Secrets (and lies)

Originally published at brigidkeely.com/wordpress. You can comment here or there.

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep.

It’s more than just insomnia, this time around. It’s pain. Physical pain. I’m so tired I’m dizzy and list to one side when I walk, but I can’t sleep because my tooth hurts too badly. I’ve been eating excedrin like candy, and I’ve taken so much my stomach hurts (also it’s hot, which makes my stomach hurt, and I’m exhausted, which makes my stomach hurt) but I still want to claw my face off. I’m really hoping my mother in law can take Nick today or else I’m basically fucked.

I hurt so badly I want to beat my head against a wall until I’m unconscious.

And I haven’t, you know, I haven’t felt like this in a long time. And the last time I felt like this, the pain was mental and not physical.

Because it’s the tiny hours of the morning, and because if I don’t have something to focus on I will do nothing but rock back and forth while whimpering and sobbing (note: I spent an hour whimpering and sobbing and folding laundry and watching a travel show on Peru, around 1:00am), I’m going to tell you about that trying emotional time.

It was my last year of college. I spent the second to last semester of college holed up in my room, incredibly depressed and overwhelmed, suffering from massive whomping panic attacks every time I left my room. This was a problem as both the bathroom and cafeteria lay outside my room, but I was able to push myself to use both facilities. I was not, however, able to leave the dorm and go to class. I went from all As and Bs to failing. Everything. Note that prior to this I had been in group therapy for a full scholastic year, and had basically given up talking about my depression, suicidal ideation, self harm, and sexual assault because it just seemed to really bring everyone else down.

My last semester got really bad. I was cutting pretty much every day, was obsessed with thinking up ways of killing myself, was hardly sleeping, and was beating my head against the floor. Literally. I was also on academic probation, but still couldn’t bring myself to go to class. I was paralyzed with fear and pain. I eventually got so bad that I scared myself and went back to mental health services and made an appointment to talk to a shrink.

I spent the 45 minute interview talking about my problems: how I was failing school and was going to get kicked out; about how I wasn’t handling my sexual assault (when I was 17) well; how I was overwhelmed and depressed and riddled with anxiety; how I was actively suicidal; how I was actively harming myself; how I was afraid I was going to kill myself; how I was out of control and terrified and a failure and incredibly depressed. I mentioned that I’d been on prescription antidepressants previously, and that they’d done me a world of good. I talked about my abusive past. And the guy I saw folded his arms tighter and tighter across his chest and leaned further and further away from me, his body language growing ever colder and more distant.

And at the end of the interview he told me I was “very self actualized” and that there was nothing he could do for me.

In point of fact, there was a hell of a lot he could have done for me. I probably should have been hospitalized; I definitely should have been medicated. He could have interceded with the school and gotten me on a different form of academic probation which would have allowed me to stay in school and graduate. He could have guided me in healing. But he didn’t. He essentially kicked me out of his office.

I was so angry, so furious (I, uh, also used to have serious rage issues that thankfully have calmed down as I’ve gotten older) that it shook me out of the worst of the suicidal feelings. I packed my shit up, and made arrangements to move off campus with a friend of mine. I think that moving in with her saved my life. At the time, my dad was still unmedicated (and hence irrational and abusive), and if I’d moved back home I probably would have killed myself. I’m not trying to be dramatic; I was in a really bad place.

I never graduated. Because I failed two semesters in a row, my financial aid was canceled. In addition to student loans, I also owe UIC thousands of dollars in tuition and fees. I can’t transfer my transcripts to any other school until that’s paid off. It will be very hard for me to get back into college, because my GPA is ass and even if it wasn’t I owe a lot of money and I don’t know how soon, if ever, I’ll be able to pay it off. And I still grapple with depression and anxiety although it’s never been as bad as those two terrifying semesters.

Usually, when I talk about why I left college without graduating, I’m evasive. I feel like a failure because I flunked out. I feel like a failure because I’m mentally ill. I’m ashamed. If I’d gotten mono and failed two semesters, or been hit by a truck and been unable to go back to school, or something else physical had happened I wouldn’t have anywhere near this sense of shame and failure. But mental illness is so stigmatized, and so associated with weakness, that I do. And carrying around a secret like this is hard.

My dad has a “congratulations, graduate!” card that he keeps in his office to send to me when I “finally” graduate. Why yes, this is manipulative and kind of abusive! Why yes, I’ve essentially lived my entire life unable to live up to his exacting standards! Why yes, he HAS often made me break down crying and wishing I’d never been born! Why yes, he HAS made it clear EXACTLY how disappointed he is in me! And I haven’t told him WHY I left school. I don’t know how, or if I can. I never told my parents I was sexually assaulted by a co-worker when I was 17. I’ve never told my parents that I self harmed from the time I was seven years old until fairly recently. I’ve never told my parents I’ve been suicidal. There’s actually a lot I’ve never told them.

I have a three month old baby, and I’ve been thinking a lot about parenting and my life lately. A lot of really bad shit I thought I’d dealt with apparently wasn’t dealt with very well; a lot of shit I thought I’d buried has been popping up. I don’t know how to deal with all of this. I am so incredibly scared of fucking up as a parent, of hurting my sweet boy. I’m afraid sometimes that I won’t be a good mom; that I can’t be a good mom. That I’m too flawed and broken to give a tiny human being what he needs. I come from a long line of fucked up, abusive people and I don’t know that I can buck that trend.

All I can do is try.

I’m kind of contemplating getting a pair of pliers and pulling this fucking tooth out, though. You know. In the meantime.

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