Dear Dr Shapiro,
I never told you that i was going to be in Salisbury this weekend, or maybe i did, i can’t remember. Today we celebrated Kamora’s second birthday. She had a party with a boy at her daycare who shares the same birthday and we went to Chuck E Cheese. I personally don’t care for that place, i mean i like skee ball, but the kids running around screaming, and getting lost because of the inattentiveness of the parents, its all to much for me. i get overwhelmed when i am surrounded by so many small screaming kids, the smell of places like that make me want to vomit. but i go because its a party and its for April, and i wanted to support her. I can never go to Salisbury without seeing someone i am always trying to sneak around and avoid places and certain people as to not get triggered or upset. Unfortunately Salisbury is so small its damn near impossible to do that. I ran into this guy, he looked familiar to me, i looked familiar to him. We kept bumping into each other and he kept saying how familiar i looked. After about the second time we bumped into each other i had already figured out who he was, and was hoping he never figured out who i was. of course my life isn’t that easy. Finally he asked me who i was and i said Krystle Washington, i didn’t want him to remember me. i knew who he was, and i knew he wasn’t a good person. Or at least the him i remember wasn’t good. Anyone who was friends with my brother at some point was not to be trusted. But that wasn’t enough for him, he kept prying, “you look so familiar, i can’t figure out where i know you from…” sigh…… so finally i said it..”i’m derricks little sister.” as if he had solved some calculus math problem or been award a Grammy or something a big smile came to his face, “Oh yeah, oh, oh, i remember you.” we avoided eye contact for a while and i walked away. fuck this elephant memory i’ve suddenly inherited. i would go into detail about him, and me, and everything, but if you know my brother Derrick, and the kind of person he was, then you know somewhat about this guy i saw today. i cannot tell you what kind of person he is today, because frankly i haven’t seen him since i was about 10, and seeing him today, did nothing for my reputation of him today. He walked around holding a little boys hand, i assume his son. I tried not to freak myself out, because lately small things worry me. So that is on my mind now, my brain and insiders want to process it, to think and rethink, and think some more about what seeing him was like for us today, and really i just want to sleep. i want to sleep for a very long time. i feel very tired a lot of the time. and i am restless at night unless i take extra klonapins.
i’m confused. i keep wanting to call you, or text you, but i keep restraining myself, because i know that annoying you is not going to fix anything and the last thing you need is for me to become any more stalkerish and paranoid then i already am. i think i worry that something will happen to you every second. Like i worry about you before, remember how i used to worry about you, about you being in a car accident or someone hurting you. That kind of worry is back, only now its more real, because now i understand that even though external things can hurt you, i never think that people get like sick. It’s ironic because a few days before you called me and asked me when i wanted to see you i had called Kathy because i was worried she was sick. i started getting that feeling like awhile before that, and i thought it was because i was missing you, and i was doing that transference thing or something with Kathy. Kathy is like another Lylac for me, she’s like a security blanket in a sense, because she’s always sort of nurtured me. I texted her and asked her if i could schedule an appointment to talk to her, she’s really busy sometimes and i worry i’m pestering her or something if i just call out of the blue. i am always worried i’m annoying or pestering people, so i usually text them to see if they have time to talk to me, because if they do then great, but if they don’t it’s easier for them to just ignore the text, you know? anyhow i talk to Kathy and i keep asking her how she feels, i keep asking her if she is sick, and i insist she sounds sick. She’s not sick, well she has a cold, and she always coughs cus she smokes, so yeah, but i’m freaking out because i think she is sick. i don’t know why i really think she’s sick, it just happened, and she reassured me that she wasn’t sick, and the reason i hadn’t heard from her was because she’s been waist deep in work, and bills and such, and really stressed. Do you think it’s possible that, that i was projecting my worries about you on Kathy or something psychological like that. I mean but this was before i had even talked to you and you know you had told me about it.
Sometimes i worry, okay i spend a lot of time worrying. i’m a perpetual worrier. when i was younger i worried so much that is why i had all of those OCD behaviors, because i would worry so much about different things that i had to do something to feel better. i act like shit doesn’t phase me but i am really very fragile and breakable. one of the things i miss about being unmedicated was that i worried a bit less. my mind was so unstable, unsteady that i would worry about something for a few minutes and then jump to something else, and something else, and then i would come up with all these stunts in my head, things i was physically incapable of doing but i had wanted to be a gymnast when i was little, i wanted to do acrobatic tricks. And i would think about those, and do art, run, worry..it was like my mind was so wobbly that i couldn’t focus on one thought at a time. That is what i miss about not being on medicine, so what if i was crazy as hell, and i tried car surfing, and i would run at random hours alone, and i broke bones thinking i could land on my feet like a cat jumping out of windows and shit, on medicine i am scared of doing so much stuff because i have to think about it and rethink it, and think it some more, and i worry i’ll fail, or i’ll screw it up, or something else will happen, its crazy. i’m fucked up. i get frustarted worry, i feel like i’m being paranoid, i just, i don’t know.
i am scared i am being selfish, because you are like a Lylac to me to, a comfort, a security, stability. And i am worried i will loose all of that because you are sick. who will we tell all our secrets to. Who will tell us to behave, and threaten us when it’s appropriate? who will we try to lie to, and fail if not you? i don’t want you to go away. i don’t want to start over with anyone else. Mostly i don’t want you to be sick. and i don’t want to say it out loud. i don’t want to whisper it, i am trying not to think about it, but i don’t want you to die. okay? keep breathing.
love,
k and company
