Hello? It’s me.

Hi! I haven’t written in a while and that’s because I have been more occupied with other things and just didn’t have the energy to talk about anything. This is going to be a little different. I’m here to talk about the psychology of politics. I live in the U.S. and I’m seeing this election unravel and I can’t help but see just how much better my life would be if I wouldn’t have moved here. I won’t be here for more than a year. I’m planning on going back to my country. Here’s why…

In all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve learned how american culture works and in some aspects, you can see the huge flaw in it. The biggest flaw with american culture is that all americans hate each other. They do. They really do. White americans are pretty much against most people. Black americans have disdain for white people. Everyone else(racially) falls in the middle. After slavery and injustices in the years that followed, there is a clear separation between whites and everyone else. Most immigrants are grateful for being here and try to assimilate to american culture as much as possible but even then, they are almost cast out of society. This is undeniable(to me) after seeing the treatment I’ve gotten. Most people will tell me and I agree with the fact that I have more european feature than black or latino features. I do not have an accent and my skin is fair with freckles. If I don’t tell you I’m dominican, you will never know.

Okay, so I was talking to this HR lady at my job and she is being really nice and all and then she looks at my name and says my last names. She goes “Oh, you’re latina?” Proceeds to give this displeased look and tells me there’s nothing she can do for me…after having implied that she could. What does this show? That you may not look like a foreigner, you might not have dark skin, hell you might have been born in the U.S. and to americans(mostly white americans), you will always be a foreigner.

This inability to accept people is what has fueled the advancement of Donald Trump in the elections. Many people won’t accept it, many know it’s wrong but they still want america to be a certain way. It doesn’t stop at races either. It goes to sexual orientation, religion, economic differences and more. I’m not going to lie. My country has a lot of issues as well but at least in my country, I’m at home and can work on those problems. Here, you need a lot of money to make a dent.

 

 

Backs

Being small is okay, being small and a child is difficult
You bump into things that for average people is at eye level
You have to climb things to get to see
You have to be picked up

I never was. Picked up that is.
I climbed the chairs, counters…the occasional ladder to regret
I tip toed, jumped and still all I saw was their backs
And I learned to forget about their faces

There’s a lot of things that being small takes away from you
Backs aren’t that interesting, but just like different colored cars on the highway
They can be entertaining and any view is better than having none at all
Right?

When I first saw my dad’s back, I still hadn’t learned the meaning of the word I love you
I reached my arms to be picked up but he couldn’t see me
I got lost in the pile of debts, the lack of marital love and his psychopathy
His back was stiff, strong and he would never turn around

My mom’s back was smooth. She had the back of someone who had never worked a day
Her back supported her every day as she sat on the porch chair staring into the distance
I reached my arms to be picked up. She could see me but didn’t want to
I got lost in childhood trauma, selfishness and low emotional IQ

My lovers’ back were the embodiment of hell
Each carried with them regret, apathy, empathy and pain
I reached to be picked up and for the first time they turned around to slam me on the ground
I got lost in the fights, the depression and the unbearable feeling that you’re never enough

I have a love-hate relationships with backs
I still climb sometimes, but mostly I crawl
Sometimes I lay still and I admire people’s feet
Sometimes they forget I’m on the floor

Being small is okay. I just want to be someone’s back
I want to not have my face seen but I forget
I don’t know anyone still trying this hard
To be picked up

The Circle of Life

I am in utter shock and I don’t need someone to talk to but I guess this serves that purpose. The truth is I never do. What’s the good in talking about something you can’t change? I have never understood that and that’s the reason I’m of the people who need medicine in order to function. Today I was thinking about the fact that I have emotional attachments but I don’t remain as obsessive about “facts” as much as I used to. I was thinking about how I remember a lot of things about my most recent relationship but I had a brain fart and couldn’t remember her last name. I forget things a lot and it feels like every day I lose more and more of my ability to remember short term memories. But I digress. Since I had a brain fart and I knew it would last for a while, I decided to put her name in the Facebook bar. She has me blocked on the Facebook that she had when we broke up but and old one that she forgot her password to is still intact and appears. I knew this when looking for it. What I couldn’t anticipate is what happened next.

The first Facebook profile that appears had a profile picture of her and her ex before me. I became very confused but didn’t panic because I couldn’t believe that it was her. I clicked on it and realized that they were back together. Now, I hadn’t searched for her name in months because I knew I didn’t want to see anything that had to do with her. It would only make me worse. I had no idea this had happened but as soon as I saw it, I became distraught. I’m crying as I write this because I didn’t deserve it. I’ll manage to tell you all the relevant details so you can understand.

When we started talking as friends, I was still in a decaying relationship with someone and she was about to get married but constantly complaining about her stress level because she just wasn’t sure about doing something like that with someone that she just didn’t get along with anymore. As I got to know her better, I got to hear a lot about her relationship. Her girlfriend was physically/verbally abusive and made her feel as if her body wasn’t attractive. For the last years or months of the relationship her ex seemed to be in a depressive state, something that my ex couldn’t stand. She would spend all day in pajamas, not wash the dishes, want all her time dedicated to her and would not allow her to have female friends. I understood being in a depressive state but I definitely didn’t agree with the abuse.

Fast forward to us being together. I was still hung up on my ex while we were talking about a relationship but made a decision to stop trying to hold on to something that was gone and focus on being with her who was now newly single. I can’t remember a lot about the sequence of events. For some reason there are blank spots. If I were to tell you solely what I remember, you couldn’t understand. The basic thing is that we are very different people culturally and also let’s not forget my mental illness problems. We have to do a little flashback because this is relevant. One day when she was really upset and didn’t want to go home, I decided to take her to a nearby forest/park to help her calm down and think about something else. We talked about both of our problems and it came out that I had depression and was at that time very suicidal. She expressed that she didn’t want me to do that and that she “needed” me. Fast forward to the decay of our relationship.

We broke up after going to see her parents in another state. She was a person that got angry quickly and I was a person who got down quickly. I had had enough and I became angry as well. When I get angry, everyone can tell. I don’t think I know how to hide it and I don’t try to really. So we broke up because of my behavior there which I’m not proud of but I didn’t fight with her in front of her family and pretty much stayed to myself which she HATED. When we got back to our state, I tried everything to fix it. I mean weeks, perhaps months of trying and well she letting me try as well because when she wanted you to leave her alone….she could get it done. In those weeks/months my mental health reach a low it had never reached before and I get why now. I have tried my entire life to make people love me. My entire body rejects the idea that even if I am a good person, I can’t be loved. It refuses. I started doing very scary things towards the end. Like showing up unannounced at her house, begging her to see that I needed help but it wouldn’t go away just like that. It’s hard, very hard for a person who has had untreated mental problems for a decade or decades to get them under control.

Now, fast forward to my suicide attempt. This was my hardest breakup ever and I was just losing it. In my head then and in my head now….though not rational..I just think of telling her “why make me live for you, if you were just going to leave. I was suicidal but I didn’t feel this out of control”. I started crying at work and crying in front of anyone is like one of my biggest fears and it makes me uncomfortable. Thinking about the fact that I did that before makes me cringe. Asking for help is worst. That night we got off of work and I was so mad because I felt like she could forgive everyone BUT me. In all my anger though, I just wanted her to hug me. Not say anything or talk about anything. Just hug me. So I texted her just that and her tone became very angry and then she ignored me after I made it almost clear that I was suicidal. I even talked to a guy at work that knew us both about how I was feeling but he couldn’t help. Like I said(talking doesn’t help). I need physical touch. So I went to the store, bought the pills and I was so calm. I sat on my bed, put them all in piles of 10 and I slowly drank them.

I remember all this and it almost makes me want to do it all over again. My liver couldn’t possibly take round 2. I think about how sad it is that I was honest, that I tried to give her everything she needed but didn’t know, everything she voiced she needed and I tried to compromise. I wasn’t perfect and I was sick but I would have never hurt her as much as she’s hurting me. It’s not about whether or not she should have stayed with me. It’s about the fact that she didn’t look back when I told her I was going to kill myself that night. She didn’t look back when I said it again the day I had a breakdown and lost my job. But she could accept everything that her ex was and will ever be. The ex that only put herself first gets a second chance while I lost part of who I am to someone who appears to have never loved me and showed me the whole step of the way but I just didn’t accept it. It makes it hard to see because she tried. I know she tried, she just never could see me as more than that girl who helped her through her break up. I feel worthless and it’s not like anyone can tell me otherwise. These are the types of things that ruin someone for life. She ruined the part of me who still wanted to try. I give up.

I gave it all away

My head ushers their names as if prayers on a rosary

Every step of the way had a meaning

I gave them life in a heart they no longer wanted

While I decayed from the strength it took to hold on

 

I gave him…my trust

Every inch of skin he never touched, he knew

He knew every thought and the prayers I didn’t pray to god but to whatever was controlling me

 

I gave him… my patience

He swarmed around me like a mosquito

I let him prick…until he drew blood

 

I gave HIM…my loyalty

Sworn in to love him and accept him

He couldn’t say it back

 

I gave Her…my unconditional love

The one I was saving for a child

I loved her for existing

She loved me for my reluctance to exist

Until she didn’t.

 

I’m writing this to help keep a potential panic attack at bay. It’s an homage to all the serious relationships I’ve been in and what I left with them. I can never get those things back because I exhausted them in those relationships. Every relationship needs a combination of those things and I no longer have them.

Thin, Alert, Oriented, Pleasant…

I did the worst thing a person in a bad mood can do. I read my hospital summary of the day I ended up in the hospital because of an overdose. First of all, doctors suck at descriptions. I was normal weight, I was awake but certainly not alert and what is oriented supposed to mean when used as an adjective this way? I’ll take pleasant though Haha. This summary was from the first hospital I went to that month. The other has more strict rules on who can view patient files. I don’t even want to imagine what they wrote but I digress.

Reading the way the doctor described my symptoms, my family problem, what was happening and what they were trying to do…brought it all back. It’s weird because reading his summary of me, I wanted to change it. There are several things wrong and apart from getting triggered because it was a bad experience, it triggers my anger to know that certain factors about that night are wrong. In their report, I experienced tenderness in my abdomen. Wrong. It’s rare for someone in my situation to not have pain or tenderness but I didn’t. Don’t even get me started on how two reports were filed of my stay and one says I admitted to being suicidal and the other one says I denied being suicidal or having had suicidal thoughts. The latter is what I said but towards the end of my stay they changed it, I can only imagine because I was getting worse so they might have believed the number I took could have been higher. Don’t know, don’t care. Wrong information shouldn’t be on a chart of a person whose liver is deteriorating significantly every hour. But again, I digress.

Perhaps what bothers me the most is what my brain does with the information provided. In the report they don’t mention how pale my skin was but my brain inserted that fact while I was reading. They used a fancy word for trembling due to my condition but my brain reminded me that I looked like I was convulsing. I had abnormal EKGs, but what my brain thought was that everything inside my was trying to keep me alive but failing. I remember. I don’t remember many things anymore. I don’t remember the daily stuff. If you asked me to tell you ten things I did yesterday, I probably couldn’t answer you. But I remember that. I remember looking up at my dad before the ambulance got there and he didn’t seem worried, just annoyed. I remember wanting to apologize to the EMTs for being there because I felt like they were wasting their time. I remember having to tell the nurse to tell my family not to come in and imagining them driving away thinking I hated them. I remember the nurses being so confused as to what reasons a 20 year old has for wanting to die and feeling so sorry that my life was ending. They kept mentioning my age as if that’s the only reason they were trying to keep me alive. I wanted to assure them that I had lived enough and that the fact that I’d only ended up here at 20 years of age was a test of my emotional endurance.

I remember and I don’t know what to about it.

 

Happy Birthday Sabrina.

Happy Birth….

Oh fuck that.
There’s nothing good about this day.
The moment of conception people wanted me dead
My face was the picture of a stranger
My body, the temple of no one
My life, the symbolism of mistake
My soul, the cry of agony
What is there to celebrate?

She’s not here and I haven’t heard her voice in months
But our memories still echo within
There’s only her rocking back and forth inside my head
This was OUR day and it will forever be
Even if she does kiss someone else while I’m saving myself
Why should I be thankful?

Time doesn’t forgive
And she doesn’t forget
Love doesn’t regret
And she doesn’t look back

I guess in time she will forgive me
But I won’t forget
That love wasn’t our destiny
Even if I never left…

Lucid Living

Anyone who has a mental disorder knows that when you get even a day without it, the world is different. I have these bouts of lucidity and I realize just how fucked up/simple my life has been. A lot of times, it doesn’t matter how hard you try. Your mind will not let you see anything other than what you’ve been living with. I have grown up saying I’m “strange”, “weird”, “abnormal”, “crazy”, etc. I certainly am but before that was a family running joke, now it’s just a reality. I sit in my room sometimes and I think about all the little hints I gave to my family about my depression, anxiety, sound disorder, etc. I just didn’t know I was giving them hints. It’s really hard for people to see disorders unless they are in their extreme. Sure, I could have killed myself. Sure, I had panic attacks. Sure, I stopped eating at the table…But I was such a soldier that I followed orders and blended in with the crowd of people that were nothing like ME.

The anti-social child that I was always comes up. I was the kid with resting bitch face who everyone and their mother wanted to say hi to. I didn’t want to and often didn’t say hi back. I realize now, that 1. Yes, I had sort of a bad attitude. 2. It was anxiety! I was legitimately afraid of people. If I sat there and reminded my family members of the things I used to do, they would see now where all this mess of a person comes from. In one particular instance, my mother caught me crying in her room. I hated talking about feelings(even then!). But she wouldn’t let me get out of the room until I told her what was wrong. This single moment told her point blank about my anxiety and my depression. It’s just not a conclusion a mother in a third world country with no education comes to. I told her I was thinking about death, why people die, if there’s a god, that I didn’t want to die but at the same time I did and that I worried….all the time because I didn’t want my thoughts to be true in any way. The same way that sentence ran is the same way I told her about this. I was crying the entire time. Adult me almost wishes she could back and tell my mother to look at me. I mean really look at me. I feel like she felt like I was catching adult conversations and that’s why I was thinking that way.

I had always been known as the kid who was born grown up. I had to be taught social cues(no surprise there), but at the same time I always knew how to read people. My mother prided herself in being my mother. I was the smart kid, the kid who was diligent, the kid who never needed a beating and never talked back. She just didn’t know that half of my behavior came from being scared and sad. I don’t know. My birthday is coming up and I’m having one of those days…where life just hits you. I’m not particularly sad, just thoughtful. Drowning dramatically in the sea of me. xD

Sleep Deprivation & Depression

I’m feeling it. I hate it. I hate feeling sleepy and feeling that gloomy feeling I know so well. It’s like that feeling that you get when someone you don’t know is walking behind you. Science can’t really explain it and I can’t really explain how I know I’ll be getting depressed soon(or already am) but I know. My room is starting to get messy again and partly that’s due to the fact that I’m tired all the time. If I had an illness whose only symptom was fatigue, I would die. Let’s just put it that way because being tired is like part of me. I don’t feel like I’ve had a good night’s rest since I came to this country. But anyways, back to the room situation. I can keep my room clean but most of the time now, I don’t. I don’t have the motivation to put things in their place, not to mention I like things to be laboratory clean or trash can dirty. Both satisfy me but depends on my mood.

My mood lately has been “fuck it” with a dose of “check everything”. So basically it’s like a person that litters and then goes back and picks it up. It’s very comical. I don’t know where I get like this from exactly but life is just stressing me out. I want to do things but I have no money for them and I have no career plan. I. The Planning Beast. Has. No. Career Plans. I still haven’t contacted an air force recruiter to see if the U.S. government would be so kind as to let me enroll. I read somewhere that a very low amount of the U.S. population is able to be in the military. This is mostly due to health conditions and health related problems that can’t be waived.

Anyways, I’m all over the place. I hope I can figure this out some time soon, so I can sleep.

 

I’m Sorry…Dad

I’m sorry.
That I wasn’t there to see your happy face when your new addition to your list of possessions was born
I heard I made it to your unreachable pedestal

Oops…I forgot
To thank you for the many hugs I went for that you denied me
The times I tried to sit on your lap and you didn’t let me

Thank you for stopping your drinking obsession and your hitting my mother obsession before I was born…not sure I would have let you

Forgive me, for not understanding why you would push people away and keep me in a glass cage that you’d throw on the ground to break

I apologize for being too quiet, too reserved
All those child activities you didn’t allow me to go to really should have helped.
For being too mature
All those conversations you had with your girlfriend about wanting to get rid of me just kind of toughened me up

No but really dad, I am sorry.
I’m sorry you’ll never hear me tell you the truth.
I still love you anyways.

I’m Sorry…Mom

I’m Sorry.
When you told me you didn’t want to have any more babies but you had me anyways….
I should have been grateful

Knowing that I fell head first onto concrete and you didn’t take me to the hospital for fear of my father
I should have been understanding

Sitting on the porch crying and letting me watch
I should have grown up a little faster

Making my sister my mother because you didn’t have any real affection for me
Was unfair

Getting mad at you for getting drunk and leaving me in a city without protection
Was your way of being selfish for once

Calling me to tell me about your depression and making me your spy was your way of connecting
I should have noticed, I’m not the only child without a functioning mother

I am sorry…that I can’t love you anymore.