the thin line

It's not working. This life that I'm living and the way I'm living it. It's not working. As a girl I would cry myself to sleep because I was convinced I was unloved and wouldn't find love in my future. My fear of being unloved turned inward as I became a teen. I would cry myself to sleep because I hated the way I looked. I thought I was fat. Thought I was ugly. I didn't have boyfriends and was afraid no one would ask me to prom. They didn't.

As a young woman just out of high school, I lost weight. I felt pretty. I felt sexy. For the first time in my life, men paid attention to me. Still, none of them interested enough in staying around for a serious, long-term relationship. I cried myself to sleep because I feared I would never marry. I didn't.

Then I met someone. Someone I wanted to be 'the one'. I got pregnant. He didn't want it. I wanted him more and ended it. Shortly after that, he ended our relationship and I died inside. I checked out completely. I withdrew from life. I didn't work. I didn't go to school. I slept all day. I watched television and ate all night. I slowly lost my friends and slowly gained fifty pounds.

My mother chastised me. My father ignored me. I started praying. I started reading the Bible and searching. I moved far enough out of the depression that I was able to start planning and setting goals.

My first was to get out of the hellhole my father had me living in that was soon to be my coffin. I moved in with my mother and needed her support. She was initially cold and untrusting - partly because I had given her reason and partly because she can be cold and untrusting.

I set a goal for myself - get a bachelor's degree. Check. Did it. I started working part time and seeking full time employment. Check. Did that too.

Once I started working, I felt important. I felt like I had purpose. I was good at what I did. I discovered that I was organized, hard working, reliable and self assertive. People admired me. I made friends with my fellow, mid-twenty-something co-workers. Our friendships grew and we developed a close-knit group who took vacations together and spent weekends together.

I made two decisions - to start dating again and get a Master's degree. One man I met through a work acquaintance and the other I met online. Both were horrid, horrid experiences. The first man, Steve (I think), was looking for a wife. He was a wealthy rancher and in his late thirties. His bio-clock was ticking and I thought I had the choice of pursuing a financially comfortable life with a man I would never truly be in love with. He was irritated one night when he called and I couldn't meet him because of work. He stopped calling shortly thereafter and I later learned that about the same time his ex-girlfriend became pregnant and they married. There went my comfortable life.

The internet guy was an obnoxious, alcoholic, liar who helped me make a decision. I decided that if I couldn't win at a game, I wouldn't play it. That was 2002. I haven't dated since. I haven't been kissed since. I've only been (sort of) asked out once since.

Since, clearly, I was a relationship failure; I focused all of my attention on grad school and work. My friendships were starting to come apart, however. Little quirks and nuances that each of my friends possessed started eating at me. Resentments settled it. Jealousy settled in. I started detaching and pushing away. More and more time was spent focusing on school. I received a promotion at work. My friends began resenting me and pulling away - this has been a recurring theme in my life.

Master's degree? Check. Next goal - doctoral program. This time, a little glitch…my father was dying of cancer. I wanted to move away. I wanted to start over.

I had been living with my mother the entire time. She initially supported me. Once I started working, we split the bills 50/50. She was making decent money for the first time in her life, but she hated her job. That was nothing new - she hated 'working' period. She has fibromyalgia and has struggled with depression my entire life. I wanted to get away from her. Not completely...just physically. I wanted my own place. I wanted my own life, but she needed me. We developed a codependent relationship over the years and I couldn't (and still can't) sever it.

I was accepted into a program in a neighboring state. My mother moved with me. I knew my father was dying, but I chose to move on. I supported him throughout his illness. His new wife hated me and tried to separate us. After I moved, he never called me again. He never spoke to me again...not even as he was dying.

I went back home when I learned he had a few days to live. I watched him fight death surrounded by the walls of his home - walls that his wife stripped of any photographs or signs of me or my brother. When it was over, I was relieved. I felt a tremendous amount of guilt for the feelings of relief.

I inherited a sizeable amount of insurance money that helped me through my doctoral program. On the day of my graduation, only my mother was present. My brother, my grandmother, my uncle didn't come. I wanted my brother there, but only if he would have made an effort to get there on his own rather than having my grandmother pay for it. I didn't necessarily want my grandmother or my uncle there, only because of the conflict it would present with my mother, but what hurt the most was they never asked about it. Once again, but for my mother, I was alone.

I was one of the few graduates in my class to get a job offer before graduation. They pay was terrible. Really, really terrible, but the work was what I thought I wanted to do. I have been there almost two years. At times, I love my work. Other times, I want to run away.

Shortly after being hired, I bought my first house. And I have been here ever since...in this house. I have a mother, a house and a job, and that is it. I have a few friends, but no one who knows me. I haven't allowed anyone to know who the real me is since I left behind my old work friends for my post grad program five years ago. I went to church for a while and developed relationships there, but have completely dissolved those friendships. My faith has begun to dwindle and come into question.

People at work are starting to notice that something is wrong with me. I've been asked if I'm depressed, but have covered it up with medical excuses.

My relationship with my mother is at an all time low. Other than Social Security income, she is completely dependent on me financially. She hasn't maintained employment since we moved here five years ago. I place a lot of blame on her for the way my life turned out. She has no idea. I resent her because she has chosen not to live her life. She and my father divorced twenty years ago and she refuses to date or remarry. She doesn't have friends. I am her friend, her provider, her caretaker at times and her daughter. She has no life and neither do I.

Tensions are at an all time high. The air is thick with tension and anger. Somewhere around twenty-two, I stopped the guttural, deep and painful crying. It went away for several years and was replaced by numbness. It returned when my father died. I can literally feel a stabbing pain in my heart again... the same pain I felt as a little girl who was certain she would never be loved... the same pain I felt as a teen who hated the way she looked...

At thirty-five, I have the exact same pain and the exact same feelings. I hate the way I look and I am certain I will never be loved. How the hell can someone feel this way for thirty, f'ing years?!

Most of my weekends are spent in bed, with my laptop. I'll get out of bed for food and sometimes to take some photographs. Mostly, I stay in bed and escape in television, movies and the internet. I do have some good weekends when I'll tackle a project like starting a flower garden. Once every six weeks or so, I will clean my house like a meth-fiend. Those weekends are almost always followed by a weekend in bed.

I daydream about being told I have cancer and choosing not to treat it. I go to sleep with images of laying my head down on the lunette of a guillotine and closing my eyes, waiting for the blade to fall. I've fantasized about suicide since the age of five or six. When I was fifteen, I swallowed an entire box of Actifed and only woke up feeling incredibly slow and drowsy. I didn't tell anyone about it. After the abortion, my desire to die was overwhelming. The only thing stopping me then was my fear of spiritual repercussions.

I no longer want to kill myself, but I am tired of living an anesthetized life. I feel like I just might be someone who has passed on and is caught in between worlds. Most of the time I feel intensely angry with intermittent bouts of intense feelings of sadness to the point of full blown grief. There are times when I can laugh. At work, I am very, very funny and make people laugh. That's my only escape from the angry - making people laugh.

This anger and sadness has to end. I have to make a plan to change things. I want to change five areas in my life:
- my appearance (weight/makeup/wardrobe/style)
- my emotions (anger/sadness)
- my faith (settlement)
- my finances (spending/saving/investing)
- my relationships (friendships/boundaries/to be further explored)

I am starting with my weight. My weight is a physical consequence of how I choose to deal with pain. It is my first target - probably because it is the easiest to control when I really try. Tomorrow is the last day I am going to allow myself to indulge in eating. I'm also going to buy some scales. Ugh. I haven't owned a set of scales in three years, but it's time and they are essential for holding me accountable.

This is my quest for happiness and these are the target areas that I think will help me get there. I hope this blog doesn't become too self-indulgent, but I can promise it will be honest. Hiding who I really am and my true feelings from the real world is exhausting. I don't have the energy to do it here too.

Please help me God - this thin line I've been walking is starting to vanish and I'm afraid it's the line between life and death.

To Do Tomorrow:
- buy scales
- diet plan
- workout plan