Category: health

The Shaman

On By Marie Billiel JouIn 86 your dumb jerk face, abuse, child abuse, content warning, dickhead, feminism, healing, health, I know what I'm talking about, letters to colin, oh snap human nature, personal, relationships, trigger warning, Uncategorized2 Comments

I recently came across an open letter to a man I once thought I knew. His name is Colin Garland, the owner of Raven Adventures/The Global Classroom.

The letter, written by a woman only two years my senior, details the multiple encounters she had with Colin, all of which were manipulative and abusive, and many of which involved rape.

It was a challenging read. However, the difficulty did not lay in struggling to believe the author’s account of her experience with Colin. Instead, I was forced to sit with the pain that came with remembering my time with this man and how all of his actions fit so neatly into the pattern of abuse described by the author. There was no relief in the realization that my gut instinct over our last few interactions had been correct.

I met Colin through my highschool ecology teacher Will Kiendzior. We dedicated a class to showcase the myriad adventures Colin had been on in Costa Rica and Mexico. We were invited to embark on his annual trip with students from my highschool to Central America to explore and learn about his conservation efforts.

Yesterday, before his website was taken down, I scrolled through all the pictures of former students, all about 16 years old. Some I knew personally. I wondered how many have had similarly alarming and abusive experiences with him. I felt sick to my stomach.

Admittedly, it was not my time spent with Colin in Mexico that makes me uneasy. Though tainted now, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Still, I have a distinct memory of affection and praise with which he showered my best friend. He marveled at the symbols she drew in the sand, saying they were rich with meaning and that she was clearly in tune to something greater. After we got home, she spent weeks corresponding with Colin through email. I was envious of the attention she received. I was frustrated that he didn’t see that I too felt I had something deep, primal, and attuned to something beyond myself.

Six years later I was in Israel when I received a message from Colin, telling me that I had been on his radar. He told me that he had been thinking of me for a long time but had hesitated to reach out. We made plans to see each other the next time he was back in Massachusetts.

In the time before he made his return I began to confide in him about my history of depression and the difficult childhood that had led me there. In fact, I later posted a short series on this blog entitled “Letters to Colin” that I copied from those letters that unreservedly and unapologetically detailed my disjointed upbringing and early introduction to mental illness. It was clear that I sought to heal in some way and Colin appointed himself the one who could do it.

It wasn’t long after that that he told me I was a woman coming into my power. He told me tales of my psychic ability. He urged me to travel with him, to allow him to teach me the ways of a healer. He spoke of Native American customs, of the medicine wheel, of shapeshifting. He told me that I simply hadn’t made love until both me and my partner had shifted into the form of a dolphin. He of course, was the one to teach me.

I remember that he was hesitant that I wanted to bring my boyfriend the night I agreed to come to his house for a healing session. I remember that up to that point, and for some time after our messages on Facebook somehow made me uncomfortable. In nearly every message he told me how much he loved me and how beautiful I was. I pushed my misgivings aside. After all, Colin was a Healer and wanted to help me. I was certain that the issue lay within myself; I wasn’t used to being loved so purely. I wasn’t being open. I needed him to heal me. I thought of the time I had heard that Colin had slept with a former classmate of mine, nearly 30 years his junior. I pushed the thought out of my head, convincing myself I did not understand the experience or the depth of Colin’s love and shamanic powers.

Now, when I reread our messages and see how I exposed my vulnerability to him I am uneasy. I realize now that this was not a safe place; his intentions were more sinister than I initially knew. While I thought I was seeking solace in a wizened old friend, I was playing squarely into the grooming tactics of a well-rehearsed predator.

I believe that as humans, we all have a deep-seated desire to be seen. We feel that there is something more we can offer the world, if only we had the means to let that part of us out. And I imagine this is particularly true of women, as we frequently have to prove ourselves as worthy and capable in ways that men do not. Colin Garland, pseudo spiritual leader, has found the perfect way to prey on young women and girls via this innate human condition. He fancies himself a shaman and uses his influence to create a harem of women to exercise his manipulation, abuse, and assault.

There are countless women who have had similar experiences with this wannabe cult leader. I am fortunate that my own did not escalate past this degree. Please consider the ties you have to this man and others who exhibit this behavior within your community.

 

A page has been set up as a platform for other victims and their supporters. Please share widely.

UPDATE: Another woman has written of her abuse at the hands of Colin Garland. TW – sexual assault

 

An Open Letter to Lindsey Stirling

On By Marie Billiel JouIn healing, health, I know what I'm talking about, melancholy, oh snap human nature13 Comments

Hey Lindsey-

I have a bone to pick with you.

Last week you came to Boston and I was fortunate enough to see you at the Blue Hills Pavilion. I have been listening to your music for the last few years and I have been hooked ever since the first song I heard. Your show was beautiful. Sharing your music with some of my closest friends and my very musically-inclined boyfriend satisfied me in a way that not much else can. But the truth is that you said some things that truly marred the evening for me and I haven’t yet let it go.

Towards the end of your set you put down your violin for a heart to heart with the audience. You spoke of how you are often complimented on staying so true to yourself and not being afraid to do so. You confided that you have not always been this way and that you suffered a bout of depression. I wish you had stopped there.

You see, when you continued on to say you were self-absorbed as a depressed person and that you simply had to change your mind, you stopped being helpful. I could no longer identify with you because I was instead disappointed and somewhat insulted. I believe you when you say that you practiced changing your frame of mind the same way you practiced your arpeggios worked for you, and I am truly glad for you. But please don’t make the mistake of thinking that it is that simple for everyone.

I have now been aware of my depression for over a decade, though I suspect it was present even in my childhood. I am as well-versed as anybody could be in the routines of self-care. I try to sleep well, eat well, hydrate, do things that make me feel good, enjoy the sunshine, etc. But the fact of the matter is that sometimes none of these things work and sometimes I am simply not capable of doing any of them. I promise you that if I could think my way out of depression I would have done so many years ago. Instead, I am left hoping to be functional at best and proud of myself when I go a full two weeks without randomly considering suicide. This is an illness; it cannot always be walked off.

Please know that I do not intend to one up any experiences you have had; depression doesn’t behave the same for everybody. But this is the point that I am trying to make: your experience is not universal. As you must be aware, there is a certain stigma that people who are mentally ill must battle. It is a kind of illness that is not widely understood and often gets brushed off in ways that are harmful – frequently by people who are close to us. We are often misunderstood as lazy or flaky or self-absorbed when we are simply not as able as an average person. It is not about choice; it is about capability. 

Your music has become my go-to writing music and I have written countless blog posts and letters while listening to it. II believe I understand very clearly the emotional messages conveyed in your music that you described to us last Saturday. I understand the deep somber beginnings and the crescendos of hope. You have helped me and inspired me with the beauty of the pieces you have composed more than you could fathom. You have, in your own way, already saved me.

This is why I am asking you, Lindsey, not to insinuate that your experience is the same as mine or anybody else’s. Please do not speak as though you are the authority on depression and the way out. You have such a large audience to hear you; please do not reaffirm the stereotype that people with mental illness need only to think their way out of it and to try harder. Please do not blanket all of us with your statements while neglecting that we do not all feel the same things, we are not capable of the same things, and we do not all have the same resources.

I believe fully that your intentions are only good. When you are next on stage and sharing your struggle with your fans, tell them this:

“Depression is terrible.”

“It gets better.”

“You are worth it.”

Yours,

Marie Billiel

Here are some of my very, very favorite resources for helping people understand depression and its stigmas:

Adventures in Depression By Allie Brosh

What if People Treated Physical Illness Like Mental Illness? via HuffPost

Depression Quest By Zoe Quinn – This is about as real as it gets, folks

Stop saying I shouldn’t get raped because I’m somebody’s daughter.

On By Marie Billiel JouIn healing, health, I know what I'm talking about, oh snap human nature3 Comments

When I was 18 years old I was sexually assaulted.

In the warm summer months following my high school graduation I basked in the sunshine of my newfound adulthood. I had a car, a steady job, and the freedom to leave town for weeks at a time. I returned home infrequently, and these trips were almost always in the name of social calls. 

On one such occasion, I attended a party with one of my best friends. We drove along the winding dirt roads of Colrain, in search of our friend’s far-off farm where we would not be disrupted or caught drinking underage. The briskness of the night was a welcome break from the oppressive heat of the August daytime and as we sat around a roaring fire, passing around a bottle of vodka we had soon melted into heaps of laughter. We soon found ourselves running through the nearby cornfield, full of joy and stripped of any restraint our soberness provided. Back by the fire, this loss of inhibition manifested itself differently.

Kris, barely my acquaintance, despite sharing my last name and attending the same high school, edged nearer to me on the grass. Wordlessly, his hand found my thigh. Wordlessly, I pushed it away. Five minutes passed. Again, I felt a hand on my thigh, beginning to inch ever inward. “Stop!” I said. He didn’t. I changed seats. Safe. But then, fingers on my inner thigh, tracing the seam on my jeans, up and down. I pushed him away. “Make him stop,” I begged my friend. She scolded him. I moved. He followed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Eventually, in need of an escape from Kris and an intense and unfamiliar vodka-haze, I escaped to the cab of my friend’s truck to lie down. I breathed deeply, grateful for the solitude and safety. As I drifted off, I was suddenly brought back to consciousness. The door of the truck opened and Kris noiselessly crept in beside me. Immediately, I felt his hands slide up my calves, my thighs, and find their way between my legs. I tried to tell him to stop, bu  my voice and motor skills had been compromised by alcohol, and I passed out thinking, “No, Kris. Stop, Kris.”

My father passed away recently, and in a near-frantic attempt to understand from where and whom it is I come, I have been building my family tree. As it turns out, Kris and I are third cousins. I have always suspected we must be related in some way, though I didn’t imagine it would be so closely. Considering this, I realized that for years I have been looking at what happened at that party an entirely wrong light. The few times I have shared this story, I have presented it as an event where I was groped by someone who had the same last name as me. But truly, the actual story- the actual problem- is that I was sexually assaulted by someone who happened to have the same surname. His actions are not worse because I have learned that we are cousins. His actions are awful because his actions are awful. My relationship to him should not play a role in my worthiness of not being molested. 

When I was 25 years old I was sexually assaulted.

Filled with the spirit of adventure after a particularly difficult breakup, I had made the decision to leave the country and travel the world. A week before I was due to leave, I was frantically finishing up last minute chores and making sure loose ends were tied. I stopped at a self-service car wash, hoping to make my junkpile of a car look at least moderately presentable for my appointment to hand over the title the following day. I had a pleasant exchange with the man cleaning his car next to me, then settled into vacuuming the backseat of my car.

Encouraged by the oncoming summer, I had pulled on my favorite dress before leaving the house. This presented difficulties as I climbed into my car, but I took care against any accidental exposures. As it turned out, my efforts were in vain. As I stood up, I turned to see that the man with whom I’d spoken was barely a yard behind me and had the camera of his phone aimed up my dress. 

“C’mon,” he said, smiling.

“Are you fucking kidding? Get the fuck away from me,” I spat.

“C’mon, it looks good!”

I edged backwards toward my driver’s seat, repeating myself. 

“Well you shouldn’t be flaunting it then,” he growled as he got in his car and sped off. 

Humiliated, heart racing, I hung onto my steering wheel and sobbed. No one else was around.

I spent the evening reciting the incident to my friends. “He probably has daughters,” I told them, “I’m somebody’s daughter!”

 

This line of thinking is a problem.

My worth as a human being is not determined by my relationship to other people (and more to the point: to men.) I am deserving of not getting raped because I am a person; not because I am somebody’s sister and somebody’s daughter and may someday be somebody’s mother. We need to stop acting as though teaching the idea that women should not be harmed because they play these roles in our (specifically: men’s) lives is helpful. Not all women play these roles. Let’s not infer that some women are more worthy than others when it comes to not being harmed.

I understand that this seems like a good tool in getting people to understand women’s issues and the violence that we face. I know that it seems that we’re humanizing victims by reminding people that women who endure harassment and assault are just like the women in our own lives. But listen: if we keep telling men that they shouldn’t rape women because they are somebody’s daughter, we are only perpetuating the idea that women are weak and require men’s protection. 

Stop telling people not to rape me because I’m somebody’s daughter. Stop naming traits I possess that make me more worthy of not being raped. Every time you choose some characteristic of a woman and deem it rape-safe, you are choosing who should not be rape-safe, whether it be based on their clothing, occupation, relationships, or anything else. 

Don’t rape me because don’t fucking rape anyone. Get it together.

Bad Body Days

On By Marie Billiel JouIn healing, health, I know what I'm talking about, i need a new tag now that my love life is good, oh snap human nature, personal, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The air has been beautiful lately. Even at my most tired, I have opted to walk to work in the early mornings and soak up the sun’s first rays peering through my neighborhood’s gold and crimson leaves. The air has also been biting on these occasions, but unable to give up the smell of the night’s rain on the pavement, I have pulled my scarves and sweatshirts from the back of my closet, and inhaled the changing seasons.

This particular time of year is usually one I find difficult. This time around isn’t especially different, although I have been taking steps to avoid the annual hibernation and shutdown I have experienced in the past decade. The frost gets in my bones and saps my already-meager supply of energy. I have written about this before: it is debilitating. So far, I am still able to get out of bed at a reasonable hour and I can laugh honestly.

By this time I have generally barricaded myself under my warm covers and turned away from an active social life, save one that exists only electronically. But I find myself participating as actively as I can in this small town where I know only a few people. I have learned the limits of my energy in this past year and in doing so I have begun to manage it as efficiently as I am able. So in this sense, I suppose this year has been different. Of course, that is not to say that my worse days do not make an appearance. This time, it is not the icy air and the falling leaves that has saddened me. Nor is it the early evening onset of a darkness that is so deep it lingers into the morning as I make my way to work, when just a month ago I could breathe in a brightening dawn. Rather, it is as I reach for my woolen coats and see my sweet summer dresses, hardly worn, that I feel a desperation to put off the impending winter.

When I am truthful, I can admit that I spent the whole of this summer in turmoil with how I perceived my body. More often than not, it was my distaste and loathing for my physical appearance that reigned over my practicality. Most days I chose to wear clothes that were ill-suited to the temperature rather than reveal whichever part of my body was causing me shame. My back was spotted with acne that I felt should have cleared up years ago. In my embarrassment, I forewent tank tops and dresses and my shoulders remained pale and unkissed by the sun.

I am unsure if the troubles I have with my physical appearance are a symptom of my emotional difficulties, but somehow they have become intertwined so tightly that sometimes it is challenging for me to decipher the feelings I am having in relation to my body. This post has been brewing in my mind for some time now. In fact, the first paragraphs have sat on pages in my notebook for weeks, but every time I attempt to continue, I stare blankly at the paper and instead flip aimlessly through my phone. Sometimes I am apt to believe that I have trouble expressing this because the feelings themselves have passed and become irrelevant. Other days I am painfully aware that the relief of these feelings is only temporary and at those times I find the things I want to write so personal and humiliating that I have no desire to do so.

Maybe also, in some small part, is the principal that has been drilled into my head: talking about one’s body is essentially forbidden. I am acutely aware of what women are supposed to look like, and like everyone else in the population, I know exactly where I do and don’t measure up. This creates its own problems; I have learned to feel ashamed about the physical parts of me that do not adhere to the model. At the same time I have been taught a distaste for vanity and whatever pride I could potentially take in my body has been smothered. In a single breath I have inhaled these ideals and as a result I have been blinded to the parts of me that may remain attractive to the popular standard. Worse yet, as much as I’d like to subvert this, I catch myself considering this The Standard. Society dictates that I am only allowed to look a certain way, but that I must never, ever take pride in the parts of me that are deemed acceptable. It is a vicious and detrimental combination.

I suppose that I can imagine I’m basically attractive. But this thought has taken years of work to say and believe, and on many days it still does not ring entirely true. I asked Miguel the once, “How long have you known you were hot?” I can tell that my questions are strange to him. I know that he doesn’t experience a physical self-loathing in the same manner I do. I watch him strut around the house completely undressed and I am stunned by and envious of the confidence that seems to come so naturally to him.

“Have you always walked around like this?” I ask, “It’s just so foreign to me.”

He looks puzzled. “But you’re naked all the time,” he says. It’s lost on him that learning to be nude in his presence has been a difficult and painful process for me. Even now, over a year after he first saw me bare and vulnerable, I always avoid his steady gaze.

“Stop staring,” I tell him.

“I’m just looking.”

“You’re inspecting.”

“I like your body; I want to learn every line.”

I know Miguel means it sincerely. Even so, I tense up. I can feel a spotlight on each imperfection. As I lie there rigidly, I recall every stretch mark, spider vein, clogged pore, and every hair. I can never stand this for as much as ten seconds before I push him away.

I wonder if he knows how much these insecurities have affected our sex life. I can think of numerous times that the moment was heavy and our sexual tension was high but I could not bear the sight of my body. As much as I wanted him, my anxiety took over. There have been times I begged for him to turn the lights out even though it was disruptive and somewhat killed the mood. There have been times I have wriggled away from him, humiliated at the thought of him seeing the blemishes on my back. Time after time I have kept my shirt on under the guise that I was cold.

Some days I sit in front of my full-length mirror and stare at myself hatefully. I have begun to carry weight on my small frame and my hips spill over the top of my jeans.  My upper arms jiggle and new stretch marks crawl down my inner thighs and up my sides. I am angry to watch my size 4 body acts as though it is a size 14. I see so many girls who are both considerably larger and more radiant. They carry themselves and own their pudge in a way that I am just not capable. I am bitter that I am fortunate enough to be a size that is supposedly attractive and somehow I still feel morbid and disgusting. I stare at the mirror and I cannot unsee the small hairs on my upper lip, the too-big pores, and the acne scars.

On these days I opt out of social activities. “I’m having a bad body day,” I tell Miguel. He doesn’t understand; he thinks I mean I’m sick and offers to make me soup. There have been times that I have felt this way but kept silent and that he has told me I look good. When this has happened I have been certain that he can see how terrible I look that day and that he is trying to make me feel better. Only later do I realize that he may have actually meant it.

That is another part of the problem: I am not able to take compliments at face value. I generally have such a poor opinion of my body that I assume compliments are in someway insincere. Most times, I feel as though I am being mocked. When I can see that the attention is genuine, I conclude that the person must be some sort of creep. I have difficulties believing that “normal” people would find me attractive, and so I determine any admirer must in some way be predatory.  I have posted nude pictures online on multiple occasions when I have felt inadequate. And in a more artistic move, I have modeled nude for a photographer friend. Always, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Still, I pinch my belly in the mirror and look on with scorn.

I am practicing. I have given up on the hope that my breasts will ever grow and I have found positive aspects of their size. I am trying hard to look at the jagged purple marks on my legs and hips and to say, “yes, those are my stretch marks. Those are my stripes.” I want to glance at the little blue veins popping up on the back of my knees and thighs and feel unphased by them. I am trying to accept that I am aging physically and to think of all the weathered women I have known and how glorious they were in all of their experiences and laugh lines.  Certainly there are things that I could try to reverse some of my flaws. But generally they are expensive and ineffective. It has become more important to me at this point to ease out of attempting to attain physical perfection: instead, I want to look at my body with a forgiving eye, and then a loving one. None of this comes easily to me, but I am grateful to know that Miguel is a safe place for me to struggle through these lessons. Our bodies are so much a part of our identity and it is cruel to be unaccepting of them. For me, it is a big first step to be outing my struggle in this way. But sometimes when things are said out loud they lose some of their hold on you. And now, I am going to go easy on myself.

Letters to Colin (4)

On By Marie Billiel JouIn family, healing, health, I know what I'm talking about, letters to colin, oh snap human nature, personalLeave a comment

Part 4:

In eighth grade I got depressed. Hardcore in-your-face depressed. I specifically remember that it was in March, right before I turned 14 that the heaviness started to hit me hard. I remember because this was at the time that we went to war with Iraq and I was furious. It was the first time I really paid any attention to politics and although I wasn’t particularly well-versed, I knew that I was unhappy with what was going on. I remember nonchalantly mentioning something to my mom about how stupid I though George Bush was and being horrified to learn that my thoughts and opinions had veered off the path of my family’s. It’s not that I ever considered changing my opinions, but at a time when I was feeling pretty disillusioned already, it was a hard lesson to realize that you are a black sheep in your family, even more than you initially thought. The entire experience was very distressing to me, and although now I know it wasn’t the real problem, I kept telling everybody, “It’s the war. The war is making me depressed.”

I found solace in a friend I met in a Lord of the Rings chatroom, back when chatrooms were still a thing. His name was Seth and he was 32. It’s weird for me to think about that now, because Miguel is nearly 30. I’m not sure what I would think if he was conversing daily with a 13 or 14 year old online, and truthfully I don’t know what was going on in Seth’s head, but he was a great source of comfort to me. He lived in New York and had been depressed basically his whole life. He told me I needed to “learn to embrace the things [you] cannot control,” and told me I was wise beyond my years. I felt like, for maybe the first time, someone was really seeing me. My friendship with him felt profound. He gave me music recommendations. I printed out most of our conversations and reread them when I was feeling on edge. I was once having a conversation with my mom and how miserable I was feeling. I don’t think I ever told her I was depressed. I didn’t trust her. I don’t remember the specifics of our conversations about it, but I do remember that they were jerky. There were no connections; no understanding or empathy. She could see my angst as clearly as the day, but she did little to help it. I was barely allowed to see my friends outside of school and although I was 14 my bedtime was still 8 or 8:30. One time I tried to wear pajama pants to school and my mother grounded me for three full weeks. I spent most of my eighth grade year not allowed to use the phone or leave the house. I don’t think my mom had any real interests and hardly had friends anymore, so I was also condemned to her house-bound lifestyle. Anyway, we were once talking about how “angry” I was or something and I quoted something that Seth had said to me. “Where are you getting all of these quotes?” And then she forbade me from speaking to him anymore. It was devastating.

Sometime during this, I developed a pretty hardcore anxiety disorder. A compulsion, really. This isn’t something that I’ve ever really told anybody, but it’s very important to the story. Miguel doesn’t even know this (yet). Do you know what trichotillomania is? It’s basically compulsive hair-pulling, especially in situations of extreme stress. At some point during this terrible year I noticed that some of my hair is a very different texture then the rest of it and began pulling it out. I don’t know why. It was just a thing. But it got really, really bad. I had a really huge bald spot on the top of my head and another behind each of my ears. I didn’t even notice that I was pulling so much hair until much later. By then there was really nothing I could do about it. I always wore my hair up, but as the hair began to grow back it would poke through in these weird clumps of short hair. It was so humiliating and terrible that even now (a full decade later) when I wear my hair down I check the mirror before leaving to make sure I don’t have a bald spot.

This is incredibly important for a couple of reasons:

1. This is one example of how damaging my experience was at the time, even though the effect was mostly superficial.

2. When my hair was growing back my mother would make super mean comments about it. She never asked me if I was okay or what happened or what was going on with me so that that had happened. Instead, if my hair would part because of the regrowth she would sneer, “Oh, I see you have your SPIKES OUT tonight.”

3. Soon, my mother also had a bald spot. For a little while I wasn’t sure if she was just sick and so her hair was thinning, but I’m pretty certain that she also started pulling her hair. This was the first real evidence of my mother’s mental illness, although I have never said this out loud. I really, really believe that she saw there was something wrong with me and that she mimicked my behavior. She’s supposed to be the sick one, you know. More on that later.

As the last few months of the school year went on my disposition grew progressively worse. I was close friends with Delilah at the time and she was in a similar state of angst. Admittedly, I think we worked off of each other. At first we thought it was funny to wear all black because we were essentially becoming the people our families had warned us about. We already felt so detached that it seemed like a good fit to just go for that. We were unhappy and pale and wrote angsty poetry. We questioned the concept of normalcy and listened to Rammstein. I threatened to shave my head or dye my hair pink and my mom told me she’d kick me out.

Towards the end of the year I had my eye on a cute boy named Will. Delilah had the same idea. She moved faster than I did and they “dated” for about three weeks. I was jealous and felt betrayed but said nothing. I still remember the note that she wrote when she broke up with him. It said, “I do know that I don’t love you. How can I love you when I don’t even love myself?” I don’t know what he said.

Around the same time I had to stop speaking to Seth, I began to seek solace in my Uncle Adam, my mother’s brother. There was no particular thing that happened to lead me to this, but he was amused by my 13 year old self tromping around in combat boots and we somehow we connected. My uncle was perhaps also the black sheep of the family, and although we never discussed it outright, I gathered that we aligned ourselves politically. I met Adam’s girlfriend, Emily, and her three children. She lived in the white house right next to the elementary school, where my childhood friend had lived when we were much younger. Emily also took a liking to me and from time to time I would babysit her kids, all of whom were witty and interesting. Emily also introduced me to her friend Alena, who lived on Conway Street on the Buckland side, right next to that old reservoir and down the road from Cricket Field. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.

Towards the end of my eighth grade year, Delilah and I took a turn for the worse. I don’t know if that’s fair to say. We took a significant turn. One night Delilah smashed a bottle and dragged the jagged pieces against her forearm. We had never done this before. Hearing about it chilled me. I decided to follow suit and began scratching my wrists with safety pins. I wore long-sleeved shirts in the hot June air and was constantly terrified my mother would see. I was uncomfortable with the whole experience, really. It was fun to listen to angry music and be bitter and wear all black, but self-injury was a new line to cross. Finally, I decided to talk to Delilah’s sibling, Aubrey, about it. I called them up and confessed what I knew. They were receptive and concerned and I spent the rest of the night feeling sick to my stomach.

To my relief, Delilah quickly forgave me and life continued as normal. I felt like I had talked her off a cliff and although there was maybe a little residual tension, it was negligible. My cuts healed up, as did Delilah’s. On the last day of school we and a bunch of other friends piled into a van and rode to the house of our friend Jeanne to celebrate the start of vacation. Halfway through the afternoon Delilah took her leave and sat outside in the yard. When I went to her, she refused to speak to me. She barely spoke a sentence to me the rest of the party and soon it was time to go home. Hurt and confused, I left. For weeks and weeks she screened my calls and returned none of them. I was utterly devastated.

My already-shaky mood plummeted. My mother met some guy named Jeff and we spent most days at his house somewhere near Barton’s Cove. He was a fairly standard redneck from what I remember; exactly my mom’s type. He had a son just a little older than my sister, who would have been only four at that point. I resented the time we spent there, but truthfully I would have resented time spent anywhere. I was miserable. I don’t know how aware my mother ever was of this. I think she was so interested in Jeff that she didn’t notice. Or maybe she was just too unequipped to really deal with it or even understand the depth my of unhappiness. I remember that we were on the way to Jeff’s house once and she asked me if I was okay. Or what was wrong. Or something that only barely touched the tip of my iceberg. I’m sure I brushed off her question, unable to properly express myself and also certain she would not understand. I wasn’t so far off: she never asked again. By the end of the summer her relationship had fizzled. He told her they were better off as just friends and she was pretty heartbroken. Although I’m well aware of my mother’s own dysfunction, I wonder how much of a damper it was to their relationship to have an angry teenager around all the time. I actually feel really sad for my mother about this one. I remember that she had this cattail thing we found on a walk that she had carved “Jeff #1” into one day. It’s really painful to have to throw stupid little things like that away and in hindsight I really do feel for her. She stayed in bed for a couple days after they broke up. I think my grandmother may have come to the house and sternly told her to get herself together. I feel for her.

I spent most of my time sitting in a tree and listening to music. I had discovered Nirvana and Tool and Stabbing Westward and the melodies and lyrics spoke to me like nothing I had ever experienced. I wrote endlessly: mostly lyrics to the songs I had fallen in love with, but also a few terrible songs of my own. I also kept a journal on the family computer and I wrote in that pretty avidly. My friends had grown weary of my constant lamenting and one or two of them also began to detach from me. I had little social life at all, save for one friend who lived down the street from my grandparents. We shared poetry we had written and talked about books. One time, in a fitful need to speak to someone who would understand me, I emailed Seth. I had no time to write a proper email, as I was fearful my mother would catch me. Instead, I attached the word document that held all my journal entries from the summer. I spent the next three days in a heightened state of anxiety, terrified my mother would somehow find out I was writing to Seth and using my email, which had also been forbidden. What happened instead was at least as bad.

One day towards the end of summer I got the call I had been wishing for, for months. A missed call from Delilah flashed on my grandparents’ caller ID. I was elated. Hurriedly, I called her up. My heart pounded. “Hey, what’s up?” I was tentative, afraid of exposing my excitement. It became clear that this was not a social call. Her voice was hard; steely. I asked her if she was angry with me, annoyed, furious. In reply: “I hate you.” Her words hit me in the gut. They sat with me and sank me. She told me to check my email and hung up. Frantically, I got on the computer when I got home. I was anxious in all directions: afraid of what the email would say, afraid of getting caught, afraid of learning what I had done to deserve this hatred. In truth, I don’t remember what the email said. I don’t think it answered any questions. Certainly, it didn’t justify the sudden disposal of our friendship. I recall only that Delilah had decided randomly to check my email and saw that I had recently corresponded with Seth. She read my entire journal. She knew everything. She knew my pain and still loathed me for a reason I could not find. What’s worse was that she knew I was going against my mother’s word by speaking to Seth and I spent the rest of the summer paralyzed by the fear that she would sell me out. I was so blinded by my hurt and fear that I hardly even noticed how invasive and terrible it was for her to log into my email. But then, we never notice these things until much later, do we?

Melancholy

On By Marie Billiel JouIn healing, health, I know what I'm talking about, melancholy, oh snap human nature, personal3 Comments

Depression is a lonely thing.

Even now, in a generation that is becoming more and more vocal about the issue, I find that I– and presumably others like me– still safeguard our ailment and rarely allude to the severity of our experiences. My best guess as to the reason for this, is that despite the barrage of awareness campaigns that have begun to sweep the internet, there is still an underlying attitude of discomfort– a recoiling– towards any type of mental illness. If someone is not suffering from some sort of trendy or movie-style horrifying and intrusive disorder like DID their ailment tends to be overlooked.  For most, depression and anxiety disorders are seen as noninvasive maladies. Maybe this is one of the biggest disconnects. Let me say this: depression can be downright crippling, whether or not it is visible.

The other day I mentioned my depression in passing and my boyfriend shocked me: “You never talk about your depression.” He’s spot on. I was stopped in my tracks, bewildered by the truth in his words. I have been aware of my own difficulties for years, and suspicious of them years before that. I have always pretty readily and casually alluded to my depressive spells in the company of both acquaintances and friends. But the truth is that I rarely delve deeply in my explanations. I think I have always assumed that those who are close to me will witness the alteration in my behavior and moods and thereby understand my varying states. I’m learning now that this is of course unreasonable and like everybody, I need to start speaking more frankly about this.

Today I woke up at eleven. I could have gotten up much sooner. I should have, too. But some mornings greet me with a certain heaviness that I still can’t properly describe. I can’t say for sure if it was triggered by the intense talk I had with Miguel a few days ago, or if it is simply something that lurks and lingers within me. Maybe neither; probably both.

I have what feels like mountains of work to do: emails to write, phone calls to make, laundry, cooking, cleaning. When I write this down I am aware that these tasks are standard. I understand that they are basic and universal. But somehow I find myself completely incapacitated and the weight of these simple chores sentences to me my dark basement bedroom where I sleep fitfully and accomplish nothing. Miguel noted the other day that I am good about giving myself days off when I feel like I need them. I agreed with him, deciding that I was too unequipped to be able to explain that in truth I never give days off. The days that I spend in bed watching tv shows on Hulu are not days that I have designated as easy going vacation days. They are days for which I had many plans. Whether or not I do anything is irrelevant to the amount I feel I need to do. There is always something for me to do. There is always something I am not doing. I am almost always shame spiraling.

I suspect that my shame spirals are at least half of the reason I stay down once I begin to feel heavy. I haven’t yet been able to forgive myself for the way that I am and it makes it difficult to recover from those trying days. Sometimes I don’t pay a bill on time and my only instinct is to hide from that bill. Other times I get an email or a phone call and I don’t return it as quickly as I should. Sometimes I don’t do the laundry. Sometimes I forget to make an appointment. Or get gas. Or make lunch. Or write a blog post. Or anything. Any one of these can send me into a whirlwind of guilt and a suffocating sense of uselessness. I’ve tried to explain this to friend in the past and so few people truly understand it. I am not reluctant or resistant or even lazy. In my mind I am constantly failing, and whether or not that is accurate in real-life standards is completely off the table. In every ounce of my body I know that I am a failure and I know that I should be better: I should be more responsible and organized and stable. The truth though, is that I am not. I am overwhelmed by this realization and the guilt and shame of it leaves me despondent.

In my years of dealing with this I have gotten better at coping with it. Sometimes dragging myself into the blinding brightness of the sun is all I need. I feed myself better when I can muster it and sometimes I honestly just need a nap. I try to laugh. I try to go out for lunch with a friend. I call someone I miss. My ups and downs have been recurring for over half my life at this point and I am finally starting to feel like I have begun to hone my skills in combating what can quickly turn into self-destructive behaviors.  But depression isn’t always that predictable, and it’s certainly not always so yielding. Even now, familiar as I am with the symptoms and cycles, I find that it slinks along behind me and I become aware of it only when I become the victim of its brutal hold on my throat. I choke and retreat to my bed, forgetting to eat, crying myself to sleep, and utterly unable to express myself.

Sometimes I get mean. I become hateful and resentful and lash out at my boyfriend, in spite of his unwavering support.  I can see the mess that I become and I am ashamed by how morbid and pathetic it is.  No matter who I have to support me during these experiences, I always feel like I have no one. I grow bitter when I am told that I am loved because the words drip of sarcasm and mockery. My experiences prove to me again and again that those I rely on will ultimately disappoint and abandon me. I spend the last of the energy I can summon on attempting to will away those around me so that I will not have to endure the fallout of being left once more. My emotional pain becomes so severe that I can’t move and I feel like every bit of me is also physically injured. I feel it straight down into my fingertips and although I lay silently, somewhere in my head I howl like a wounded animal.

I’ve recently decided that the very worst part of falling this hard is that I lose all my outlets. I get so tangled inside my head that become unable to articulate through speech or through writing. This doesn’t happen to me every single time, but when it does it is horrifying. Long gone are the days when I wrote angst-filled poetry and drew pictures of razor blades and angels with bloodied tattered wings. Gone too, are the days when I could hide in my room and drag a blade along the supple skin of my leg when things got too bad. I have outgrown this. The fact that I still have days so bad that I feel desperate enough to consider it is almost too disgustingly shameful an admission. I’m not 14 anymore. I haven’t cut myself in 8 years. Besides, how could I ever hide such a thing from someone who sees my bare skin on a daily basis? If nothing else, this is truthfully what most likely keeps me from regressing in that way. I am always toeing the slope to that shame spiral.

I look for other outlets too. It’s no real surprise that when I can’t pick myself up my relationship suffers. Specifically, my sex life. Nearly every day for the past week I have come home from work, masturbated, and gone to bed. Yesterday, as I was about to engage in this new routine, it occurred to me that I wasn’t even sexually frustrated. I wasn’t satisfied, to be clear, but I was also not seeking an orgasm as an end to any type of arousal. Jesus Christ, I thought, is this really the only way I can experience any sort of pleasure right now? After that I masturbated and went to sleep.

I get suicidal too. This has been a very, very well-kept secret for years. When I was in an abusive household as a teenager, still cutting up my legs and writing in a journal I freely admitted when I wanted to die. After I moved out my life improved to the degree that I didn’t experience lows that bad until years later. Feeling that I wasn’t supposed to struggle with that in my adult life, I tucked it away and never told anybody until I realized how important it was that I said it out loud. The truth is that suicidal isn’t exactly the right word. I don’t plan to kill myself. I don’t write suicide notes. I don’t fantasize about how life would go on without me. Sometimes I wish I would die, but even those impulses are fleeting. I drive to work and wish I would get in an accident. Some days I hope I don’t wake up. I can say with certainty that I will never act on these thoughts because they are nothing more than flashes in my mind. The business of dying right now is too inconvenient, really. Too messy. I don’t even want to die, exactly. It’s just that I wish everything would just stop.

note: it has taken me two months to write this. today was the first day i felt like i could write in the last 6 months. i am not proofreading this and i will not edit it because writing it at all in the state im in is nothing short of a personal triumph.

Wintertime

On By Marie Billiel JouIn health, personalLeave a comment

I have a really, really hard time during the cold months. I always have.

It’s been suggested to me on multiple occasions that I may have Seasonal Affective Disorder. It’s possible. There is no doubt that the days I spend out of the sun, hidden in my room, covers over my head, leave me miserable and feeling weak. I used to work solely overnight shifts and seldom leave my room during daylight. Depression washed over me and didn’t ease for months. Granted, there were other factors at play. There always are. But I can’t help but think that brightness of the sun helps me breathe more easily. Sometimes, at least.

The days are short and cold now. It’s a week into December and I have grown so very weary of the depth of the night greeting me as I lock my door and head to work. I am tired of the sinking feeling I get every time I get out of work half an hour late and realize that I have only 90 more minutes to see the sun.

I enjoy the night. I love the smell of nighttime air and the star-kissed sky. I love feeling enveloped by its dropping temperature and its stillness. But not during the winter. In the frigid New England cold the loss of the sunlight comes down on me heavily. I feel choked by the dark: my blood seems to slow to a crawl and I am constantly fatigued and unable to accomplish anything. This year seems no different.

This morning it was nothing more than financial fear that pulled me out of bed. I woke up and moaned, silently pleading that my clock was wrong and I still had hours to spend sleeping. I felt desperate to stay wrapped up in those blankets. This was not sleepiness. This was the start to what is usually the worst dip in my depression every year. I do not know how long it will last.

Of course, I am finding myself worn down from more than just the shorter days. My patience with my job is wearing thin for various reasons. I am in love with someone who lives 6000 miles from me. My life has started moving at a fast pace and I am feeling overwhelmed. On top of that, I am feeling the pang of having no reliable parental figures in my life. This is something I have lived with for a long time, but during this holiday season, while I am on the precipice of a very different life, the ache is deep. I feel profoundly lonely.

I’m trying to push through. December, please be kind.

Panic Button

On By Marie Billiel JouIn bs lovelife, family, health, oh snap human nature, personalLeave a comment

(11/14)

Months ago I planned to write an entry regarding a conversation I had with an old friend over beer. True to form, I never got around to it when the memory was fresh. Soon after, I lost the inspiration to write about it at all and then I forgot the conversation altogether. Eventually I remembered our talk and the significance I felt had gone along with it. Aa happens though, the exact words slipped my mind and it no longer seemed worthwhile or even possible to put it on paper. Today I was surprised to find that the words we exchanged somehow seem relevant once moreand I am compelled to describe what I remember.

I often sought counsel from this particular friend and it was not out of the ordinary to find us seated at the local brewery, as we were on this early summer night. He sipped a lager, faster, as always, than I drank my own rum and coke. He listened intently as I spoke. Today, as with most days, I was lamenting the two broken relationships that consistently absorbed me: that with my mother and that with my ex-boyfriend. Both were toxic in their own right and both consumed me emotionally.

For years I had experienced them this way. My separate relationships with them wore me down until one day I found that I had begun responding differently. At this point I can’t be sure of the exact nature of the change I had noticed and was describing, but I know that I was surprised by the difference in my behavior when dealing with these two. The change was significant and involuntary. I was certain that my new reactions and methods of coping in my problematic relationships were pure adaptation after years of concession. Perhaps they were also due in part to a series of introspective epiphanies I had had in the recent few months, left to settle with my remaining inability to fully let go of the destructivepeople in my life. Instead of severing contact, I found new ways to suffer the relationships. Survival instincts for the weak, maybe.

My friend looked at me through his serious light blue eyes. “This isn’t a reaction,” he said, “this is what you are now.”

I don’t doubt the truth in his statement. It is always said that our experiences shape us. This is elementary. But the ways in which my relationships–my experiences with these people–were molding me? Somehow that had slipped through my grasp. For years I had been evolving in ways that were directly related to my interactions with my mother and my boyfriend. Often, my developments were a reflection of the damage that was being done. How had this fallen out of my sight so completely?

In any case, I have grown through the past few years into who I am now: twisted, knotted, and scarred in places, but functioning and healthy. Sometimes, though, I find evidence of the difficult relationships I weathered when I am faced with certain situations. The ways in which I find myself reacting to things seem to be out if nowhere if I do not examine them.

This came to light recently, as I lazily wandered the streets of Tel Aviv, colder than I remember them, back to the familar embrace of that same old Israeli boy I can’t keep off my mind. Things have progressed.

I can’t remember any recent time in my life that I have smiled so immediately upon waking up. I don’t remember loving a pair of hands as I do his. I cannot remember being able to lose track of time looking in someone’s eyes, wrapped up in each other and our bliss. I find that I’m willing to relax: to breathe more easily.

But I have too many layers. Not far from my serene contentedness is an unsteady dam of fear.I am able to acknowledge its existence, pending certain conditions and company. I do not find that I am capable or even aware of how to resolve this piece of myself, but for the most part I can manage it. I can smother it and chokingly admit to it when I must. Sometimes, though, it seeps out on its own and I am shown that the usually solid footing I have on my desires and feelings is as weak and unsure as it’s ever been. These experiences have been brief but jarring.

So, I am in Israel. It is lovely. Things have progressed. The problem, of course, is that I must leave it again. And before then, this green-eyed boy and I will sit down and have A Talk. My previous relationship has left me accustomed to the rise and fall of hopefulness and the inevitable crushing disappointment that follows. I do not know exactly where our talk will lead, but I am bracing myself for the pain I feel certain it will cause. Preemptively, and maybe unfairly, I am sure this boy will hurt me. This is why, no matter how close I am, I cannot quite allow myself to feel safe in his strong embrace, half asleep and nestled warmly in his bed.

Sometimes I panic. I feel too secure or too blissful or I feel as though I can exhale and be okay. Sometimes we get too close to having that looming talk that I’m sure will cost me the content that my avoidance allows me. Sometimes I feel too deeply and something inside me hits some sort of emergency break; a panic button. My normally strong affections shut off and when I think of him everything inside me feels a bit silent. It is always temporary, of course. Seeing him makes the numbness dissipate like blood rushing back to my fingertips. The experience leaves me feeling off balance and confused. I’ve chalked it up to a defense mechanism: my mind has created a way of avoiding potential pain by convincing me I hold no emotional stock in certain relationships. Clever.

It’s hard not to be somewhat resentful, honestly. I can trace this newfound tool of self-preservation–albeit one that is unwanted–almost directly back to my ex-boyfriend. I can’t help but feel like my current situation would be less stressful if I hadn’t endured these tumultuous relationships for so long. Considering things with this boy presents challenges if its own: an ocean and a half; a financial burden; and an underlying sense of urgency complete with a ticking clock. I could do without the addition of some deeply sown issues of which I now have to constantly be aware. I could do without the now-necessary introspection and calculation. I could do without the moments of happiness and deep affection being followed closely by that frightened sense of foreboding, fast and heavy in its arrival.

For a while I thought things like this were just strange new reactions. But my friend is right: this is who I am now. This is what I’ve become.

9/19

On By Marie Billiel JouIn bad writing, health, personalLeave a comment

Here are some things I’m trying to do better:

Be more honest. With myself and also with people that I love. I don’t mean this in terms of lies, exactly. Mostly I mean that I need to start putting more on the table.

Be less scared. Take more emotional risk. See above

Know my limits. Stop trying to tough my way through everything. It’s okay to come back to things later when I’m better equipped.

Write more. You have that notebook for a reason.

Breathe.

Throat

On By Marie Billiel JouIn family, health, personalLeave a comment

When I was in my early teens I spent a few years feeling pretty emotionally unwell. Let’s be serious: even now I have varying stretches of time where I feel low, low, low. My feelings of poor health always start in my head. My mind feels dark and heavy and clouded. Then my chest hurts. Eventually the sensation creeps into my limbs, rendering me unable to get out of bed. My head aches, my muscles get sore, and I cannot bear to feed myself. I become stuck in a cycle of feeling physically empty and then ill. I pity myself. I curse myself. There is mental illness pumping through my veins and I lie in terror, fearing I am becoming my mother.

I´m better at combatting this now. Not perfect, but better. When I was 14 I hadn’t yet gotten any handle on my depression or the physical ways it manifested itself. I felt trapped in my house and turned instead to the typical angsty coping methods of my age group: poorly written poetry; mediocre drawings of anything macabre; and the late night touch of a razor´s edge to my thigh. I was found out by my mother at some point, of course. I don’t doubt that on some level she felt a kind of maternal fear for her troubled child. Despite this, her discovery opened the floodgates to such a seemingly endless potential for drama that she was incapable of resisting her urges to manipulate the situation. The months that followed were doubtlessly some of the worst of my life.

Following the afternoon she spent reading and copying my poetry and journal entries, she embarked on a lengthy track of humiliating me under the guise of mother love. She kept my notebooks and sketchbooks in a locked safe in her closet. I was brought to the emergency room for psychiatric evaluations, where my mother warned them I´d run away. She spoke at length to anyone who would listen and I was left helpless and ignored. Suddenly my mother had a list of phone numbers to half the therapists, psychiatrists, social workers, and guidance counselors in Franklin County. She purposely held her conversations with them in my presence, knowing that I was humiliated and enraged but could do nothing.

The days of tension were unceasing. When I was through with my evening shower, she would charge up the stairs and demand that I show her my naked body so that she would know if I had begun to cut myself again. I sobbed and resisted, but she wouldn’t relent. My grades, which were already poor, dropped even more once I had to attend upwards of five appointments every week. It was clear that I was suffering, and my mother–maybe subconsciously–did everything in her power to ensure I did not get well. She has always had a bit of a love affair with doctors’ appointments. When I presented her with new opportunities for such, her thirst became unquenchable.

My mother fancied herself to be the victim of my depression. The cupboard became filled with psychotropic medication. At appointments her comments outweighed mine and I eventually shrunk back as she grieved over and over, “She´s just so angry!” I don’t think the relentless cycle of appointments and medicine was ever about me regaining health. I believe that I was just another ailment about which to spend hours lamenting. I was just another kidney stone; another stomach ache; another night spent throwing up.

Eventually I fell ill. I remember the day clearly: I was in the ninth grade and my hair was fading from a vivid magenta. I barely ate at mealtimes, probably as a result of my constant Seroquel haze. It was April. I sat down next to my boyfriend in our school cafeteria, looking shapeless in my faded Tool tshirt, over-sized ripped jeans, and my pleated black skirt. I was sipping on some chocolate milk when I noticed a pain in my throat. It was not the normal, scratchy irritation of an oncoming cold. I felt as though there was a lump of some sort and no matter what it was that I tried to eat or drink, it’s presence was excruciating.

The school nurse offered no solution that was worthwhile. She doled out a horse pill-sized Tylenol and a raised eyebrow. My mother was, of course, happy to phone a few doctors and to take me to the emergency room the following day. I was weak from not eating and one doctor prescribed me Vicodin so that maybe the pain would subside enough to allow me to ingest something. In the car my mother declared, “I’m not letting you have narcotics!” as though she were alluding to an imaginary habit. If that script was filled, I never saw it.

As such, I spent the next couple days lying on the living room couch. I refused all food and the discomfort in my throat never waned. I could scarcely drink a sip of tea. I became so weak that my mother called an ambulance and, unable to stand, I was carried outside by an EMT.

The hospital was a blur. I vomited bowl after bowl of pure bile. The acid stung my throat and brought tears to my eyes. Trays were filled with vials of my blood and drugs were administered through needles that bruised my arms and hands. I nearly passed out on the way to the bathroom and nurses had to guide me back to the bed. I stayed there for a week. I weighed 98 pounds.

I regained my health slowly. Maybe it´s my imagination, but I always thought being out of my house made a tremendous difference. One day, after another uncomfortable visit from my mother, she snapped that maybe she just wouldn’t come to see me anymore because I didn’t seem interested in her company. I like to think her absence helped me get well.

I was discharged the day of my 15th birthday. The nurse came in and greeted with my first name: June. I hated being called June. She expressed concern that I hadn’t gained enough weight and said she´d have to speak to my doctor before they could let me leave. Frustrated, I laid back in bed. I had  been off the IV for days. I had energy. I was eating normally. What was this obsession with my weight? I was a skinny girl; simple as that.

Years later, I sat at the dining room table with my newly-legal guardian. We pored over papers with official headings and handwriting in the columns. A manilla envelope, stamped, “CONFIDENTIAL,” lay a foot or so away.

“What the fuck?!”

My guardian looked surprised at me. We were reading notes from my former therapist and psychiatrist. I had found notes that pertained to the sessions I had missed while I had been in the hospital two years before. I learned that my mother had phoned to let them know I wouldn’t be in for my appointments. In their discussions, the doctor noted that they had come to the conclusion that I had been starving myself. The pain about which I had complained was thought of as an act. Suddenly I understood the knowing looks of the nurses. Everyone had doubted the legitimacy of my ailment. The realization sickened me.

I explained my upset and my guardian looked at me lovingly. “That’s so interesting,” she said.

We talked for a bit about physical manifestations of mental and psychological issues. She suggested that maybe I’d become so emotionally weathered by the onslaught of problems in my home life that my body had to demonstrate it in a different way.

“That is so interesting that it was your throat; that you just couldn’t swallow it anymore.”

I just couldn’t swallow it anymore. I just couldn’t swallow it. I can´t help but agree. Why don´t we listen to our bodies more?