Relapse Isn't Failure

It's late and I am tired, wish I could spark a smile
The place is flying high but right now I want to be low
Don't want to move an inch, let alone a million miles
And I don't want to go but I know I gotta go

     Do you know what it's like to grip the counter, staring at your yellow reaction as it stirs round and round, with panic flickering throughout your entire body? People move around you and like lightning you feel their hatred
    - because in that moment, you know they hate you -
    and you know it's irrational but it won't stop. You grip the counter to feel something sturdy, to resist the urge to scream and cry and curl up in a ball under your desk.
    Your cheeks and throat hurt from suppressing the sobs and your muscles ache from resisting the urge to tear up your world.
    The pain pervades through marrow and soul and you wonder if your spirit is dead and is anything real?
    You know this is wrong, that you aren't thinking rationally.
    But even as the panic eases you can't stop feeling the agony. Even as you refocus and find that yes, you can sit at your desk chair. You can stare at your computer as your mind churns for help.

I just want to feel all right.

  "You were doing so well," says my psychiatrist with concern.
   I was supposed to be taking half the pills by now.
   Instead, I will be doubling my dose for at least the remainder of winter.
   As I gulp down the extra milligrams, I see the chemical structure flash before my eyes. I feel a little hopeful. I feel a little disappointed.  
   I don't feel like a failure. 

Seems like the more you grow, the more time you spend alone
Before you know it you end up perfectly on your own
The city's shining bright, but you don't see the light
How come you concentrate on things that don't make you feel right


    "Sometimes I wonder if I'm selfish or narcissistic for thinking about it, for feeling different and isolated because it wasn't normal. " I glance at her eyes, but only for a moment. I never look much into her eyes when I tell her what happened. I'm afraid to, though I don't know why. 
    "That sounds like PTSD; do you know what that is?" asks my therapist. "You feel compelled to keep thinking about it."
    Yes. Yes, I know what PTSD is. And I've long suspected I had it, but something about hearing someone else say it feels...feeling like a helping hand, really.
    There's a name. I'm not to blame. I'm not a failure.

The times you don't wanna wake up
'Cause in your sleep it's never over when you give up

    Most days, I don't want to wake up. I'm exhausted, my bed is warm and comfortable and I've been having glorious dreams, the dreams I turn into stories. 
    They instill energy. Oh God, I feel alive in my dreams.
    I have control and so I know in my dreams I'm not a failure.

The sun is always gonna rise up
You need to get up, gotta keep your head up     
     Real life isn't like my dreams. I have very little control. 
     Still, lab is soothing, chemistry is interesting, and cats always crack a smile. Friends keep me away from total breakdowns. I have a cat-loving roommate for next year. See, good things happen. 
    Yes, real life is frequently full of fear for me. Do I tell that guy I can't stop thinking about him? How much of my internal mess do I share with friends, in person and/or online? What if, say, my boss finds out that sometimes I have panic attacks - would he think less of me? Will my school think I shouldn't be here? 
    I dunno. But for now I know I can wake up tomorrow and crawl into lab. I can filter that darn methylation reaction and kiss my kitties and somehow, I can't shake the hope that there's good in people and God, even at the end. 
    I'm not a failure, and neither is my life. 

 Look at the people all around you
The way you feel is something everybody goes through
Dark out, but you still gotta light upYou need to wake up, gotta keep your face up

   We're all people. I really believe the world could be better off for everyone in it. 
    I have my issues, but I'm not a failure, and if you need to hear this today: neither are you. 

Love,
Kelley

Go With Your Heart

    These are what my doubts look like:

    Do you believe in heaven?

    I think heaven and God are inextricably tied. I'm not sure you can have heaven without a God, and I'm not sure you can have a good God without heaven.
    And yet believing in this good God is excruciating.
    I'm still set on edge by Christian cliches. I'm shocked at Christian Islamophobia and homophobia and biphobia and transphobia and racism and hatred. I'm frustrated at subtle Christian sexism, the kind that says women not being allowed to preach is an acceptable view, the kind that says women want love but men want respect.
    I'm not linking to any articles, because I don't have to. You know it's true.
    I'm sick of rule-driven Christianity.
    Really, I look at American Christianity and I can't - I can't not see a religion driven by rules. Rule one: thou shalt not sex. Rule two: thou shalt be traditional men and women, never mind that God is neither gender and hardly traditional.
    Thou shalt not listen to those who disagree, because they might sway your soul into danger.
    FEAR HELL.
    Hold onto your belief in Jesus dying for your sins until you're white-knuckled and bleeding, dying, bruised and broken. Until you've collapsed on the floor unable to go on because the pain overwhelms you BECAUSE OTHERWISE YOU APOSTATE WILL BURN IN HOPELESS HELL.
    Because God is good.

    Do you believe in heaven?
    I don't believe in hell, unless perhaps a C.S. Lewis or Eastern Orthodox sense.
    I think traditional gender roles are disturbing at best. Sure, when people form a relationship, they complement each other, but I find the claim that males must always lead and females must always submit in order to complement each other grossly simplistic.

    Do you believe in heaven?
    I support LGBTQ rights whole-heartedly. I just had to say that. According to some, that means I'm hell-bound, and I hope you're wrong.

    Do you believe in heaven?
    I want to believe in God. I don't know if I do.
    Sure, there's been weird experiences I can't explain, but what if they were just intense emotion? What if the day my eighth grade math teacher spoke to my tormented thoughts completely randomly and completely specifically, was actually a coincidence or some unexplained phenomena we just don't know yet?
    I mean, why believe? You can be a good person whatever you believe - and if you deny that, you don't know enough people. If God simply sends you to hell for not believing, well, then I'll take hell because hell would be the moral choice.
    I know, maybe God is right and everything else is just twisted because I'm a human. Maybe. They said my heart is deceitful beyond all things. But since conscience is so important in Christianity, I don't think so.
    Christians are so cruel. God seems so absent.
    I challenge you to redeem yourself, God.*
    Why bother being Christian?

    Do you believe in heaven?
    I hope heaven is personal. I firmly believe it must be. And God - and - and Jesus came down to be personal with people. With the people He created.

    Do you believe in heaven?

    I have to, friends. I have to believe in a happy ending. Maybe it's immature or crutch-worthy, fine, say what you wish. To me, heaven is an acknowledgement that everyone can be whole and fulfilled and themselves, the intricate stories they are supposed to be, and everyone can love each other. That's an ideal I'm not willing to give up.

    I asked that question. Do you believe in heaven?
    My friend said yes. Then she observed that I'm in a profession where religion and idealism are hardly glorified.
    Always go with your heart.
    I thought my heart was deceitful beyond measure. Yet, ironically, it's my heart and my heart alone that points me back to God through the murky doubt.
    My heart says Jesus is God.
    So right now I will follow the hope in my heart.


Love,
Kelley

 

*Inspired by conversation with my sister, Kate Danahy.

Imperfect Circles: A Letter to a Passing Year

    Hello, 2014.
    Seems you're in your last week, ready to pass.
    I'd mourn but your memories are as close to immortal as we'll ever be.

    And we can't abandon your memories -

    - or the fact that we've lived through you -

    even as we cheer your end. You happened, so I might as well acknowledge your existence.
    Okay, stop. Wait a sec.

    Can I admit - can I just say - that you were kinda mean?
    I think of plane crashes and ISIS and World Vision and Ferguson and Peshawar - a waterfall of misery unleashed its fury inside you. I'm sure no year was much better, but certain individuals were alive in other years that aren't now because of the world being screwy and it's kinda cruel, you know? I wish you could have felt the pain, but you're a year, a chunk of an inanimate dimension I'm personifying, so I guess you can't.
     On a personal level, you're the year I lost my Mimi to a little bitch called vascular dementia. And I ... I really miss her.

    Yet...

    You're also the year I survived graduated college and started a PhD program in the ever intoxicating and intimidating organic chemistry.
    You're the year I experienced abandon and joy and people and dare-I-hope God in the Middle East. The year I started this blog and met some pretty cool people online.

    You're the year I embraced people.

    You're also the year I was blessed with Sushi and Myshkin, saint and sinner kittens, so that counts for more. Ahem.

    I started you so depressed I wanted to die. I'm ending you so depressed I feel as if scorpions are eating me from the inside out. #improvement.
    No, really, it is an improvement. At least I felt the light for eight months before the depression sucked me back.
     Because I experienced the light your year, I can't circle back to where I was. Your ending closes an imperfect circle and I'm thankful.

    You're ending and I think I'm supposed to feel super-hopeful and psyched and I don't.

    I do, however, feel like hanging out on ze Adelaster for a little while longer, however long and however infrequent that while may be.

    Who knows, I might be entering this new year curled up on the floor of a tiny bathroom, but at least I'm entering it.     

    Nothing may feel much different. But I remember the light and there are two kittens by my side.

Happy New Year and I love you all.

Kelley

Don't We See 145 Faces?

    Yesterday happened, guys.
    Yesterday happened, and 132 children died.
    Do you understand that 132 children, and at least 13 adults, are dead? For what - going to a school funded by the military?
     And I'm heartbroken. Pissed, that too (sorry for the language, but "ticked" doesn't work here).
     I'm about to be harsh here. But I am furious and heartbroken, and You said "I am near to the broken hearted," so I will take you up on that offer. I will throw all my words and anguish out because they can never be enough.
     I want to rage and scream and claw at the sky and demand,
     Do you see this, God? Or have You blinded Yourself already?
     Did you hear their prayers, or did the name 'Allah' render You unable to care just like, oh, I don't know, ninety percent of Christians I know.
     I hope and believe You're strong enough to take my doubts and fury, God, so why don't I just lay it on right now:
     Everyone lamented Sandy Hook, but few give a damn when it's Pakistani Muslim children.        
    The media conversation has already turned to 9/11 comparisons, and a review of Pakistani military offensives against the Taliban. No time to grieve.
    They were kids. Whether American or Pakistani or any nationality - which, really, what is a nationality but a name and a border - they were innocent and had their precious, beloved lives stolen from them.
    Are You grieving with their parents and friends? Are You holding the hands of the ones who are left, scared and injured and in pain I cannot imagine?
     Why the bloody freaking hell didn't You stop them?
    And why don't more "progressive" American Christians, so fond of denouncing nationalism and Islamophobia, speak out? Or at least mention grieving with these people? Don't they see 145 faces? 
    Or do they just see Christmas lights and the virgin birth debate that hardly matters when 145 people are slaughtered in a school?
    Look, I get that prayers are quiet and you don't have to shout your grief from the rooftops to be sincere (maybe you often shouldn't). But maybe, just maybe, a show of solidarity and empathy should happen.
    See their faces. Lament, light a candle, say a prayer, cry out - do something, please. In solidarity, in grief, in love and pain for our brothers and sisters of Peshawar who lost 145 lives too many.
   
Love,
Kelley

*Much of this is taken from a previous conversation with the lovely Kate Evelyn Danahy.

I Am the Destructivist

    Hey y'all, hey. I only lost part of my soul to finals, meaning I'm able to write again. So let's start with something fun - like The Face of Evil.
    The Face of Evil? How is that fun?
    It's fun when evil is a cat, that's how.
 
    Given my position as a perpetually insane organic chemistry grad student, if you remember last August I got my little Sushi a brother: Myshkin.
    Secret Identity # 1: The Destructivist.

RAWR!

    Whether it's climbing the wall, swinging from the curtains, ruining each and every decoration I've put out, burrowing under the covers to attack my feet at 3 am, or eating my homework three times, Myshkin loves destruction. In fact, you might say he is in love with destruction. 

    Secret Identity # 2: The Face of Evil.

    Evil has never looked this cute. When I first met him, he was a tiny four month old huddled in a corner of a cage in a rescue home. Shy and sweet. 

    A timid personality, I was told.

    "Purrfect!" said I, naive and innocent.

    Inwardly, I'm sure that's when he started smirking.

    He hasn't stopped since.

"I may be little but Imma clog up your sink, Mommy."

    Secret Identity # 3: Ultron.

    

    I've never seen a cat scream for food louder than this kitten. Every morning when my alarm goes off, he squeals with delight - and pounces on my chest.

    (He's a good masseuse).

     We then proceed to cuddle until he decides to run into the kitchen, and then and only then may I feed the hungry barbarian.

     As he yowls and Sushi jumps up and down, as I scoop kibbles into their bowls, I tease him that he's a classic villain.

     With furs.

What flavor is this, debit or credit? Nomnom.

     But all in all, he's a sweet, attention-craving love. And life would be super boring without him.

I love my brofur, Sushi.

    There are...no strings...on him...

Love,
Kelley