On Turning 30 - By A Former Crazy Bitch

On Turning 30 - By A Former Crazy Bitch

I spent a great part of my twenties trying to convince once person or another that I wasn't crazy. Of course, as the years go by it's less of an issue. It's been over six years since my last suicide attempt, since I was hospitalized. So long that I had to pause and count backwards. So long that the answer struck me. I was only twenty-three. Today I am less then two months from my 30th.

Is it too early to say I'm a survivor? Is wanting that title anything more than pride? And if so, is that such a bad thing?

Every day I take anti-depressants. Something I acquiessed to in the summer of 2007 when I started having panic attacks and fainting in public from hyperventilating. It wasn't even depression that finally convinced me to a long period of medical maintenance. From the time I was first diagnosed (fresh after my first attempt) at the age of 19, I never adhered to pills for more than a few months at a time. The same brutal cycle repeated itself for a long time -- stability, off pills and/or reoccurence of problems, relapse. All in all I tried to off myself five times between 1998 and 2002. Four long years on a roller coaster.

It did get better. Mostly because being committed scared the shit out of me. I never was a girl who settled easily into trouble, who never spoke back or boldly fought authority. Maybe, in the end, it was the good girl in me that willed me to get my shit together. To end the melodrama and take care of myself. Not saying that those in crisis are stupid or lazy or weak. I think I was just fortunate to have a condition that could be wrestled to the ground. Others - many, many others do not.

I was thinking about this post Lawrence has on Facebook about how the feature "People You Know" can really bring back memories. I am constantly having people appear in that little box that sting my heart. While my friends today don't know me as that crazy, lost girl I was years ago (they might see glimpses occasionally when I am -- as I call it -- "sick" but nothing to the degree I felt for years on end), the people in my life at the time who abruptly (or not so abruptly) parted ways with me will always know me as "that crazy bitch Janice."

And crazy isn't an easy label to remove. For one, people assume that it's forever. Once a lunatic, always a lunatic. For many that may be true. However, I find myself lost in the face of someone I lost, someone that I cared for so much that I either hurt or they couldn't take me anymore and I wish I could somehow prove to them I've changed. Not that it'd make up for the pain they caused me by abandoning me or the pain i caused them by being non-trustworthy, selfish, and manipulative, but just so I could close that period of my life. So I could sit wrapped in a new lover's arms and not feel the need to issue a disclaimer.

Maybe this is the beauty of turning 30. It's still a thorn in my side that my ex boyfriend John probably remembers wrestling knives out of my hand and threatening to break my arm if I didn't stop trying to throw myself off the roof more than he remembers us making love and all the good times. It stings that some of the best girlfriends I ever had in college won't accept friend requests or answering emails. I honestly don't know what to do with the girl I used to be. Few photographs exist from that period - especially the darkest days in New York. It's probably a blessing. I don't struggle with those years as I much as I used to. I can meet new friends without having to fear that they'll find out and judge me. I wrote a poetry book about it. The fact that I was crazy is all over the internet. Only now people don't call me a victim or a psycho or a crazy bitch, they call me an expert. It happens more often then you'd think. I get asked advice. How can I give advice on a hell that I only escaped by the strength of my fingernails?

The fear remains though. As it should. The fear that I'll again "lose it" and the gig will be up. I'll be standing amongst my new friends, my new readers, and my new business colleagues naked, sobbing, desperate, clawing at myself. I can't say it won't ever happen. It happened a year ago. I was in an ambulance a year ago because my ex thought I was going to kill myself. Why? Because I told him. And honestly, I was.

I dont' know how to say these things to the people in my life who aren't weathered and experienced. I don't know how to say "I think you should know, I go crazy sometimes." I'm certainly no longer the seething, suffering time bomb I used to be. The most active and manipulative aspects of my personality disorder have melted away with time. I do not lie. I do not manipulate. (But alas when I feel cornered or that I'm going to lose someone I panic and then control over these deeply-wired defense mechanisms are lost.) Do I throw that on the table up front, casually mention it over dinner?

Or maybe. Just maybe. It's ok to say nothing at all. Perhaps I have finally reached a point in my life where my character and good heart stand out on their own and I can feel confident and trusting enough in the world to shred disclaimers. Maybe I don't need to hand my memoir to anyone new entering my life as if it's an owner's manual.

Maybe this will be the solace and beauty I will find at 30. :)