I suppose the above will be the starting line for a project borne in need of an outlet, as the outreach of a last ditch effort, and, probably a little cry for help, or at least solidarity. Sometimes when you (I) just get a chance to word vomit out loud, or in writing per se, its a release of dopamine, or feels like, I don't know, maintaining. If I can just keep this mask on in this arena and switch it to the next when this or that person thinks or says that.... Its everything everywhere all at once. Its the way I think, and it may be the way others think also? I suppose bits and pieces, anyways.
Whew. I just came back to this page after scrambling for my charger because I couldn't find it. That is just indicative of me as a person. I try, goddamnit, but I think funny with just enough trauma seems to be selling, but MINE is heavy on the trauma, and I laugh, but others probably wouldn't. If I didn't even think I personally was funny, then I'm definitely not. But I am. And, honest to a fault.
Hi. I'm Liz, fuck up extraordinaire. If you read those books circa early 90's about a lovable, but terribly misfortunate house maid, Amelia Bedelia, its a bit like that, only for real. And I'm actually a past-peak, laid off professional who peaked at thirty six, and gave birth to a vasectomy baby at 43. Just 23 years after my first child. Life is, at best, a comedy of errors. I really do try to keep it tidy in here (in my brain), but Jesus. I just have too many thoughts sometimes and either sleep them away or pour them out. So, here we are on the Eve of New Year 2025. Personally, I could could kick the ass of 2024 down the fucking street. WORST year of my life. I've decided to detail it for you here, chronologically, and thinly veiled for privacy.
January 2024: Lets see. Rounding the corner to 45, my life at that point could best be summed up in the word FLAILING. For anything, from anyone, to stay afloat in reality. I had dealt with a full year of the most horrid post partum depression one can imagine (and you can trust me, I've been therapized and medicated for a solid thirty YEARS. You do the math) and honestly, was hoping to just not wake up one day. PPD is an animal all on its own. It literally took over my brain like a parasite. My thoughts were not mine, my actions were not always mine, and I failed harder at.....everything because I just couldn't stop my descent and there was so much pain.
February 2024: The descriptive word for this month is DESPARATION. At this point I had just finished my fourth ketamine treatment after the prescribing doctor suggested I might have a pre-determined genetic condition that more or less rendered the medication ineffective. (spoiler: he was correct) With nothing left but a very new drug, Zuzurvae, a 2 week course of oral medication, I needed it, and badly. I shouted from the rooftops (Ok fine I called everyone and their brother at the manufacturer, and on Linked in, too. Desperate times, people.)
March 2024: the Word for March is- MINDFUL. I was feeling decent. Mental Health, check. Relationship, check. A singular best friend, I'll call her Gwen, and her misshapen, endearing, just won 32 million dollars in the lottery family. Listen, I was a before the money friend, and took pride in it. I didn't want her money. Ok fine, when I earned it for doing actual administrative job, like the one they found themselves looking for, and I was not finding work in my line of business, then good. We had a cutesy best friend saying and bonded over our love of literature we read WAY before we were old enough. Picture a 10 year old chubby girl, an unfortunate face, reading VC Andrews in a '73 Fiat while I cruised garage sales in small town America. It really was like that, sometimes. ok, yes, and Kids, pretty much check. I have to do the internet version of beg USF to provide more support for my on the spectrum son. So I managed their families (multiple generations and weird steps and halves but loveable) calendars and planned their outings, appointments and events. The only thing I'll say about that is that today, just barely 1/1/25, I no longer have that job or that friend.
But otherwise - smooth sailing. G23 and G22 in happy relationships and steady jobs, my own relationship was ok (?) for hitting around the decade mark, and the most precocious and warm, sweet B2 making life worth everything. I was, somewhat by default, now, a stay at home mom.
April 2024: Best described as TEETERING. As in, teetering between present and past, healing or letting go, trying my best to keep up, keep up, keep up, with a smile. + Starting working about 10-15 hours a week for my bajillionaire friend. Check, check, check. B2 in early intervention, keeping the facade pretty well.
May (most of it) 2024: I think the word for this month would be.....
MOSTLY. It was mostly ok, mostly manageable, Smooth sailing! We will continue renting this home as we have for the previous 4 years. We weren't sure, but with my secondary income, we can at least stay in this home another year. He is secretly maintaining his own funneled money into his own individual checking account. I am not aware of this until 14 months had passed. Well, it's his own paycheck, he just portions off a mid-range amount I'd say, over a thousand a month, to be spent without my knowledge. I know, KARENS, we'll get there. Towards the end of this month I travel to bajillionaire bff's state for their kids' birthday, and listen, I worked my fuck up magic that whole WEEKEND!.....Even into the week. First night there lost in the mountains with little to no reception, drove around for 2.5 hours, met some kind people who stopped to make sure I didn't get murdered, bottomed out in the ditch, and a tow truck had to be called. Def some damage to the Turo car, a lot of damage to my already minimal pride, and just a fucking mess. The next morning I awoke to a flare up of my autoimmune/chronic pain conditions. Listen, I heard people say that all the time. I wished them well, actually did, and moved along. I had no idea. I had no idea the depression and loneliness, the friends and family who stop asking or inviting because "you always say you're sick. or in pain." Please, the next time your family or friend says so, believe them. Hug them if they want. Tell them not everyday will be bad.
Brief aside: I'll inro all the players eventually. Like I was saying, it's his money. But I feel a little bit stupid for not following my own advice - never be without our own money. Every woman should have a plan. See? You'll either like it here or you won't, and honestly, I'm not worried about it. I am sharing my FK UP self so that the world can admit, or deny, or selectively take ownership of, their real lives too. And, in a New Years resolution I will share with no one, absolutely not a single real life soul, I plan to write here 365 days in 2025. I actually do want to challenge myself, because, I am a work in progress and today and hopefully any time I need to, I am doing the opposite. Want to die? Live. I have put TIME and MONEY into exploring mental health, and have experienced the idiosyncrasies of living as someone who can see 50 on the horizon, peaked professionally in 2014 (I was dating women then. I'll get there),who raised two completely different but oddly similar sisters from toddlers to women, who has known luxury vacations and sleeping in my car, built a career and network, was politically active circa 2008-2020, who raised tens of thousands of dollars in support of cancer research by cycling 50 miles, who fixed her own garbage disposal and took boudoir pics with my female fiancé in 2015. I mean, I started doing responsible adult shit at mmm, seven or so? Ok I'm veering off course.
June 2024 - Sadly, I remember very little of this entire month. The word I associate with this period of time is BLURRY. I have pictures, SOME texts (I'll get there), and minimal memory and honestly, I think at this point I'll let it stay that way. I was so, so mentally ill. I was sinking quickly at this point.
early July 2024 - July would be my literal downfall, so word of the month is TRAINWRECK. Yes I did say that -- decades of mental illness, some years of drug abuse, some years of intimate partner violence, childhood BS on BS on BS, 17 SSRI/SSNI combos or solos....nothing worked. I antagonized my partner and told him to say it, to speak it, to tell me what he didn't like about me. And, after enough prodding, he did. and then I wrote letters to my parents, each child, and him. Then I washed down a bottle of pills with a Diet Coke, and I slipped into sleep truly happy. And then, I fucking woke up. I got to face all of the bullshit I was trying to escape, and then some. Where I live, that automatically earns you a no expenses paid, but many incurred, #grippysockvacation. I was violated sexually, damaged and traumatized emotionally, but I will leave that for another day. Somehow, G22 found me and after a few weeks I'll address later, I went back to my home. Where my partner and son were.
But I knew I was terribly sick and needed help. I was researching inpatient mental health facilities and read the name of one I had self admitted to early in my post partum depression, spring of 2023, and, it was given good reviews and there had been a lot of turnover. I wanted to go there, but pride got in my way.*
July 30, 2024 - I drove myself to the ER. I'm experiencing intense pain in my right flank or side. I had an ultrasound of my gallbladder but the nurse practitioner told me nope, not that, I just needed to poop. Seriously. so she prescribed me this colon cleanse usually done for surgeries and the pharmacist wouldn't fill it because I said I wasn't having surgery.
Now, I lock in with a treatment facility. Orange Oaks boasts a refreshing and cooling inground Olympic size swimming pool, excellent food, and pretty good accommodations. Ok, honestly, I was not of sound mind and should have let someone...take over.....for awhile, or something. This place sang promises of very little substance abuse disorder and more mental health focused. Listen, I've got both, but the substance beast was tamed awhile ago. It was my genes betraying me. I arrived at Orange Oaks in the Uber they sent to my house five minutes (seriously, it was probably less) and immediately am taken for ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING a strip search, handing over my phone, given 2 way too small white towels and a wood handled toothbrush, and then shown to my "room".... a shitty mattress on a twin bed frame with hospital issued sheets and blankets. I was allowed to have 5 bottoms and 5 tops, 2 pair of shoes, and personal items. You know what? In my stream of consciousness here I've gone wayward, so we shall revisit that place in due time.
first week of August 2024: I would enter the month with the word, "DERAILED," I embarked on the new journey of "no contact" with my vessel and her captain, but with that going on, the battle in my head won out per the norm. I found myself in an ER far from "home" and I had double pneumonia, acute in the left lung. Remember when I drove myself to the hospital and was told I "needed to poop?" Yes. That same pain and it and steadily got worse until I had bouts of cyclical vomiting and a fever, but Tweedledee at Orange Oaks was concerned about client turnover and refused me medical care for three days. I felt the way I did for a reason, but what is not uncommon, I am a woman and I was treated as if my pain wasn't as bad as I said it was. Bottom line. Now, if I were a woman of color? Hell no. They would have put a band aid on it. Fuck healthcare in America. I can say that because I can, and you can say what you want into the ether also. But I went first, I screamed loudly that I'm so goddamned sick and tired of cis het white men not AT LEAST acknowledging their perch of privilege. I'll die lonely on my perch because I always make sure I have at least ONE secret.
Late August 2024: Even though I acted like a horses ass the last time I was there, the women's mental health facility close-ish to my home welcomed me back. On the drive there I cried so much, so hard. I think it was like a dam breaking. I went through a much more pleasant intake and felt, honestly, relieved. Because it was this or the plan. The universe gave me a response, and it was this place that was familiar and supportive.
September 2024: Word of the month - WORK. It's pretty intense inside a residential mental health program. Basically you have the opportunity to focus only on yourself, your mind, your body, your spirit. Keep in mind that not all fully embrace the opportunity. I didn't at all, hence the second stay. That month of my life was a really happy one in many ways. I danced for the first time in years. I laughed. I helped out the youngest women, the same age as my own, and shared frustrations and wins with the others. It's easy to recover, in the bubble, in the safety of just worrying about you, yourself, your person. and then? If you are smart, you start into a PHP, or partial hospitalization program, then start into an IOP, Intensive Outpatient Program, and it eases you back into life. I planned to go from residential, skip PHP, and go to IOP at the same place, but Mother Earth herself made it an impossibility.
October 2024. Word of the month - ACCEPTANCE. There is a point early in the month where I spend 6 days without power with my ex, who became my ex in June, but we had still decided to cohabitate with our kiddo, Once I was in residential, he executed his (I admit, cunning and solid) plan to put my life into storage, my 13 year old dog with a foster, and my network upended. Listen now - I will love him until my last breath. But, we just cannot seem to work cohesively. However, him getting a place without my knowledge or my name, left me homeless. So, he graciously lets me sleep on a queen mattress and box spring in the dining room, he on the couch, and our son in the 10ft x12ft Disneyland of a bedroom. Honestly,with the incoming dystopian nightmare, there was no hope of me relaunching my career in a volatile industry, and B2 is on the spectrum so I wanted to start working with him 1/1 in certain areas daily, to meet him where he's at, and to challenge or comfort him.
November 2024: Word of the month, FRAIL. I had a difficult time weaving myself back into real life, and as a result, felt stuck, unsupported, and invalidated. It is already hard to leave the bubble of residential, but I left it homeless, unemployed, and somewhat abandoned. I couldn't white knuckle it very long and joined a step down mental health program that is 15 hours per week. It was okay, but I, in the end, learned nothing more, but the program at least made me accountable to get up and dressed everyday. That's a struggle regardless but if you throw in the alphabet of acronyms for various diagnoses you might be surprised.
DECEMBER: I feel as if, in this month, I took a deep breath. stretched, and amped myself up for battle. I started to get creative and really wanted to write, create, SOMEthing. So the word for this month could be....OCCUPIED. Because, the program occupied my mind and time for this period. Not good or bad, Just simply no vacancy.
Later tater. I started this post in 2024 so it will be filed under that and many other unsettling adjectives.
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