Head Balloons!

I finally got myself an appointment with a headshrinker next week and I’m trying to nail down exactly how to tell him how nuts I am.

“Hi, I’m Eda. I wrote a manuscript during my postpartum depression and I’d like to read you an excerpt that sums things up pretty nicely.”

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. There’s a hole in the world where my chest used to be and what crawls out of it is every twisted ugly fear and insecurity, every shame, every disappointment. My head balloons outward, each string of thought separates like rocket ships splitting as they leave the atmosphere. How do I explain the complexity of my entire being cracking, of feeling each break, hearing each pop, watching in slow motion as every fragment of my soul drifts apart and not having the strength or even the will to pull it back together again? He couldn’t possibly understand. He doesn’t feel it the same way I do. He’ll never know what it is to have the soft fuzzy fabric of security ripped apart, leaving him stranded and alone, never knowing if he’d ever be whole again.

So… do you prescribe medication yourself or…

I feel like… maybe stock photography isn’t really that enlightened about mental health issues because… I mean, this photo. I searched “crazy” not “adorkable.”   Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com

 

Corruption is My Fav

Sometimes your boss does something wrong, you ask about it, and then you get a condescending lecture that includes things like:

1. Saying “someone” with quotey fingers instead of using people’s names
2. Making statements like, “There is a possibility of retaliation so we need to be careful who we speak to about things”
3. Addressing your professional concerns by saying “I’m sorry if feelings were hurt”
4. Using a gruff and manly voice while squeezing his fists and asking if you understand.

Oh that feeling of being trapped by your circumstances in a situation where you have no power and someone is clearly taking advantage of you. This is America!

 

Cartoon villains have more gravitas.

Daddy Issues are A Thing for a Reason

For anyone who’s ever wondered what my problem is, why I’m “so sensitive” or why I struggle with feeling a sense of self-worth, why I can be so outspoken about other people’s journeys but not my own, why I have anxiety and depression, or why it’s so important to me that I do a really good job parenting my children…

My dad just posted this on Facebook:

Not ironically, not jokingly, and I have no problem believing that this might be true.

I unfollowed him. Naturally. But it doesn’t matter. The damage has been done.

 

Using Your Powers for Evil

I’ve written nothing in months that wasn’t the fiction writer’s evil mustachioed twin: Marketing copy.

Still creative, just more manipulative. Still storytelling, but with the purpose of telling your audience that their life sucks and you can fix it if they just give you some money. Still… writing but the kind that rots your soul.

I’m ok. I don’t hate the world or anything. Anyway, wanna buy some stuff because… because that’s what I do now.

 

Sometimes I’m the Antagonist of My Own

My challenge of late is to remember that everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story. Everyone should be. There is no self-worth without it.

I mean, just because a business neighbor is an entitled, manipulative, privileged thin white woman who preaches BODY LOVE while convincing her students that they’re all fat, ugly, and not good enough so they better be willing to pay her more to fix them doesn’t mean that she’s consciously evil. It just means that her white capitalist faux feminism is a big part of the problem with our culture and I get to think Zumba is stupid because of it.

 

I think I’ve been sucking on these sour grapes a little too long.