Making this real.

If 'think yourself skinny' was a mantra that worked, I would have been a heap of skin and bones along the side of a lonesome highway.

So many of my friends get awards, like we did in Senior year. They aren't nearly as cool or shiny: Most Like to Commit Suicide First, Most Depressing, Best at Denialism.

There's also an award of 'Most Disappointing', and it's shared by many.

Postpartum Depression lasting five years?

For me, I know I was depressed before I propagated. I know that without my husband being a stable, constant facet in my life, I would have fallen apart long before bearing any fruit - of life, of success, of fortune.

There are days I think of other paths I could have taken, folks I could have seen, loves unrequited in this life but rekindled in other parallel worlds. And I know this is impossible, because in any other life, I would have killed myself. No denying who I am, how I feel without love, without possibilities. And inevitably, with so many friends and so many shitty awards handed out like pamphlets trying to convince you of better, brighter, bullshit-laced things, I would have felt failed (like I do now, like I have felt always), worthless (proven time and time again through others' actions), and unneeded (a dark, nasty truth -THE truth). And as such, knowing my sensitivity, my interpretation of myself through the faces and bodies of other people, I would have killed myself.

Every time I felt an ugly look, and received a nasty remark, I felt it like I was the person ashamed or embarrassed or tired of me. It was the worst feeling in the world. My only salve now is knowledge, knowing who I am and what I am against one who cannot analyze their self and find the kinks, the fissures, and the worn spots of every human being. I rub and feel and cut into the wounds I have, searching, interpreting, bandaging these holes made ragged by constant assuaging.

Every time I say something mean, I feel like I'm damning the subject of my remarks to the feelings they forced upon me.

If I say something about karma biting the filthy hand that fed it, I'm sure I'll get my turn, nursing well-earned wounds from a comment, a thought years earlier.

Is this a manifestation of my Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

I don 't normally post what I think before bed. I try to avoid it, and I think you can understand why.