first draft, filled with many typos and needing much editing

My best friend calls it "Janicing."

It's when I text her at some ridiculously late hour and we have a conversation of pre-text. I tell her I'm not feeling "well." She assures me it will pass. I don't go into details. She doesn't ask questions. We've been there before, we both know what's going on without it being said. She's learned not to freak out, she's learned that what I need in that moment is validation, reassurance, and mostly, just to know that I'm not alone and that she's not going anywhere. That she loves me uncondtionally and that she doesn't hate me for the mess I occasionally become.

And what a mess I can be.

I tell myself that I'm thirty years old. That the past is in the past. I was a bullied child. I was one hundred pounds by five, two hundred by ten. And while the weight gain slowed over the years, it still persists. My parents used to tell me that sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never hurt me. That I needed a thicker skin.

And maybe that's what this weight is. A thicker skin.

As much as I want to lose weight, it insulates me. A man can reject me because he doesn't find me attractive. And as much as that hurts, it comforts. Because I know he's not rejecting me for ME. The person, the soul, the integral essense of who I am. I think the reason why I can't lose the weight, is because it'd leave me vulnerable to a much deeper rejection. And as someone with BPD, a good part of my life is spent trying to anticipate and avoid pain. If I'm no longer the fat girl, then who am I? If I'm no longer the crazy girl, what does that leave?

I feel more, I feel more intensely, I absorb pain. It's what makes me a good writer, an artist. This world stuns me with it's beauty and its ugliness. BPD, my sensitivity, is a gift and a horrid curse. My inner world is complex and deep but yet tortured. A lot of the time, I am a raw nerve and everything hurts. ANd when it becomes too much, I desperately seek release. I cut. I binge. I drink. I cry. I lash out. In my younger days, I'd manipulate and lie -- anything to keep the people I love near me. I still dot' know how to say, "I'm scared. I'm paranoid. I'm .... Janicing.... and I need you. As illogical and inconvenient as it is, I need you RIGHT HERE. And then I'll be ok." I don't know how to say that, I don't WANT to say that. I don't want to be that girl. That needy, that desperate, that.... much of a pain in the ass. Because after enough of that, anyone ... would want to get away. Including me.

I don't know how to be that vulnerable. It's too scary. To show the guts of this disorder, the ugliest manifestations, the pathetic neediness -- I am terrified that it's too much. That I'm not enough. And it's a cycle. Because I hate myself for it, but I can't help it. And the pain multiples and divides, adds, subtracts. And I'm left a huddled, sobbing, terrified mess of an emotional child that is frozen in need but too afraid to ask for help. Because I don't know what will stop it. And I don't want to make it worse by chasing the people away that I am so sure are going to leave me eventually, anyway.

I was diagnosed after my fifth suicide attempt, when I was 23. I was hospitalized in a psych hospital. Lost, empty, completley desolate, the three psychiatrists sat across from me and asked me if I had ever heard of BPD. I hadn't. Upon release, I was sent back to see my regular psychiatrist who had diagnosed me as bipolar at 19. When I told him what the other doctors said, he scribbled on his prescripton pad. He didn't look at me as he said, "why would you want that diagnosis? It means nothing. And there's not even a pharmacudical treatment. You need to think of your condition lke diabetes. Or wearing eye glasses. Just something you need to accept... and medicate."

I've spent my entire life medicating this condition. Food, booze, sex, shopping, occasionally drugs. I'm on a low dose of Celexa now and it helps immensely. But two weeks ago I foudn myself crying in my shower slicing at my arm with the blade of my food processor. Sometimes this thin skin gets punctured despite medications, despite meditation, despite loving friends and family, despite logic. Despite me. And depsite all of you.

I've seen many counselors and doctors over the years. They always ask me what my goals are in seeking treatment. My answer has never changed. "I want to have more stable relationships. I want to be more independent. I want to learn to cope with -- if not control - these monster cycles and emotions I feel." What I mean is -- I want to be loved, I want to feel like I am worthy of love."

Over the years, I definitely have gotten better. I know my patterns, my friends know how to spot my cycles. I know that the week before my period, every month, I'm going to lose it. I end up on the phone with my friends sobbing and wanting to jump off a bridge. PMDD? Who knows? But every month I fall to sadness. I see my patterns. A friend moves away. I take it personally. I take everything personally. I try not to, but I do. And sometimes I run away from people I love, I chase them away to protect myself. A good defense is a good offense. Because sometimes I just can't stand to lose one more boyfriend, one more friend. I am an expert at self-demolition. I fear this building is going to tumble one way or another. And if I can't control that inevitability, I'd like to at least knock it down myself. To attempt to control how I fall.

If I could tell my doctors, my friends, my family anything, it is this. This condition burdens me with so much guilt and shame. Start there. The foundation. Validation, assurance -- ACCEPTANCE. This is who I am, how I am. And it's improved and it will continue to get better. But right now, in this moment, in the moment I'm texted my friend, in the moment that I'm desperate and terrifed and slicing my arm, in those moments -- that is who I am. It is from pain, it is a way to cope with overwhelming pain. I'm heavy, I'm thick, but lift me. I need to be lifted and held and safe. I am not a damsel in distress. It takes great courage to be that raw and open and vulnerable and... needy. I am... Janicing. And I can't vocalize at the moment what I need. But right now I'm telling you. AS someone with BPD... during an episode.... we need to know that we are ok, we will be ok, and that there is nothing more to fear or feel guilty about. Sometimes we need to just be held while we scream. We need to feel safe. Accepted.

I wish I didn't have scars on my thighs from late night razors that I have to explain to all new lovers. I wish that my books were fiction so I didn't have to hide the fact that I'm a writer from coworkers for fear of judgement. I wish I could lose this weight because i know I'm missing out on so much. I wish the same wish I did the entire time I was gorwing up -- that I can be normal. I wish I hadn't caused my family anf riends so much pain, I can only imagine what it feels like to watch someone you love want to destroy themselves. And to try over and over again.

I wish black box warnings existed on the medications I haphazardly took and discarded in my early 20s. Because I'm pretty sure that a lot of my struggle came from that, from the medications themselves. From the going on and off them haphazardly. I wish I wasn't so afraid all the time. I wish I could find my home. Wherever that is. With whomever that is. With whomever I need to be.

Been Thinking....

When I was in 11th grade, my chemistry teacher, Mr. Milone was also our Key Club advisor. Key Club is a community service group affiliated with the local Kiwanis Club. My best friend Doug and I were supposed to be leading it. Supposed to be. Only, you see, Key Club wasn't as fun as all of our other activities and we admittedly were half-assed about it. In frustration, Mr. Milone said to me once -- "but Janice, this could be your legacy. This could be something you look back fondly at when you think of high school. What do you want your legacy to be? You need to think about that."

Yeah, well, pretty sure I've failed over and over and over in that whole legacy department. I'm horrible at finishing projects. Got to the point where I've even stopped starting them if I don't think I can do them quickly. Probably why I still struggle with my weight, am a freelancer, am single, haven't written any short stories/books/scripts in forever (other than the apparently never-ending work on my memoir that oops! isn't done), and probably why I no longer do readings or host readings. How can I be so passionate about something and then it just wanes? Do I have some sort of ADD? How can I throw myself heart and soul into something and then just be like "well, sick of that." Then I wonder why I can be so apathetic. So many other people have life-long passions ---- I have some life-long interests but certainly not PASSIONS. Is that normal?

Or is it the meds?

It's so fucking annoying. If I'm not asking "is it the meds?" I'm asking, "is it my brain?" There's just a certain unbalance, a certain askew-ment (not really a word but I'm using it) to me that renders me at a 90 degree angle tot he rest of the world. Sometimes it's 30 degrees, sometimes it's 150.... but it's never, never parallel. And I wonder if everyone feels that way or if it's the meds, or if it's my brain, or if it's my "creative" nature. Is this just a desperate effort to align myself with the concept of "normal?"

OK, from the existential to the concrete. I want to use my writing and my creativity to make my living. I would like to write tv shows. I work in an office filled with people who have the job I want. But yet I stare at them and think "how do I get there???" But I'm too shy to ask advice. it's retarded. I think part of me thinks it is just unattainable. That it is naive to even try. Then i think about to the best writing advice I ever got. Can't remember her name but it was from this novelist I attended a workshop with at a conference in high school -- she said "to be a writer, you need to write." And yeah -- guess what? I haven't been writing SHIT.

And I keep thinking -- I have SO many contacts. I have connections and access to resources that other people who also want to be write for tv DREAM of. I've worked in the tv and movie industry for 9 years. Why the hell haven't I sat down and figured out how to make the jump from production and finance to the creative? I think because of fear and I think because years ago I decided that pursuing this path would be easier and just as profitable. (okay, not as profitable as the WGA writers on this show make $6142 bucks a week plus $12,000 a script plus royalties plus bonuses...) It's not like if I try to be a writer and fail I can't go back to what I do now. And even if I did fail, it's not like I couldn't try again. I couldn't network more (sooooooo bad at that) and hone my craft.

My craft? Shit. I abandoned my craft. Well I settled into poetry because it's immediate. And I'm pretty good at it. But I've ever stopped doing that. (is it the meds? is it my brain? is it because I'm lazy? is it because the muses are ignoring me? is it because i suck at it, after all? -- oh the frenetic thoughts in my poor, ravaged brain!)

So what the fuck am i supposed to do? what do i want to do?

Well..... you know what sounds fun? Writing for tv. What I wanted to do 9 years ago and then got scared and side tracked. And here I am so insanely close to the opportunity. I just need the balls, some scripts, some drive, some confidence.... and it just COULD happen. I mean it really could.

So.... this weekend I am going to buy a desk and a nice chair and set them up in my room and I am going to dedicate a safe little area JUST to creativity and writing. My bedroom will be a place of tranquility and comfort. A little room of my own where I will only invite in the very fortunate :) I'll make it very clean, organized, girly, and a warm place for creativity and poetry and .... just good stuff. :)

So that's what I'll do. :)

uterus --

despite
what grey
may say

you are
an asshole.

both our beds lie empty and wrinkled
bodies so far from sleep, from recline

i want to swim in the blue ocean of threads
of you
i want to sink into the red comforter
of me

entwine and release
aliens and god and the purpose of blood cells
wondering if we can see through each other's eyes

you make me feel like
a radiohead song
the intense, the passion, the sorrow, the electric,
the smooth, the emotion, the perfection

to trace the outline of your lips
and tell you this
and for it to matter
to anyone besides just me

i whisper things to you
when you're not around

parking in the driveway
of a convenience store

soft words, barely breathed
"i miss you. do you know i miss you?"

i send you psychic messages
across green spring lawns

blades soft under painted toes
black kitten amongst daffodils

i hear myself say
"when are you coming home?"

how easily i fall to tears
it infuriates me and instead of
showcasing swollen red eyes
and dramatically choking on muffled cries
I hide, I hide, I hide

I hide, I hide, I hide

It's deep inside
where my secrets lie
the faltered alibis
the cripple's wine

it's deep inside, it's deep inside, it's deep inside

this scarred up hide
stained scarlet suicide

it's where I hide
it's where I hide
it's where I hide

i am in hiding
i listen to fishtanks
and whooshing suburban traffic
the scrap of pant buttons
against the dryer walls

i am done with brooklyn
i am done with a phase
i am done with the best of days
i am focused ahead

i am writing new books
if only in my head

my ego grew large and posthumous
danced, trotted, and slutted
her way around
unannounced and rarely invited

i don't want to be important anymore
not even sure i want to be heard
not sure if i want to be the pretty girl
or the one holding awards

i think what i want is what i've found
in these fishtanks and kenmore whirls
i think it's beneath the stars
the relief of "Exit 40" in the headlights
knowing that I'm finally home







and then the secret part

it's in the you
the comfort, the closeness
the "awwwww almost"
the what could be, what won't be
it is in the daffodils
blossoming in my yard
it is in the porch steps cigarette

it is, it is, it is