I have been doing incredibly well for 10 months. I even made up with my estranged family and have been thankful for that healing. I was looking forward to seeing my brothers and mother for the first time in two and a half years for Christmas.

Then today they were cleaning out the shed where they stored all of my stuff when I skipped town two and a half years ago. They read some of my old stuff including a personal letter to my estranged grandmother when I wanted to get back in touch with her. I put a lot of ugly things in there about my mother.

So now old wounds are open again and they wish to not speak to me again. I can't go through this again. I wanted my family in my life so I worked so hard to get better. And not its being thrown away because of something I wrote when I was completely out of my mind and angry at the entire world. I changed and I've been different...but that never seems to matter.

THAT NEVER SEEMS TO FUCKING MATTER. Why do I bother getting better? Why? So when I am better the past can just come up and take away all that progress?

This weekend my dad sent me two boxes of my stuff that I left at his house a year ago when I skipped town on him in my manic glory. I had lost many of my journals when my car broke down when I skipped town so I didn't think I'd ever see some stuff again. But apparently I left some stuff at his house. And so I spent the weekend organizing the stuff he sent. And I was sad to read about how I felt, to read the two suicide notes I had written and my will. To remember all that pain and death that surrounded me for a decade.

And so for ten months I worked ridiculously hard at redefining my life and living better and being a better person. And making it up to my family. While the stuff I wrote in that letter were true...I decided that I would rather have my mother and family in my life than out of it, so inside I forgave them and moved on, letting go of the past. I was never for the rest of our lives going to bring up the past because I knew it would mean losing her.

So why God, why now when all was said and done and things were looking up and I was going to finally see my brothers (age 13 and 10) and be in their life...why fucking now does it get all fucking screwed up. I know life is not fair and I am okay with that- I am financially and professionally paying for many of my past mistakes...but damn it...after living most my life without my family, I was glad to have them back. And now they are taken away...again.

I can't take it anymore. This is a life long disorder right? So why do I keep fighting it? One day the moods could come back and take everything I love away from me again. These ten months have been somewhat good to me, but I can't seem to escape my past...so why do I even fucking try? why why why why???
------------------------------------------
Okay I'm calmer now, I get why to get better. It just sucks right now when the past keeps coming up to haunt you. I just want to be free to be well and not remember all the pain and destruction of the past. But hey, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right?

It's just hard to deal with losing them again after its happened so many times before and each time it gets harder to reconsile. It's a process that takes months if not years and I have to go through all the pain and heart ache again and it takes so much freakin' energy to go through it. I have just moved forward so far that I thought some things would stay buried including all my anger and hatred of my childhood and of some of the things my mother did. I forgave what needed forgiving and moved on and our relationship was all the better.

Sometimes I just don't see the point of things. And sometimes I am just so angry at having been crazy. Other times I'm like 'fuck yeah I'm crazy' and other times I'm like 'fuck this fuckin' disorder.' It's a love/hate relationship. I do like my brain but man for seven years I was gone- I was out of my mind and while I was a charming person, there was this whole dark side to me that was ugly.

I have worked so hard to change and I have changed and I'm this cool person now lol. But it's such a struggle right now to be reminded of where I came from. To have that interfere with what I'm trying to do now. You know, sometimes I feel like I was punished enough already, when was enough punishment enough. I have enough of the physical scars running down my arms to last me several life times. And the emotional scars are even deeper and longer.

I want to break out of the box and I feel I have to some extent, but damn it, shit keeps coming back and biting me in the ass. And I just wonder, I just wonder when the time will come when the past does not come back to hit me hard. When it will just be my past and only stories that I tell.

And I am fearful now too. I was aware that...the past could come to haunt, but now its reality. And I wonder about my moods- what if I have trouble controlling them or they come back worse and I go spinning up too high or crash too far down? What if it comes back beyond my control? How much is all of this really in my control? What if I'm just in one of those times where the moods cease for years at a time and then five years from now it all crashes down on me and I lose everything again? I've lived over a decade now with all of this now and finally pulled myself together and out of it and I fear how long it would take if it all came down again.

I just...really didn't need this right now. I'm glad I'm back in counseling. But it'll be two months before we start to delve into stuff- we are in thet getting to know you and learning about the past stage. Sigh. I just don't have any more words.

Erin