Out of the Darkness

Alright, folks, I've got some big news. I've been kind of secretive for the last year, but I've been looking for a cause. Yes, yes, I'm a Free Hugger, but that's not really a "cause" so much as it's a movement and I don't feel about getting into the discussion of those differences. What I'm saying is, I've found it, and I'm stunned at how perfect it is.

As someone who's been living with diagnosed depression for over 2 years now (not to mention living with it undiagnosed for almost 12 years) and gone through the hospitalization and medication and therapy and blah blah blah, I'm kind of shocked how long it took me to find this organization - especially when I've been directly & indirectly benefiting from their influence for the duration of my treatment.

May I introduce: Out of the Darkness: The Overnight. 18 miles through the streets of San Francisco in one night. We're walking for the people we love who struggle with depression, the ones we've lost to suicide, and every single soul that resists the temptation to give up every day. I cried when I found this, because it reminded me that I am not the only one who struggles and that there is an army of people out there who come together to offer each other support.

SO! I'm taking donations. It costs $1000 to participate as a walker (I even joined a team! Team Death is No Parenthesis - from the e.e. cummings poem) plus the registration fee and airfare to get up to San Francisco in the first place. That said, I've been using my position as the Free Hugs Girl to further my cause. I'm there every Sunday anyway, and I have a modest following already, so I might as well commandeer their assistance. Drumroll!

Day 1 in Claremont and the conclusion of my first week of fundraising has elicited a total of: $54.52!!! I've committed myself to $20 a week and all the change I collect to this project, so the total donations I've received from strangers comes to $30.98, which is still awesome! As soon as I register I'll have an online donor page, and I know some of you have already made pledges to my cause, but every little bit helps! This cause has become so important to me in the last couple of weeks... It's put on by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which is an organization that supports programs like the Trevor Project, clinics and early-diagnosis centers at universities across America, and various other programs that save lives every single day.

I'll be posting more next week, with an update on my fundraising status and all the ways I'm getting ready for this. I have 14 weeks until the walk, which is June 9-10. Until then, anyone have any fundraising ideas for me???

Confession

So I have a confession to make, and I'm not proud of it, but I really need to come clean (to all 3 people who read this ever). I folded today. Wait. Let me start from the beginning.

Yesterday I kept thinking about it. I'd concentrate on something and then this would take over my thoughts until I was consumed with it. So last night I set an alarm and this morning I woke up eager and excited and ready. I had breakfast and did some reading, waiting for the right time. But as the minutes ticked by, I could feel it starting. An hour later I woke up on the floor under my kitchen table.

You see, I had planned on going Free Hugging this afternoon in Claremont. Instead I got to spend most of the afternoon recovering from a full-blown panic attack complete with a blackout. I told myself I'd go at noon, which turned into 1pm. By 11:30 I was nauseated and when I stood up to make myself a cup of tea I was so dizzy I instantly had to sit back down. Around 12:20 I started having trouble breathing and couldn't stop shaking and then all of a sudden it was 1:05 and I was under the table with no recollection of having slid out of my chair and onto the floor.

I just re-read that and it makes it sound so much worse than it was. Not that it wasn't an awful experience, but I've had these episodes before. (The blackouts are still kind of scary, though.) I'm just upset - ashamed, really - that I let it take hold of me before I could even get out the door. And I wanted to Hug so badly this week but I let my fucking social anxieties get in the way. Again. Bloody fuck. Sorry. I just feel so weak and stupid about today being completely wasted because of a stupid panic attack that could've been avoided if I'd just forced myself to crawl out the door. Then again, I might have had a worse attack once I'd reached my destination and panic attacks in public are waaaaaaaaay worse than panic attacks in the safety of one's home.

The worst part is I feel like I'm continuing a pattern of self-sabotage. And.. God this is hard to say... It's almost as if part of me wants to be like this. I spend every day fighting back all my dark thoughts and at the end of the day fighting to go to sleep but somehow I can't help thinking that part of me wants to keep my D--------- because it's become such a defining part of who I am now. And then at the same time I'm screaming inside that I want all of this to go away so I can be normal again and go back to school and go on dates and not be constantly fighting all the goddamn time.

In other news, I calculated and have just enough money to buy groceries, put gas in my car and pay back some of the money I owe my mother, but my Uncle doesn't have a filter and eats constantly, I haven't slept properly in over a week because of my grandmother's fucking cat, I'm as lonely as ever and I received a final notice on a delinquent payment for one of my old student loans which I can't afford to pay right now. I'm exhausted from keeping up with housework and my job and my "resolutions" and my brother has applied for (and RECEIVED) a job transfer to be with his precious bitch and is taking his daughter with him. Did I mention this job transfer puts him over AN HOUR AWAY FROM HERE? No? Well consider it mentioned.

“It seemed unreasonable, unfair, that a woman so young and beautiful should be so exhausted. Of course, it was neither unreasonable nor unfair. Exhaustion pays no mind to age or beauty. Like rain and earthquakes and hail and floods." ~ Haruki Marukimi, Dance, Dance, Dance (1994)

This has just turned into a royal fuckup of a week, but really, complaining about it isn't going to make it better. I just don't know what will, though.

Touch

After months (November 20th to January 20th is 2 months, right? God, it feels like so much longer...) of tooling around feeling sorry for myself, I finally have a word for the emotion that's been plaguing me for weeks, and it's a scary one: I'm lonely. Lonely! Me! Can you believe it? Me neither...

I'm starved for attention, affection, and touch. I like to think that I'm comfortable with myself, that I'm not a total attention whore, but... My only real companion these days is a 50 year old man who - while usually very sweet - is far from my ideal conversation partner. I've recently added an adolescent cat to my list of companions, but again: he's a sweetie, but not the best conversationalist.

My uncle is painfully awkward, though we manage to get along. I found earlier, though, while he was (awkwardly) rubbing my shoulder what I've been missing so much. I haven't been touched very much this year. Make whatever sexual innuendos out of that you will, but I'm serious. Ever since I left school the first time and went to the hospital... Ever since that awful night my heart broke for the last time and I spent the night curled up next to An-----, I haven't exactly enjoyed a whole lot of human physical contact. I mean, it's one thing to be sexually frustrated to the point of distraction, but pushed to tears by a simple hand on my shoulder? I'm the fucking Free Hugs Girl for crying out loud! Of course part of why I hug is because I know what it's like to go so long without a comforting touch, but... I'm so, so lonely these days.

I talk to my friends, though. I make the effort to see them and spend time with them. It's just... They're busy living their lives and I'm back to square one with mine. Again. R--- is working two jobs and going to school full time, K---- is studying to get into law school and trying to find a job (and has a family she spends lots of time with), and everyone else isn't exactly local. A lot of it has to do with going from a university setting where I was constantly surrounded by people and the ebb and flow of conversation and then getting dumped into borderline solitary confinement.

And I've been dreaming about HIM again. Simple things, like the two of us sitting on the couch curled up watching a movie, or walking to the beach from his house holding hands. And last week really hurt... I was driving to work, minding my own business, and there was a couple around my age in the car in front of me. At the stop light, the driver leaned across to his girlfriend in the passenger seat and kissed her. I had to pull over because it made me dizzy to remember how many times I'd been in the passenger seat, or the driver's seat. I'm feeling a little dizzy now even... But I don't miss him. I miss having him. Does that make sense? I mean, I just want someone in my life who understands how much I need to be reassured. I don't think very highly of myself, you know. It took 2 years for R------ to convince me I was pretty, let alone anyone worth kissing. It's this:

“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.”

—	Chuck Palahniuk

My personal insecurities aside, it doesn't change the fact that I'm so, so lonely.

I mean, the other day, my therapist made a comment about my lack of social interaction. He asked how my social anxiety has been and I admitted that I still panic a little when I see strangers in my usual solitary haunts. I have to talk myself into going to Knit Night at the yarn store on Thursdays. I have to convince myself that it's alright to accept the occasional offer from my friends when they want to hang out. My doctor said I should find more social outlets. He said, "Well, you used to dance, right? I'm assuming you took lessons, and those had to be local, right? That would be a great way for you to meet other people that aren't ladies in their 40s and older from your knitting group. Guys, too, if you think you're ready to start casually dating again." Dancing? Again? Me? It's one thing to go back to my old salsa routines in my living room as a form of exercise every morning but... Going back to classes? When I know my dance teacher will wonder why he hasn't seen me in almost 5 years? No thanks. Then he asked if my church had a young adult program (I swear he's been talking to my mother cuz she suggested that last week), which it does, but honestly? It took everything I had not to scream, especially because God and I aren't exactly on speaking terms these days. But that he noticed and acknowledged that I'm a sad, lonely, socially-deprived mess was kind of...disheartening.

“In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want.”
~Irish Toast

The above is especially disheartening. Because I've stretched out in the past but... I'm always left wanting.

So I suppose this could be interpreted as a cry for attention. And I won't say it's not, because it probably is. I'm just hoping someone out there in the universe will do what I've tried doing as a Free Hugger. I want someone to see the void in my life and make some effort to fill it. And I realize that's asking a lot - I feel like I'm always asking for so much in the last year - but why is it so hard to put my voice to how much I need this?

“And if you want to know the feeling I’m talking about, run your own fingers slowly through your hair, and pretend they’re someone else’s.”
-- I Wrote This For You: The Feeling of Someone Drawing You

BANNED!!!!

Dear Friends,

You know me as Willow, but countless people in the Los Angeles, CA AND Salem, OR area know me simply as "The Free Hugs Girl." This morning, while hugging and spreading love to Oregonians at the Salem Saturday Market, I was BANNED and escorted out of a public parking lot. This has happened before, and I'm sure it will happen again, but I need your help.

I'm putting together a petition to present to the SSM (Salem Saturday Market) Manager (who conveniently refused to give his name). Please help continue the Huggers' work of spreading love and acceptance through the simple act of a hug by spreading the word of this travesty to your friends, loved ones, and anyone/everyone you know in Salem, Oregon.

Free Hugs is about love, acceptance, and instilling a sense of self-worth in anyone and everyone who passes by. No judgements, no exceptions. Fat, thin, tall, short, old, young, dog, cat, bird, race, gender... NONE of that matters. Help keep me hugging - and save the world. One hug at a time.

More info about the petition coming soon. But understand this: Mr. Manager does NOT know who he's messed with. HUGGERS UNITE!!!

~Willow