June 27, 2025

Somewhere Between the Lines

Well… the bitch (aka me) is off her meds. As of yesterday I took my last Lexapro and already I feel myself spiraling out of control. I had attempted to write multiple, MULTIPLE posts to decompress and express my emotions but every one turned out more nonsensical and incoherent than the last. Not to mention: insane. I sounded truly unhinged. (Which seems to be a reoccurring theme with me.)

Why did I stop my meds, one may ask. Well, it’s a two prong explanation. One, I tried to refill it and, for whatever reason, Kaiser would not let me; claiming that it needed my doctor’s approval. Which is odd because I just had my appointment with her wherein she upped my dosage. As a result, I ran out faster because the original order only had me on one pill.

Two, I feel like the medication is not working as well as it could be. Yet, even that comes with two other branches. Have I just built up a tolerance or I have ruined its efficacy due to substance use?

If it stopped working because I’ve become immune to Lexapro I genuinely do not want to walk my well worn path of finding a new one. In every previous attempt I get irritable. I end up hating me and my life (which… honestly, is true with or without medication.)

Should it be the latter, I am not in a position or mental state where I want to stop. The world around me is burning, and all of that which had held me together is gone (ie my parents and my husband.)

In a prior appointment, after I was forced into consultation because I had made an off-hand comment about not wanting to live, the nurse practitioner told me I had to choose between substance use or the medication. Doing both was clearly not an option.

Logically, taking medication to level out my moods should be a no brainer… yet I suggest, dear reader, that you refer to the paragraph before last and you will understand my conundrum.

I genuinely want to run away from everything. My life, this country, this plane of existence… everything is constant mental and emotional anguish. Some of which is so overpowering and unnerving that I find myself delving deep into the darkness of cruelty.

One of my prior attempts at writing centered on how I feel my thoughts turning me into a “villain.” Well, not an antagonist of some idiots story but a “bad person.” Seeing the cruelty of those around me elicits a response of equal or greater emotional value. That is something I do not want for me or my life. (Sorry to be so fucking vague.)

I’m hoping this response is just because I have submerged my mind in the constant stream of horrors via social media. A break from which could very well do me a world of good. (I am definitely leaning that way.)

Or… I may just be turning ever more into my father. Which is truly insulting to my father and his memory, because he at least understood that the medication that kept his schizophrenia at bay was imperative.

May 29, 2025

Emotional Self-Flagulation

This started out as a bluesky post and then I realized that the well in which I was drawing inspiration was overflowing. So, here I am to put it out on the internet for any person to read.

I miss my husband. I think I miss him more than I have this past year. I was told that it would get easier after the “firsts” but apparently not. This change coincidentally was ushered in by the wise words of my Papa Bill during out monthly ALS support meeting. He shared that, for him, it was worse in the second year. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. (I never do.) Until yesterday I had to pull over because I just started crying.

I happened to be playing Pokemon go at the same time and where I had stopped a Charmander simultaneously spawned in the game. My husband’s nickname, to his blood relatives, was Char. The name took me by surprise when I first heard it, because I immediately equated it to the anime. Another cute coincidence was that it’s CP was 776, which is super close to 777 which followed him around. I know none of this means anything. It was something that comforted me in the moment.

The other night I had a moment of realization that tipped my opinion of the BF and the brother. It dawned on me that these people are strangers. I don’t know them as well as I did my husband. Charlie was someone I trusted implicitly. These two men don’t carry the same weight. With that thought I suddenly felt very, very alone. And it has stayed with me since then.

In the abstract I know that I am being unfair to them. They have not shown me any reason to distrust them. Not once. My assumption is that I am carrying past trauma into this new future.

When I was a kid, for whatever reason I was a horrible judge of character. I trusted way more than I should have, and shared even more of myself than was wise in a desperate attempt to gain their trust. That was stupid on my part. Inevitably these kids would turn and use my truths against me to humiliate or isolate me from my peers. Awesome!

Since then I learned to own my truth and fuck everyone else. My level of shame is not very deep as a safety net for myself. I refuse to let anyone use my life as a weapon against me. I’d rather tell you I had cheated than have someone share it as if it was some dirty secret.

What does this have to do with my brother and BF? Well, I don’t know them. Not to the level I had with my husband. Which, in itself, isn’t fair since I knew him for 20 years. I never felt afraid with him because I knew he wasn’t going to leave or “betray” me. These men are “strangers” to me. I don’t know what they’re thinking, I don’t know their intentions. Are they here because they want to be or because I’m “useful”? (Which is another exposed nerve from my youth.)

All of this has weighed on my mind and I feel so alone and sad. Which is ridiculous because there is no reason to feel this way. It is all self-inflicted.

April 14, 2025

This past Saturday marked one year since Charlie passed away. I finally got the chance to read the letter he had written for me. Of everything there the only thing that was new, or stood out, was when he used my nickname for him as the salutation. That was where I broke down.

Everything else in it were sentiments he and I had spoken to each other over the many years together. The one thing that made our broken relationship work was that we were never afraid to wade into difficult topics. We never shied away from the truth.

It is nice to have them in writing though. Sometimes my mind likes to lie to me and say that he never forgave me. Which, in itself is silly. We spent 20 years together. Someone who hasn’t forgiven you typically doesn’t dedicate even more time.

The day of, I spent with the family. We went to the zoo and just talked about him and his unforgettable personality. He really was one of a kind. I could really use his knowledge and point of view now. He knew what I needed to hear, when I needed it most. And if that didn’t work, he would always intervene.

This past year has been nothing but loss. Shortly after the husband passed, we lost our dog Jack. Then this week we put down our pup Lucy. She had cancer in her nasal cavity. It had gotten to the point that she couldn’t breathe through her nose. Fun fact… dog’s can’t breathe through their mouths when they sleep. At least, she couldn’t.

Then this morning, thinking of my aunt, I sent her a message to ask about her and her kids. The text went acid green, instead of blue. More than likely, she probably blocked me. Which… whatever. She might as well be someone else I’ve lost too.

Unburdened by the past leaves even more possibilities for the future.

April 7, 2025

Life is Loss

I struggle to find where to begin this post. I am filled with so much anxiety and sadness that it’s difficult to string my emotions into words without sounding like an infant. “I hurt” is all I can think. We are 5 days away from the first anniversary of Charlie’s passing, and as we march toward this benchmark our pup Lucy is not doing well.

A few weeks back she had a crazy sneezing fit that began a continual nose bleed. Took her to her main vet, they did a CT scan and she has cancer in the left nasal cavity. It is massive. At that time a small tag was hanging at the back-end of the passage and into her throat. This past Friday evening it appears to have gotten bigger and is now causing her to “snore.” It has been eating away at me since then and has only grown since. Tony seems to be in blissful denial that it’s not hurting her but I’ve never seen her have “issues” with starting to fall asleep. Usually she just… goes to sleep. Whether we are there or not. I’m almost certain she can’t because dogs don’t naturally breathe through their mouths, especially asleep. It’s always through their nose, unless they’re overheated and then it’s mouth open to cool off.

She genuinely does way better after a walk. I think the exercise gets her breathing heavier and raises her temperature to off-set the handicap. But once she’s rested so begins the snoring and the constant “pacing.”

Tonight I have to have a chat with Tony that we need to get her immediately into surgery (if it’s in my budget) or we need to say good-bye so she can be at peace. I keep thinking of how I would feel with my nose nearly impossible to use, and whatever hanging piece is attempting to block air.

The fact that this is happening the same week as this anniversary is quite the coincidence. It’s like he’s coming back just to get his puppy to take her to the next life. He tried to go without her but he just had to complete the set.