I went dancing for my birthday last week. My friend Charlotte found the perfect spot when I told her what I wanted to do to celebrate this year, my new era — a seedy little joint in Chinatown called the Grand Star Jazz Club, which was hosting a night called Underground Dance Party Indie Post Punk 80s-Now! When we rolled into the club the place was empty, save for one beautiful lean-hipped weirdo with a skinny tie and greased-back hair who was vibing around the place from corner to corner in a slinky nonstop dance. The ceiling was low, the dance floor was lit from underneath with chintzy neon, the bartender was old. It was perfect.
I was feeling the sparkle of a mushroom microdose (thank you, Mary!) as we hit the dance floor right when the DJ hit play on Depeche Mode’s “Shake the Disease”. The universe has been showing me things lately, and that sonic moment felt like a cosmic reflection of me being fully committed to shaking my disease by finally dealing with things I’ve hidden away for so long that I thought I might get away with pretending they didn’t matter. Holy fuck, I’m going to be happy again one day, I thought.
A few weeks after my friend Nicole was killed in 2005, I terrorized an elderly Weight Watchers leader by spilling my guts to her after our weekly meeting. I told her all about what had happened and how I wasn’t ok and nothing felt right and what did she think? She listened, patted my hand, and told me maybe I shouldn’t come back to meetings until I felt better. There is no world in which I get better, I thought. There’s no coming back from this. At any rate, my weepy WW overshare led me to seek out a great therapist, who immediately diagnosed me with PTSD. But her diagnosis didn’t feel helpful, or even real; I vehemently wished something about my face or body was fucked up. I wanted a visible wound, so people would know to be careful with me. They would see how I was broken, and how, all of a sudden, I didn’t speak the same language they did.
Over time, I felt the invisible sickness sinking into me, coiling itself into dark spaces where it could lie quietly until I was alone at night, when everyone was asleep. Then it would come alive. I didn’t sleep anymore. My relationship to alcohol, which had never been problematic, changed. I started drinking to anesthetize myself. I was often up until dawn, even on days when I had an early call time for rehearsal, or a shift at the restaurant. I had nightmares when I did manage to sleep. My longtime relationship started to suffer. But I kept going, somehow. I convinced myself that I was getting better, because I was in therapy and working and acting and going to parties and living life out loud, dammit. I went to Burning Man and ate a pile of mushrooms, and told myself and everyone around me that I’d dealt with everything. I was fine.
After a few years of running around in that state, I did something that I now know I would not have done if I were fine: I shacked up with a fantastically crazy man. Discarding the safety of my long-term relationship and running for the fucking fences with a pill addict who had a heroic tolerance for booze was the perfect move to make my day-to-day life as terrible as I felt when I was up alone at night. I was in a car with him when he drove so drunk that I thought we were going to die, and I stayed. He threatened to kill himself regularly, and I stayed. He lost every friend he had, and I stayed. I finally got shoehorned out of the situation by a woman who was even sicker than I was (I owe you a debt of gratitude, MS!!) and then I booped on over to my next phase of pretending everything was fine when, of course, it was not fine.
The next logical step in my self-erasure was getting into a relationship with a guy who denied that he was in a relationship with me, although I didn’t realize the extent of his denials at the time. I simply ignored every massive red flag — like the night we shared an Uber home with another dude, and instead of coming into my place, my boyfriend gave me a one-armed hug, said a polite goodnight, and strolled off into the night with the other guy. He texted me 20 minutes later: can I come over? I said yes! because I was going to give him a piece of my mind and tell him that kind of behavior was a dealbreaker, etc., before I forgave him, let him stay the night, and brought him coffee just the way he liked it in bed the next morning. That was as much as I felt I deserved, and I was grateful for every crumb he gave me.
I’ve been in EMDR therapy since the flameout of that relationship forced me into new territory. The first several sessions were spent mapping out my life, locating the harms that had burrowed into my soft, hidden places like tiny glass splinters over the years. I began remembering things, like my recurring nightmare that I’d killed someone, buried the body, and was waiting to be found out. I’d jolt awake feeling terrified and guilty; it felt so real. I remembered the onset of the hollowed-out feeling that settled right below my sternum over a decade ago, a space that was also occupied by what I dubbed my hamster wheel — a never-ending, spiraling anxiousness that everything was wrong. I remembered being an asshole to people who didn’t deserve it. I remembered the feeling of not being able to see a future for myself.
My friend Lucy is a witch. She did a Tarot reading for me last summer, after my last (I am declaring it the LAST) flameout started with a FaceTime from my mean-ass cheatin’ boo letting me know that our relationship was over. The card at the center of her spread for me was Justice. “Justice… is not a cosmic rebalancing of fairness, it is a clear-eyed assessment of the situation,” Lucy wrote to me. “It is a hard passage.” I texted her back, “It feels insanely hard. And I’m frightened.”
“It is frightening,” Lucy replied. “You are squaring off with your higher self, you’re calling yourself out on a bunch of shit, and it is really fucking hard. What was safe isn't safe. Maybe it never was safe. It's destabilizing. But remember, you know how to start a fire. Trust your wings, not the branch.”
I’ve been frightened for so long, but writing about everything, and hearing from so many people that I should keep writing, has been an integral piece of stepping off the crazy train, as my BFF Alison once termed it in a lovingly exasperated email.
For the last few weeks, when I’ve sat down each morning to pull Tarot cards and reflect on what was, is and will be, the Swords suit has been front and center. The medicine of the Swords suit is to befriend your own mind. If I can heal my mind, I can heal my heart. If I use the King of Swords card, which has been showing up regularly, as a reminder that I can call in truth and embody integrity as I reckon with my rage, sadness, and everything I’ve lost, I know I can do this. I can shake the disease. I can show up for myself, and ultimately, I can be in service to others, which is what I truly want.
I can do all of this thanks to my support network, and, also, because I believe I deserve to be alive for the first time in a long time. I’m going to get better. I’m trusting my wings, not the branch.
And I’m going to dance my ass off.
More soon, with much love.
Mary Jane ❤️
My god. This was my first stack of yours I’ve read. You’re a beautiful writer and you are worthy. ♥️
Love you, love this raw gooey version of you, love reading your writing! 😘