It's not you, it's me.

I feel like venting, but not really. I think what I'm feeling is, for lack of a better term, emotional bulemia.

I want to purge a whole bunch of shit and just spill it all and bring you fully up to speed on exactly what I'm dealing with, but A) it would take forfuckingever, B) I don't like when I get like this and I don't really want Penny Dark to take over this blog, and C) I'm not sure everyone would handle the information well.

I feel like you all know me. Really. And I love feeling like I can write about just about anything on here and either you'll keep reading, or you'll decide that I write about stuff that makes you uncomfortable, and if so, hopefully you'll check back from time to time and see if my life has slowed down to something more palatable for you.

One of my more sporadic readers actually told me the reason why he reads only sporadically is because he equates the feeling he got while reading my blog to the feeling one gets when one discovers one is sitting in gum. I'm still not exactly sure what the fuck that meant, but he thought he was eloquent, so whatever.

Look, here's the thing, kids -
I'm not here to blow sunshine up anybody's ass.

Right now it's 3:45 in the a.m. and, I say this with all the candor that keeps you coming back, I'm pretty fucked up mentally. I told R yesterday that I thought something inpatient might be necessary for me. I meant it more so I could focus and not be distracted by kids bickering or stressed about getting there on time, but R read it as She's Become a Danger to Herself and Others. There's some past history figuring in to his reaction, in fairness to him, but that's shit I'm not going to get into on here, like, ever - unless it becomes necessary.

He asked if I was having dark thoughts. And the truthful answer? Yes, I was. The even more truthful answer is that I have them all the time. Didn't know that, didja? I'm a Crying-On-The-Inside kind of clown because I'd rather be a clown than a Drama Queen. The clown has more friends. Who wants to hang with Drama Queen? Unless she, like, has cute clothes or something.

As for the dark thoughts, I wouldn't put myself on suicide watch or anything like that. I didn't want to die, exactly, but I desperately wanted a break from life. I wanted to clock out for a few hours, sleep it off, and clock back in eventually, refreshed and relaxed.

I wanted to get off of the merry-go-round of my life for a few minutes. Does that make sense? Kinda like telling the gym teacher you've got really bad leg cramps because you don't really see the point of running laps - I wanted to bench myself. And if I had to show Coach a bloody bone sticking out of my leg so she'd see I was totally serious, then here's my fuckin fibula, sister. I'm sittin' this one out. Fuck you. Have a nice day.

That's kinda the mentality I was dealing with. It's juvenile, sure, but there ya go. And you know what kept me from taking several Xannies and just passing out? The mental image I created of my three children wandering around a church (they're at yet another VBS this week - two, in fact) wondering why their Mommy hasn't come to pick them up. And then fast forward to the mental image of each of them relaying that same story to their own individual therapists. My kids, without their even knowing it, kept me from doing something incredibly stupid.

So R took a vacation day, without really clearing it with me or asking me if I wanted or needed him to (which bugged me - I would have told him no because it wasn't going to do me any long-term good if he rescued me every time I was having a dark day). And he and I took the kids on a Metrolink Adventure Day. It was hard for me to get into it at first, but it the kids were so great. And R was patient and cheerful. I got a blister on my toe from walking down to Laclede's Landing to see how high the river was.

But apart from that, it was a great day. Really. Got the kids home in time for their evening VBS with Anti-Stella's kids, which gave me and R some alone time. Did some talking, which was difficult, but good. Productive and healthy.

But still, I'm worried about tomorrow (or, I guess, the today that will begin in a couple of hours). He can't take off every day just to hang out with me when I'm sad. My friends have jobby-jobs. So I'll be alone with my demons, once again.

It won't surprise you to hear that I haven't taken my meds for a couple of months. Not on purpose, but periodically I get out of the habit for one reason or another, and I feel like I'm handling life pretty well, and then BOOM. I am back to the Should I Go Back on the Meds argument I have with myself every once in a while. It's probably why the Xannie hit me so hard at Chez Inlaw the other day.

When I'm looking at Raw Me, Sad Me, Ugly Me (aka Penny Dark), I can't help thinking THIS is who the meds are suppressing. Is THIS the real me? Do the meds make me somebody I wouldn't and couldn't be otherwise? Even if it makes me nicer to be around, is that the right way to go through life, as someone other than who I am naturally? You guys have seen me unmedicated. You've seen me lower than this.

I guess I don't like when I feel that self-reflection has been forced on me. I literally stood in front of the mirror yesterday thinking, My God, is my face always this puffy? How does nobody tell me when I look this puffy?? No, that's not the kind of reflection I'm talking about, really, that was just a coincidence.

Lemme talk about full-spectrum friends. I don't want it to sound like I hold back certain elements of my life from certain people, but I do kinda filter some stuff out of some of my conversations. We all do it. The Baptist Church Moms would shit themselves blind if they heard me say the words Shut Up (Remember that? That was fuckin hilarious). My parents, who only see a sliver of the PK spectrum, would shit themselves blind if they ever read this blog.

This blog, as it is, is pretty much full-spectrum. I do Nerf it down for the masses to a certain extent, but apart from politics, there's not a lot I don't write about, really. The people that read my blog know me.

I think.

My problem is, when I get away from people, I start to question who I am. When you see yourself in the way other people react to you, and no one's around, are you really there? It's truly scary to me. Truly.

Two of my full-spectrum friends told me the same thing a couple of days ago - basically, that I need to get some shit together before we can hang out again. Well, one was total full-spectrum, the closest full-spectrum friend I have had in years, apart from R. That was a heartbreaker.

The other was a newer friend, but I was blissfully caught up in the awesome possibilities and sensed enormous potential for full-spectrum access. I was really looking forward to that overwhelmingly liberating sensation that comes from such a relationship. I was giddy about that one.

The kicker, though - I was telling Heartbreaker Full-Spectrum about the loss of Giddy Full-Spectrum when Heartbreaker decided Giddy was right. THAT sucked. Dumped twice within about 30 minutes.

I believe that the people who said this to me care about me and genuinely have my best interest at heart. And I don't disagree with their reasons. So there's that. But it doesn't make it suck any less. I don't know when I'm going to get my shit together. And how am I going to know when I've got it together? Who else has enough of the full-spectrum backstory to help me see if I'm at least on the right track?

And yeah, I wish I could be the sort of person who can look back and be happy for the time I had with them, but I'm just not a "We'll always have Paris" person. No way. Is that supposed to make me feel better? So what if we'll always have Paris? What the fuck good does that do me now?

I always hated the end of Casablanca.