Accept all of who I am

9:34 PM 6/26/10

Nathaniel Branden writes about self-acceptance, and also, acceptance of others, and of reality in general. Accepting doesn't mean you necessarily like or approve of something. It just means that you face reality, and accept that something is true whether you like it or not. You can accept the reality of things about yourself without liking those things. You can accept good and bad things.

My life is compartmentalized - it's divided into pieces, separate compartments, that don't connect with each other. I have a blog here, but in the real world, I can't imagine that Curtis would ever read my blog, and in fact, I'm not sure if he feels comfortable enough with reading to spend this much time reading my very long blog entries. So the blog world is separate from the real world. Everything I've written here has to be re-told if I need to talk about it in the real world, because I assume he doesn't know anything at all.

I am on drugs. I'm having a skin reaction to St. John's Wort and ephedra. It's gotten on my uniforms. The symptoms are unmistakable. Everyone can tell that I'm more alert and friendly. Everyone is talking to me. Curtis himself approaches me and calls me nicknames when I'm on drugs, but when I'm off drugs, he avoids me a lot more.

This is frustrating. I want to get new clothes and not have a drug reaction all the time. But when I clean it off, I won't be friendly anymore. I won't have the courage to touch Curtis, no matter how much I want to, no matter what the circumstances. Touching him is a temporary thing. And I want so badly to explain that to him. I want him to know that I'm having a drug-induced mood swing, but it's temporary, and soon, I won't have the courage to touch him, but I'll still want to, very badly, every day, no matter what mood I'm in. I want us to trust each other enough to do that, no matter what moods we're in. I tried to explain it to him, in notes, text messages, and in the blog, which I gave him the URL to. But I don't think he understands. In order to touch him on drug-free days, I have to feel confident and know that I have permission to touch him. I've never been given explicit permission.

I want him to accept all of who I am. I write a blog. So he would have to accept that I am a blog writer. And I also have drug-induced mood swings. I want him to accept me when I'm on drugs, and also when I'm off drugs. I want us to still be friends and able to touch each other when I'm off drugs and I'm not friendly anymore.

The drug residues are the greatest obstacle between me and other people. I can hide the fact that I hear voices. The voices don't interfere much with my life, unless I'm reacting to drug residues. Then they control me and make me do strange things. I have to explain those weird things to people, and it's hard to explain. I can't say, 'I was trying to accomplish this purpose,' because actually, I am obeying a forced urge, and accomplishing someone else's purpose, not my own.

The drug residues make me do strange things. I don't want people to get contaminated by touching me. In fact, I think I contaminated the aprons at McDonald's, because another girl who works there said that she went home last night and absolutely could not sleep, no matter what, for no reason. She wears the aprons too - there are only a couple of aprons, and we share them, and they don't always get washed - so she would have worn an ephedra-contaminated apron. Ephedra has given me severe insomnia several times recently, very badly, and I had to go shop at Wal-Mart to buy myself new bedding materials (I have a foam pad covered in vinyl, and I also have paper to put over it if it gets contaminated). So I feel anxious about letting someone touch me when I'm wearing drug-covered clothing. If I had done what I wanted to do, the other day, when Curtis was magnetically pulling me towards him, I would have been in his arms, hugging him. But he would have gone home with a drug mixture on HIS clothing, and he wouldn't understand why suddenly his insomnia was so severe, or why he was having strange mood swings.

And I have to do other strange things, too. I can't wear my shoes into someone else's house, or car, because they are contaminated on the bottom from the floor of my car. So before I walk in, I take off my shoes. It would be terrible to leave drug residue footprints on the carpet of someone who doesn't understand. And it doesn't even matter if you DO understand, because the footprints cannot easily be shampooed out, even if you know they're there and you know you need to clean them up. So that makes it hard to do simple things like get into someone's car, or their house.

I want to explain all of that to him. But we haven't been able to talk. And I don't know if he can read well enough to understand what I write. I'm not making fun of him. I seriously have started to doubt whether he is able to read. I know he can read a little bit, but if it's a long, complicated sentence, he might not understand all the logic of it. He's not dumb, but he just might have trouble reading.

Again, the voices in my head are NOT the greatest obstacle between me and other people. You might think that they are. That seems like the craziest and the weirdest thing. But the drug residues affect all of my behavior, the things I buy, where I can walk, how I dress, where I can step while wearing shoes, who I can touch and when. The drugs give me extreme mood swings that change drastically, so that I'll be very friendly and approachable for a few weeks, and then I'll be withdrawn and quiet for a few weeks.

I'll be able to touch him again, probably, until I can get new clothes. And he won't understand why I suddenly become scared to touch him again. He really can see that I'm in a different mood. He talks differently to me when I'm on the drugs. He's explicitly sexual and much more trusting and friendly. It's visible on me because I tend to have a 'permagrin,' even if it's only a mild one, with the corners of my eyes wrinkled up. I also make a lot more eye contact, and my whole body expresses a better mood. But I don't want to be on drugs all the time. I want to clean it up.

Accept all of who I am, on drugs and off drugs, every 'compartment' of my life, the online me and the real world me. And even if you don't agree with me, accept that I feel that I'm the victim of a terrible crime, a terrible constant attack, that suppresses my true self and makes me unable to think, feel, or function normally, the way my true self would - even if you don't agree with my explanation for that feeling. Accept all of me.