Versions of Me- pt. 1

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How many versions of me are there out in the world? Clichés tell me that there’s a different version of me in the minds of everyone I’ve ever met.

There’s the daughter me; the one who’s broke and the perpetual student. The one with the worst luck and the need to over-schedule family events.

There’s the sister me; the oldest, the bossiest, the unluckiest. The one who has it together. the one who lives in organized chaos.

There’s the Christian me; the one who’s a good example, a mindful person, and a cheerful soul. The one who loves to sing and uplift others.

There’s the student me; the one who can’t study, the one who hands things in at 11:59, the one who lives on coffee. The one who takes charge of group projects. The student advocate. The national board of directors’ member.

There’s work me; the one who collaborates and compromises. The one that’s always on time. The attentive and helpful one. The one who works well with everyone.

There’s friend me; the one who texts back quickly and is always available. The one who is up late. The one who stress bakes. The one who carries others. The single one.

There’s social media me; the one who posts irregularly. The social advocate. The liberal. The one who wants more orange in politics, the pro-choice and pro-pharmacare one. The healthcare advocate. The family-centred one.

Then there’s the me I know.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

Where We Find Ourselves Now

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I grew up reading dystopian fiction. It did nothing to prepare me to be living in one. I loved it because it was escapism but relatable enough to my reality.

Like many Harry Potter fans, the epilogue broke my heart. I knew that this was not how wars turned out. This is not how life wears on people. There isn’t just a clear cut ending with everybody living in peace.

Trauma, war, and dystopia connect to the same feelings and circumstances: grief, depression, addiction, PTSD, anger, disassociation, loneliness, abandonment, irregular attachment, mental illness, loss, despair, and resilience.

I’ve read of kingdoms falling, of citizens dissolved into sides and divided into factions, of heartbreak and loss, of revolution, and of despair.

I’ve spent most of my life dreaming of dying and a few years trying. Battling to survive while trying to die is nothing new to me. The despair, loneliness, and isolation have been my constant companions.

This year has slowly evolved from the best I’ve ever felt, to accepting a new normal, to leaving me more than two steps backward. I worked hard to prepare for my future and to plan one after so many years of not wanting one.

The end of this year truly feels like the lowest and the most barren.

How did we find ourselves here?

How do we make sure we can leave again?

Hope this finds you well,

-L

Together

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Trigger warning: self-harm, blood, graphic description, cutting

How is it

That the only things that put me back together is your hugs

Or these

Neat,

Thin,

Red,

Lines?

Stripes that lend me endorphins;

Columns that align my life.

My breathing stills, my heart slows, and it all melts away.

Together.

I feel together when I’m with you, or in these moments,

Looking at these feelings,

Drawn across my body;

Some white,

Some red.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Crisis Services Canada

In Dreams

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I hugged you in my dreams last night. It’s been years since I last saw your face and longer since we touched, but I’d recognize you by your hugs anywhere.

Every few months I dream of a reunion between us. Every time we meet, we hug, and it feels as though a piece of my soul is put back in to place. These are the only nights I wake up feeling truly rested.

The amount of comfort it brings me is indescribable and carries forward for the next few days; until you fade away again. The sense of completeness and pure tranquility leaves a mark on my heart. Since the comfort is so real, I can’t help but wonder in which dimension we’ve found each other again.

No matter the dimension, I’m glad. I’m glad our paths crossed in this one, if only for a time shorter than we liked. I’m glad that perhaps they cross again and that the sense of joy is equal there too.

Someday the dreams will stop, the hugs will fade, and life will move on. For now, I need the comfort they bring since I can’t find it here on earth, waking or sleeping, except with you. Someday I’ll find real hugs that do the same.

For now, I’ll see you in dreams.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

Lately

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Lately I’ve been feeling discontented, disengaged, and discouraged. I’m impatient but lazy, tired but never sleepy, and calm but overwhelmed. My mind is a mind of conundrums and paradoxes. I feel so detached from everything, like I’m watching myself live my own life.

I feel cold all the time, disinterested, and detached. I feel as though there is nothing connecting me to anything or to anyone.

I know they said freedom would come after finishing a degree but I’m not sure that this is what they meant.

Every night I go to bed because I’ve spent all day trying to feel more awake. I struggle to fall asleep, I lay awake for hours, I sleep fitfully and dream vividly, and wake up just as tired as I was when I went to sleep. The saga continues night after night.

During the days, I search for comfort and connection; I pet kittens and drink warm tea, I listen to good music and spend time creating.

It’s like I’m feeling everything at once but nothing at all. I’ve spent so much of my life wishing I was dead, but now I’m wishing I was alive.

Lately, I’ve been feeling lifeless while living.

Hope this find you well,

-L

We Can’t Go Back to School Like it’s Normal

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I had to get this out somewhere.

At the moment, mandatory mask policies are in place for schools in Alberta but not for Saskatchewan. Neither province has put any more thought into returning back to school than that, unlike they did for bars and restaurants to reopen: no reduced class sizes, no increased staffing, no change in hours, no change in sanitation(other than a school in SK that decided to save money by decreasing janitorial hours during a global pandemic), and no attention paid to the disastrous school reopening currently happening in the states. There was a lot of consideration given to reopen the economy and the money-making businesses, schools don’t make money and weren’t given any extra funding to help enable physical distancing and cleanliness. It is sad that the students’ only protection is that which their parents can afford to send them from home. Not all families can afford the necessary PPE on top of already costly school supplies. The virus has disproportionately impacted those of lower socioeconomic standing and and BIPOC communities, this will play out at school too. Teachers are going to be essential frontline workers very soon and they get nothing but extra demands and expectations while the world around them has shifted. It can’t be “back to school as normal” if the rest of the world isn’t back to normal. Why should children be the ones left to forge ahead, unprotected by those elected to keep them safe?

This is my perspective, but I am not a parent. I am a healthcare provider.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

What Self-Harm Was To Me

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*trigger warnings: self-harm, blood, graphic-ish description, depression, anxiety

 

 

I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if I can never comfortably wear bikini bottoms or short shorts ever again. My right thigh is crisscrossed in thin white lines, yes, the cliché term applies to me. Some are pink and are quite prominent but most are fine and white; some have even almost disappeared but the more you look, the more you see.

I started self-harming when I started university and began my journey towards my nursing degree. It felt like my anxiety and depression were overwhelming me; like someone was sitting on my chest all the time. I was thinking of 60 thoughts per second but couldn’t hold onto one long enough to finish thinking it or to process it; much like I imagine a swarm of bees trapped in my head would feel like- just as busy and chaotic, and as loud.

I have been on Tumblr for a long time and have seen post after post of self-harm and cutting and all of which that entails. So I used my tweezers to take apart a disposable razor. Since I was in nursing school, I took alcohol swabs and cleaned the blade, washed my hands, and cleaned my leg as well. I put on some music that fit my mood, psyched myself up, and made the first cut.

The first slice was like taking a deep breath of fresh air. Finally. All my swirling thoughts went quiet and my focus narrowed down to just the task at hand. The cut was timid and shallow and ironically, I knew I could do better. I continued to make thin, precise, red lines in columns down my thigh.

The preparation and organization, the neat and clean end result, and the endorphins are what drew me to this to settle my mind. It felt like I had been searching for something to bring me calm and I finally found it, here, in my bedroom with bloody kleenexes and sad music. It provided me with a feeling of clarity like I had never felt before.

The subsequent days, when the marks were fresh, I did not have to make more because just pressing on them was enough to keep the buzz and the noise of my own thoughts at bay.

The feeling of being in complete control was intoxicating. I have had many instances of not being in control in my life and this felt like I could reclaim pieces of myself and like I could be an overcomer instead. Nothing else in the world mattered outside of these lines, my steady hand, clarity, and control.

I never self-harmed to try and end my life, those were different actions entirely. This was all about control for me. It was all about chasing the feeling of finally being able to breathe again. I was never angry, it was never an action of self-hatred, and I never went deeper than what would cause a small scar: one thin, inch-long mark at a time.

Some people drink, others use substances, some use sex, others use therapy, some can use avoidance. I used self-harm to cope. When I was restless or overwhelmed or stressed or any similar feeling, I knew I could find a moment all to myself and it would lead me to peace… as peaceful as deliberately cutting into your own skin for endorphins can be.

I suffered from insomnia and nightmares almost every night and rarely slept for more than 3-4 hours, usually from 3 or 4am to 7am; once I knew that dawn was coming soon and there was a chance for me to be safe when I woke up. The nights after self-harming I was also able to sleep, to truly rest. It was an escape in more ways than one.

The morning after self-harming, I always did it at night, I did feel guilty and shameful. Obviously, as a healthcare provider and as an adult, I knew better. I knew all about alternate coping methods. I knew behaviours that could replace self-harm. I could tell you all about self-care and harm reduction. The guilt and shame and the knowledge were never strong enough to outweigh the freedom and peace I was finding.

Gradually, it went from days between each column, then to weeks, soon to months. Now it has been close to a year since I last made any cuts. I went to therapy every week for months, and then every other week. It has been one year and five months since I started going to free counselling offered at my university. I found a family doctor I trusted and a medication that works for me. I have a best friend who will do anything for me and I for her. For the first time that I can remember I feel in control of my own life, my own choices, and my own thoughts. My mental health has actually done a complete 180 degree turn and has stayed that way. There are consistently more good days than bad days. It has been more than a year since I last attempted suicide. It gets better. I never thought I’d be able to say those words and I find myself planning for a future that I never planned on having.

It gets better.

 

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Crisis Services Canada

 

Hope this finds you well,

-L

 

The Future I’ve Never Wanted

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Trigger warning: suicide, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation

 

 

It’s hard walking the journey of life while suicidal. I generally refer to myself as being “passively suicidal” so as not to worry the ones I love but the thoughts are always there. I can be smiling at you or laughing at the story you’re telling me but still be thinking about the poem I want to be read at my funeral or which day of the week I’d like to die.

I had my first suicidal thought when I was 15 and have had them off and on ever since. I have many thoughts swirling around in my head at all times and one or more is always about my death. When will it be? Who will miss me the most? Where did I put my funeral planner? Did I remember to write down the latest version of my passwords? Is my house clean enough for people to come and pack up my things? What if I just walked in front of that car? Should I just jump off this overpass? Who do I want to connect with one last time before I go? These thoughts are there all the time. I dream about them, I wake up with them, I contemplate them through the day, and I fall asleep to them.

Nothing quiets my mind like planning my funeral. I have a planner filled with names of who I want to be contacted specifically and invited to my funeral. I have written my eulogy. I have the playlist I want to be played while people are coming in and leaving. I have the name of the funeral home and their contact information. I have my cremation plans and suggestions for my headstone. I have a letter written that I would like to have read at my funeral. I have suggestions for catering and for location. I have all of my banking information together, my student loan paperwork, and copies of my driver’s license and health card and etc. I don’t want to feel like a burden, even in death, and these choices can be overwhelming for others to make in the midst of grief.

I would love for people to be able to gather, to spend time missing me while being able to grieve in a safe space surrounded by people who are all feeling the same. I hope that my funeral is able to be streamed as I have far-away friends and for many, attending a funeral gives closure, which can be hard to come by in deaths by suicide. I hope that they can find the time to laugh and to reminisce while together, near or far. I hope they tell stories of me. I struggle with feeling loved and imagining my funeral makes me feel like I’d be loved and missed and that is why I cling to the planning.

The general assumption is that as kids grow into teenagers and teenagers mature into young adults, they will have imagined a future. In this future, they have an idea of their ideal career, ideal home, ideal partner, and ideal lifestyle. The classic “house with a white picket fence” dream. I have never planned a future for myself. I have spent my entire life hoping that I wouldn’t have one.

 

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Crisis Services Canada

 

Hope this finds you well,

-L

 

Note: I wrote this months ago. Since then my mental health has taken almost a complete 180 turn for the better. I have more good days than bad days. I can now say that it truly does get better.

 

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

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Today I found what I would like to have printed on the back of my funeral card. I’ve been hoping to write something myself but this puts the feelings into words:

 

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die.

-Mary Elizabeth Frye

 

Hope this finds you well,

-L