Purity in Words

I've been having a struggle lately. Work has been insanely stressful; much more than I like to admit. I've been coming off of my meds, which has made me extremely emotional. I'm a lot more forgetful than ever now. But I can get through it right? I can get through this if I have people around me. The right people, of course. A coworker is trying to manipulate me. I'm not sure if he knows it or not but I do. I can see right through that. And so I've had to shut him down. I thought we could be friends but...  Thursday was the hardest. Thursday morning..... at the start of my shift (why???) I received a text message from my best friend that he no longer wanted to be in contact with me. So I guess... I dunno... ex best friend.... That broke me. I can't help but think I'm the one who caused this. That I am the one who's inadequate. My husband, after reading the text, says he doesn't think it's me. But I can't help but ... know... that it is. I just...

Dear Danielle, I’m not ready, but I need to be. I need to take this head on. I need to move past this. You’re going to be my cousin-in-law for many, many years to come, and I want to be able to have at least a decent relationship with you. The thing is, I’m scared of you. Well, no… you intimidate me. But there are some things I need to let go of, as I’m sure you do too. So I’m here, with trembling hands, doing so. I remember writing you a long piece many years ago that I had ADHD. And though that may be true, I’ve learned that this isn’t the entire story. It’s not  just  ADHD or whatever. It’s so much deeper (and darker) than that. I knew I needed help or I would lose everything I held dear. I started really advocating for myself. I went to my doctor with a laundry list of things that I dealt with that I didn’t want to deal with anymore. At the time, she diagnosed me Bipolar and put me on new meds. This…. Look, messing with brain chemistry is a scary thing. I’ll just say that....

Oops. I wrote this a week ago... I may not post everyday but I should at least make an effort to write. It’s good for me.   I haven’t been feeling well lately. I’ve been getting these really terrible headaches. And I’m the type of person that will try to tough it out and won’t take anything. I think that’s because when I do take something, it doesn’t do much anyway. At least sometimes. Those are the bad ones. And nothing helps but sleep. Which makes me wonder if it’s sleep related. It’s just so draining. I just need to sleep. For days. Just to catch up.   In other news, I didn’t have any nightmares last night for once. It actually wasn’t that bad of a dream. I don’t remember it though. When I was younger, I thought that things in dreams meant something. My mom had one of those dream dictionaries that I would look through after I had a dream that I remembered. And I really believed that stuff. I found signs in things that weren’t signs.   Speaking of, I remember my dad pra...

While I was taking a shower yesterday (you all know that the best thinking happens while showering), I was thinking about how my mom used to use Pantene Pro-V. She probably still does. But I was never allowed to use it because it was expensive. Instead, I got to use Suave.   Now, as an adult, I can use whatever shampoo I want. Currently, it’s Love, Beauty & Planet. Which is a pretty pricey, sulfate-free shampoo. And I thought about how my parents just roll their eyes at stuff like that. “Sulfate-free? You spend almost $10 for a 13oz bottle for sulfate-free shampoo???? There are cheaper alternatives. Sulfate-free is such a scam.”   Okay, we’ve never actually had this conversation but I’ve had conversations similar to this. But it had me thinking. What did my mom’s mom use for shampoo? What about my grandma’s mom? Commercial shampoo has been around for less than 100 years. Did my great grandma roll her eyes at her young adult daughter using shampoo while she washed her own w...

I got collared yesterday. And I’m conflicted.   I received a couple of packages in the mail from a dear friend of mine and also an ex-boyfriend. In fact, he’s the one I referenced in my iceberg post as the one who saved me. At this point, I’m trying to figure out how much backstory to give. It’s not that I don’t want to share, it’s that it’s a lot.   I’ve gone through a lot. Way more than I’ve talked about. Way more than I can remember. Christopher was there when I needed him the most. I was 17 and really broken, he was 15 and still a child. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was what I needed at the time. I usually refer to him as Angus, and I hate calling him Chris. Angus is his middle name and I’ve called him that for years, but I feel he’s more like a Christopher to me. I guess it’s the symbolism that distinguishes the man from the child.   Over the last decade or so, he’s popped in and out of my life, usually at a time I need it the most. It’s weird. Well, this t...

I was raised in a religious home. At least, my mom raised us kids that way since my dad wasn’t really around a whole lot. Growing up, I got a lot of mixed signals regarding sex and the naked body. I mean, children are naturally very curious about the body and how it functions. There’s a reason why “playing doctor” is a thing, but we were expressly forbidden from doing anything like that. It was so forbidden by my mother that she threatened to spank us with a switch (a switch is a very thin, bendy branch). That didn’t stop me sometimes, but there was definitely that very strong fear instilled, and that intense shame attached to it. Even thinking back on the things I did, I feel disgust. I feel dirty. Even though what I was doing wasn’t even wrong.   My mom pulled me from health class when we did the sex ed portions. I didn’t get to take sex ed until I was in 8 th  grade because I was told by the teacher that I would fail if I didn’t, so I made sure to not tell my mom about it. ...