she who gives

Dear Internet,
We’re rattling around the fancy house like ghosts with Restoration Hardware chains around our waists. We would give Miss Havisham a run for her money with our shenanigans.
On Monday, TheSoonToBeExHusband saw a nurse practitioner who put him on Wellbutrin, which seems to be working. He has an appointment in a few weeks to talk with his own shrink and to start making headway on working on the problems he needs to address. He has finally agreed that we need to be apart while he works on his problems and I work on mine; that the two of us together only hinder the other in our mutual goals of mental happiness. I am making no promises to him, which is why I don’t want to be only separated, I want to be divorced.
Because this is the core truth: Love often isn’t enough. It hurts. It breaks. It shatters, but it is truth.
I’m tired. A Lot.
My sleeping patterns have been fucked for a while because of the unmedicated mania, but now it’s worse. Thursday I napped for a few hours and dreamt I was walking around with lockjaw. No one in my dreams could understand what I was saying, which of course frustrated me even more. My mouth was aching when I woke up; thankfully none of my teeth were broken from the gnashing in my sleep.
On Friday, I posed the following to my Facebook wall,

PSA: Why you should masturbate on a regular basis:
If I had not attempted to masturbate this morning, I would not have found the lump in the left interior wall of my vagina, which turned out to be a filled Bartholin gland. If I had not taken myself to the ER this morning and gotten it checked, the gland could have gotten infected, which would have meant they would have gone in, drain the gland, and there was a mention of 4-6 week catheter and other fun stuff.
Instead, I take drugs, wear a maxi pad, and place a heating pad on my crotch to hope it drains by itself.
Masturbate! And often!

I have to spend a few hours a day with a heating pad on my crotch and take long baths. Good thing I like long baths.
So on top of it all, my vagina is now broken. I used to joke to the TheSoonToBeExHusband if he didn’t fuck me enough, I would get clogged.
And well, here we are.
Or it could be from my chronic masturbation the last few weeks of dreams and fantasies that I can now indulge in that I could not indulge before because it didn’t fit the parameters of my now dead marriage. Am I revealing too much? No, I think that was the problem to begin with: I was not revealing enough.
I have nothing left to lose here, in this world, and I don’t think many of you will understand the freedom that comes from this weight being lifted from my heart and soul. Things are clicking into place that were put on hold for a very long time, and as I reveal those plans slowly, some of you have expressed concern. I get it. I do. It all sounds stupidly overwhelming and incomprehensible. How do I know I’m not in mania right now?
Easy. Mania is about impulse. This is not impulse, this is about righting myself on the path I needed to be on so many years ago. If I was manic, I would be indulging in reckless behaviors and I’m not. It’s just that simple.
I am lucid, clear, and in control of myself.
What I hadn’t expected as the result of the fallout of my marriage? Things like this:
creeper
The creeper is a high school boyfriend who dumped me when I wouldn’t put out. I was 15 and still a virgin. He was also fairly instrumental in helping promote my reputation as the high school whore when the swim team attempted to gang rape me at a sleep-away event for our science classes. I escaped by climbing out of the bathroom window when my two female cabin mates couldn’t smash down the cabin door. Of course we never told the adult chaperones on that trip, because hey, I was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Who’d believe me?
I found it intriguing he wanted to be FB BFFs a few years ago. Even more interesting was he never said a word to me until I did a beta readers request a few weeks ago about my new adventures in writing erotica. And then I became his unwilling mother confessor.
As I’ve been working on reclaiming my sensuality for the last couple of months, and have been more public about it. With the collapse of my marriage, he and numerous others have been circling like vultures because apparently being public about my masturbation habits and enjoying sex is an open invitation.
You know, because being blunt about sex means I’m just begging for it.
I started out this piece in a calm but sad space and became so fucking angry that I’m shaking. I have a lot of great support on both coasts, and instead of working with them to keep me in this nice sane place, I have to spend my extraneous energy fighting off sexual predators. Thanks. Much appreciated.
Thursday I’m flying out to the East coast for a much needed mini-break. I want to be somewhere where I won’t get yelled at. Or sued. Or harassed. I’ve got the best possible host lined up who is going to take very good care of me and I plan on being underground for a few days. There are those who know where I will be in case of emergencies but the rest of you? Bye. See you next Sunday afternoon.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day In Lisa Universe: 1999