The past few weeks have been a huge whirlwind. I went through breakdown and breakthrough. Suicidal to flying high and feeling one in the giant organism of living earth. I let out a psychic scream and my nomadic support system answered, showing up in my town at random, with perfect timing. This reminds me of a picture I saw in a book about coyotes: a coyote pup that was rescued is in a kennal howling, responding to a call he heard across state lines, almost a thousand miles away, from another pack!

I had the worst breakdown of my life almost three weeks ago. There were many catalysts and circumstances: seeing a guy who raped me when I was sixteen for the first time since it happened at work when it was really busy and stressful to begin with, working all the time (eight days straight than one day off) at a bar where I got caught in the vicious cycle of wearing myself  out physically followed by free drinks at the behest of my fellow employees/friends who were excited about my coming of age, my only day off being my father's birthday (who is my abuser, so this is a pretty bad anniversary for me) where I snorted a bunch of zanex (it's pathetic I can't even spell it..) followed by lots of whiskey, all the while my brain rapidly spinning into thought-cannibalism like an injured spider, and my body in a complete emergency/triggered/panicked state that made it hard to function and sleep.

So I crashed. Hard. I slept on my friend's couch after smoking pot and listening to his interest in starting a food not bombs. I was trying to give him as much encouragement as I could, all the while being really torn between being involved and not getting started on big projects, since I can hardly take care of myself. These days, I know myself too well, and that I'm too unstable to commit to anything, no matter how urgent or neccesary I think the project is, which makes it so heartbreaking and hard for me. I was feeling worthless. Before I passed out into a black sleep I remember thinking: I'm not going to go to work tommorow, because I'm going to kill myself on my favorite rooftop in town.

The next day I visited my family for what I thought would be the last time. My thoughts were punctuated with my own plots of death. I called my bestest lady friend I mentioned in one of my blogs, who I gave the nickname the bonesummoner, as a last resort. I was trying to reach out because I didn't want to really kill myself, but the part of me that was telling me I was worthless and not creative and making me lethargic and numb to all the things I cared about like music and growing my own food. I really didn't feel an end to all the bleakness, low energy, poor memory, self-hatred, lack of inspiration, severe confusion, and untrustworthiness. I never thought hospitalization would be theraputic in the past, but I was considering it at the time because of my  desperate state. I thought at the time, well at least I won't kill myself if I'm supervised. And there maybe I will be taken seriously. A doctor won't tell a kid with PTSD to "let go and be free" when anxiety is high. I would get on a regular eating and sleep schedule. But it was also so scary to me. I didn't want to be put on medication to the point where I was catatonic or feel violated because of the constant supervision and start to relive my abuse. I was so fucking torn and to my suprise the bonesummoner picked up her phone and said she was just entering my town! That night we were with a bunch of kids and she was really sick and sleepy. She just got done driving over ten hours from a festival she worked at and had a wicked cold. I was still comforted that she was there though, and as she passed out I took more drugs to try and cope with things. I ate mushrooms that were given to me as a belated birthday present, and it wasn't, as you might guess, my brightest of ideas. It has made me feel at peace in the past though, so I thought it might help gleam a new perspective on my life and I would have a great hallucinegic ephiphany. Instead, I stayed up all night on edge, going back and forth writing about the reasons why I should live and hopeful poetry followed by many drafts of suicide notes. I left the house at six in the morning, feeling pretty fucking shitty and suicidal again. This time I was determined, since my internal conflict between living and dieing was so drastic and colored by fluorscent demons when I would close my eyes.

When I stepped outside, I was taken aback with awe. There was a thick fog on the ground, and the rest of the world was just waking up. I usually resented this time in the past, because it meant I couldn't sleep and when I woke up it would be some late time in the afternoon and there goes another day wasted. But this felt beautiful, like everything was unfolding. All the green, growing things glowed against sidewalk and broken building. I was kicking myself because there I went again, convincing myself why I should live another day. All the little pieces of graffiti that I noticed on my walks before that made me ponder about the stories behind them, and think of the rush the artist may of felt when they sprayed it on the wall in the dark night. And the bridge I call the "fifth dimension tunnel" because of it's shape that have really odd acoustics--when you shuffle your feet it has this crazy, creepy, wonderful echo that made me think--who in the world appreciates this little stuff besides me? The biggest thing that saved me on my lonely walk was a murder of crows. I have very strong ties to ravens/crows--dreams and synchronicities--throughout my whole life. Then I thought, of course they follow me all the time. They can smell how close to death I am. I made this weird bet/prayer with them like a heretic in biblical lore, trying to test god or nature. They were making a great cacophony/ruckus when I first emerged from the house so I said, "okay, if they keeping cawing the whole walk home, it's a sign. I won't kill myself." How reckless and mad. Well they kept crowing, and that's why I am typing this today.

The next morning the bonesummoner woke me up with fresh vegetables and herbs from her uncles farm. We went to the natural food store so she can get supplies for her trip she was going to take to upstate NY. There I got St. Johns Wort in capsule form that was wild-picked and all that goodness. I read alot about it int the past, and knew a few people who used it and had positive results. So I was willing to give it a try. My heart was still racing and my body tight and clenched. We sat outside on the wall where we usually have our picnic when she comes in and I told her about everything I was feeling. She held me and rubbed my back as I cried. She talked me out of hospitalization, since she has been institutionalized several times and has had negative experiences. She, also, has had very similar experiences growing up, pertaining to sexual abuse, but went through therapy at a young age for years. She reminded me that it took her a long time to heal but she did it. She feels healed today, and like a whole person. She told me how brave and strong I was for getting this far, how crazy it is that I was pretty much a do-it-yourself survivor, and how much she loved me. The bonesummoner also said I was doing nothing wrong by the way I was responding, how I was breaking down. All of her words were very, very helpful and necessary. She left that night and I felt a little bit better, less anxious and panicked.

I tried to call work the next day to explain why I haven't come in or called but I burst into tears after a ring or two. How the fuck do I say "Oh hey, I had a mental breakdown, and work seemed a little arbitrary at the time!"  without losing my shit on the phone? I was right back on bottom, and that's when I checked my messages and found out my old trainhopping/forest defense buddy and his ladyfriend were in town to visit. What timing! I am so happy that they came to visit me, in the end. He is a recovering alchoholic and has been sober for almost six months now. His new addiction was banjo, and for this reason we'll give him the psuedonym of posicore banjolution. His lady friend was also sober and really bad-ass. She's my age and we talked alot about our friends and traveling and craftwork. She's from Alabama and has a great accent and says I reckon alot. So we'll call her reckon. Well reckon and banjolution and I went to the river first thing when we met up and swam naked. I haven't been in the thick of nature in a while, and it was such a healing experience. I forgot how important the forest is to my well-being. They are very positive people, though they recognize their own self-destructive cycles and civilization ad nauseaum. It was good to hang out and stay sober while I first started taking St. Johns Wort. We played music and worked on a bunch of projects together (overhauling my new frame, screenprinting, writing a zine) and ate regularly, and cooked really good meals. I had a major breakthrough about positive thought and love. I had an extreme amount of energy and inspiration. I didn't realize it then, but it was just the "pendulum" swinging from an extreme low to an extreme high. All and all, it was great that they stayed with me for a couple days. Once, when banjolution and I met in CA, he was drinking again and in a very bad way. I hung out with him and talked to him when alot of his closest pals were rejecting him because of his totally different and difficult behavior. He said to me later when he was in Florida and sober again I inspired him to get back on track with healing. I felt that recipriocity in his visit. We talked about all living togetther on hobo beach in the winter, or riding in a houseboat  his friend built in wisconsin, and visiting me again. I started to get the traveler's itch hardcore.

I eventually went into work when I was feeling confident enough to, to get my last check and my bicycle. For about a week and a half I was feeling really, really good. Everyone there was very understanding and gave me a hug when I came in. I really felt fearless like I did when I was a kid. Like, as long as what I did was motivated by love, I didn't have to be afraid of what other people's reactions may be. And also, in the grander scheme, I would not be motivated to seek out self-sufficient or alternatives to the greater shitty social death-dream out of fear that the earth would swallow me up like the christian wrathful god, but out of love for the wild. My perspective shifted. I was on fire. I felt more social and unapologetic. I went to a show in killadelphia to see defiance ohio and easily talked to a bunch of awesome kids outside. I felt the music for the first time in soooo long and danced my heart out. I met a bicycle gang from newark who was going to the bikekill in brooklyn I've been wanting to go to. I felt really eloquent but sometimes my thoughts were faster than my words and my words were faster than my thoughts. My heart felt like it was going to break through my chest out of love, not panic, this time, and it was still painful and scary. Then an old pal came through my town after going to Italy and France for a month. He was going to ride trains to the RNC, and I started writing him a novel about hopping and copied him all my maps and such since he was still somewhat of a novice. We stayed up all night every night he was there talking and riding bikes and all. It was the first time in our friendship I felt like I had more energy than he, who is like the healthiest guy I know. I mean, he rode a fixed-gear bike over a hundred miles and part of it through the appalachians. It was an obscene amount of energy.

So in the past few days the lethargy has been creeping back in. Also in that time I got my copy of Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness. I am so glad I got my order in late, because I may not have been able to swallow alot of the stuff in that zine in my really high state. What an eye-opener. I feel silly for not realizing that maybe, yeah, I too was bipolar or experiencing something similar, especially since I've been blogging and reading other's blogs for a bunch of months now. But it makes perfect sense, and makes me feel a whole helluvalot better about my depressive symptoms showing up again. It makes me sad that my grand realizations of love for the world and my holistic feeling of it was just the symetrical response to my crash I had, but it doesn't discount what I felt either and I'm not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It made me re-examine my personal history, the months of enlightment I felt when I just got out of juvenile when I was a kid, all the energy I had back then and the sleepless months and running away and heavy amounts of drinking and drug use. How I used to think I was sustaining off my passion: in a manic state I turned vegan when I was fourteen and was living at a boyfriend's grandpa's house where I only ate plain ramen with salt and pepper. The powerful dreams of mind-control by the government and feeling I had to save the world and I had this special part to play. The most important thing it made me realize, though, is that I need to dedicate this time to taking care of myself, getting on a schedule. I've been talking about it for a while, but it was really hard to apply when I was getting drunk every night and working slavish hours. So thanks Icarus Project for everything. I know this must be said alot, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Again and again all you collective strangers feel like my best friends and healers, and find new and deeper ways to make me feel less alone and learn how to heal. I hope that sometime, I can reciprocate.

So there's my long oddessy that transpired in such a short span of time it feels like a dream. My shipwreck where mermaids and mermen swam me to shore whispering hopeful songs. Speaking of songs, actually, here is one I wrote a few months ago inspired by the people here, and I hope it inspires you, it's called a protection spell and I play it with my violin, it sounds like a sea chanty. I love you all and hope you stay strong.

I cast a protection spell / kill the cop in my head before I kill myself / pick some bloodroot, swallow raw down / steal a kiss from the werewolf prince and vomit right out / from the steam, a smiliing ghost friend will rise / we get trashed in trashy dresses as we swagger in full moonlight / upturned skulls, our tears do dry / and tattooed in their patterns is the roadmap: surivive /Oh huntress! My your rays drive them all mad and blind / an arrow swift through their hearts and we'll dance in time / make the dogs hungry for their hateful master's flesh / and we'll hollow up your name--wild, bloodthirsty, and blessed / Once, our monsters chased us round and round / we turned our skin into bark or stone from an ancient battle ground / Now these train tracks are the shapes of our scars / we navigate our nightmares by the damnedest of stars <there's the big icarus reference, hah> / Runaways, castaways, addicts, and upstarts / a terrible tribe leaving a trail of our broken hearts / and for me, my dear, I've been gut-lead through hell / following the whisper from the dark wood that I know so well / Oh Artemis! May your rays free us all mad and kind / an arrow swift through our fears / and we'll dance through time / make the dogs hungry for their hateful master's flesh / and we'll howl up your name, wild, bloodthirsty and blessed/ (HOWLING ENSUES!!!)