Self Portrait

I'm working on my self-portrait. It's an assignment for my drawing class. The medium is charcoal. Powder charcoal, charcoal pencil, vine charcoal, compressed charcoal.

It's weird that my other drawing teachers didn't show us all the different types of charcoal. I found out about charcoal pencils on my own. I saw them at Barnes & Noble on New Years Eve and bought a set. I could've got them cheaper at Michaels but I didn't know anything about art supplies back then.

So I'm working on my self-portrait. It doesn't look like me, everyone says. It's too dramatic, too angry. Maybe it's how you want to look, my friend says.

It FEELS like me.

That should count for something.

My drawing teacher will say it would be a good painting.

She said my eyes were following her around the room from the paper while I was working on it in class. Black pupils. Charcoal is black.

scope

Scope lived in the apartment below mine. He had a long-haired calico cat just like I did. He had a virgen de guadalupe tattoo on his left forearm. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. He owned two pairs that I saw. One pair was brown tortoise shell. The other pair was black with a silver skull and cross-bones in the middle.

Cross-bones style, Cat power

o come, child, in a cross-bones style, cuz u have seen some unbelievable things.

Scope turned me on to social distortion. He said I'd also like NOFX because they were melodic.

The last time I saw him before he got kicked out, he was hanging out with a younger guy with short blond hair. His name was Steve. Steve said he used to only listen to gangsta rap but Scope turned him on to punk rock.

goodbye, mom

My mom calls every Sunday. WE have the same conversation.

This time when she calls I will not answer. I will not answer when she calls back on Monday. On Tuesday I will tell my psychiatrist of my decision. He and my therapist will be my only support until I meet new friends,

I am 30 years old. I have not spent a single day not thinking about my mom.
When my dad got custody of us after the divorce, my grandmother told me that when we weren't there anymore mom would just lay on the bed and cry. I was 8 years old. My younger brother was 4.

I am taking a college-level art class. I know I have a lot of talent and my own vision by the comments I get from my teacher. She says I have my own unique drawing style. She can recognize my drawings by just looking at them without seeing my name.

I'm at work, so I won't write any more.

I am not going to talk to mom.

I am going to cut her off.

Just to prove I can.

I will not talk to her tomorrow evening.

I will see how it goes when she doesn't hear from me.

If she really loves me, she will understand.

She will not think it's fair.

I will tell my therapist about this.

I know I said I wouldn't write any more before. Now I really will stop.

Rock Bottom

Never love an artist. Never let an artist fall in love with you. I never knew that being loved could cause me so much pain.

Three months ago I had a great man in my life. But I was scared to death. I didn't know myself. How could he love me when he didn't even know who I was? How could I know? I let things go too far, then I had to admit I was lying to myself. And to him.

The good news is I'm in therapy now and on meds.

In a perfect world mental illness would be like drug addiction. Romanticized in movies, books, and song. People getting better would feel good about themselves. Hey, man, it's been 6 months.

But how to dole out the chips? How to measure recovery.

One year since you had a drink. It's so easy to measure. Not that it's easy to quit. I never knew till I tried dating an alcoholic that alcohol is everywhere. I didn't think about it much. I am NOT saying it's easy to quit. And I know that once you quit you have to deal with the emotional problems that alcohol or drugs were covering up. It's just that with substance abuse, progress seems concrete.

With mental illness, it's different.

I've been on meds for more than 10 years, and in and out of therapy for as long, but it didn't seem to help.

I feel so ALONE right now. My illness caused me to hurt so many people. And to drive them away. And I just lost the last one in November. Three months ago. On the anniversary of his sobriety. I told him I'd take him to dinner that night but it was a HUGE mistake. Making a big deal out of his problems were a big mistake because I couldn't see him. Dinner for two isn't a celebration if the feelings aren't there. We got in a huge fight. Or rather, I told him off, and yelled at him. The worst part is I loved him. I wish I could meet him now, instead of back then, now that I've learned all of this, but it's too late.

NOv:

I finished off the last of a bottle of Sake (only one shot, but I so rarely drink it had a stronger effect than it would on someone else)
IT was more symbolic than anything, but at least I could cry that night, really cry, for the first time in 20 years.

I wrote till my hand felt like it would fall off. I wrote my pain, guilt, loss, sorrow. I wrote again and again asking for forgiveness, for release, for someone anyone to take away the pain, for the chance to go back and do it again. I wrote that being beautiful didn't solve anything. I wrote that I was so lonely I had a physical pain. I wrote that I was empty inside. I was dead inside. I was evil. I had no soul. I deserved to die. I was alone and I deserved the pain I felt. I letters to him asking for forgiveness, begging, pleading, then wrote that I was tired of apologizing. There was nothing I could do. There was no closure. There still isn't.

I called crisis lines. I had to tell the whole story all over again each time. Some were helpful. Some blamed me. In the end, it didn't help.

I work at night, in a huge, dim empty building with computers and only one co-worker, janitors, and security guards. The night I hit ROCK BOTTOM, it was New Years Eve. My mom had been visiting, but now I was all alone in a big empty room with just the hum of the heater. After my co-worker left, I was sobbing loudly that "I'm here all alone, no one can help me, someone please come help me, no one cares." Over and over. Then I drove home screaming the same thing: about being ALONE and NO ONE cares. NO ONE will save me. I have to keep this dismal job. I will keep spending my nights off all alone. I will die alone and no one will care.

You know what? By the time I got home, I felt better. I don't remember what I did before I went to bed, but I didn't call a crisis line, and I didn't OD on pills. I decided: so I did the worst thing I'm capable of, and I'm alive. Anything I do at all is better than that.

I started thinking of myself as a superhero.

I called