Ode to My Armpit Hair

This picture was taken several weeks ago at least, so my armpit hair has grown in even more since then! I was thinking of shaving it, but not only do I not like shaving it, I LOVE MY ARMPIT HAIR! I love the way my clothes are starting to tug on it. I just love the way it feels to have hair under there. It feels like a real part of my body, like my arm, and to remove it would be an act of violence. Through all this, I still shave my legs, which is a fact I struggle with. I also love that it's a distinctive thing about me other than the fact that I have two mental illnesses.

Which I guess is what I really wanted to write about: the fact that I feel like I don't have an identity outside of having mental illness. Which sucks, and makes me obsess about my illness, which makes me even more depressed. And I think that's what my armpit hair is all about: doing something different. Different on a lot of levels. Living feminism when the dependence on other people my illness manipulates me into makes me feel like anything but an independent woman. Yet, I don't think my armpit hair is totally about feminism. I just like it.

Little Things

Since I have an anxiety disorder, I worry about little things. Really little things. I worry about the water dripping down the side of the tub when I'm getting ready to take a shower. I worry about blowing my nose. I worry about picking my ear. One time I was freaking out for the better part of an afternoon over a stain on my corduroys. I don't know why I worry about these things. But it takes over my life. I wash my hands a lot. I wash my hands so much I have eczema.

Worry is a constant in my life. It's how I define my time as the hours go by: what am I worrying about right now as opposed to what I was worrying about forty minutes ago? It's not a question of whether or not I'm worrying, because I always am. And I've always been like this. As Lady Gaga would say, I was born this way. As a teenager and a small child, I remember chastising myself endlessly, for weeks, over having made a stupid comment, or over not having won a debate. Sometimes the comment wasn't even that stupid to begin with, looking back on it.

I guess if you want to know what it's like to be in my head, here goes: it's hell. It's like walking everywhere barefoot on shards of glass, or at least like walking everywhere on eggshells. I know those are two very different analogies, so I'll explain the second one first. Being in my head is like walking everywhere on eggshells because I never know what small thing, like dropping a pill on the floor or spilling some water, might make me freak the fuck out. On really bad days, being inside my head is like walking barefoot on shards of glass because everything just hurts. I can't win. When I wash my hands after having gone to the bathroom, I didn't wash them right, or enough. So I go and wash them again. Hence the endless hand-washing.

And the thing is, I know all this is crazy. But I do it anyway. And I berate myself for not being able to snap out of it, which just makes everything worse.

I'm trying to find a way to neatly wrap this up, to tie all the loose ends together. But there are so many little things to worry about. So, so many little things, just begging to be worried about. So please excuse me while I drift out of this conversation and slip into what Tori Amos called "some secret prison behind [my] eyes." Just fade away, slip into it. Because, like an old, faded, ratty, stained t-shirt, in the end, this hell has become... comfortable.

Inner Peace

Underneath my depression that is underneath my anxiety, there is inner peace. And sometimes that inner peace pokes its way through. Now I know that underneath it all, there is inner peace. I hope that knowledge helps me get through the rest of today and future days, and I hope I am especially reminded of it when I am in a spin.

A Prayer

Okay. I'm scared to do this, but I think it needs to be done so here goes: Universe, I am ready for whatever lessons You need to teach me. Normally I wouldn't open that door, but I'm stuck and I need to get through something and I can only do that if I learn. I know it won't be easy, but it's better than being stuck. Thank you.