Puppet Master

I am controlled by the Puppet Master.

The puppeteer, the bipolar,

The strings, the mood disorder.

Today I am not a cheater,

But there’s always tomorrows plans of the puppeteer.

You look into my big blue eyes,

Say I Love You as I act surprised

I always do, they always do.

On the outside I am everyone’s dream.

They fall, so deep in love with my mystery.

For the puppeteer does not show my strings.

I move when he moves my dreams and things.

One moment I am here

Then, I am no longer there.

At first this seems, to you, magical.

You find the elusive dream of me beautiful,

Perfection in moving in unison in our embrace.

But now, now a single tear rolls down my face.

You puzzled. But I know it is already too late.

For the puppeteer has sealed your fate.

Entangled in my strings and on his stage,

You trapped now in the reality of my cage.

The strings now force you to see too the other side,

Only the lucky escape with their lives.

However, the Puppet Master embraces the lucky’s hearts for all eternity,

And evilly replaces only the beauty of me in it’s memory.

I beg, denied,

Why. Why the Puppet Master hides.

This nightmare continues,

And I am repeatedly abused.

My rage begins to grow larger while internally I quietly fray.

I pray, plead, pleasure at the thought of death no matter the way.

The puppeteer now lures one in who,

I see differently and look at confused.

I pull at my strings desperately,

But to no avail, I cannot become free.

The same story only the puppeteer knows.

He sees how my heart for this one grows.

Once in my strings, we marry.

My tears cannot relieve the guilt I carry.

Everyone, even I, mistake my tears for tragedies upon me inflicted.

Instead, I weep for my husband who is now in bed with the wicked.

My internal rage is too much to bare,

For forcing this upon those souls who care.

I explode and implode all at once.

Still, still no one understands my plunge.

Covered in splintered tears,

Ravaged by my darkest fears,

Upon a broken stage apologizing for my failures,

Unable to defeat the Puppet Master’

I hear a soft whisper.

Turn my head slightly to see my Master,

Glaring, familiar, staring back at me,

Is my invisible disease.

I whisper in the dark Where do I go from here?

And it replies in my soft whisper that I cannot hear.

My Way To Breathe

I am in love with the first

The one who becomes the worst

One in the same

Those eyes hide in my shame

Looking into nothingness

Watching the tide of emptiness

Flood the only barriers that remained

And bleed into the guilty one left un-named

The breath of life was sucked from my veins

In that moment the unnamed became

My way to breathe

My way to live

As the damaged walls began to dry

She looked away and I began to lie

I found new life

I am her strife

I keep everyone looking up

Dropped eyes can see Im stuck

My feet buried beneath the mud

And the mud disguising my blood

Pouring down my back

All the life I now lack

So now as I wait to die

I live this lie

Sunken into deep thought

And covered up in what is not

My first

Becomes my last

Bi Polar Attack

Bi Polar 12/27/12

Sadness – no death
Utter, undisguised, unapologetic
Despair is the core of my attacks
Unbearable pain, I beg

The next breath will be my last
Heat exploding, imploding my neck from the past
As I have an impending feeling of death,
Wrapping me as a mother, hiding me from mental health tests.

The ice shank stabbing thru my heart,
As an unseen angel speaks words of internal dirt
A blue, powerful flame burning, frozen, dead eyes smile
Life goes quickly but days drag like walking miles

Living now becomes torture,
Death becomes the escapes with each next step,
My legs and arms go numb
I feel tiny pin pricks cover my body.

Raging cigarettes singe my skin
The demon grabs my hand and smoke stings
Collapse, breathe, breath, Breathe
Fetal position and I desire to scream.

Look up to see the Devil staring back at me,
Rocking, Rocking, we’ve been friends awhile and as he doesn’t frighten me .
Devil prying me away from the rest of awe-struck gaukers
No amount of pills fixes my broken soul half eaten by the hawks

No amount of tears, blind and scared, this demon away
The Doctor tries but the hawk has his talons his in to far anyway
Out of my eyes I try to rip out all my failure
Try to bring peace but get lost again in this Bi Polar.

Buddha please!

I lay here in bed, after a night filled with being startled awake countless times, nightmares, what seems to be a woman screaming in my ear and then I am fully awake; and then they vanish. Babies crying out for me only until I get to the hallway and realize everyone is sleeping peacefully, and a jaw clenched so tight, as a side effect of medications, that I now have a migraine. Now, I don’t  mean to sound ungrateful because without the science behind these medications I would most likely not be here worrying this blog, complaining about my sleeplessness, but I’m frustrated. where is the relief?! How do I explain to my children when I can’t stay awake tomorrow? Because of the combination of no sleep and medication that this is me “getting better” because I love them? Or explain to my husband that I need to sleep when he gets home from working hard all day, providing for his family, instead of spending time with him, because I’ m “getting better”? Or worse, that I may need to switch my meds again because these aren’t working, which means more in-patient time in the “nutt house” again. I can just imagine his chain of command’ s reaction to him taking more emergency leave. (Yes, my husband is active duty military which I am so proud of him for and which I plan to write an entire post on later.) But because I don’t have any support system or family here that can help me it all rests on my husband. So this is huge amounts of stress and does NOT look good for him as a soldier even though it is completely MY fault. So add an enormous amount of guilt to the already huge amounts of shame I feel when I look at the man I love and who has done an amazing job at loving the most amazingly difficult woman to love – me.

Which brings me to my point. I went to my first Buddhist meeting at a temple yesterday. This may not seem like a big deal to some of you but others will understand that coming from a Baptist Christian, childhood upbringing – this was a big step for me. It is one thing NOT to be a Christian anymore but completely another to seek out other ways of thinking in my family. I haven’t viewed or said I was a Christian for over a decade now but have not actively sought out other ways of being either. I have sought information here and there and encourage it in my children. But I’ve physically never attended any other meeting place religious or not.

Parking my car in front of the “temple” was a bit of a shock, I must admit. I found myself in front of a house with a porch full of shoes and big, black metal bars on the windows. Faded, small flags written in Tibetan flew in the wind, hung by thin lines of thread and gave the house an almost eerie quality. A single brick Sat in the front window.

I was nervous to enter to squeaky front door people of all ethnicities were so easily clamoring through. Nervous only because I wanted to find some secret help in this little, creepy house in the Ghetto of town. Some secret I hadn’t heard a million times before. A secret that would help heal my soul. As I thought this I laughed a little to myself. At least I wasn’t putting too much pressure on this place or what I would find inside.

I lowered my head as I entered, I guess out of instinctual respect, and entered. People smiled but kept about doing what they were doing. Inside I found wall hangings with Buddha that were astonishingly beautiful. Tapestries you would think would be hung in a more conventional sense of the word “temple”. Dark red meditation pillows filled the floor with prayer books placed on little stools in front of them. These all led up to the Great Buddha statue at the front of the room. Gorgeous display with offerings underneath. Golden in color it was a hard statue not to stare at. This was the moment the leader of the group chose to find me and introduce herself. I was grateful. I told her I was “lost”. I laughed nervously. She graciously endeared my awkwardness. She then explained a few simple rules of the temple and just said to follow along as best as I could. Said she was glad I was there. The meeting began and as I listened, as we meditated for a few minutes, as we said a few prayers, as we discussed things, I thought to myself; I am in love. These people think about the universe how I do. Not in every exact same was but as a whole the philosophy is how I have always believed the universe, humanity, and all life to be. The connection of all life. Positive and negative. It was such a life altering moment to know that other people existed who believed these things who had not necessarily had a Near Death Experience as I had (again, another post, another time). I am in love. As the leader discussed the teachings I realized it was the basis for all philosophy. It was the basis for all psychology. How were all psychologists not aware of this? Yes. I was in love.

So now, as I lay here, struggling with my sanity. Struggling with my peace of mind. Struggling. I struggled to remember the teachings I had heard earlier. I tried breathing through my nose and breathing breath into my tense body. I calmed my panic but my mind refused to cooperate. I know this will not all happen over night. I know I can’t teach myself to these teachings and become enlightened but I feel so desperate for some relief. My mind needs some relief. My spirit needs some relief. My body needs some relief. So, I don’t know if I can “talk” to you like the Christians pray to Jesus but … Buddha PLEASE! I know I am already crazy! So instead of women screaming in my ear and babies crying can I just begin meditating all night long instead? Can you whisper your teachings into my ear instead?

Oh, and one last thing….not to be disrespectful….but if you do….do I have to shave my WHOLE head?

Buddha please?

Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks

The artwork, lyrics, music, and overall video explains a part of my soul in a way that I cannot even begin to explain. It blows my mind how art can contain such emotion. My husband showed this to me and it made me feel there was hope someone may understand me after all. I hope someone can get the same affect as I did. My great appreciation goes out to this band!

Beauty

Blood pools,
Different tools.
Shame game,
Same pain.
Grasping for a slice of Zen,
Relief in our instant connection,
But even my salty oceans,
Can’t save you from your Egyptian Sea of passion.
In moments of torture,
We try to cling to the future.
Sadly, I’m enlightened with knowing your grief.
I bleed with you on the same jagged reefs.
For, here, you are my sister.
We share the blisters.
So when the waves of anxiety crash,
And slash through you, force you to the sand with flashbacks,
Find solid, smooth ground of rock that hides beneath,
Years of wisdom, that makes it stronger than the sea.
Stand up upon your grace of light no matter the tide.
See you are more beautiful than what tries to destroy and makes you hide.
In times of Panic use clouds of coping and as fresh air of breathing,
Breathing as I try too. Rejecting the betrayal of the evil seething.
And wipe your eyes free of the salt and glass.
As we wear shades of the present instead of the past,
So you can see all that belongs to you.
So that we can see all the beauty surrounding us too.
So that we can see all the beauty inside of you.
So that you can, Beauty.

Chemi-calls

Feet shuffling down tiled halls,

Hands twitching at creature’ s calls,

These moments of clarity stolen by mumbling,

Nurses rush with needles drawn,

And whimpering screams silenced,

over dawn slowly by chemi- calls.

Passionate diagnosis

I’ m not sure why those words cut me so deep or sank in to my brain so far that I had a hard time maintaining a previous way of living; but they did. I had been saying for years that I was. I had laughed while explaining this was just one more reason I wasn’t “crazy” I was “passionate”. But suddenly when the doctor expressed those words so easily, “Bipolar”, “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”,   and “you will need medication for the rest of your life”. I felt the joke was suddenly on me. It was no longer cute. It was no longer endearing. I was no longer the fun, impulsive chick. The one everyone fell in love with for my movie-style ways. In one second, my cute little saying, the one that made grown men, melt was stolen. They took away my identity of fun girl and made me crazy, medicated girl. I was not passionate anymore. I was just plain crazy.

Safety Pin

The purity of my pain,
Drips down from my brain.
Beneath my skin I choke,
Punching down my throat.

Punishing any and all pleasure,
Felt within my aching desire.
Wounds I dive into,
As I hide from you.

Mimicking a whisper,
I once heard as a girl,
Scratches the surface,
Of the one with no purpose.

Pounding the beat of rhythm,
That drowns out the wisdom,
Oozing from my mind,
Into the empty hole inside.

A heart tattered and torn,
In the dark of my silent storm,
I tattooed an invisible safety pin,
For the times I can’t hold it all in.

Connecting to the disconnected,
So I’m not alone in being neglected,
I wrap up in a song,
And sing the silent lyrics to hold on.

Losing it

Finally! I had found it all. I had climbed out of the suffocating muck that had been all I had known of life. The quicksand of abuse and the battle to survive. It was all in the past. I was living a dream. A dream of a life that I couldn’t have imagined 5 years ago. A dream that I still have a hard time believing is my reality now.

A handsome, genuinely good man was now who I called my husband. He presented himself with a quiet yet powerful strength and confidence that comforted me but had the ability to make other men feel inferior. Although he was unaware of this ability and was a shy and modest man. All of my children and my needs were taken care of. I was pursuing goals and dreams that I had lost sight of. I had a sense of family I had never had before. A sense of safety and hope filled my home for the first time. Laughter filled the eyes of my family. Happiness had not only become a daily possibility but a very real reality.

Then, without warning, I was losing it. Losing myself faster than I could grasp onto anything real. Like sand falling through my fingers my sanity fled. I was losing it but desperately crawling my way through the days. Holding myself up while trying to face others with confidence. Then I lost it all. Panic. Sheer terror swallowed me whole. I was no longer able to breathe. Disconnected. My thinking seemed blurred. The speed of external life clashed with a brain in slow motion. Racing thoughts. No longer able to sleep. Sheer and utter terror coursed through my veins 24 hours a day. Severe panic attacks that strapped me into a roller coaster of nightmarish existence. My depth of despair sank into a deeper level than I could have ever fathomed. I tried to escape my own insanity in every way that had worked before, yet, this time… “it” was different. This time, I was losing it. This time, I lost myself.

My whole life had been a list of poorly scripted tragedies. The kind you would expect to see on the Lifetime Movie Network. As a result, I had battled my own demons so I was no stranger to depression, panic attacks, and mood swings. I had been in counseling off and on since I was 12 years old and had been given multiple diagnosis’ of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Major Depression, Panic Disorder, and finally Bi Polar 1. I had endured and overcome so much. I had worked so hard to get to the point I was at in my life. I had left the chaos and tragedy behind for love, safety, and peace. I had created a new beginning. This was supposed to be when I was able to relax, to enjoy my life, to find joy and satisfaction, and to have hope.

So why now? Why at 30 when all the pieces had fallen into place was I losing it? Why was my emotional and mental state deteriorating now? Why was it stealing my new life with debilitating panic attacks? Panic attacks that gave me no warning or reason of onset and left me crumpled on the ground, hyperventilating, drowning in my tears, and contemplating suicide. The thought of having to endure one more attack was unbearable. Effecting my husband and children in this way was unacceptable to me. I was the strong one. I was the one who took care of everyone else. I was the one who had survived Hell and found Heaven in my new life. I was the one who was becoming a counselor to help others who struggled. I had witnessed the immense evil people are capable of first hand. I had be victimized, fallen into despair, taken my own life, been saved, been victimized again over and over. But I had endured. Now I knew compassion. I knew joy. I knew what true love was. I felt safe. And I saw the overwhelming good people were capable of. So why now? Why was I losing it? This was not fair. This was not part of the plan. What was I going to do? Who could help me? All my hope was lost. I was losing it all.

I needed to answer these questions as soon as possible. I needed to heal. I needed to overcome. So today, I began writing. I don’t know if this is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. But I do know this is the start of my newest journey to find personal hope, healing, and a way to thrive instead of just survive. This blog is to write about where I’ve been, where I am, and where I want to be. I don’t know the ending to my story yet but I hope through sharing it, others will be able to find hope, healing, laughter, and community during their own journeys.