If she narrates her own story, she might be able to get out of her head and accept that her tortured outlook is only as fucked up as she makes it. She cannot control the outcome of events, but will have insight to a higher inner voice. A fresh view.

For example:

She clutched at her chest as her lungs gasped for air. Again, she felt the forces of the universe trying to suffocate her. She had yet to discover that the war was about to be over, and she would pull through. Suddenly, her breathing was back to normal.

Surviving hardships add character they say. Yes, but it also corrodes the edges we've worked so hard to refine. Sure, I have experience and I've acquired tricks for improvement here and there, but you start losing bits and pieces of you that you never expected could be taken in the first place. I didn't guard myself because I didn't know that losing someone you love will alter your progress in the ability to love. So, I can still love, but not without that bitter taste in my mouth that heartbreak is bound to reoccur. I'm the virgin that lost her innocence.

I can't cook in her house. At my apartment, I would start with a clean counter and lay out all my ingredients in little bowls like they do on the food channel. A TV show was carefully selected for background, usually satellite music. There was a no-frying rule and all the dishes required a thematically link. In mom's house, she mixes Italian with Salvadorian. Lasagna with rice and tortillas. Ancient appliances litter the dirty countertop. People sniff around behind you while you're focused on measuring, self-proclaimed chefs. There just can't be two women running one kitchen. I refuse to share.

For all the violent swings, from anger to numbness, I've been quite a surprise to the very few informed of my moods. I've not engaged in heavy drinking, binge eating, starvation, lockdown, disappearances, acting out. The worst it's been is irritability and some sluggishness. I've been relatively productive and my own source of encouragement. There's no blame, there's no end of the world. There is only fear, because if I'm handling this so well, I have no excuse to revert to my old ways. I should let them think I'm incompetent in case I find later that I can't manage.

Every Sunday, my mother invites a family or two for dinner. It's a regular Spanish rice and beans dinner. Usually my brother's mustard baked chicken and steak. The guests bring store bought cake or a bottle of wine. For appetizer she makes her country's pride meal: Pupusas. Corn flour tortillas, strategically slapped around to hold melted cheese, refried beans, chicharron or a combination of those. They're eaten with the Salvadorian version of coleslaw consisting of shredded cabbage, onions, carrots, soaked in vinegar and some jalapeños for spice. Everyone sucks the grease of their fingers and make momma's eyes light up.

Activating Event: We broke up.

Belief: He doesn't love me anymore. I can't get over this.

Consequence: I'm depressed and angry (emotion), Feel like I can't breathe (physical sensation), I walk around like the living dead (behavior).

Thinking error:

Personalizing – it's not my fault he can't deal with reality. He didn't do this to me.

All-or-Nothing – He either goes to the end of the world for me or throws shit in my face. He still loves me, just not how I need it.

Catastrophising – Can't breathe? I'm obviously still here. I won't die because he's gone.

Well, that didn't help.

Is this really my life? Am I still alive? When I leave an enclosed space and get stung by the sun, I feel like I'm a prop in a surreal set devised to screw with my mind. The people are drones leading their individual programmed lives as stars in my role. That's probably why I feel so empty, because my relationships are manufactured by some cruel joker toying with my existance. I've been getting dizzy, experiencing strange headaches. This could be the beginning of dissociation. It started with a)the nightmares, b)the media influence, c)when he was snatched from my life.

When my episodes happened, things would pile up. Mountains upon mountains of clutter showed up on different spots throughout the flooring. The mounds of clothes would stack up high, so I either wore the same clean but wrinkled clothes repeatedly, or had even more wrinkled clothes with a dirt smell. She would come, armed with her own supplies, and create law and order among my chaos, leaving lists and instructions on how it should be kept up. Though it remained relatively close to her neatness, it lasted only months. I wish she still lived across the road. Bless her soul.

My best friend: I cussed her out in public, threw her out of my house, swore her off and probably hit her some, all in the midst of mania. She laughs about it. I tell her she should be my boyfriend and we laugh about that. The symptoms are disguising themselves as greatness, slowly to convert into an uncomfortable phase, then craze. Somehow I know, I will never be angry at her with the intensity this disease once made me display. Her sincerity is so imbedded in my soul, I couldn't hurt her if it was out of my control.

Mousekowitz. It's Moskowitz, but I can't think of anything else. He looks like Papa from American Tails. Obese, with beady eyes that squint violently when he's thinking hard, guayabera and socks with strap sandals. With a dollop of mayo on his smacking mouth, he instructs me to find a 'happy place'. I stare incredulously at him. Squint, squint. Smack, smack. I'm supposed to slip into a multi-sensory vision to ease anxiety. Ignoring his heavy, wheezing breaths, I shut my eyes and feel the blood in my hands gripping the cold ax as it slices the rotten guts from his stomach.

Everyone is prone to crack, to break and fall into the dark world of madness. There's just a handful with a predisposition to push through cracks and end up there. I've been there and back, if only for a few days. I've got to be honest and say that a shade of terror has remained in my peripheral mind. I keep turning to see if it's just a shadow forming or a figment of my tortured imagination. Is it normal to obsessively fear an unsteady fault in the brain? I'm not far from waking up in that horrible place again.

He had the appeal of a vibrant character, especially when he has motive. What tore him apart from us, was exactly what brought us together. There is something, something that many people can't put their finger on about people like us. The one who give themselves to emotions and run free with the pull of their feelings, but also the ones who are dragged and weighed down low for this very reason. I'm self aware of my behavior and tendencies, but he had no idea his control over emotions was sparingly little.

For denoting this to him, I'm now alone.

She's been shutting down a world of options. She won't pick up a book because she probably won't like it. Won't try a new hobby because she's bound not to follow through. Won't buy that shirt because she's not sure "it's her". Won't try a new eyeshadow texture because she owns one similar enough. Adding spice or change (use to be her thing) is now defeated with weak excuses not to spend her time and money that's itching to be spent.

She'll have to give up being so damn practical and stop calculating the possible, yet unforeseeable, risk of waste.

The women's traditions here are hair (colored and styled, not just cut), nails and tan lines done, prepped and baked before an event. You must fashion news outfit with the latest accessories to match your purse and shoes. If it's a three day event, that's three new ensembles. They can sniff used items or if you painted your own toes. I almost fell into their trap, coming dangerously close to getting highlights and a manicure to appease them. I'll only have 1 new dress, last year's shoes, a pedicure and my train-wreck haircut. That I did for me, not them.

This headache is without origin. There are no pins and needles, no throbbing or pounding of any sort. It's not partial to any hemisphere of the brain. It's just excruciating pain to which no words, pictographs or slides could describe. Personally, I think it's a misplaced heartache. Yes, my heart has grown tired of bearing the feelings of hollowness, emptiness and all the other phantom symptoms after one is left alone. So it transferred the pain to the mind. The complete experience cannot be generated as it doesn't belong there, which explains why there is no logic to my broken heart/mind.

This year has accumulated a lot of regret. Maybe not extreme regret, because through past experience we are what we create, but some decisions could have been better. The one that gnaws at me is giving away my little dwarf, cuddly, soft, treasure of a companion, bunny. How I kick myself for forgetting to feed her, not having time to let her out of her cage, and passing her on to strangers who don't understand her value. Now I have all the time in the world to care of her, since he's gone, but I've lucked out on all counts.

It's almost tradition to walk laps around the arena during the intermission. Speaker, after speaker, after lecture, your sedated ass needs a break. All the couples stroll around. The single guys will lean on a wall and observe the girls they don't have the courage to approach. They'll tease them in their pretty summer dresses and heavy makeup. I bumped into friends who I grew up with, including my first crush alongside his jailbait wife. He made direct eye contact with me and continued looping around like he saw a ghost. So much for childhood friends. He got fat anyway.

This trip was to start fresh. New opportunities, new outlook, new acquaintances. Nothing familiar. Everything spankin shiny straight from the wrapper.

But…

I ended up in hysterics at least twice. I regulated my ups and downs with uppers and downers in order to survive. There I was in a guitar shaped pool, with Mickey shaped towels and soaps, in a city with spotlights in the night sky, and all I did was cry or try not to cry. Best friend admitted to me over the phone, she's starting to understand why I call her in tears every time I go there.

Human nature is cruel. There is only so much we can take, but before we get to the brink, damn, we can take a lot. Is it just me? Am I the only one? At any given moment I might go ballistic or give myself an aneurysm. Someone will black out or get a rare disease. I'm dripping in vivid scenes of death or the worst imaginable scenarios and get shake them off. If I don't get that medicine in my hands soon, I will not live another day. Oh wait, that's right… I can handle this. A little mad maybe, but I've been known to bare limitless mental torture.

Everyone was taking pictures. I wanted some memories, so I slipped mine out of its blue little case. I tried to snap a picture, but the card was full. Relieved that I can hide my facial expressions well when my heart drops, I discovered recent pictures I was supposed to delete. Him, playing our song on his guitar, sharing a buzz in the convertible's backseat, the group of us out by the fire. I couldn't erase not one. I couldn't dare create a new memory without him. So I tucked the camera back in my purse and kept fake-smiling. Cheese!

His feelings for me changed. This eye opener has singed the exit route of my tears. Oh, they're still there, but they're refusing to come out. This doesn't change my tired eyes. My cheeks still shine from tears that dwell and won't dry. And what did I cry for? Nothing. Absolute nothing. A fancy creation of his lies that even he believed. He's never loved me, despite the wasted breath he used to tell me otherwise. He never knew what love was. Maybe now I have to work harder to refrain from hurting, but at least my love was true.

A week ago, I would've preferred the lies. I would've gladly continued to be his little dancer. This is what happens when you build a relationship without proper medication. Let me rephrase. This is what happens when the person that you well warned about your illness, suddenly realizes they are more fickle than the medical condition you battle through everyday. My moods may change, but I never changed my mind about my devotion to him. Even if the boy grows up, I will never play pretend with him anymore. And nothing, not even his temporary pleads, will persuade me otherwise.

They say it’s the weather. Yesterday it was the full moon. Something funk has been going on and it has me tired, exhausted and breathless. I move as if my blood has thickened into a gel. I feel as though there is smoke clouding my brain. But I keep going. I can't stop and rest. Cause if I do, I won't keep going. I'll be flooded with thoughts of us. Massive waves will surely drown me out and I'll never come back up for air, because I won't be able to regroup the amount of strength necessary to move on.

Packing isn't all that horrific. That is, if you own decent luggage. I don't have the long suitcase where you can neatly hang and fold dresses. Then I have to stuff my gorgeous heels into a duffel-ish bag, in between the underwear and pajamas, to avoid scratching. The makeup: my mineral powders tumble messily about in their containers. Somehow my perfumes always escape their bottles. I will lose a piece of jewelry and I will pack tons of clothes I don't even use when I'm local. Once, I had it down to a science, but I don't travel much lately.

That beautiful journal, priced to match its décor, was supposed to be a fairy tale. A series beginning with love and fantasy, to be continued on even more beautiful notebooks once the pages were filled. Now that I know that's crap, I'm working on wrapping it up as a cancelled show. Just another episode with mixed reviews. It was a hyped up theory that in retrospect, its doom could've been predicted if I was paying attention to the script. Just a few pages left before I get a new one. Next one I buy won't be so pretty. More lifelike.

On most days that I don't tolerate lights, sounds and other little things that fly under normal radar, I can't stand Al. He's a great guy, but he's got a thousand manners that irk me to the marrow of my bones. First, he hangs his keys on his jeans belt loop, tinkling about his, Second, shuffling walk. Pick up your fucking feet! I swear he's always behind me, but no, he's just shuffling around. And he'll come in, go to the car, and come back in. Pack your shit in one trip! Never did nothing to me, except work here.

And it gets to me so, because now that he's resigned, I feel guilty for feeling relief. He's Al. The fun Panamanian that owns the organic food Groovy Cats and Dogs pet shop, that lends me cd's and takes over the phones while I'm at lunch. But he's gotta go. He needs to leave. As we speak, I hear him creeping around as if he were in my head. Why is this such in issue? What does it mean to be so disturbed by a simple being that I have to keep talking about it? He should be of no concern to me.

Poor babygirl. I know, I've had that mentality before. We are very good at manipulating attention toward us is the most destructive ways. In casual conversation I said it: cutting and attempted suicides are people begging for attention. Otherwise, they would successfully have killed themselves. That's why men succeed at a higher rate than women. They're not manipulating anything. They make a decision and stick to it. Poor baby. She has to admit it before fixing it. From experience, it takes time before you can own to your responsibility. And you have to take the pills. The prescribed amount that is.

Friends and family were saying I MISS YOU and COME BACK. So I would aw and coo and say ME TOO and I SURE WILL, but I was thinking I HAVEN'T THOUGHT OF YOU ONCE and I'LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO STAY.

Sure enough, I got on the plane and hugged all those that made the sweet little comments. But I sure don't smile here the way I did there. And the sun is brighter over there. The grass is greener on the other side. I'm on the wrong side. I'm getting out of here. I'm going back home.

Saying it's nice to be needed is an understatement. I've heard it before, but it should be more than mere words and beyond a simple connection. I don't tell them it doesn't fulfill me, it just strokes my superficial ego. It's a promise. Its life giving. It's a surge or purpose and contentment with the world despite its constant attacks. I know for sure of people who want me, but B and M… they need me. I need them to need me. And I'm still waiting out for someone who expects my presence to sustain their heartbeat day after day.

We were dragging ourselves through isles. Venezuelan chocolate, Scottish beers, Indian curries. Our trip was essentially over, but we were extending it to the max. We were hazy and foggy through the organic salad bar, exotic cuisines, aged cheeses and cured hams. Our jokes were haggard, still humorous, but followed by sighs. The Santa Ana coffee beans, the Chinese tea pots, Southern jams and jellies. In a few hours we would part from our depleted energies with the many unsaid things we still had to say. The Tarheel shirts, the Duke napkins, the Carolina blues and some reds for State.