Just another Monday Stuck in bed

Today I got a great message from an old friend. She is also in recovery of a mental health issue. It gives me someone I can talk to who understands the viewpoint of one whose vision is distorted by mental health stuff. We really do see the world differently.
I know that I see the world through a glass that alternates between everything looking rosier than it is to everything being just awful. I know I have a lot of negativity, and that the negativity is what I generally show people, but it isn’t all of who I am or how I see the world.
For instance, love, I believe in it no matter how many times I try and fail. I believe that there is indeed someone out there who will love me for me and treat me the way I long to be treated without having to ask her to do it. I believe in the basic goodness of people. I believe that people want to connect, to love, to help one another. I think that some people think they are helping when they say things, and sometimes they unintentionally hurt.
I try not to hurt people, but sometimes I do. I am not always the person who is doing the hurting. My alters do a lot of things I wouldn’t do. I am not trying to escape responsibility for my mistakes, just explain that I never intentionally hurt people. I shouldn’t say never, I should say seldom.
So if you have been reading my blog and following what I have been considering, you should know that just because the dumbass county doctor sent me home, it does not mean that the darkness in my mind is any better. I have held myself together for two weeks while my nephew was here to avoid making his leave at home a crappy one. But I am still feeling like lights out would be better for everyone. I am tired of being the reason my family is torn up, or at least tired of being made to feel that way. I am trying to find a new thing to hold on to because my worry about hurting people by dying isn’t really helping anymore. I survived my brother’s suicide, others would recover from mine. So now I am holding on to this, I still have a lot of poetry in me. I still have a lot to say to the world. I still have a lot of writing to do. Maybe knowing I have not finished my mission here on Earth yet will keep me going.
I know I have laid out a lot of memories in this blog, but I have not talked about the holes in my memory. I have almost no memory of life before my parent’s divorced, just tiny bits and pieces and in most of them I am alone. I have a few bad memories, and a few good ones. One good memory stems from falling off a bike. My arm hurt like hell. I fell asleep on my father’s lap, crying. When I woke up he was trying to gently put me in the back seat of the car to take me to get an x-ray of my arm. My arm wasn’t hurting anymore. We went back in the house. He made me something to eat, got me clean clothes, and was very nurturing. I think the memories of being taken care of like that are awesome, but still there are more holes than memories in my life before the divorce.
I also lost time in school a lot. Teachers would think I was day dreaming and do things, like smack the back of my head, to get me to come back. I don’t know where I was. I only know that when I was there we were doing one subject, and when I was smacked awake, we were doing something different. But that isn’t really typical of my lost time. More often than not I would just come back to myself and have to fake it until I figured out where I was and what was going on. This has gone on for years; as recently as a few weeks ago. I still lose time, but now I know why and I don’t really try to cover. I just ask people what’s going on, what did I miss.
I fought the diagnosis of DID for about 20 years because most people lose big chunks of time, have had people notice their changes, and other things I haven’t had, but I do dissociate in therapy sessions. I also dissociate in certain social situations and become either very chatty or very quiet. I lose time in minutes or hours, not days and years. But if you factor in that I remember almost nothing until age 8, then I have indeed lost a large or several large chunks of time. I think people have seen me switch and not known that is what I was doing. My switches can mimic mood swings. I also fall into a character that is Southern and my friends will think I am just playing around. Here’s the deal, for a few years now I have believed I might be DID, but I haven’t wanted to be, so I don’t talk about it. I know; I talk about everything right? Wrong. There is so much people don’t know about me at all. I have started to be somewhat coconscious with a few of my alters, like I am standing outside myself watching these people doing things in my place. I have NEVER talked about this with anyone as might well imagine. People would think I was crazy of course. Well it turns out that I am indeed crazy.
I want to get back to what it is that keeps me holding on to this world, my writing, and my mind. I am going to get a masters degree. I was going to go for a creative writing degree, but now the composition and rhetoric. I was looking at private institutions rather than a CSU. Well now CSUDH is a possibility. They offer the advanced degree in comp and rhetoric and they have on campus housing. Given enough student loan money, I could afford to live on campus and get myself out of this living situation. My mom could stop having to sleep on the sofa. I can teach English at a community college with the masters. I may still find a way to pursue creative writing, but I think I am going for more safety than creative writing, or at least the possibility is on the table. I really want to do the creative writing thing. You know, do what you love, and the money will follow. But an old professor of mine, a mentor and voice of clarity for me in my semesters at CSUDH suggested this other route. Richard Bach says, “Shop for security at the price of happiness and you’ll buy it at that price.” Happiness would be following the dream of creative writing; security would be the composition and rhetoric. But going the safe route would possibly get me on campus housing and not so far from everyone that I want to be near.
I would love some feedback on the school thing. I am going to make my own decision, but I would like feedback.