YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Read it. Thank you.

Great stuff as always! Thanks for posting.

I just realized I have been lying about the last few weeks. Lies of omission, my favorite kind.

It's true that I am sleeping on the street and eating from trash cans. However, I have chosen to do that. After years of my insane abuse, I have become a ptsd trigger for my girlfriend to the point that being in a small space (like the room we're renting) can cause all kinds of traumatic effects. My ego can't handle what I've done, so every time she's triggered, I go into full defense mode. I have also been so untrustworthy with money that I have no access to it anymore, thus the eating cast-offs.

In addition, the person renting us the room is nuts, too, and doesn't like me spending too much time in the living room, much less sleeping there.

Given that, rather than gamble that my gf won't wake up reliving my suicide attempt or worse, I just stay away.

That's as true as I can tell you right now.

Hi HDIGH. Thanks for sharing. Great stuff as always.

Lies of omission are indeed great.

IMO life is filled with too many facts. Sometimes we need our imagination to soar. To expand.

I want facts from my doctor, dentist, lawyer, and accountant. Sometimes I just want to hear a yarn be spun.

Besides, there is sometimes "the lie that tells the greater truth".

You're a great writer. Wonderful. Don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

Thanks for filling in the gaps.

With more of a context to work with; I'd say it sounds like you're managing the situation really well.

I find some comfort in how I'm managing my own stuff, reading about you managing your's. Sort of along the lines of, regardless of what's happening, there are always things of personal importance to focus on; things that don't change.

Oak, when it comes to fiction, I'm fully on board with you. My reason for coming clean here, as it were, is that I have a bad habit of playing loose with the truth to make myself look better (part of what leads me to identify with borderline). A sort of misuse of the storyteller's art, I think. That's why I called this Five Facts. I wanted to hold myself to a strict objective standard. I haven't lived up to the original intent, but I'm not dead either, so there's that.

Beany, if I can't be a Cinderella story, I might as well be a cautionary tale.

You're not a cautionary tale to me. More like a person I don't know who doesn't mind sharing the details of their life; because honesty is a remedy.

Thanks. I do remember that much from my initial attempts at addiction recovery. It only changed once I started talking openly about it.

Sigh

Report from here:

I washed my socks today. They're drying now.

My feet are swelling something fierce lately. Hopefully it's just the heat.

I watched some of the sunset today. There were some really interesting layers of clouds and I wanted to see something Interesting.

I now have the name and address of one of the people whose email I keep receiving. I don't know why it infuriates me so much to get other people's email, but it does. I will try not to be too vindictive with this new information.

Went back to the room with the missus today. Got a shower and a new shirt. Discovered that my weight has swung by 30 pounds recently. Probably the scarcity mentality that has been driving my diet lately. That, and the fact that the most reliable source of calories lately has been left-over Dunkin Donuts.

And that I already had serious problems with food to begin with.