“Ikr” someone ended up in my title while writing this, so I left it. Seems fitting.
Whatever 4 souls are out there viewing this garbage I spew… I hope y’all are doing alright… Just know I am sending love your way through the universe. Because if you’re reading this, I can’t imagine what your life might be like…? Like reading because it’s relatable, or because it’s like watching a train wreck? No one deserves for this shit to be relatable. So, whatever your motivation, hope you’re ok in the world.
I am not ok... Have I ever been?
I tried therapy. I really did. I really gave this a shot, and no one has answers. Everyone disappoints. No one knows what to do with me, and I can tell.
I’m not sure I want to get any better. I think I DO fully know what the path to “getting better” looks like - it’s not some elusive mystery what recovery would look like for me - I could probably write out a step by step plan at this point to put myself in the recovered category. But I don’t think I want to walk down the path. At least not yet. I have until July 17th… The new one seems ok. She might have a god complex if she agreed to me…. Seems likely… But I don’t really want it, and I’m not curious enough to waste any more of my time.
But this is me, so who knows how I’ll even feel tomorrow.
But one thing about Cally remains consistent, regardless of all other ambivalence.
I still crave being thin.
I don’t know how to satiate that craving without just feeding it. I don’t want to be better - I want to taste the bitter satisfaction of the number dropping. I want to be in control of my body. I want, more than anything on earth, to be thin again. Not a stick like before. Just thinner.
Today I consumed about 1/4 cup rice, 6oz salmon, some carrots. I had creamer in my coffee. These are the days I feel good. My stomach is empty and growling, and I can ignore that right now. I can find satisfaction in that fact.
I have been purging a lottttt lately. I took a bunch of laxatives. I have been so fucking self destructive. With smoking, with pills, with food. These are the days I don’t feel good.
Purging will always make me feel better, but to not have to need to in the first place makes me feel amazing. Ana is like this amazing girlfriend who gives you the life you want. Mia is the bitch that abuses you that you keep going back to.
I’m fucked in the head. I know that.
I need to read the book that has changed my husband somehow. I know that. I told him that this summer, I cannot, but that I will once I’m not working 6 days a week. I meant it. I also know that by then, I should be a little thinner. So whatever it does for me or to me, that is already established. And if it somehow makes that even better, great. And if it leaves me where I am at that point, I’ll be ok with it.
But I’m sick of moderation being everyone’s answer. Because I don’t fucking do it. I don’t think I can. And I’m sure that’s what the book’s answer is also.
I’ve been chewing off my nails and picking and fidgeting all day. I just got off a spiral of three solid days of debilitating depression. I currently cannot sleep. I was super productive yesterday, and know I will be tomorrow.
I keep trying to act like my mom had bipolar, and I got away scot-free, but I don’t think that’s actually the case. I think she is severe, like diagnosable type 2 at least... But I think that I also probably have cyclothymic issues. I don’t think what I experience is normal. I’ve been told it’s not. And it’s with or without the marijuana. It’s with or without lifestyle factors. It’s with or without medication. This journal is a testament to it. All of my prior journals have been as well since teen years. Medication helps, and I’m not willing to be on anything heavier, so I think that’s in a good place. But it’s a place I have to recognize I am in.
I don’t think I can chalk this up to learned behavior anymore. I think I need to face the facts.
And that is one I will have to, unfortunately, face alone. My husband can’t handle that true revelation. That will just become ammunition. And maybe that’s sad, but it’s also just reality. It’s a reality that I’ll just have to live. It’s his own ignorance and fear, but ignorance and fear are often a recipe for hate. I can’t emotionally handle that fallout. I’ve been through enough with him. So I’m allowed this privacy, just as I was allowed the privacy I took before our marriage. I don’t feel badly about it. It’s necessary for survival.
And my mood issue is not so bad that it’s murdering our life. I am still the one carrying the large majority of our life. It’s about a week max of me dragging myself through life, with a very dark span of no more than 3 days on average, and then 2-3 days where I am a freight train at full speed handling everything that being productive requires, and then some. I don’t just get caught up - I get ahead.
I’ve learned how to direct the mania, for the most part. It’s just the depression that gets me binging and spending. If I could spend more, in physical stores and not online, I would binge less and spend less. I know this from past experience. So, maybe the plan of action is to just allow some spending as soon as it’s actually an option. Covid is suppressed. I legit need clothes. I can manage a budget once my income is not in the negative each month.
I need to accommodate it better, and not just deny it.
And yeah, spending is still a little self-destructive... But it beats the alternative. When I have time alone in public with money, I’m just a happier person. I can get back to that soon. In the meantime I’m begging Ana to hang out with me as much as possible and trying to ignore Mia’s calls.
When I have more personal time, I can mask it more easily also. My routine is not as thrown off when I have enough time to do my cover-ups and outings in secret. I maintain better. This 6 day work week is interfering with the coverups a bit. BUT I can easily contribute ANY obvious issue to the 6 day work week as well, even if I know that’s it’s not entirely true.
Does all this shit make me like my mom???
Maybe. Maybe coverups are just always a part of bipolar, because there’s no possible way someone could understand this head unless they lived in it. No possible way this type of behavior could truly be accepted in the world we live in.
But I will give myself credit that I am so much better than my mom. I don’t say that with arrogance - I’m referring to health.
This fucking bitch should never have had kids. I guess I shouldn’t have either, but I think I suspected that, while my husband was just GOING to want more, and wasn’t going to listen to or see anything different. So, I did it for him. I don’t regret it for me, but I worry for Baby… However, Baby is giggling right now, while I write this at 3am, so it didn’t turn out all bad. I love the shit out of that kid, even if he made life harder upon arrival, and I know his own life will be hard.
But my mom…? She didn’t acknowledge any of her shit to anyone ever. She didn’t work on fixing it. I do. I have. Maybe I’m not there 100%, but the image I give my husband is more accurate. It may be a little blurry, but you can still make out what the image is.
She had to have known the picture she was painting my dad was just bullshit smeared on a canvas. She had two miscarriages before me and an abortion. But then you make me. And then my brother. And then you fall apart. And this man is still looking at the canvas, 30 years later, still confused as shit as to what he’s looking at. He still believes the bullshit. He wants to.
But at least I spoke it… And even if I DID just use that call to make myself feel better (which I don’t think is even true, and wasn’t my intent), I’m fucking allowed that. I’m owed it, quite frankly. I painted the actual image. You decide which one you want hanging on your wall.
Bro, just like FUCK my parents… I want my fucking stuff back…
But anyway, back to the recent symptomology…
I had to sit myself down and tell myself to chill the fuck out before I get caught. I’ve been being fucking reckless, and I cannot afford that. My relationship and lifestyle are held together by the threads of a spiderweb, and I need to keep out of my own sticky parts.
Empty stomach, clear mind, right? Just work and save money. That’s it right now. We can starve a little while we do it. We can still do it all on an empty stomach. The thought that you can’t, is a myth. I’ve proven it wrong. The very existence of Caitlin proves it wrong.
I think back to my interview, when I went with the group answer, even though I didn’t agree.
They were wrong.
I was right.
They discussed an impossible and artificial reality. I saw it for 3 years in my program. No one had their shit together. They all just knew information and liked their jobs. I already knew the truth then, but gave theirs a chance. It was false. All men are fallible.
I think knowledge and experience IS enough.
You can, in fact, do something for someone else that you’re not currently doing for yourself. As long as you have the map to give them. You have to have visited to be a tour guide. But you don’t have to have lived there forever, or currently be living there. You have enough info to give them so that they know how to move there themselves. That’s ok. That’s good enough. That is still effective - probably more.
I’m over the god complexes. We all have our demons.
I need to remember this… I need to remember that I’m allowed to be whatever the fuck I want, and whoever the fuck, and as fake or as genuine as I want. I need to realize no one else has any fucking answers. They all just spew bullshit.
The only productive exercise in all of this history of bullshit was my email with the man I formerly idolized. He said get on meds. I did. Then he showed me his ugly, and yet again proved people who don’t have their shit together can still do extremely well. And be helpful. Getting on meds was helpful, and not something I would have likely done without a push.
But the ugly and crazy?
It’s. ALWAYS. There.
In every single person.
So, what I do is good enough. Many say I’m actually very good at it. “The best.” I know I am upper level talent. I see the outcomes. I know I’m well-liked, and well-received, and well-informed. I sell it. I’ve seen the market first hand. So I don’t need to carry so much doubt. My 70% is everyone else’s 100%. Thems just the facts. I’m good at my job.
I’m choosing all of it. I’m choosing my husband. I’m choosing not to have my parents in my life. I’m choosing to get my body back to a place I want it to be in whatever way I want.
