Foreigner created a song called “I Want to Know What Love is” in 1984. I think everyone alive on this giant rock we call Earth wants to have Love. Love without support is little help sometimes. Even the most aboriginal group of people rely on their brothers and sisters in their community (respectively, not literally). I am loved by many people. I’m sure the level to which I’m loved is unknown. My perception has been tainted by mental illness and trauma. My father supported me while he was alive, financially to what he could. I have held on to a large portion of my inheritance because some day I will retire. Those funds need to be there for that day that I choose to go radio silent in my career. My in laws have supported my husband and I financially and emotionally to what end they could. I have friends who have listened to me cry. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years at a time. Of course the reason I cry is likely not always the same. Grief over one thing or another. The loss of my teenage years into full fledge adult fuckery.

I’ve been told by a family member that I am loved. I guess when you haven’t seen some of the people that suggest they love me have a strange way of showing it. Love may be something that you need. And it can be given from a distance. Our Christian life says you pray for those in need. You pray that God will show us the way to heal our hearts and our minds. To help us through difficult situations. Prayer is good, I suppose to heal the person that cannot be there. And prayer is also good because it requires a person that needs the assistance to try to find the answers “on their own”. Not to be enabled by a physical person. Their strength of character or will shows them that they are capable.

Prayer, I think is largely a placebo. Something that can help a person feel as though they are accomplishing a goodness. They are putting out into the atmosphere positive will/wishes/request for guidance/healing. And while I’m not exactly sure how prayer works… if at all… there are many who profess that it does. Religion baffles me. Humans need a “father figure” to explain the reasons why we don’t just murder everyone in our path that seeks to endanger our livelihoods and safety. We need a being to explain why touching the oven while hot is a bad thing. If we don’t have a guiding force, are we then savages? We are destined to be unruly creatures of the day and the night? Are we all sociopaths? Why do we need structure and morals? I know in my heart that some aspects of my church and my community therein showed me how to be and how not to be. I saw the way that people were adored and others were not appreciated.

Mental illness is a barrier to being able to truly support true understanding of where I belonged. I suppose I have listened to my gut, over and over again. I’ve also largely let my gut go fuck itself. Not wanting anyone or anything to tell me what to do – because somehow, I knew better. My pride got in the way of my actual brain. My trauma response was to say that everyone was terrifying. And if you’re mentally ill or people don’t understand why one is doing something in a way that goes against what they believe – they criticize. Sometimes to anyone that would listen to them.

There was a woman at church. I never really liked her. She always seemed judgmental and irritating to me. I’ll call her “A”. When I went to the Kamala Harris rally (or attempted) in Green Bay Wisconsin, a woman by the same name – who was a Sargeant at arms in a community in Wisconsin. A former police woman. She was smart, bad ass, tough, and she was nice. I liked talking to her. Chances are, had the people I had been with not started the conversation – I probably never would have engaged. To my detriment. However, I did talk to her. I have great respect for this “A”. My companion told me, Hey! An “A” that actually liked you! It was humorous because I knew EXACTLY what she meant by that. It was true. And it wasn’t just me who saw it. This “A” at the line for the rally took a selfie with her, myself, and my companions before we parted ways. It was a way to remember this event where we grew temporarily close with someone who saw the same ideals as we had. Who has fought for them in her own career, doing what she does best.

Love is fine. You can love someone from a distance, as I mentioned. You can love a complete stranger because of what they represent. You can not support someone if you have nothing to do with them for 10 or more years. Even one year. I sat in my room as a teenager. Alone. My only companions was the telephone and my few “heathen” friends that I had. Back in those days, the phone was not unlimited calls. Oh no. So my attempt to hold on to my church friends outside of the area was punished. I was yelled at loudly. I had a friend in Cromley MN, and one in Deer River, MN. I had a pen pal from Cloquet, MN. My friend that I grew up with, my oldest and longest friend moved when we were teenagers and she lived in Oconto, WI. So here I was, floundering.

Yet, how was I supported? Now that I am being supported by my coworkers, friends, my husbands family, and my boss… I feel completely uncomfortable with their kindnesses. For years, I sat in my in laws basement harboring this idea that my in laws hated me. Yes, it was my perception and it was apparently wrong. How would I have known that they cared about me when my support system was not there?? Support was not known to me by my family. They were probably incapable because they were dealing with their own trauma and daily stuff. Yet I felt like I was drowning. I had no life jacket. I was just left. To make bad decisions and to learn from them. Quickly… or even not that quickly. I fell, I raged inside, I kept raging… and I had only a few people that looked at me and would try to bring me back in. And no matter how much they supported me, I questioned why? What did I bring to them? No matter how much I make in this life – I feel deficient. Does a person who is adequately supported feel like this? I tend to believe that if they were… they would not. Prove me wrong.

When I was a teenager and I lost that emotional connection, it revealed to me what I perceived as that I wasn’t wanted. I was an inconvenience. I wasn’t worth the time of day. When people would try or appear to try to get off the phone with me, I’d feel that my thoughts were being validated. And when no one reaches out to tell you otherwise, it feels harsh. Your reality is what you see, and what you feel. The difference between real and perceived becomes entwined. And as time continued to move forward, I lost more people and continued to feel the same strain that I did when I left home and my faith. I had to fight for my own self, my own sanity. I’ve been working since 2017 again, after being on SSDI for a few years. I’m working full time on a successful career. Four 10 hour days at a decent pay. The economic shift makes me feel as though I’m making minimum wage. I still feel like no matter what, I am not enough. And my husband of our decades of togetherness still makes no money. He’s been not working since before we moved to this largely Republican community. I cannot fix our basement foundation issues. We were quoted $60,000 approximately to take care of it by a company to fix what needs. With my husband’s medical issues (back, neck, hip, knee) and his looming untreated mental illness (not for lack of effort. He tried. The meds almost tanked his kidneys), he works hard with his now over 70 year old father to do that they can do. One of the previous owners thought that they could hide some structural defects by painting over cleverly hidden foam. And then when parts started to rot… Good times!!!

So, he’s stressed… I’m stressed. My short term disability hasn’t paid out since after I had my first carpal tunnel surgery on September 18th. I want nothing more than to feel like I matter. And yet, I have a room in my home to do with as I see fit and I’m scared. I know and don’t know who I am. My inability to accept myself for who I am. My inability to separate who I was because of the immense traumas of death, shunning, and my own emergence from death…. I don’t know why I’m here.

As a kid, I wanted to be important. Someone whose words mattered. Someone that spoke with authority and conviction. And with what I have to say now, with no accreditation.. I feel as though I’m a fraud. The non believer side accepts me. The believer side rejects me. I don’t fit with that mold. And the believer side won’t accept what they do to others is harmful because it has not happened to them.

I have to find a comfortable one in between and I’m not sure what exactly that looks like. I hope I can maintain strength and integrity. That no matter who does/does not accept me… That I’ll be okay. And hopefully the believers never have to experience what I did.