Picture it–(Sicily, 1947)–just kidding, it was probably around 1980-1981. I was roughly three or four years old. I lived in a tiny place in the frozen tundras of Alberta, a province in the great forested wilds of a country named Canada. The town was called Tin Town. Tin town was basically rows upon rows, huddled up to the street, of small mobile homes with some geniuses idea to use metal sheets on the roof and outside. Metal sheets, guys–I don’t know if any of you have stuck your head inside an oil drum while someone cranks out a drum-beat from Pantera upon it, but it’s pretty much what it sounds like whenever it rained, sleeted or hailed.
These were the “lower ranked” military housing, set below the much more majestic actual houses on a far off hill where I assume the higher ranking Canadian military families all drank expensive water and had expensive parties or something.
It is night. (Remember: you’re picturing this with me.) Our tiny little tin coffin is darkened and silent as the night cloaks all in stillness. My father–a long time sufferer of a horrible back and gout-ridden feet, often slept on the couch at night as it was more solid and more supportive than the bed. In our tiny little metal box, my room was at the very end of a short hallway that looked right out through the kitchen and into the living room; facing the living room’s large picture window. Below the picture window was the couch. And on that couch was my father, arms crossed over his chest, feet crossed at the ankles and grey-wool sock covered feet peeking out from under a blanket. I knew he was fast a sleep because it seemed as if he were sawing the winter’s worth of aspen trees for kindling. AKA: Holy mother of Odin, my father could out-snore a drunk bear.
And so, like most three-to-four year olds, I had gone through my list of Things I Could Do To Avoid Going To Sleep such as the number one hit: I Have To Pee, and, I Have to Pee Again, as well as, Read Me Another Story! and my favorite, I’m Hungry! as well as the other not-as-well-known usual night time favorites. Having annoyed the living fuck out of my parental units so much that they fell asleep, exhausted, obviously ignoring my needs–I felt rather betrayed. And upset. And so, I began:
Basically, we’re just testing a new layout and theme, trying to get it worked out and figure it out. This post as well as the example posts will eventually disappear when we choose which layouts and things work. Rabble rabble rabble!
This battle was not a grand thing. There were no towering men and women in shimmering suits of armor; silver, gold or painted rainbows on a field of honor. There were no trumpets or galloping, no glory or majestic verses sung of my bravery as I fought because the battle sometimes happened between me and the bed. You don’t get stirring ballads when you struggle to put clothes on every morning. When you think: I don’t want to wake up, I want to go back to sleep and dream. I want to pull the blankets over my head and lay in the dark. I would battle to open my eyes and stare at my ceiling, listening to the sound of cats chasing each other through the house or the birds jabbering away at one another. Five minutes, ten minutes, sometimes an hour or three would pass as I drifted between a skittery sleep that skimmed the surface of deeper rest.
After the war to wake up then get out of bed came the fight to take care of myself. Putting one foot in front of the other felt like walking on the bottom of the ocean being crushed by the waves. My feet were in lead boots keeping me below the waves, too far where no sunlight reached.
Then came the skirmish on my apartment, the messes of every day life. A kitchen that needed sweeping. Clothes to be put away. Dishes to be done. Carpets to be vacuumed, bird cages cleaned, garden to weed, wash to be done, shower–day in day out the little things which everyone does was a knock-down-dragged-out-bloodless battle to perform. Inside my head I had to bark at myself. I had to yell and cajole and bribe. I would roll out of bed every day as tired as the next, whether I slept fifteen hours or eight. Tired when I woke up, tired when I went to sleep. Tired of being tired.
And when I made myself do the things people do day in and day out, it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t perfect enough. Something in my head would crouch down low and whisper like old scratchy mix-tapes that had been used over and over again until static hissing could be heard behind everything–never good enough, The Thing would say. It would back itself into a corner high above every achievement I would ever do: a painting, a clean house, a piece of sculpted clay, a bite from a bird, a mess that needed cleaning, a piece of writing–awful–The Thing hissed. It’s horrible, just like you. It would begin. And I’d do my best not to pay attention to it but there’s no running from your own head, there’s no safety on the battlefield when it’s inside your body with a part of you that never goes away.
You’re disgusting looking, fat and ugly, The Thing would cackle at me when I tried on new clothes or dress up a little and put some make up one.
This is garbage, it would announce when I was finished with drawing a picture. No matter what anyone says or tells you, you’ll never be good enough whenever someone complimented me. You can’t it would say when I tried to convince myself I could. You won’t when I fought to tell people I would. And when I didn’t, it would laugh gleefully and point out that I didn’t–just like it said I would. You are completely worthless, it would tell me day in and day out. Until I lost any arrows to fire back at it to silence it. All of your mistakes all of your life–every one of them we can remember–let us play them in your head every night on loop, dissect them, point out your flaws and your imperfections until you cannot sleep and you cannot stand yourself–The Thing would do, every night when I tried to go to bed. And it did. And I would watch the things I did in the past with growing shame until I tore myself up inside.
I lived with this thing for so many years that it became part of me.
Cut an onion incorrectly: you’re an idiot it would hiss.
Accidentally drop and break something: See how worthless you are? You can’t keep anything.
I tormented myself over things that should never have tormented me. I lost sleep over the things we all do, the mistakes me make as children and adults. I agonized over my weight and sabotaged every single thing in my life that I had to be happy about. I started listening and believing to that Thing in my head until it did begin to ruin everything I did.
I stopped drawing.
I stopped making things out of clay.
I stopped writing.
I stopped playing the games I loved to play.
I stopped reading the books I loved to read.
I stopped doing things around the house until it piled up and took hours to do them instead of a few minutes.
I stopped caring about myself and, I stopped caring about it.
I argued and said things to Shawn over things that were so ridiculously stupid I am ashamed I argued over them.
And then my mother died.
I lost something so important to me that I could not put into words what had happened. A part of my life that had always been there (and a part that you know some day will go–but you never want to admit it, because she’s your mother. And she’s forever. Always.) was no longer. I was thousands of miles away and I hadn’t the chance to say good bye.
The Thing in my head reared up from its corner and spilled as ink across my mind. It took over everything inside of me. The words and the things that it said to me bombarded me day in and day out. I did nothing. I wanted nothing. I grieved but I hated myself. I let my mind rip myself apart as it never had before. I could do nothing to stop it. Over the decades I used to be able to fight back: This will pass, I would tell The Thing when it hissed. Tomorrow all will be better. You’ll see. I am a good person. I really am. I have nothing to be sad or angry about. Everything’s okay and I will be fine, I always am. But this time I couldn’t reach for those words. I couldn’t convince myself that things would be all right anymore. I couldn’t find it in myself to believe and I couldn’t stop crying. I felt as if I were always on the bottom of the ocean and that I hadn’t seen the surface in years.
Then one day, The Thing in my head in a voice as clear as ringing metal: You would be better off dead.
The cacophony inside my head fell to silence and even I felt myself stop moving and go still. What The Thing had said had frightened me so much that all the little voices that toss about in my head–leaves in a pile stirred by the wind–dropped out of the air. I felt afraid. The Thing had said something that it had never said before and I knew with a clarity and a sharpness that it wasn’t just grief for my mother. It wasn’t just the loss of someone I had loved. That the years of The Thing living in my head, ruining everything I had taken joy from was not how it was supposed to be.
I knew that I could no longer do it alone. I knew that I needed to stop waging a silent war and tell someone. I needed help. So I told my husband–I told him everything I had never told him over the years. I talked and I talked and I made myself say things that The Thing in my head fought with me tooth and nail not to say. I talked, and then I spoke to a doctor and spoke with friends. Anyone who would listen.
I waited 39 years to get over my fear of math and dice to finally attempt my very first Dungeons & Dragons game with internet friends I have known for ages. I have conquered part of my fears, but not all of them, as Roll20.net makes die rolls 100000% easier to beginners! Our DM decided since we were all practically new, we’d start out with level 10 characters because she decided to run City of the Spider Queen. She adjusted it for 5e as much as she could and also tossed in a lot of home brew elements too.
I have been having an absolute ball playing Anthracite Ironbelly, my cleric, with my husband, Shawn, who plays Boddlur’s the Germanic-sounding bard, our DM Lil, and our Rogue Zalima with the Paladin, Corvin. I sure hope this highlight of our game play amuses you too!
If you dig it, you can usually check us live streaming our D&D games every Saturday (when health and life participates) on my twitch channel found here: Pinkatron2000. You can also follow me on twitter here: Pinkatron2000, for live stream announcements and schedule updates. <3
Today is the infamous day, in the year of oh lawd, 2017, when my husband, Shawn and I celebrate 8 years of official marriage. Actual we gotta piece of paper ‘n everything! marriage, as opposed to use getting together back in 2003 and from then on our simply referring to one another as husband and wife married. Our love is fourteen years old today and if it were a teenager in today’s world…Jesus, I would feel pretty torn up being a teen this year, also with the added befuddlement of hormones, brain development, and figuring out your place in this society…Anyway, I got a little side tracked, as you do, when you have the attention span of a gnat. Oh. You don’t? Oh..But let’s move on.
In celebration of 8 official years of marriage, I would like to share with you the eight reasons why I love Shawn.
8 reasons why I love my husband, a celebration of full frontal geekery:
You know how sometimes we all have ‘off’ days? Where our emotions or brain or hormones simply show up and trash the inside of your head then duck out and leave you with the mess? The first 6 years of being together, this is what Shawn had to deal with….everyday. Why is that important? It’s important because during those years I was absolutely, 100% unmedicated as well as still not diagnosed with severe depression and Bipolar II. For those of you not familiar with BP II, it’s just a much slower, surfer dude BP. You still get the manic episodes, but maybe once a month–maybe every two months. My manic episodes involved doing every fucking thing all at once as well as having hare-brained schemes for shit that made no sense but at the time I was very into it because my brain is a little broken. The depressive episodes meant not doing anything . A polar (see what I did thar?) opposite of the manic. And these could last months and months with little breaks in between. During the weeks I was PMSing I was a mess. Not even a hot mess. Just a mess. And so I had, basically, an off day for six years of our relationship. And it was pretty awful. As some of you who suffer from the same things, or have a loved one who has to go off their meds for whatever reason–or has an episode and goes off their meds–I can hear you making understanding nods. And see, this man didn’t drop my broke-brained-mountain self. Instead? He stayed. Through all of that and the medicated part.2. We have our own married language. We finish each other’s –sandwiches–sentences. Sometimes, I think we may actually be semi-telepathic or something. There can be days where I will quietly crave a food, or think about a certain song stuck in my head and I won’t say anything about it but BAM. Shawn will look at me funny one day and go, “Y’know, I’ve been thinking a lot about : indian food/pizza/chinese food/going to ___ and getting ___” and I will yodel like a dork: “I HAVE BEEN THINKING THAT ALL WEEK! OMG!” We speak in old MEME tongues often. Our cat will sit a certain way and we’ll look at it and at the same time blurt: “He should buy a boat,” or, “these aren’t my glasses?” and, “but that’s none of my business.” Sometimes we don’t even say a full MEME or hilarious Thing We’ve Seen Or Read. Sometimes I just say a single word. Just one! And he gets me. YOUUUU COMPLEEEETEEE MEEEE!3. Apparently my blanket hogging, snoring, space consuming ass is, actually, missed when it doesn’t get into bed on time when he does. He tells me that he can sleep, yes (and boy I still wanna punch him in the face with love at how quickly this man can go from wide-awake to literally snoring in 3 minutes or less!) but that if I am not in the bed, it’s a fitful sleep. That he wakes up and notices I’m not there a lot. During the first year of finding new meds to treat me brain pan, he used to physically get up out of bed and come find me. He’d peek around corners, hair stuck up as if recently gently electrocuted, eyes half glued shut and mumble: “Y’alright? Y’okay? Y’doin’ okay?” just to make sure. Interrupting your own precious sleep simply to check up on someone? That’s love, yo.4. I fail. A lot. I failed in getting a job. I failed in school. I failed at the invisible Housewife standard that some people hold where I’m apparently able to whip my house up into sparkling clean tingting sound-effects shine whilst drinking wine out of my crystal glasses that NEVER EVER BREAK and eating chocolates from paris. (Maybe that’s just my imagination.) At any rate, I don’t work. Lucky for me, he got the chance to work from home so I’m not left alone. (Because one time, I decided to step on the glass stove to paint–and the stove broke, but my foot didn’t??? some how??? but there was glass everywhere. Like…Glass dust.) Despite the fact that this part of our relationship is wildly out of balance he…just do. Like Shia Labeouf’s tired meme, he JUST DOES IT. He goes to work. He gets dat money. He spends it all on keeping a house (that I don’t clean very well) over my head and food (lots obvs) in mah belleh and food for kitties and birds and does it all because he can and he wants to. I guess, if you look at it my way, I didn’t fail when it comes to husbanding!
5. We equally hate socializing and yesterday when we early celebrated our anniversary by seeing Wonder Woman and eating Indian food, we went home and things got really exciting if ya know what I mean. Wink Wink. Nudge Nudge. …..we napped. That’s right. We romantically napped together in a food coma. Awww yisss.
6. We are both Star Wars nerds. He is more inclined to the tech side. I love the stories. We both know shit just got real however whenever one of us says: “I love you more than Star Wars.” Awww hells yeah, it’s romanticle time!
7. Neither of us can be trusted to go into any pet store to purchase supplies for our cats in case of Adoption Days. We literally cannot say no. To kittens. To one eyed tom cats with half an ear
and multiple scars and broken tails to old grumpy hissy spitty cats that like to hide. We are not allowed near any cat adoption days anymore and we certainly are not allowed to know their name or give them a name or else good bye heart, good bye forever. Shawn used to be able to go and get cat food, kitty litter, etc–but ever since the day he almost broke because of a fluffy white siamese kitten that would not stop staring at him–he has decided that we will henceforth purchase cat food and kitty litter and toys via Amazon. And as much as that means I won’t get to fondle kittens….I think it’s a very good idea. And what that means is, we’re both cat people. And I love that he loves cats. And gets me. I am the rare married crazy cat lady.
8. He loves me. I am not a good human. Or at least, I wasn’t. I was not an easy person to love. My mental health made barriers, made issues that weren’t there, made arguments that should have never happened, happen and made me, as I’ve described before–a little blob of hurt, confused spite–that lashed out for seemingly no reason. It took a lot to love me then. But he did. He loved me even when he should have given up. He loved me even when I floundered. He loved me when I was at my absolute worst, morning breath and all, and he loved me when I got better, too. He loved me when I stayed in bed all day and could barely get the energy to wash myself and he loved me when I went through the house like a whirlwind with a scrub brush. He loved me when I stood in the middle of a pet store and cried because we couldn’t afford to save a third cat, when we already had 2 (the apartment we were living in at the time, had a 2 large pet restriction.) And he still loves me. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this. Actually, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. But hey, if there’s hope for me then there’s hope for everyone.
There are a million more reasons why I am celebrating our marriage today and everyday. But this page won’t hold a million. So I showcased 8. Here’s to us, honey. We did it! We survived! Let’s keep that up!
