love Archive

Overcoming Paranoia by Letting People Love Me

I would invite people into my world and it would set in. You can’t trust these people. And you definitely cannot trust groups. When it comes down to the survival of the group, you will always be disposable, as you have been before. You know from personal experience that no one cares if you’ve been harmed or abused if one of the leaders has done it. If the charismatic person can convince others you are crazy, you will lose. After all, you ARE crazy, right? It’s better just to run away. Before they hurt you and you hurt them. It’s better alone anyways.

Death and the aftermath

My wife died four months ago. We had fought the night before, ending with her saying she was taking a bunch of pills. I thought she was joking. I woke up next to a corpse. I woke up with a black eye I didn’t remember getting and spent five minutes trying to clean the vomit from around her mouth until I realized she was dead. Time stands still, memories fail. I called 911 and the person on the line tried to get me to move her from the bed to the floor. I tried, moving a women my same height to the floor, dancing with rigor mortis. A rush of urine. It was then, holding that corpse, that it first hit me.

A Legacy Deferred

Note: I have not used any real names in this article. However, the people, places, and events described are real (to the best of my recollection).

Most people spend their lives actively seeking to create their legacy. For most people it is by having children, being good parents, and then good grandparents. For others it is the accumulation of wealth. Inventors have left indelible marks on our history and culture as well. Politicians and generals guide nations through both war and peace. For my childless, staff-grade officer Uncle “Michael”, though, there seemed to be no legacy after his senseless death in Iraq in 2003. Until now.

My Experience With Alcoholics Anonymous And Early Sobriety (Ava)

Sobriety is a different forest, and one I am picking my way through carefully. The level of commitment that AA seems to require is daunting, as is the god issue. But I have seen people speak there that moved and affected me in a way that was more beneficial than any serenity prayer. Balancing cynicism and nihilism with the all-to-clear possibility of death, I’ve relapsed this month but I’m trying to embrace the program without losing myself. When I relapsed, my wife yelled at me to give her the rest of the bottle of vodka, and all I could say was, “I want something to myself, that is mine.” I gave her the bottle. I want to believe I have other things to hold onto, but the glacial heft of a glass bottle is a hand held.

My Partner With Borderline Personality Disorder (Hanners)

It is my pleasure to introduce the newest series, “My Partner With…” to QueerMentalHealth.org. Relationships can be a challenge for anyone, though they can be especially difficult when they are impacted by mental health issues. It is my hope that we can help others understand how to approach a partner’s mental health concerns. I’m starting this series off by talking about the issues that come up for myself and my partner, who has Borderline Personality Disorder.

If you were to get all your information about Borderline Personality Disorder by going to online support groups for partners of people with this condition, you would learn the following:

  • Borderlines are always abusive
  • Borderlines are always in denial
  • Borderlines never take responsibility for their actions
  • Borderlines will love you one minute, and hate you the next
  • Relationships with borderlines are notoriously unstable

Codependant Relationships: What They Are and What You Can Do If You Find Yourself In One

Previously in time, codependent relationships were typically described as a relationship involving one person with a substance abuse problem with a sober (or generally non-addicted) partner. The idea of a codependent relationship regarding substance abuse is that the sober one continuously tries to help the person with the addiction. Seeing as how an addicted person struggles with their own issues and their focus is primarily on feeding the addiction, often all the work in the relationship to keep it functioning lands on the non-addicted partner. The substance abuse becomes the main focus of the relationship and the non-addicted person allows everything to revolve around their partner’s problem, often ignoring their own needs in the process.

Flower

I think of my heart not as a muscle, or a stone, or a vase to be filled, but like a flower.

A delicate flower.

When it’s content, it blooms.

My Experience With Biphobia (Miss B)

When I finally came out as bisexual to myself and others, however, there was no end to the comments.

Emily Carr, I Love You

I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Winter Hammell. Her first post with QMH.org is an elegant story about pouring her feelings about mental illness into a single portrait.

i drew the #6 sable brush across the canvas with the steady hand of a cartographer, laying down a bold stroke of phthalo blue lightened with a tip of titanium white.

Holding the palette on my left thumb, clutching three brushes between my fingers, and one clenched in my teeth, i could taste the rich, luxurious oils. Drunk on the exotic perfume of linseed oil and rectified turpentine, i stroked and dabbed the canvas of gesso-primed Italian linen.

Sadie

We dance together, she and I. Sadie possesses the power to make everything good. Unlike me. I am the dark child, the tortured soul. She is a luminary, a child of the sun, grace personified. I can’t imagine what the world must look like from her point of view. So free, so unencumbered…she never says anything, never makes me feel bad. It’s part of her charm. But secretly I’m always waiting for her to leave me, to realize she’s too good for me, to get tired of my slow starts and spiraling moods and self-deprecation.