wooden table.
And so, he had found his method.
He knew my weakness, physically.
And he used it to his advantage
for four long years.
Those wrists were everything to him.
He threw me around by them.
He led me around by them.
He held me down by them.
And I was powerless.
Until that day I beat him down and walked out.
The Link: today, we have three. A book and two resource sites that deal with this entry. First, the book, “Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide”. I have found a lot of solace in this book, especially when I am in the hospital feeling my worst and unable to kill myself. The second is RAINN, an abuse and rape resource site/charity/activist group. And the third is a suicide hotline resource, in case you or someone you know needs a bit of help.