If I Hadn't Taken It

Been reading a bit about connections
between zoloft and murder-suicides. 
One of the gunmen at Columbine had been taking it. 
Which was something that I hadn't considered, 
but it doesn't surprise me. 

Been listening to videos with Dylan's mother. 
I know it's hard being a mother of a child who thinks about it. 
Especially now that he isn't talking to me anymore. 
I handled everything the wrong way. 

If I hadn't taken it myself, I wouldn't know. 
I had to tell my son that I took it
so I know what it does to people. 
That's what got him to open up to me. 
I'm glad he did, but now he won't
because of the seriousness of what he told me. 

Like I said, telling the police did nothing. 
It only put me on record that I did something
about what I know. 
That's all it did and made me into the betrayer. 
I was supposed to be on my son's side. 
I am, I want him to get help. I love him, I care about him. 
I can't just sit back and pretend like I don't know anything, 
but he was counting on me to help him in the right way. 

There are other cases like this that I didn't hear about.
That happened in my city.

Don't know if the guy who killed his mother
in my building, like 8 years ago, was taking zoloft. 
It wouldn't surprise me if he was. 
And the 18 year old who cut his mother's throat.... 
Don't know if he was taking zoloft, either.

It's morbid stuff to think about. 
It doesn't help the anxiety at all. 

Considered going to the hospital today. 
I might go soon. Coping the way I've been coping
barely gets me through the day. 

I can at least see when my son has checked his email account last. 
At least I know that he's still alive.
But I have to step back because he doesn't want my help. 
I should have handled this another way. 

This isn't a battle that I can keep fighting. 
It's not a battle I can win. 
I was on my son's side, though. 
Whether he sees that or not. 
He needs to be on his own side. 
Maybe he will be, one day. 
But that's the way it has to be. 
Whether I like it or not. 
None of this is sitting right with me. At all. 

It wasn't supposed to go this way.

Every day, I'm crawling out of my skin. 
I could have been there for him in other ways.

Seeing where I went wrong and not being able to fix it
is a special kind of hell. 

Been thinking that this is a lot like hell. 
Knowing that something must be done
but not being allowed to or able to do anything. 

And seeing that I played a role in this, too. 
A role I can't reverse. 

"If we want things to change, we have to change."
Can't help someone out of their hole
if I'm digging mine deeper. 

And I'd still help him, I'd still talk to him, 
if I knew that I could do something, I would do it. 
If I knew exactly what to do, I'd do it. 
If anything I could do would help. If he didn't hate me. 
Not only does he feel betrayed 
but felt like I wanted to control him. 
It wasn't about that. At all. 
It's not about pulling the strings. 

And yeah, it took me a long time to get help. 
I wasn't always one to think about my mental health. 
But I am learning my limits. 
Because this is more than I ever took before. 
The anxiety has been through the roof for months. 
Not just when I started writing about it. 
And people tell me to just distract myself. 
I was. Too distracted. Trying to date
and you all know how that went. 
Being interested in 'love interests'
doesn't seem to work out for me.
Now I feel like that was all for nothing.
Got my son resenting me.
I just wanted to have a few reasons to feel good.

But I have learned a lot from that.
And from this, too. 

Because there had to be another way to handle this. 
And I could have handled that better, too.
Could have ended it sooner
since it wasn't going to go anywhere. 

And I could have put my efforts elsewhere. 

But going to the police wasn't the answer.
I don't know what the right answer was.
There might not even be a 'right' answer.
It's a tight spot to be in. 

And I did get scared. There's that.
I got freaked out and I freaked out. 
And now I'm full of guilt and grieving. 
I feel like a f*cking traitor. 

I still love my son. I miss him. 
I'll probably always miss him. 
There were some good times we had together. 
Some memories we made.

Times I felt safe with him. 

He felt safe enough to tell me some things....
But I know that there are things he wasn't telling me....

And it's quite possible that I didn't ask the right questions.
At the right times and didn't have the right people to ask, either.

I broke the connection, but so did he.
We both took chances. 
He took a chance on telling me. 
And freaking me TF out.
I took a chance on trying to get help for him. 
And took a chance on telling what I know. 

And maybe it was wrong of me to do that.
In the ways that I did that. 

And I could have just kept our line of communication open. 
But maybe he might have felt like I knew too much... IDK.
So I had to tell someone. 
I told his father. But I had to do more than that. 
Just not in that way. 

And I want to fix things that I broke. 
But I don't f*cking know how.
I f*cked up. I know I did. 
But why he even went there, IDK.
I wouldn't have freaked out
if I wasn't freaked out.

"How likely is this?
The likelihood is so low...."
If that's the case, that's the case.
I hope that is the case. 
That all of it has just been talk. 

I wouldn't have thought anything, 
probably wouldn't have even believed it
had I not heard it from him. 

Feeling like I can't just be happy. 
Because I'm not happy about this situation. 
I'm not happy with how I handled things. 
I'm not particularly happy being alone. 
Not happy going through this. 
Not happy knowing what people are going to think about me. 
Not happy with being put through this. 
Like others aren't happy
so they don't want me to be happy. 
How could I be happy with this?

And I get that he's not happy with how things
have been going for him. 
And that I told what he told me. 

But things could have gotten better for him. 
Things could have gotten better between us. 

A mother can be a friend, yes, 
but a mother still has to be a mother. 

Feels like I'm not worth anything I ever wanted. Ever.
Like I'm paying for all the sh*tty things I ever did.
Or said... Or something. 
I must be paying for something. 

It doesn't feel good. 
But it's not supposed to feel good. 
Feels like I don't deserve to feel good. 

And people don't want me to feel good. 
And feeling good would be ignoring everything.
How can I just 'stop thinking about it'?
But I don't want to keep thinking about it.

And a friend told me to just cut ties
and move on by myself. 
Not to keep getting involved. 
That if the police and doctors can't do anything, 
that neither can I.

I feel like maybe there was something I could have done. 
From the start. Somewhere. Somehow. But I failed. 

And everyone always blames the mother. Always. 
And yes, there's a lot to blame me for. A lot. 
So this is my fault. Most of it.
I can see where I went wrong. I can see it now. 
And this is a special kind of hell. A special kind. 

And it's easy to blame the mother, but not the father. 
He has a role in this, too. 
And other people, too. 

But I know where I was at fault. 
And I can't do anything about it now.
I have a lot to forgive myself for. A lot. 
And it's hard to do that, looking back at myself. 

"Are you your past?" Someone asked me. 
No, but my past had an impact.
Whether I knew that or not.

My 'self-medicating' because I didn't want to take
any of those pills after my experiences with zoloft. 
How blind I was about that and what I wanted. 
And all the things that never f*cking mattered. 
And all the things that did matter. So much more.

And I am to blame for all of that.
All of that was up to me. 
I could have gotten help, or something. 
Instead of self-medicating. 
Instead of all that stupid sh*t. 
Instead of wanting what I wanted. 
And not paying more attention to what I had.
So yes, I am to blame for that. 
And for other things. 

But all of that had nothing to do with my son. 
It affected him in ways I couldn't see. 
And didn't know, but it wasn't about him. 

And I wish he could see that it was about me. 
And what I couldn't see and didn't know. 
And how I was feeling about myself. 
That it wasn't about him. I've loved him. 

And even saying that makes it seem like 
I'm just trying to excuse the mistakes I made. 
And not take responsibility for those mistakes. 
I know they are mistakes. 
I don't need to excuse myself or explain why I did anything. 
I obviously was immature. 
There's a lot I didn't see and didn't know.

And I f*cking hate myself for how and who I was.
And I know my son has memories of me
when I wasn't at my best. 
When I had moments that I'd gladly take back. 
Forgiving myself is so hard. 
And others forgiving me is hard for them, too. 

I know how hard it has been to forgive people in my life. 
Who still can't see some things. 
That are still about what they wanted and want. 
Who will always be about that. 
Because they can't see what is truly important. 

And I know he wanted a better life
and wanted better parents. 
Wanted what everyone else wanted. 
And he's allowed to want that. 
I'm allowed to have wanted what I wanted, too. 
But it never had to drive me. 
I never had to let it drive me. 
It only drove me because I thought
that having something would help me feel good. 
Was trying to fill some voids. 
Whether or not these voids were real or perceived, 
they felt real and felt deep. 
Felt that they needed to be filled. 

So I do understand. I get it. 
I see it on another level, now. 

But having life not turn out the way we wanted....
Isn't a reason to be selfish and stupid.
For not paying attention. 
And not picking up on things.

Just the things were so small at the time. 
So was he so I didn't think a lot about it. 
And I didn't know that there was anything to be looking for. 
Or that it might mean something. 

Or that I should get him to a psychiatrist earlier on. 
And when his father was given custody, 
it wasn't up to me anymore. 
I couldn't tell him anything. 
He wouldn't listen to me. 
And I wasn't allowed to make any decisions. 
And I had to accept that. 

It helps to talk about it and write about it. 
It's just not easy to think about this. 
And being stuck with my own thoughts....
And drowning in my feelings....
And drowning in my role in everything...

Some days I don't want to be here anymore. 
Like there's no purpose as to why I'm here.
Because I failed. I failed badly. 
And failing makes me feel like I shouldn't be here.
And forgiving myself has been so f*cking hard. 
For being stupid and for being selfish. 

And even for being a f*cking coward. 

Because although I 'did the right thing'
I did it because I got scared. 
And even then, I don't think it was the right thing. 
Not the way I did it. 

So now people can tell me to 'just relax'
and 'stop getting involved.'
I'm already involved. 
Because I'm his mother
and because he told me these things. 

It's easy for them to say the things they say. 
But they have no idea how this feels. 
And they can say they wouldn't be in my shoes. 
But they still don't know how this feels. 

So calling the distress line doesn't get me anywhere. 
The counselling is short term. 
It's not the same as therapy. 
And all these feelings keep coming up. 

Feelings that I don't know how to process
so that they don't keep coming up. 

Like feeling like I want to just die. 
And that there aren't any real reasons left
to keep going. 
To live like this?
To keep feeling like this?
For what?
To lie to myself? 

To just keep writing about the same things over and over?
And if I start writing about something else, 
people can think I don't care anymore?
I do care. I care more now than I used to. 
Because a long time ago, I was pretty cold. 
It wasn't that I didn't care or feel bad.
It was that I didn't know how to always be warm. 

And cutting ties and moving on 
makes it seem that I don't care anymore.
But it's not even my choice. 
I do care and kept trying to explain why I did what I did.
Thinking I was doing what was right.
Thinking that I would be forgiven.
But I wasn't.

There were a lot of things that were not my choice. 
I miss how things used to be. 
When things were decent. 

And it was their choice to see it differently
and to know why I was scared. 
And realize how this feels....
But they didn't see it that way. 
And I know how they saw it. 

And yes, I had a choice about that.
I could have just walked away, done nothing. 
And they had a choice. 
They could have answered the door 
When I went to check on my son. 

And I had a choice, to change the subject
when my son didn't want to talk about it.
And just wait for him to tell me when he wanted to, 
but when he did, it was getting bad. 
And yes, it scared me.
But I had to handle it carefully. 
I didn't because me emotions got in the way. 
I didn't think it through before I did it. 

And I didn't do it for the reasons people thought I did it. 
But I know what it looked like. 
I know that it felt like betrayal
and that is why I should have done it differently. 

And yes, I wanted to have a proper relationship with my son. 
I still don't know what his father told him about me. 
And I didn't always paint myself in the best light. 

And what is said about me is not my choice. 
Even if some of it is true. 
Even if I wasn't and aren't the way others want/wanted me to be. 
And this is a lesson I am learning, too. 
It's not all about me being accepted. 
The way that I was.... I am having a hard time accepting that. 
And forgiving myself for that. 

But I feel like people have made me out to be
worse than I was. 
But at the same time... I wasn't so great.
I was doing what I knew how. 
I was there when I could be there. 
When they decided to talk to me. 
When they decided to give me another chance. 

They didn't have to. They did anyway. 
And this is what they got. 
Me, being a f*cking coward. 
Me, not thinking things through. 
Me, retreating to try to heal on my own....
Me, waiting for a better time....
And other things that they didn't want. 
They wanted better from me. 

I wanted better, too.
Being treated like I matter, too.