So you know all those big plans I had last night? I discovered it's easy to be brave at 1am when you're awake and writing... and it's a whole other ball game at 4am when you're in bed and trying to sleep. I've never dealt with guilt very well. I am, for the most part, exactly the daughter my mom wanted. An overachiever who questions everyone and everything but her. I have been all my life. Except for those two years when I wasn't. And somehow, those two years aren't gone yet. And somehow, I got all the blame. Even in my own head. And I can't get rid of it. And I try to tell myself, you were 12 when it started. It's not all your fault. It wasn't all you. But myself just doesn't listen and it feels so guilty. For some reason, myself doesn't feel guilty for my dad. Somewhere along the line, we must've forgiven each other. But I still can't even think about really doing anything that would upset my mom because as soon as I do my brain goes crazy with "didn't you hurt her enough already?"'s and it shows me all kind of examples and it forgets about all the counter examples of how it really wasn't all my fault. I was 12. Maybe even 11 when it very first started, I don't know. I didn't know you have to fight bad thoughts. I distinctly remember (and have a journal to remind me if I forget) several nights at the end of seventh grade where i started talking in terms of feeling "down" and "dark" and I'm sure the word "spiral" was in there somewhere because I'd heard it mentioned before. I didn't understand. Nobody ever told me that if you spend a few nights listening to sad music and wallowing that you might get caught and never be able to get back. How was I supposed to know that? I had read a lot of books, but nobody ever gets depressed in Little House on the Prarie or Anne of Green Gables, even when their parents die or their house gets eaten by locusts. I was 12, and I spent two years locked in my bedroom before they did anything about it, and then only when a teacher got involved. I was screaming at them, the whole time, that I needed their help. I tried and tried to tell them that I was stuck and couldn't get out, but when I screamed "leave me alone" they more often than not listened. Except when they didn't and then I screamed harder and harder because all they ever did was talk. Couldn't they see what was happening? Everything was dying and I couldn't stop it. It wasn't all my fault. I can say that. and I can understand it. and I can think of a hundred different times when they should've said "enough" and stopped it sooner. Because they could've. For as much as I yelled and screamed if they told me I was going to get help, I would've gotten in the car. I cut my arms and wore short sleeves in the middle of winter. They never noticed. The problem is, if it wasn't all my fault, why am I the only one who still feels guilty? Why can't she let go? I don't think it's my imagination, I think she still blames me. To some extent, anyway. Everytime I mention something I really want to do, she does this "huh" thing that means "that's nice, maybe when you're older, end of conversation" but I think just below that is "I don't want you to, don't you owe me that?" My dad just got a phone call from a factory near here that I think he would really love to work for. They're calling him for a second interview. And they will probably hire him, if they know what's good for them, because I'm not exaggerating in the slightest when I say he is the best maintenance person they will ever find. He can fix anything mechanical and he can look at other people who can fix things, figure out what they can fix best, and have them do it, so that everybody is doing what they're best at and everything gets done faster. He's done it in three places already. The thing is, that factory is French-owned and he would have to travel a lot and he thinks that'd be neat. And my mom does that same "huh" thing, and now I think it might be more jealousy that nervousness that makes her not want us to travel. She told me once that whenever she sees an airplane she wishes she were on it going somewhere. And normally, I would say, if you want to go, why don't you go? Because she could. She has been maxed out on sick time her entire life, even when I was in elementary school and so sick all the time. She never took the day off. Now, she's even maxed out on vacation time, and has been taking a day a week to sit around the house doing nothing because she'll have the same amount of vacation time either way. Besides that, she has a plane ticket. To anywhere in the U.S. until may. It's free, she got it because she flew to new orleans on a business trip and her flight got bumped back an hour. She could go. And normally, I would be so angry because she's jealous of something she could do anytime she wanted to. Only I'm doing the exact same thing. If my dad started traveling I would be so jealous I wouldn't be able to see straight. But I could go anytime I wanted to. My school has the biggest study abroad program in the state (or so they say) and there is absolutely no reason I shouldn't go. Except for her. Her being jealous and me feeling too guilty to hardly think about it. The thing is, I could go and feel guilty or stay and feel jealous and I'm not going to be happy either way. I don't think I can choose between the two, which means I'm just going to do nothing. Which is a choice, of course, but it's not an active one and when I get twisted up all I can be is passive. and I need to stop obsessing about it and do something instead, but I don't even know how. I'm too scared to even mention the words "new york" and that's only a day's drive away. I've tried to think of ways to bring it up, but i can't seem to do it. I can't risk her being that mad. If she would yell, I could handle that, because yelling just makes me mad and I can deal with anger. (I spent two years being angry, remember?) ...it's her not saying anything that I can't handle, because her not saying anything is just too scary. I can't believe someone is actually going to read this. I'm sorry to bore you all with this mother-daughter-angsty stuff. (Did you know I couldn't say the word "angst" until a month or so ago? It seemed to trivialize everything. It still does... only now I guess I'm trying to trivialize it.) see, there I go again. I realize that you are probably reading this thinking, "grow up and get on with it" ...because that's what I'd be thinking if I were reading it. I just don't know how. And I'm scared to try. And more than anything, I need to get over this fear thing. I'm scared of everything lately. I've always been like that. Even when I was really really little I was never scared of the dark or of spiders. I was scared of really incomprehensible things. So incomprehensible, that I still don't know what I was scared of growing up. Just that I was scared. I get paralyzed by fear, and I don't know how to deal with that. (y'all have seen the new star wars trailer, right? Yoda says "there is much fear in you. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." and I think there is a lot of truth in that. Even if it is said by a small green alien.) But that's why I write this. The internet is one of the few places where I can be brave. Writing is a brave act, in and of itself, or at least that's what I tell myself over and over whenever I get like this. But putting that writing where other people can see it, and then encouraging them to look, that's either really brave or really stupid, I haven't decided which. I'm hoping for brave. And maybe if I'm brave here I can be brave somewhere else. But the more I write about this the more I cringe as I read what's coming out. Because it's all stupid. The whole problem is stupid. I need to just get over it and stop saying "I can't" or "I don't know how" and just do it. "do it" meaning do anything that is my own. That wasn't my parents idea, and is something that I really want to do for myself, not for someone else. my parents picked the college I go to. They bribed me. It was my dad's idea for me to leave high school. (I thought I had to wait until I was 16) and it was even more his idea for me to go to college. It was my idea to transfer to a 4-year-school that was not the one in this county... but that was just a small step from them expecting me to transfer to the one here. Besides, once I started talking seriously about a school 6 hours from here they warmed up fast to the one two and a half hours away. Maybe that's what I should do... talk seriously about going somewhere 20 hours away and let them settle for whereever it is I decide I really want to go. I am just an all-around awful human being, aren't I? of course, I could manipulate them and ask them where they think I learned that from. That might stop them for a while.