It's been six years since I slept soundly with a man with his arms around me all night long.

I have always preferred to sleep alone.

But there he was, behind me, occasionally snoring lightly.

For Emily

I still remember you.

I still hold onto you.

IF only I could have saved your life, six years ago today.

Is she mentally retarded or just really nice?

One of those FAcebook statuses that I never posted for a reason.

Is it possible to forget how to be a human being?

To generate love for someone?

He talks to me as I am leaning against the seat of the truck--as if to a child without being condescending, "This is physical intimacy." He is kissing me more.

"Promise me" the voices say, over and over again, always something they are promising, never delivering.

I consider nursing these damn promises with booze, wondering how long I could go without falling into hard core psychosis again.

Promise me...

Sex: Anxiety? Part II

More meat for the Meat Grinder or have I changed my ways because of the psychosis and because I was diagnosed HPV-positive over the summer?

My attitudes towards sex has changed as I am leaving the lifestyle of hunting for casual sex behind.

I have no judgment on those who partake on casual sex. I don't think it's wrong or immoral nor do I think it's a meaningless exercise in exploring one's sexuality as long as it's done safely.

Perhaps I would still be visiting a bar on a weekly basis if I had never entered a psychotic episode. I will never know, but my suspicious nature increasing as part of symptoms in psychosis makes it difficult to trust some stranger enough to take the clothes off and fuck.

I can assume that as soon as the psychotic symptoms subside completely, and if I go into manic episode again, my attitudes towards sex might become more liberal.

Regardless, for the next two years, I will continue to test positive for HPV, and I will have to disclose that to anyone I have sex with until I test negative at some point in the future.

We were in the middle of making out, and I ask, "Do you want to meet my parents?" I laugh.

"Sure. I'm not afraid to meet anyone's parents," he says.

"There's a story behind that question actually."

Sex: Anxiety?

I find something frightening about the prospect of having sex again with a stranger or even a friend, who I've never been intimate with before. I can't quite describe how I've change from being a whore to someone who is timid in this regard.

"Maybe he's not coming back," I said, talking about Morpheus.

"Good," Rosa said.

The District Training Manager in the Parking Lot

He kisses me in the parking lot as I'm leaned against the side of the driver's seat of my mother's truck as the driver's door is open. I'm supposed to feel something, but I only feel faintly of fear and attraction due to the drugs damping effects. Where is this all going? Part of my mind wanders. You're leaving in less than two weeks.

YOu know things are going bad when you're staring at each other at the bar, and the world is soundless and shrinks.

And so, it begins.

He looks at you, and looks at you like he could kiss you right there, but he's waiting.

I hardly remember what making love feels like--it's been almost a year.

The District Training Manager, as he was called in "Panther," is a handsome man.

I take off his cap at the bar, and play with his hair to straighten it some.

He smiles at me to make me smile at him.

Cyberstalking in EXcess

Days of Googling proved that I was looking under the wrong business name for MOrpheus, and finally found the address of his [old] office, and another business line that of which I don't know what has become of it. There was only a generic greeting of the answering machine, so I didn't leave a message.

I now have a way to drop off my letters, but I can't bear the thought of them getting into the wrong hands by accident.

I don't know if this information is current since as far as I know he sold this business.

You can go insane

From all of this

And not come back

--September 2, 2011 Word Doc

I miss Morpheus.

I'm tired of explaining to people justification for my longing or why I haven't left and "done better" for myself.

When I'm ready for finding a new man, I will go out and get myself one.

For now, I wallow in my pain and own giant tragedy.

"The sad part is half of you wants to die." One of the voices. Tim. "You don't have the fucking guts to kill yourself."

" I think my life is a waste."

--Word Doc from September 1, 2011

"Lacey, promise me you won't hurt yourself," one of the voices said to me today.

More Help

"I wish I had more help out there to get me through this, but I don’t."

--Word Doc from August 29, 2011

Bullied

"I do not want to be bullied around by voices in my head. By any of them."

--Word Doc from August 28, 2011

When bad events happen in your life, you want a tether connecting them all--

To the person(s) who has done you wrong all those years.

In psychosis, you see it all, through the restrains of normalized thinking--straight into the evil of human nature.

And somehow, in that state, it all makes sense.

OUt of County

Last week, I met with one of the brightest private practice psychiatrists in town, whose name I will not reveal, and I paid him with cash. He is gracious enough to take me on as a client even though I can't see him but twice a month, and he discounted his rates.

He put me on .5mg of Risperidone in hopes of stopping the remaining infrequent voices that come and go.

This should mean that I'm out of the county system.

"I hear voices. INteresting. d a"

--Word Doc from August 7, 2011

"I don’t want to admit to my therapist that I have experienced days and weeks where I’m feeling great and functional, but every ledge, every passing car, I think about killing myself."

--James Claims

"Listen to this: I don’t want to die"

--Word Doc from August 12, 2011 when the auditory hallucinations were the worst

The voices keep saying, "Lacey, are you listening to me?"

"I'Il love you lace more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my whole life," one of the voices says.

I mean who says that shit comes my reply.

--From a Word File dated August 10, 2011

This "gift"~ though mostly schizophrenia is not a gift, more like the bar scene in Star Wars~is particular to certain things but is hopscotch & random throughout the day. When it is on I hear you bull horn, see you in microscopic detail, & smell you like a French perfume tester would.

--Stalled at 12: I Can TEll You aTe Bacon Yesterday

About the Hades' Quotes

Minor author's note:

This came up during an email conversation. All Hades' comments from his blog entries reproduced in my entries were in reference towards me.

"Insanity is, really, not a lot of fun. You might find some parts of it interesting at the time, or you may laugh about it later, but really, it's not a pleasant experience."

--How I Know What is Real About My Life

"I've dealt with a lot of decidedly grown-up shit this past year, and it is only by sheer luck -- and the help and support of my friends and family -- that I've been able to make it through everything without giving up. Like I've said before, bettering myself a little more every day has become my motto in life, and I'm sticking by it. I have to, in order to keep getting up in the morning. It's that drive to succeed that will get me through my 29th year on this planet and hopefully carry me far into my thirties."

--Brando

I loved this entry.

Why I Call Myself the Nutty Whore

"So Bathie how was your Thanksgiving?" ie: Is that whore still there?

"Oh you know, it was a little crazy." ie. The girl was nuts.

--Hades

ONe of my best friends and I thought that was funnier than hell.

Whenever I sleep with someone and tell him the story, he says now, "The Nutty Whore strikes again."

"You're stupid, you know that, right, Lace?" One of the voices talking.

"I've seen others eat more in one meal than Persephone ate the whole week. She goes into the bathroom after almost every meal. She is purging."

--Hades

I was not purging. I had strep throat, and come to find out! I was allergic to the penicillin I was taking. I was very sick the whole trip in Detroit.

Interestingly enough, I was not too sick to drink. Yeehaaaw!

"I am fond of her but there isn't the same spark I have found with others, when I am with her."

--Hades

"I pride myself as having a sense of style and so far she had been showing little of her own..."

--Hades

I realized that today, officially, everything that I am wearing with the exception of my panties (they are Victoria's Secret) were bought and paid for from Wal-Mart.

Excuse me, the sweatshirt is Costco.

I'm Cheesy, I Get it

"I'd rather fight with you than make love to anyone else. You inside me feels like dying and rushing to heaven." Her message reads.

I try to cushion my reply. "You deserve someone you don't have to fight with all the time. I want someone I don't fight with."

--Hades


"I'd rather fight with you than make love to anyone else" is a borrowed movie line found in "The Wedding Date (2005)."

reference:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372532/quotes

There seemed to be no place to go but downward, and so one heavy step at a time, I stumble.

The absence of love did this--not hate, not jealousy, not fear--

Only longing, only grief.

"At my worst, I surrendered myself to something much, much worse: utter loneliness."

--Jack

All I wanted for Christmas was to see him once before, even if it was briefly.

That's not going to happen.

"Lacey, did you ever love me? Like really love me?" One of the voices says. "I loved you."

"That [Morpheus] is a load of horse shit, huh?" Says Beverly.

"This is inside of you," Beverly, one of the voices, says to me.

I have a split moment image of her, smoking a cigarette while sitting down in the corner of a room.

"Look at me, Lace, look, I'm going to call," one of the voices.

This hurts.

"Don't be upset, baby girl, I'm coming back...."

And then, I start to cry.

"He wasn't yours, he'll never be yours," Rosa said to me over the phone, talking about Morpheus.

"I love this woman because she was made for me. And I was made for her."

--the Jack

I'll be honest, I skimmed the entry.

But I'm happy for him.

[Edit: the only time I ever said someone was meant for me,

I was referring to his dick.]

"Yet it can't be just a story of damage; it has to be a love story too, or it won't work."

--Harry

"She always was an engaging writer."

--Hades in reference to me

I don't cry over Morpheus even though it's been months since we last spoke, and longer than that since we've embraced.

I don't cry over Jack--this being the end of the road for our relationship, whatever type it might be.

The emptiness is fueled by pharmaceuticals, propelled by some natural learning on my part.

I swim every day in longing and grief. I drown in unanswered questions.

What if love never runs out? What if you are in love your whole life with someone who is unattainable to you?

He dies one day, and you're never invited to the funeral. You're a mystery to the world outside, his world.

YOu want closure and acceptance and some giant pain reliever.

You want what he could never give.

HOward Smith

"This is what you are.
This is what you were always going to become."

--Benedict Smith

When I wrote "One of the Original Smith's," I obviously used him as part of the inspiration.

When the voices were at their worst while I was at STanford the first time this year, I just kept envisioning that bottle of morphine--rationalizing if I did that, and stopped thinking about hanging like how the voices were talking--then I would survive my hospitalization--

And if the voices didn't go away, I would have one of the best ways in the world to kill myself with--morphine OD when I got home.

A couple of days ago, the auditory hallucinations were really bad. Sometimes, I want to die. Everywhere, I look for ways to do it. Walking in front of traffic. Jumping off of a bridge.

I re-play the voicemail message of MOrpheus so I can hear his voice. I have no idea when he'll call again.

Wounded Ego, Chief

All that really happened in the Jack situation was an injured ego.

Some could argue that it was a minor scrape. The man never set eyes on me. The rejection wasn't about me, as a whole person, but just about an online persona--hardly worth getting upset over.

Still, I invested a lot of time getting to know someone who I will never get to know better. We will never be true friends.

God Said So

And pretty girls always get what they want.

I FAiled CAlculus Four Times

How do you operate?

I've met a lot of men in my day, with no more introduction than "C-cup and brunette. And tall."

With only two exceptions, they seemed pleased.

You can't make people like you, but I've tried my damnest in the business of stripping, hooking, whoring.

I feel like writing back, "but I'm fucking pretty!!!!"

And then a few hours later, "And I wrote you letters."

CAlculate that, Baby Cakes.

"A child with a learning disability who suffers repeated
setbacks in school might 'solve' this problem by convincing himself that he does not
care about success or failure and hence stop making any effort."

--Psychology, Fifth Edition

I love this because it explains a lot about my struggles and ambivalence towards academia now.

"I'm afraid that they're [the doctors at county] going to say that you're schizophrenic," My therapist said because of the persistence of auditory hallucinations. "However you don't have enough negative symptoms...and to me, you don't seem schizophrenic..."

Remember That Long Distance RElationship I Mentioned? Here's One of the EX's

"Sex together is good."

-Hades

The only nice thing he ever wrote about me.

He wrote me a letter a few days ago:

I am sorry to read that you are going through such ruff [sic] times. I am glad to see you are trying to take care of yourself and working with professionals. I hope there is a solution to your struggle that will allow you to enjoy life.

[Hades]

I didn't reply.

Heading for the Edge, Part II

I know what it's like never to be able to get it back again.

To sit at the silent edge, waiting.

For the train's whistle, for the gun shot, for the pop of the morphine bottle's top.

To die, rather than to live hallow of love's blood.

One Facebook, I left the status, "You broke my heart, Baby Cakes."

ONe of my readers wrote back, "What heart?"

Heading for the Edge

While skimming through Jack's entry on being in love, I realized:

I use to be in love like that--once.

And I know what it's like to have it drained out of you like watching your blood falling and clinging to your pant leg, drooling down your ankle, pooling at your feet and splashing on your shoes.

In rejection, we learn more of who we are than in love.

" It wasn't as if I would have wanted something to happend [sic] between us. That's not the way I operate."

--Jack

Because more in pain, we are stripped down to our sinews and guts--the feelings we take to hide.

I want to send back, "But I wrote you letters."

Most people, if not all people, don't understand the Jack obsession (let's call it what it is). While I was psychotic, the obsession was at an all time high. Now that I'm not psychotic, but still experiencing psychotic symptoms (auditory hallucinations), what is Jack to me?

He's a dream--I dreamed once.

And got caught in the storm out to sea.

And almost drowned.

NOw, I'm back to shore, coughing and choking. Looking around, wondering where does the dream end and the reality pick up?

Two beers later like swallowing deep sea water, how happy am I that he found the love of his life?

One dream stole. One "if" never realized, one "fantasy" never painted.

Do I just need a new canvas? Do I need a partner artist?

OR am I going under?

"To live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it." – Samuel Butler

#1 FAn in the FAn Club

I can't figure out if it would be uber-creepy or flattering to ask for a poster of one of Jack's pictures that he posted on his blog (that is now gone). It's of him in a white t-shirt standing next to his bicycle.

I sided on the creepy or at least decided he wouldn't find it funny.

"I am in love."

--Jack

Don't worry. How many times in your life does it happen when a girl buys a plane ticket to meet you, and you haven't agreed to meet her anywhere? She just pick somewhere in one of your states. Hoping, you'll go along with her plan.

Then you're saying, like, well, you know, can we just skip this part? I really didn't ask for you to fucking fly 3,000 miles.

There's no reality now.

FAce to face makes it real. No more anon. There's a foundation for human connection.

But it never happened. Instead now, we're writing fiction.

Imaginary Jack Letters

My email ["A Heart"] has gone unanswered.

NO one likes to face stupid ideas--it's more comfortable when it's other people's ideas--but considerably less comfortable when it's other people's stupid, romantic, emotional--all pinned on you ideas.

"Dear Lacey,

Have you ever been in Ithaca during the winter? Very cold. Having an Ivy League degree--I would know--doesn't make up for the weather difference. STay in CA.

Cuddles."

"Dear Lace,

You don't actually want to see me. I"m a very short, very fat man. Like this. See photo. And I lied about Harvard. I graduated from Brown. No one is impressed by Brown. yOu don't even know where it is.

Cuddles.

P.S. And it's still cold in Ithaca."

"Dear Lace,

I would tell you I'm married, but you'd just get on the plane faster.

Cuddles.

P.S. Did I tell you that it's extremely cold in Ithaca?"

More Auditory Hallucinations

"where are you going?"

"Out."

"I'm coming with you."

"NO, you're not. YOu're staying here."

[That one plays over and over again]

"I can't believe you'd do this to me, bitch." More arguing. "YOU TOLD ME....I can't believe I trusted you, now I know..."

"You have to go home!!!"

"It's time for you to go to bed."

"Mommy, I don't want to go to bed."

"Just shut up and eat your dinner."

"Just stop your crying or I'll give you something to cry about."

"What's this? Did you do this!?!"

"Lacey, stop your whining."

Some of them are memories coming back as hallucinations.

"Where are you going?!?!"

"Lacey, we're going to kill you before Christmas."

Says the voice. e.

"What are you doing? I told you to stop it!" More arguing.

Sometimes I just hear people arguing in my head, loud.

I wonder if it isn't old memories from my childhood and my parents are the ones--but it's coming back as auditory hallucinations.

"Stop! You're hurting her."

"What are you saying? I can't understand you when you're like this."

Sometimes it seems too much: listening to the voices, wanting to die.

There's no escape except infinity's borrowed muzzle.

A creature wasn't mean to be as happy as I was with you.

Morpheus

WE have no pictures of us together.

All I have are those photos that were copied off of his wife's FAcebook page and printed out.

The LSU Professor told me a long time ago that you can never ask for an apology. You either get one or you don't.

I wonder if you can apologize for breaking someone's heart. What if you didn't mean to?

An apology though makes everyone just feel better, right?

I thought about all the crappy lines in the world, "WE just don't feel the same way about each other," etc.

Then one missing apology ends up being another kick in the face.

I told myself, if I got the record straight--as if there was a record that needed to be straightened--as if three blogs and a personal journal wasn't enough--if I told him--

This is what you did to me.

There would be a transfer. The pain would go from me to him. This is yours. YOu can have it back now.

I picture myself for the crying I can't do.

I picture myself for the front door that never appeared.

YOurs.

You broke my heart when...

[December 4, "A Heart" email]

Peas and CAttle and Life Lessons

ONe of my ex's use to pick peas out of the rice whenever we were out to eat. He was a big man (still is), and so, he was slumped over the table, both elbows on the wood, shuffling around peas like they were small cattle to be herded up into a loading dock onwards into a truck. Delicately, he didn't miss a single one.

I think of that whenever I think of couples complaining about each other, small habits that grind away, leave small red marks on each other's skin, eating away at togetherness.

I learned both then that his table manners didn't bother me, and that simultaneously, I preferred to eat alone.

For Jack

The man who is brave enough to face his lies is the man who safely holds his truth.

Lies in the FRagility of Honesty

"we all lie, we all lie to make up in the reflection back when we see ourselves, we don't even see ourselves clearly for who we really are, we're just punching our fists bloody in the house of mirrors, crashing, trashing the stranger who stares back."


--FAcebook status from today

The World Wrapped in Psychosis

When you're psychotic, you think that the world is going to make some sort of sense--that everything happens for a reason.

Then you wake up and realize that the world is chaos. All those strings you tied, fall apart in your hand, all those connections you make were false.

There's no comfort to be found.

The voices were shouting at each other, and there was nothing I could do.

Outside of STaples.

“I didn’t know what was happening to me,” he says of the first days and weeks of his psychosis. “I was being re-created. … I went from where I wasn’t sensing anything to 100 percent sensory overload. It was like … it was intense.”

He wanted it to stop, and he didn’t.

--Awakening to What Life's About

What Happen to the Mystical Creature of Jack, Part II

Because I quickly turned psychotic, I never felt rejected by Jack, although that was clearly the case back in FEbruary. He said to me a relationship between us because of the distance was "impractical," and he would not meet me. He just wanted someone to talk to.

Most normal people would cry, get on with their lives, but I didn't--from this point, I quickly turned delusional.

What Happen to the Mystical Creature of Jack

DEspite the fact that the whole Jack (the blogger) mess happened right as I dived into psychosis, my therapist and I have never talked about him. It's hard to put into words any type of long distance "romance" or "romantic feelings," especially if it's one sided.

I don't know what was worse for my brain, being in love with two men or realizing the hard work and trust into another long distance relationship (I've already been in two, one that was successful, one that was heartbreakingly horrible).

Nothing happened. Jack disappeared. My emails to him became more and more insane, and less coherent.

From there, Jack became almost a mystical creature, representing several men, and the delusions deepened as the months passed until I finally went into Stanford.

There was a nightmarish obsessive quality to being psychotic that I will never get over. My delusions only twisted reality, never fully escaping it, which meant that I hurt real people in the process. The person I twisted the most, of course, was only myself.

Who Says Buttercup?

There's a female voice in the background who says over and over again, "Promise me..."

Anymore I can't tell what's normal or what's not. Should that voice be there? Is it just a rebound of my normal consciousness?

Apparently, doll, you didn't get the memo. Promise broken.

Lost in the Hike

I was out hiking, and I started to cry, but I had no idea why. It just came over me suddenly.

Somewhere in the mess of my brain, I lost the thought that spurred the tears.

My therapist described Morpheus as a man "who lies to the whole world." Why would he tell me the truth if he was seeing someone else now?

I don't care. I just know he's been gone for a few months.

The voices were no happy companions, telling me I'm going to end up fat, and other vicious assaults upon my self-esteem--always reminding me that I'm well--but not that well--I'm on the curve, climbing up towards that 100%, that girl before this girl--will I ever get there?

I spend my time gazing into the wide eyes of long, sad songs, wondering where grief ends.

"Loss my heart. I lost my mind." ("Without You" by David Guetta ft. Usher)

I feel like sending a message to Jack, "Well, I'd give you my blog address, but half of it is about you. Not you-you, but some psychotic mix of you."

Flattering really.

While I was psychotic,

At the center of the chaos was the delusion:

Where's Jack?

Because Jack's identity he gave me was wrong (this is Jack the blogger, not the other "Jack's" who get thrown around in my blog). Another core delusion.

Looking back, it's odd that I latched on so terribly to finding one person in mist to losing so much--sanity--people--a job.

I recently re-connected with Jack on Facebook. He is found.

I look down the road of my life, and what do I see? Nothing. I can't visualize my own future. What's out there for me?

I picture alcohol and pills. Would anyone blame me? People would just say the voices came back.

The train comes through the back of the neighbor's property at about seven o' clock am. I think about that, standing out there on the track. Waiting.

I cry sometimes for seemingly no reason, at odd points in the middle of my day.

Do I even care anymore about Morpheus? When he comes back after being gone through one of the most difficult periods of my life? AT least in 2008, he was there, coming and going drunkenly.

Do I care?

TAlking about Morpheus in therapy was like being punched in the stomach. So, I left only after fifteen minutes.

I'm crying now as I write this. I wonder how much of this depression is about him.