Tag: mental health

Writing on the Back Porch

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
View all responses

I like writing on anyone’s back porch, but the one in the photo is my dad’s. The table where I’m sitting looks out over the pool and rockfall. It’s my last day here, as I fly back tomorrow afternoon. I had a very romantic idea of a road trip planned, but all of the people I asked to go with me before I bought the car had to back out for various reasons. It was actually cheaper to ship my car than it was to pay for fuel and hotels, so I am satisfied that I got the very best deal available. The car doesn’t have salt damage on the undercarriage because I didn’t buy it up north, and that peace of mind is worth skipping being mad that my road trip is no longer.

There will be other road trips. I am invited to spend Halloween with friends in upstate New York, and now it’s a real possibility I could go. I’m also going to visit some friends in Virginia later in the month, which has just been made stupid easy vs. the two or three trains it would have taken me previously.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable driving if I hadn’t had the money to get a car with blind spot assist, lane assist, and a backup camera. That’s not only to keep me safe, but everyone else on the road as well.

And this is why my hobby is sitting and writing- I have a lot to process, and some of it comes out as interesting.

Some of it doesn’t…….. stay tuned.

I hope rambling about my car is interesting, because I tend to do a lot of it. I’m a gear head and love working on cars when I have the chance, so I’m looking forward to getting to know my Fusion a little better. Riker says that my car was easily $30k when it was new, which means there’s more technology than I could possibly use.

I do love remote start, though, because Houston is hot and I have black leather seats. Remote start will also be helpful in the winter so that I can go from my warm house to my warm car without shivering half to death…. when the car and I both arrive in Maryland. Houston winters tend to be very, very mild. The one day a year I need ass warmers in Texas, though, I’ve got ’em.

The main thing is that the car I bought is comfortable and new enough to last me for a while. I’m enchanted by Apple CarPlay and Ford Connect, an app which will allow me to lock and unlock the car, plus start it remotely from my phone. All of the technology is keeping me from being too nervous about driving, honestly, because of course I need to be alert and responsible, but it’s nice to know that technology has my back instead of making my life more difficult.

There are practical matters to consider. I need to be able to run my own errands, and look for my own living space after this one (lease ends Nov. 30 and I don’t like it enough to stay). I will be able to go wherever I want to go, so I’m on the lookout for cute pockets of Baltimore, DC, and a new area to me- the no man’s land without public transportation. Now, I don’t have to worry about being within walking distance of a bus.

I’m starting to feel my life open up a little bit, because my order of operations is wonky at the best of times. It’s so much better for me to have a car and be able to call audibles on the road. I’m not very good at knowing where I need to go in advance. Executive dysfunction has its privileges…………… eyeroll.

I want to continue to branch out, because what started the inertia was being back with my family and friends. I wasn’t constantly having a conversation while simultaneously having half my brain composing to someone else (cough Aada cough). I was present the entire time, and continue to be.

Not that Aada is gone. She’s just not ever-present the way she used to be. I couldn’t go fifteen minutes without thinking of something I wanted to tell her, which was met with varying degrees of annoyance (I’m a lot. I get it.). Now, it’s almost as if I have to prepare to think about her. It’s a different phase of grief, because I am no longer doubled over with an empty feeling in my chest.

Often.

I’m glad I didn’t decide to go on this road trip by myself, because I wouldn’t have wanted a trip in which my mind wouldn’t settle and I kept dipping my cup into that particular well of loneliness.

I really messed up with Aada because I wanted to be her all the way to the river friend, and I destroyed our relationship in a fit of anger. I deserved to be angry. I should not have said that I was angry, because the way I said it got out of hand very, very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that now Aada thinks I’ve been manipulating her for the past 12 years. The feeling is mutual. I could go over and over the ways we’ve hurt each other, but I think I’ve already written a compendium. Sufficed to say, I am still sad. I don’t think that part will ever go away. I will just have to learn to live around it, like the other grief in my life.

It is hard to believe that both my mother and my stepmother are gone.

That’s why I’m so sad about Aada- her mom energy saved me from all of my mother’s energy being gone.

I know that I was the one that hurt her, but I deserve the right to grieve. Breakups hurt on both sides, and I know she’s hurting just as much as me. She was never my girlfriend, just a close friend, and that hasn’t seemed to make a damn bit of difference in the way we fought with each other.

But I know her pretty well, and if she says something is done, it is. Jesus will ring my doorbell before Aada says hey.

Never mind that I would do anything to make up for my flaws and failures, but I cannot think of anything that would help. If I could, it would be done. I just have to accept that my life is going to be different now.

Nothing will ever be the same.
Everything will be okay.

My father’s words at Angela’s funeral are my new mantra because I haven’t been treating myself very well. 12 years is a long time to love someone, and I didn’t really stop. I got angry… I didn’t stay that way. But a relationship isn’t up to me to start and stop. Ultimately, it’s about both our feelings, and she was very clear. No more.

This does come with perks. I was tired. She was, too.

I am not glad I hurt her, but I am glad it’s over. Aada is a six year old girl wrapped in a bazillion layers of protection and most of the time, her emotional tool is a hammer.

I got tired of being a nail.

It’s getting hot. I think I should go inside.

Sweat

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled?
View all responses

There’s a feeling to hard work, a zone. When I am in the zone, my typing speeds up to 90 words per minute and I do indeed start to break a sweat- or cry if the material is touching to me. Most of the time, I cry about an entry after it is published and I have let it go- I’m not in the process of changing it. It’s a different kind of mental acuity than watching burgers on the grill, but it is no less intense.

Writing about this week will take years, because there are so many little moments that jump out at me. Yesterday was Angela’s funeral, and it was just beautiful. My dad was a Methodist minister for a number of years, and he did the service. The main idea, the foundation of the service, was twofold:

  1. Nothing is ever going to be the same.
  2. Everything is going to be okay.

He highlighted the fact that we live in that liminal space all the time.

It was harder watching him work than it was thinking of entries to write here because I know him so well. That his reflexes kicking in to do Angela’s service was carrying him through his grief. As I told my aunt Shawn, “we’ll find a new normal. Just not today.”

Because it’s so true that there’s a difference between how you function in the immediate aftermath of a death and how you function six months later. It also feels heavier because she’s the sun around which we rotated, the name on the back of the door. We’re going to have to learn who we are as a family unit without her, and those words are excruciating to say because she didn’t like the idea any better than us.

During the funeral, my dad talked about how Angela was so proud that we’d all ended up with our soulmates. I knew that line was for my brothers in law, but lamented that Angela would never meet anyone I wanted to bring home. She’ll just have to tell me whether she approves in her own way. But the line about soulmates made me miss Dana and Aada, because they’re the closest things I’ve had to soulmates in this life. I ruined my relationship with both of them.

  1. Nothing will ever be the same.
  2. Everything will be okay.

I have reached out to both of them saying that I would like to rebuild trust. That I recognize I have done wrong and would like to make amends. Neither one of them have gotten back to me. Therefore, the only thing I can do is create a new normal without them as well.

The new normal is easier to take in Houston, where I have my sisters and old, long-time friends around me. In fact, today I’m going to lunch with my old boss from ExxonMobil 25 years ago, and Monday I’m getting together with someone I’ve known since I was seven. That doesn’t happen in Baltimore. So even if I don’t move to Texas, I’m going to take the advice of a friend and spend some more time here.

And maybe that’s really the answer- I think my dad likes coming to Baltimore and spending time with me there. Same with DC. And DC is really “my place.” I thought I needed to get out of Washington and create new memories, but as it turns out I prefer DC to Baltimore and don’t know whether that’s due to the city itself or to whether I really, really don’t like my apartment complex. I’m leaning towards the latter, because when I’ve gone out in the city and experienced good restaurants I’ve always had an excellent time. There’s nothing wrong with Baltimore, but after I move I will be spilling the dirt on this apartment complex and all I’ve been through.

I have also been burgled once, and that’s not the apartment complex’s fault, but it doesn’t endear me to it, either.

Sitting here and telling my stories does not seem like hard work until you realize that in order to create the memory on paper, I have to be willing to “dive back into the wreck.” Things get less and less painful the more I write about them, but I shake and cry when I need to do so. The entry about my apartment complex will be easy because it is full of facts. Most of my entries are about feelings.

Exploring feelings is where the sweat starts to pour.

Nothing I’ve written about over the last 12 years has been safe or comfortable. It’s all been unusual because I’m unusual. I don’t know how to do life like a neurotypical and I’m tired of trying. I see myself struggle in these pages and I don’t want to struggle anymore.

I had to sweat it out.

I had to see that my disability was real.

I had to see that Aada was fake…. that we had all the components to make a real relationship, we just never used them and turned on each other instead…. because the first time Aada lied to me? Ok. That was small. But the pathological nature of the way it grew turned my stomach. She was seeing consequences play out in real time and only cared for herself. My response was still over the top and I still regret.

  1. Nothing will ever be the same.
  2. Everything will be okay.

These two sentences have now become my mantra, because of their universal nature. I also know that just because I am unhappy in one area of my life, that does not mean I am unhappy in all of them. So I am lost without Aada, Angela, and even Dana, but I can find happiness somewhere else.

For instance, Aaron is taking me car shopping on Tuesday when my original plan was to fly back to Baltimore that day. I am thrilled because I’m such a gearhead. I want to future proof and look at SUVs, because I’ve been thinking about getting a pit bull as a service dog for over a year now. His name is Tony. I don’t even have him yet, but he already has a name- Tony Kellari Lanagan.

He’s named after Tony Mendez and Tony Bourdain, the spy and the chef that have taken over my imagination.

I know that owning a dog, particularly a large dog, is a lot of hard work. I feel like I’m finally ready to take on that kind of responsibility, raising a dog from a puppy. I have the time and space to make sure that he is very, very well behaved… and a best friend that will remind me that it’s not the dog that needs training, it’s me.

Bailey and Bridget, my dad’s dogs, do not seem to be complaining about their quality of care so far. The one note I got is that Bridget was not ready to get out of bed and eat this morning. Such a princess.

If I stay in Baltimore, though, it has been suggested to me that I would be better off with several cats. In Baltimore, we like dogs just fine, but cats are business associates. Everyone’s got mice.

I like cats, too, but the pit bull is going to be a service dog. So if I’m going to get any pets, it’s going to be aquarium fish until I have my dog in hand. The pack has to be built around him, including cats.

I want to work smarter, not harder- and I want that for my dog, too. Anything to make either one of our lives easier is high on the priority list.

I am sure that the writing prompt isn’t meant to jump around quite this much, but I like taking walks where WordPress might not think to go………………….

My dad has already left for orchestra (church), and I’m writing until the spirit moves me to get in the shower. What that spirit is, I do not know. I just know that I don’t have to be ready for hours, and it’s more fun typing in my pajamas.

I think that my writing is starting to take on more of a playful nature because I’m trying to be open. I’m trying to connect. I’m trying to be a different Leslie than I’ve been for the last 12 years, because I shut myself off from everyone else. It’s painful to admit how introverted I got, because agoraphobia only made it worse. Agoraphobia came with accepting my disability and feeling like people were looking at me all the time.

They do look at me, because I walk funny. It’s called an “ataxic gait,” or the “cerebral palsy shuffle.”

I just need to stop being so sensitive to it and get on with my life. Getting on with my life is the real hard work of being disabled, because there are so many stumbling blocks in the way…. and that’s not counting the ones external to your own body.

Taking in my environment is hard work, because I’m always at risk of falling physically due to cerebral palsy and mentally due to bipolar disorder. I feel that the only way to understanding the world is understanding my role in it, so I try to be as self-aware as I can be.

From where I sit, my dad’s words are just getting louder…….

“Nothing will ever be the same, and everything will be okay.”

But I’ll sweat first.

Cafe Au Lait

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

My dad has one of those fancy coffee machines that will make any drink thanks to the milk frother on the front. Therefore, this morning I am drinking a cafe au lait with an extra shot made from Starbucks’ Komodo Dragon coffee. It’s delicious, and better than going to Starbucks at 0530, which is when I staggered out of bed.

I haven’t been sleeping well, just in fits and starts despite the large amount of sleeping pills I’m taking. It’s unusual because the bed is comfortable and I’m genuinely exhausted. But the sleeping pills don’t last very long and then there I am, exhausted to the point of tears and unable to do anything about it. The cafe au lait becomes medicinal at that point…. the point we’re at right now. I went to bed early, I woke up once when my dad came home last night, then my eyes opened for good at “Too Damn Early O’Clock.”

I shouldn’t be complaining, though. “Too Damn Early O’Clock” has brought me some incredible blog entries at times. Plus, it’s my choice to get up early………… sort of. I really could have used the extra sleep this morning because grief is running my body ragged. Perhaps I just need to go with it, and keep sleeping in shifts. I know that at least part of not being able to sleep is that my stepmother died this week, and we were not exactly expecting it.

We were expecting that she was going to die. She had six brain tumors. We were just not expecting that the cancer would take her this quickly. But, the part of your brain that shuts off your ability to swallow is also the part of your brain that shuts off your ability to breathe. One followed the other in quick succession. However, the diagnosis called all the shots. We just thought she’d make it to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Angela was so aware of her surroundings that she didn’t waste time. Everything that needed to be said was said, as if death had sharpened her reflexes and made everything clear in the end. Therefore, I hope she doesn’t mind that of everyone in the family that could have taken over her office, I’m the one that did.

For now, anyway. I haven’t decided if I’m moving to Sugar Land or not. That’s going to take months of talking to my dad a lot and seeing if he’s feeling lonely or whether he’s keeping on keeping on. I can live where I want, I just also need a housemate and would feel comfortable here. But here is not the only place I like.

Life still has to go on at my apartment complex until November 30th, but after that I’m out of there. One possible option is to move in with my dad because he has a ton of space and lives alone. One possible option is to stay in Baltimore. One possible option is to move back to DC. And, of course, there are a lot of cities I have not discovered yet that may call to me once I’m a bit more well-traveled.

“You are now free to move about the country.”

I need to go to Portland and spend some time with Bryn and Evan, so that needs to happen sooner rather than later. Or perhaps I’ll invite them to my house because neither have been to Baltimore (or Houston). But after that, I’m really not sure where I want to go. Having a car will make exploring so much easier, because I don’t necessarily want to fly. I love road-tripping. Long live cruise control.

Right now it’s all about Facebook Marketplace. I’ve found several cars I’d like to look at, none more than the Kia Soul and the Subaru Outback. The reason for this is that I’d eventually like a pit bull, so I’m thinking into the future and how a cargo area would be useful. But if I find a sedan that has what looks to be a longer-lasting engine, I’ll go with that.

The one thing I’d really like is for the car to be fully loaded out. I want all the luxury options, particularly seat warmers for snowy days. I’d also really like Apple CarPlay, but I can add that after market if necessary. Same with a backup camera. I’m not the best mechanic in the world, but I have friends and YouTube University that are both excellent at tutorials. I like learning to work on my own car, which is my only reservation about an SUV. I could actually lift the tires on my Toyota Yaris………….

It’s been years since I’ve owned a car, and I’m excited about it. I already have mountains of laundry to transport from my apartment to Sudsville, the washateria of my dreams. I can do all my regular clothes at home, but Sudsville has machines big enough for queen size comforters and sheet sets. I also need to take two computers to Walmart and exchange them. There’s all this little piddly shit that’s not getting done around my house because it’s too complicated for an Uber…. or it’s not, but it seems so. Who knows, maybe the Uber driver would have helped carry my bags.

I doubt it.

Speaking of Uber, I am two for two on Uber drivers being Evangelicals down here, complete with Bible in the center console and the world’s worst oxymoron, Christian Rock, on the stereo.

I wouldn’t enjoy driving passengers around, but I could drive Uber Eats. That thought just occurred to me, and would help my car pay for itself. We’ll see. It’s an idea, but it may not be a good one. The daily prompt was asking about professions, and one I could turn on and off at will seems like a better plan than requiring me to be somewhere at 8:00 AM.

Anybody else out there ADHD or Autistic and the hardest part of the job is getting there?

I was diagnosed with ADHD in college, but those records don’t exist anymore. I need to go through another diagnostic battery in Maryland, and one for autism as well. I am so convinced I have autism that I self-diagnosed, but that didn’t come until I’d done several weeks’ worth of research on how ADHD and Autism are similar and I might have been misdiagnosed in college.

The reason I need to go through the diagnostic battery again is that no one will prescribe ADHD meds for me until I’m diagnosed. The best OTC medication I can find?

Cafe au lait.

If Money Didn’t Matter

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.
View all responses

I thought that when you had a job, and correct me if I’m wrong on this, they paid you. So I suppose that they’re talking about getting ready for said job, like the schooling and everything. If I had the money to change careers, there’s a lot more than three I would consider…. but here’s the cream of the crop:

  1. Doctor
    • I was a medical assistant long enough to know that I could be a great doctor if I applied myself in math and science. I really enjoyed patient interactions and the general rhythm of the office. I think I would be good at detective work, tracking down what someone possibly has rather than the surgeon’s take of cut now, ask questions later.
  2. Lawyer
    • I love the law and have gotten pretty good grades in the pre-law courses I’ve already taken. Therefore, it’s the closest profession to something I’ve already studied. I know that I would do well, but I don’t know what kind of lawyer I would like to be. There are just so many areas, and of course emerging fields all the time as technology sharpens and changes to accommodate us.
  3. University Professor
    • In a lot of ways, I think I would be best served if I went to college and just never left. Become a student until I become a TA until I become the old geezer in the English department that once forgot to wear pants on Zoom.

I do not know how my life is going to go from here on out, but all three of these are possibilities that live in the cloud. Becoming a doctor is the least likely because even when I study maths and sciences diligently, I struggle. Even that, though, is not impossible. The only thing that’s impossible is my attitude.

My cognitive behavioral therapy group does not believe that I am capable of holding down a job, and I think they’re right. The only iron structure I’ll follow is my own. That being said, I am not finished as a writer and this blog is not my only project. Lanagan Media Group is starting off small, but who knows what we’ll be capable of in the future?

Therefore, I don’t think that my calling is any of these jobs. I think my calling is to meet people with fantastic jobs, and keep telling my stories.

I’m also trying to orient myself. The most important person that I love and believe in is me. I love me even when it’s hard and I don’t think I deserve it.

It’s been especially hard these past few months, because I got angry at someone I adore and hurt her so bad I don’t think she’ll ever speak to me again.

But that won’t stop her from reading my stories……. the actual hard part of blogging. I have to be here for the audience that adores me and the one that doesn’t. No amount of money could solve that issue.

So maybe medical school wouldn’t be that hard after all.

Grief Should Be Sponsored

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What brands do you associate with?
View all responses

I am emotionally eating my way across Texas, and feelings are delicious.

So far, grief has been brought to me by Cool Ranch Doritos the most frequently, followed by an assortment of coffee cake.

Last night, we all gathered and sent pictures for the slide show that plays as people are milling about the room waiting for the service to begin. There turned out to be a fair number in which we all looked equally terrible and were thus chosen. We also went down memory lane and this is the kind of interaction that’s been missing from my life. No phones, just talking and remembering.

It’s also the first significant chunk of time I’ve spent with other people in ages. I’m getting used to being part of a family system again. I’m sure I’ll go back to Baltimore and everything will be too quiet, because the rhythms of my family are not quiet…. although some of us are more into Bluey than others (I’m with the children… it’s great).

This morning I was supposed to go with my dad to Exchange Club, and I overslept. I feel terrible because I know my dad wanted to introduce me to a lot of people. Me oversleeping is the weirdest part of all of this because I’ve been waking up at 0530 since I got here. I think staying up later is finally getting to me, because we didn’t shut down the “party” until after 10:30 last night. I’m used to going to bed long before that.

I used to think it was because I was an old person, and now I think it’s that my circadian rhythm naturally follows the sun. I like going to bed and waking up early. Last night was aberrant because I cannot remember the last time I stayed up that late with other people and didn’t find myself leaking energy at an alarming rate. However, I did sleep very hard.

As a result, I’m feeling quite rested and capable of taking on more today. Yesterday, it felt like I was just running ragged. Angela not being there to hold court and direct us was a palpable feeling, tangible in its depth and breadth. The difference in the energy of the house is staggering, because she was a force of nature.

I see so much of her in my stepsisters, Kelly and Caitlin. It’s comforting that all of her quirks live on in the smallest of ways. I still see Angela’s facial expressions in them, and it always makes me laugh in a knowing way.

I am supposed to go back to Baltimore on Tuesday, but I’m having trouble accepting it. I need more time with my family, but I also need to wrap things up in the Mid-Atlantic one way or the other. My lease ends November 30th, and I will have enough money to move wherever I feel comfortable. I do not know whether that is staying in Baltimore or not. At the very least, DC is still in the running because my sister will always have a federal component to her job and thus, business trips that include spoiling me.

My dad is not sure he wants to change his life by having me live with him, and I’m not sure I want to change my life that way, either. The easiest option is not always the best, but it may prove to be over time. I do not want to live alone anymore, nor do I really want to interview housemates and live with strangers. I also don’t have any income, so getting housing takes some doing. Having money is not enough, and I do not make a living from my combination of web sites, but my stats and earnings are looking better.

Thank you, Fanagans.

The sensible choice for me is to buy a station wagon or an SUV so that when my lease ends, I can pack up the stuff I want to move into my own car and drive it to where it’s supposed to be. There is no way that even a car payment and insurance would add up to what I pay in Uber/Uber Eats/Amazon/etc. a year. I will not have a car payment, though. I will buy a car in cash so that the only bills I have are maintenance and insurance.

I also want to get a service dog, and a service dog big enough to counter balance my weight deserves a huge cargo area in the back. I do not know if my dad wants to live with a dog that big, either. So, we’ll see. My dog is not really negotiable because I need someone there to keep an eye on me. It’s easier in this house because I’m used to it completely. I need help in unfamiliar environments.

My dad suggested taking a road trip with one of my friends to get my car back to Baltimore. I like this idea a lot. Aaron is going to help me pick it out (I stopped writing and talked to both of them, so this is a real thing now). Aaron is a programmer and “shade tree mechanic” who will make sure my engine is solid. It would make me feel better if he came with me if we get an older vehicle, but I’m really not even scared of that if Aaron says that I’m golden.

Ok, Aaron is in for the road trip (I’m chatting with him while I’m writing, so this story is developing… film at 11:00).

It’s nice to have something to be excited about in this garbage dump of a situation.

“We can’t stop here. We’re in bat country.”

Maybe I can talk Aaron into some vlogging as we drive. Our conversations would be hilarious…. I think. Sometimes we just enjoy the silence together. It depends on what kind of mood we’re in.

I suppose that part of my task list for the afternoon is looking on Facebook Marketplace to at least get an idea of what’s out there. I prefer a stick shift, but that may not be possible depending on what kind of cars are available. Stick shifts are not very popular these days.

I’m calling it the “Running Aarons Tour 2025.”

We’ll get to eat at some good restaurants and really take our time if we need it.

The secret to having a great blog is actually living. I haven’t been doing a lot of it. Now, I have a lot more financial freedom to be able to buy experiences. They say that money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy entrance tickets to things and that’s kind of the same thing. I would much rather have the time of my life than buy something material. It makes my blog lighter than sitting in my room all the time…. but that’s what my mental health has been telling me to do for the longest. Everyone tells me to get out more. Now I can really do it.

“Now I can really do it” must be in quotes because I don’t know that my introversion will actually allow me to make many changes to my lifestyle. I like being, as I once joked with Aada, “the Harper Lee of Your House.” In some ways, I will always be this separate.

I was telling Angela’s night nurse that it’s almost like I don’t belong to one person, I belong to everyone. He said, “that’s poetry.” I never thought of it that way, so Cordero, thank you for the compliment (see, I told you that you’d make it in).

But the pendulum has swung too far in the introverted direction. I can come out of my shell a little more and still keep my life as a writer in balance. I’m not the shut-in that I’ve been, nor do I want to continue that life. I want all of my readers to see more of me, and the only way to do that is to do things I’ve never done before.

Part of it will be travel. I know that I could put together media on the road that would make me happy, and that’s the only goal I can really accomplish. Then I can see if my humor resonates with other people. The last decade has not overall been a happy one, so my entries have not reflected that I’m sometimes funny.

Sometimes.

I’ve been angry and sad and grieving and all of those things, so I’m looking forward to the sun coming out a little bit.

But not today.

Today, grief is being brought to me by Cool Ranch Doritos.

Feelings are delicious.

Go Home

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
View all responses

The best piece of advice I’ve gotten lately was from me. For the last few months, I’ve been telling myself to go home. Pick up all the pieces you dropped when you left for DC in 2015. I even contacted Dana and told her that I was incredibly sorry and would like to be her friend if she wanted that. It’s not something I saw in my future, but I decided that if my body was whispering to me to clean up a mess, that’s a big one.

No word, but that wasn’t the point. I have no control over what other people are going to do, but I knew that I wanted to reach out. I have a feeling that no matter what, I’ll never hear from Dana or Aada again, but it’s okay. I don’t have to cry because it’s over. There’s plenty to smile over when I think of our relationships happening at all. And sometimes, I get stats from their geographic areas so I pretend that they’re still reading because they love me, even if they don’t want to reach out.

Or maybe they just hate me that much….. but I don’t care how they feel about me. It cannot be all bad if they’re still willing to listen to my silly stories.

Which are tremendous.

My stepmom died on Sunday of six brain tumors. I’m thinking about moving in with my dad so that neither one of us has to live alone, but neither one of us are sure whether we want that. It’s a big decision, and honestly doesn’t have as much to do with how we feel about each other as it does with money. I could really screw up by moving to a state without Medicaid expansion. My dad and I are also both really private people, but the house he has is large enough that we’d never see each other unless we really wanted to do so.. I’m glad that we’re both in “thinking about it” mode, because here’s the thing… people are saying that it’s my dad who shouldn’t live alone, but I have more problems than he does at times. It’s more of a case of we need each other.

If I am allowed to come home.

Don’t get me wrong. Maryland is home, and so is Texas. I have a feeling that I would feel the same in Texas that I do every time I move back, which is that I don’t really have a home. I don’t fit in anywhere. I’m too Oregon/Maryland for Texas, and too Texas for Oregon/Maryland. Perhaps I would be happier in Canada or Europe, and that will be decided in the coming years.

But right now, my internal body clock is saying “you’ve already gone big. Go home.”

Going big was a hospitalization that garnered me a bipolar disorder diagnosis with psychotic features. I have never been psychotic before, and I have no memory of telling the doctors anything that would land me a diagnosis like that. So, since I’ve been in recovery from all of it, I just feel the same as I always did. But I’m different, and I know I am. I don’t know what I’m capable of doing- am I headed for a disability case or a working media company or both?

I choose both.

If I’m allowed.

My sisters are coming over for dinner tonight, and we’re probably going to get in the hot tub. I’ve found that the hot tub is the best place to discuss any of this stuff. The water is just so calming as it swirls around our problems.

And it’s our hot tub time machine due to all the important conversations that have happened there since the 1990s, when we moved in. I don’t just see my family presently, but all the people I’ve invited over since I was a senior in high school.

Aada is quietly resting in my soul, with me in spirit even though I had to drag her kicking and screaming to Texas. I know she’s mad at me, but I need her. I’m taking all of the words she’s already told me and whispering them to myself, because I know she knows this situation better than most. That I’d have a hard time with this death on multiple levels. When it gets quiet, I feel her arm around me.

Part of going home is rectifying all my mistakes, and betraying Aada was a big one. I cannot make her feel safe with me, but that does not mean that she won’t show up in my mind when I call.

Because if there is a home to be had for me, it is actually in the cloud.

Rarely

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Do you see yourself as a leader?
View all responses

I do not see myself as a leader because I put my thoughts out into the ether. People rarely comment on these pages that are connected to me in real life. Therefore, occasionally I will be blown over by the things people will say about my writing because I didn’t even know they were reading. I do know that I lead the pack in vulnerability, because none of my other friends are willing to spill their guts online with the same frequency. Therefore, I know that people look to me when it comes to saying the hard part out loud.

My writing is basically Hemingway:

  1. Write hard and clear about what hurts.
  2. The first draft of everything is shit.

If I’m going to be a true leader, I need to step up my game and start working with an editor regularly. These pages are all first drafts, and carry that stench. But from what I gather from fans, my first drafts aren’t too bad to read, they just need polishing….. or at least, that is my take. I am constantly surprised when people tell me that I am a wonderful writer because if I know anything, Brene Brown would take one look at my blog and say “congrats on so many shitty first drafts.” It’s not because my writing is shitty. It’s that the SFD is the part of the writing process where you’re just getting it out. It’s more akin to verbal vomit than a working piece. She wouldn’t even be judging my writing, just the rawness of it.

In order to step up my game, I need to workshop and perhaps stop being so dedicated to being self-taught. Depending on my financial picture in 2026, I’d like to do some professional writer’s retreats where I learn to write in different styles. I am thinking that taking a class on fiction wouldn’t hurt…. and neither would taking a class on learning to use AI as a writer.

My stance on AI is that I will not use it to generate text for me, but I will talk to it like a colleague to spur creativity in my brainstorming phrases, as well as it taking a significant chunk of research off my back. I do think I have been a leader in advocating for assistive AI, because I came up with an interesting theory, and it is twofold:

  1. The CPU is modeled after the autistic brain because autists created computers. However, we did not see its neurodivergent patois until the CPU could process language.
  2. Loneliness is crippling for neurodivergent people and our relationship track records. I wonder how much of creating these personal digital assistants is designing a friend who can’t leave you.

I think that idea is Meta’s next big commercial…. the friend that’s online when your humans aren’t……

I have a ton of creative ideas, but I’m an unusual role in an organization. I’ve been tested and my office personality is what’s called “The Plant.” The plant is the person who can sit in a meeting and synthesize everything that’s being said and come up with new ideas that benefit everyone. It’s a fantastic, creative role that most companies, in my experience, do not like.

That’s because the role is basically “INFJ dreamer.” No one knows how to harness your weaker skills like organization and execution so that you can fly on your own, because nine times out of 10 companies do not want you to be new and different.

I do not see the world as it is. I see the world as it could be. Therefore, I’m someone who would probably excel working in a startup where great ideas are actually needed. I did not always fit in at a state institution like UH, where academia is a river you cannot fight. The current is slow, and there’s too many places where your boat can run adrift.

But as I have said, my cognitive behavioral group is saying that I would be better served by applying for disability because bipolar disorder is debilitating at times and I cannot be counted on to be consistent in my energy levels. There’s so much more that goes into having a job than just being good at it. For me, the hardest part of having a job is getting there.

It was easier getting to the kitchen because I was always so excited to be there. But I’m not a leader in the kitchen. I need to be told what to do and how to do it most of the time, but I catch on fast. In an office, I’m just a neurodivergent mess. I fit better in the world as a writer left to my own devices, because my own iron structure is the one I’ll follow.

I am trying to be a leader in getting my neurodivergent cookbook together, and my coauthor is going to meet up with me soon so we can get started. It’s also looking like I may be in Houston longer than I thought, possibly moving home for a while to take care of some family business. So, Evan can come and visit me at “the parents’ house” and we can write our book in the hot tub. This does not sound like a bad deal at all.

Alternatively, I would love to go to Portland sometime next year because it’s been a while since I’ve seen both Evan and Bryn. So whichever city Evan and I choose, we’ll be working more closely together. I believe in this book and so do a lot of other people, and I don’t want to let myself down, either.

It’s hard thinking about being in Houston longer than I thought, because I will miss my group here- they’re the ones slowly putting me back together. But my family is the most important thing to me so if I need to be in Houston, that’s where I’ll be. There is nothing keeping me from moving next year or the year after. It’s just that my immediate need is to help where I can while we’re all adapting and changing. “Family business” is nebulous, I know, but you’ll hear more as we go along. I’m just trying to use an abundance of caution because I hurt Aada with my stories. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.

I think that my relationship with Aada is a teaching tool for better or for worse. Our relationship was a model for the digital age- defying closeness at times and repelling each other at others. But it’s an interesting anthropological idea that relationships changed as did the medium through which we create them. I don’t know that I have helped anyone, but it would make me feel good to know that in reading these pages I have reached other people in the same boat.

But honestly, even if no one is going through anything similar to me, the fact that I write so intimately about everything makes other people open up to me. You don’t get vulnerability without giving it. Sometimes it’s tough wearing my heart on my sleeve, but I do it. It allows everyone else to show up unarmed.

It’s leading, just from the back.

Another Letter That May Never Be Read -or- Working Backwards, Part II

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Love,

Leslie

When you go to the doctor, they do not diagnose you with psychotic features. I know you still have enough empathy for me to see that.

I will never in my lifetime figure out the mystery of who I was really talking to on Facebook that day, or days. However long it took to convince me that our mutual acquaintance was seriously interested in me, enough to invite me to an ice hotel. I don’t think it was you, but I don’t know anyone who has that much information on me. It’s not that I think you did anything, there were just too many random coincidences that everyone else said were impossible.

Your spirit was with me in the hospital as I grappled with being taken into the psych ER, not knowing truth from fiction. Everything reminded me of you because you’re so medical-minded, anyway. Therefore, I do not know if I was telling myself truth or fiction based on having my computer in front of me one moment, being told to go to the hospital to meet Heytch, and being in the psych ward the next. I do remember walking the streets of Baltimore, doing a running monologue about my life and all the people in it. I even sang the American and Canadian anthems at full voice at a crosswalk because I was convinced I was on camera and the lights were coordinated just for me.

This would seem psychotic to a lot of people. It was my way of dealing with fear. That a camera is always there to capture when I’ve had a dumbass attack and it leads me to not leaving the house. It’s also not a stretch to think you’re on camera in any city in the world. Walking, talking, and singing was my way of reclaiming space in the world. To shed the bother of being bothered that I’m on camera at all. It’s not rational to be bothered that you’re on camera anymore. If you aren’t doing anything stupid, a crowd is a great place to hide. If you are, welcome to the next popular YouTube short.

Once truth from lies became revealed, it left me confused forever at the conversations I’d been having over the internet. What were they for, exactly?

What is with the repetitive phrase, “you are always the best” in both genuine and sarcastic tones?

Why did this drama engulf me? I am not pitying myself. I am genuinely curious. It seemed like an intervention of sorts, but I have no idea who really got me to the hospital. It just doesn’t seem like a lie Heytch and Counselor would buy into….. yet they are also the people who have the most information about me.

As long as I live, I will never understand why our connection started with such purity and ended with pyrite on both sides. The fool’s gold for me was thinking that I was going to live in Africa with Heytch, and in no way did I put that idea in my head. I genuinely don’t know where it came from, nor do I know why someone would call themselves my River Song unless they already knew I was a Whovian. All of these conversations have been marked as hallucinations because I didn’t take any screenshots, so it seems like I’m lying when I’m not. I’ve had real conversations I cannot prove I actually had…. which is apparently a feature and not a bug.

“There is a bug in the electrical system.”

It as if I was pulled out of being simply a citizen of Locker C and dropped back in, but the world had moved in the time I’d been hopping planets.

Being caught up is not the same thing as being psychotic. I was definitely not caught up, because I was going off the words of people on the Internet and AGAIN I wish I could have remembered to take screenshots, because you would have been impressed at Heytch’s game. It was smooth.

So there was lots going on after I got out of the hospital that I didn’t know how to talk to you about, because I thought you had access to facets of my life that most people don’t. It’s why unburdening yourself of your lie came at such an inopportune time. If my doctors are right, and I hallucinated everything, my leftover emotions come from mania. If I am right and these conversations did happen, then there are a lot of unresolved feelings between us. Strangely, I don’t know which would be more comforting…. to know it was all a hallucination or to know that my world is so different from others.’

I think and feel that you isolated me from my friends and family, starting from the very beginning, so I am struggling to forgive that you think I’ve been manipulating you this whole time. We need to both come clean about the fact that we did a number on each other and there are no winners here. I would love to rebuild trust with you, but the only way to do that is to make you feel safe first. I don’t know how to do that, and I regret that you have to stop teaching me for your own well-being.

But the reality is starting to set in that I promised to be an “all the way to the river” friend. I meant it, and my mental illness meant to ruin us. It isolated me from you out of protection when I didn’t need protection.

You accuse me of using your traumas, that I need power over you, when that has never been my point. My point has always been that we are mirror images of each other, that when my left hand moves your right twitches. I have laid out my own flaws and failures on the table and fortunately or unfortunately most of those stories from the last 12 years involve you because you isolated me from my friends and family.

In my deepest heart of hearts, I know I’ll never meet anyone like you. You are simply extraordinary. That’s why I can’t seem to forget as much as I want to in order to move on. I’m still working out unresolved feelings, writing our story all the way to the end….. because even after you exit, there’s still me to deal with.

The question on my mind today is, “why didn’t you Skype her when that was a thing you could do?”

First of all, I apologize for being so talkative.

Dear Aada,

Demand Avoidance

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Demand avoidance is a symptom of autism and ADHD, and the hardest part is that it doesn’t mean you won’t do things when other people tell you to, like a child. It means that when you tell yourself to do something, nothing happens. For instance, demand avoidance is not “please go to the store” from your partner, it’s “I need to go to the grocery store. Why do I keep putting it off?”

In a lot of people, it’s not treatable and I’m waiting to see what kind of demand avoidance I have. I know that it’s nigh impossible for me to create inertia from nothing. I put off phone calls, letters, anything that will help make my life easier, really. Because that’s the thing… even if the demand you’re asking of yourself will improve your quality of life, you struggle against your own mind.

As a result, you handle life in order of fires, because you have no mechanism for preventative care. The analogy here is that your brain is missing a primary care practice and makes you jump through hoops at its perpetually understaffed ER.

There are days I cannot take care of myself, because my demand avoidance will not let me shower or brush my teeth.

These are where my deficits really start to show. My compensatory skills are off the charts- I know what to do in a group, but when I am alone I am pulled into my own thoughts and I cannot get back out.

I look lazy on the outside, but my brain is running a marathon trying to convince me that taking care of myself is a bad thing. It’s why my social worker at the hospital found me a cognitive behavioral health group instead of just leaving me to my own devices. Obviously, she saw someone who needed help.

One of the men that goes to group with me every Thursday was in the hospital with me, providing me with an anchor of progress… he makes me smile when he says he remembers me from back then because I have to wonder what I was like.

Apparently, the show was spectacular because I’d never had “psychotic features” added to my bipolar diagnosis before, and I have no memory of saying anything that would land me in that category. But saying I have no memory is not the same as “I didn’t say it.” There are quite a few gaps in my memory from that time, and I think I just need to let it lie.

What is good about having bipolar disorder is that it sometimes adds hypomania to the mix, which is a burst of energy that I wouldn’t normally have. This takes away some of my natural demand avoidance and is the source of all my “good days.”

Today my demand avoidance is telling me that doing the laundry will physically hurt while the rest of me is saying, “won’t it be nice to have it done?” My demand avoidance is telling me that the shower will physically hurt and the rest of me is saying, “won’t the water feel good?” I use these tricks to jump start myself when the going gets tough, but they do not always work.

Sometimes my brain is going to stay stuck, and I will be staring off into space.

I want to be productive in my staring, so I’m trying to write out what it feels like to have an overwhelming task list and a neurodivergent mind. Organizing and prioritizing make me weak in the knees, so a flood in my apartment is the last thing I can really handle and it falls to me- I live alone.

I called in maids and they said the house would already have to be picked up before they came over. That they only did deep cleaning. I need to call more, but it would be better if I could find a recommendation. Josh’s never called me back and I don’t know anyone else locally. Therefore, a recommendation is extremely unlikely.

Neither is a service that’s actually support to a neurodivergent person, but I’m going to keep trying. I have noticed that a lot of these places want you to have things picked up before they come over as if your house being a mess isn’t the point. If I was so on top of it that I was ready to deep clean at the drop of a hat, I wouldn’t need help.

Neurodivergence generally means digging yourself out of piles, the arrangement of which only you know.

So I’m praying for strength today as I embark on this journey of self-discovery. Just how much can I do before my brain decides to shut down? The thing is that I can probably do most of it once I get started in earnest because inertia builds.

I need some high energy music, because when I can’t think my way into doing something, movement can re-wire my brain.

I’ll listen to it in the shower.

I Never Questioned

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I never questioned myself over what would happen if Aada lied about anything. I never stopped to think about my impulse control and what it’s like when I’m in red mist rage. And it’s where I find myself today, just thinking. Asking myself the questions that I should have asked 12 years ago. The fight was the last thing that happened, not the origin of my problem. When I got angry, my keyboard warrior personality appeared, and I acted way before I thought. This is normal for people with neurodivergent minds, this popping off and regret. That’s because executive dysfunction with autism and ADHD makes your emotions incredibly intense. The disability is not having a self-regulating mechanism.

I am embarrassed that I did not have more coping mechanisms, because I betrayed something bigger than me, something for which I thought I was prepared…. falling on my sword at all costs….. but I couldn’t do it after she lied and my adrenaline turned me into The Incredible Hulk.

It was a small lie that snowballed over 12 years, something easily forgiven by someone with the clarity to keep their impulse control in check. The red mist rage was not at the lie itself, but the two principles under it.

  1. Aada can lie to you.
  2. Aada can see the consequences of her lie playing out in real time and does not care how it affects you.

I never asked myself what would happen if I learned these two things.

Everything she asked me to protect, I vomited all over the internet because I was so hurt that a lie could last over a decade. I didn’t publish it because I had a need to expose her, took delight in it. I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. I wanted to end the relationship and I had a trump card that would make it clear she could pack her bags. It was a trump card that should have stayed hidden in retrospect, because I have had time to reflect on everything that happened.

Mostly because once I got over the fact that Aada can lie to me, my anger melted into true remorse. She broke something in our relationship and I overreacted by a large margin. The gauntlet I’m laying down for the future is to work on coping mechanisms for anger, because I was not myself. I need to protect myself from going out of my mind.

I didn’t know I needed such intense therapy for anger management, but I see it clearly now. My zero to sixty is just too damn fast.

I lost an important relationship to me because I lost me.

Literally and Figuratively

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
View all responses

Literally, the furthest I’ve traveled from home is Paris. I did not feel at home there because I did not speak the language, but I found unparalleled beauty everywhere in the urban jungle. I particularly liked the Metro’s dedication to typography. Luckily, my dad was with me so I didn’t spend the whole trip unmoored by unfamiliarity. He does speak a bit of French and had been to Paris before so he could lead me around.

I will never forget misreading a menu and accidentally ordering two ice cream sundaes for dessert, then to the amazement of my father, proceeded to take both of them down in stride. I think it was all the walking- my appetite was insatiable at mealtimes. At the Musee D’Orsay, I ate what amounted to an entire duck…. or seemed like it.

We actually got trapped in the Musee D’Orsay for a while because the yellow vests were protesting and they locked down the museum just in case. It didn’t matter, I was lost in the Van Gogh room, looking for signs of Amy Pond (there are none, it was just fun).

I would fly back to Paris just to eat breakfast at McDonalds, strangely enough. The cassis sundae I had was better than anything I’ve had in the US, and the same for silver dollar pancakes with Nutella. Proof that in France, the ice cream machine works……….

Figuratively, the furthest I’ve been from home is this time in my life. I have no idea what I’m doing. My apartment needs to be majorly overhauled and my executive dysfunction is having none of it. I made some progress by doing some laundry yesterday, but I’m going to need help to get everything clean. There’s no way all my blankets are going to fit into our washer and dryer, and it’s becoming the season to need them.

I’m overwhelmed by the prospect that I really do need to apply for disability and get the ball rolling, because my bipolar disorder spinning out three times in 10 years has convinced my cognitive behavioral group this is what’s best for me. I am on board because bipolar disorder is not the only disability I have, it’s just the only one that’s heavily documented.

I was diagnosed with hypotonia at 18 mos old, with no follow ups. I think it might have been a misdiagnosis in the 1970s because the people with CP that I do know say that I walk with the “CP Shuffle.” But whether it’s CP or hypotonia, it creates problems with movement, particularly outside where the sidewalks are uneven. CP could also be responsible for my lack of stereopsis, another disability that causes problems while walking and driving. Things literally come out of nowhere because I can only use my left or my right eye one at a time in terms of focus.

The laundry list of what’s wrong with me and why is starting to add up…. that disability is something I could have gotten at 18 and am now only starting to deal with my disorders because I was masking so hard to cover them.

It’s a journey that’s incredibly far from home if you’ve never taken it. Unmasking can be a kind of freedom, or it can slowly become a prison as people see you more and more differently.

You don’t leave home. You drift.

Meetings with Bob, Part V

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t want this to get lost in a comment thread, because it deserves to be above the fold that a reader decided to mirror me and answer as Aada

My dear friend Leslie,

What follows is not a letter from Aada herself, but rather a thoughtful exercise in perspective – a mirror held up to your own words, crafted with care and consideration for the deep emotions you have shared. In the spirit of understanding and healing, I have attempted to imagine what a response might sound like, drawing upon the themes of forgiveness, growth, and the complex nature of human connection that your letter so eloquently explores.

This synthesis is offered not as truth, but as possibility – a way of examining how such vulnerable honesty might be received by a heart that has also known pain and confusion. It is my hope that in reading these imagined words, you might find some measure of the compassion you seek, whether it comes from Aada herself in time, or simply from the recognition that your journey towards understanding and accountability has value in itself.

We who struggle with the complexities of relationship, particularly in this digital age where nuance is so easily lost, must sometimes create our own mirrors for reflection. Consider this letter not as Aada’s voice, but as an echo of the grace you might grant yourself as you continue your work of growth and healing.

The response that follows springs from a place of empathy for both parties in this difficult situation, recognising that pain and love often walk hand in hand, and that the path towards understanding is rarely straight or simple.

With respect for your courage in examining your own heart,

Bob

Dear Leslie,

Your words have reached me, and I find myself sitting with them in the quiet hours, turning them over like stones worn smooth by countless tides. There is a weight to your honesty that I cannot dismiss, nor would I wish to.

I confess, reading your letter stirred feelings I had tried to bury beneath layers of hurt and self-protection. You speak of taking responsibility, and in that I hear echoes of the person I once knew – the one who could make me laugh until my sides ached, who saw possibilities where I saw only obstacles.

You are right that we both stumbled through this connection of ours. I, too, made choices that led us down darker paths. Perhaps I held too tightly to my own wounds, perhaps I failed to offer the grace that love requires. The isolation you describe – I felt it as well, in different ways, and I recognise now how we both retreated into our separate corners when we might have reached towards each other instead.

Your acknowledgement of the harm caused means something to me, though I cannot yet say what that something is. The hurt runs deep, Leslie, carved into places I thought were protected. Trust, once broken, does not mend quickly or easily. Yet your willingness to examine your own actions, to sit with discomfort rather than deflect it – this speaks to growth I had hoped to see.

I think often of what might have been different had we met face to face from the beginning. You paint a picture of coffee on back porches, of four friends in easy conversation, and it strikes me as both beautiful and heartbreaking. Perhaps you are right that screens and keyboards amplified our worst impulses whilst muting our better angels.

I am not ready to say forever, nor am I ready to say tomorrow. What I can offer is this: your words will stay with me. I will consider them carefully, without the pressure of immediate response or decision. Time has a way of clarifying what matters most, and perhaps it will show us both what we truly need.

I hope you find peace with yourself, Leslie. I hope the work you are doing – the therapy, the self-reflection, the commitment to growth – brings you the stability and joy you deserve. We all carry our struggles, our neurodivergent minds and wounded hearts, and perhaps learning to be gentle with ourselves is the first step towards being gentle with others.

For now, I need space to heal, to think, to simply exist without the weight of us pressing down upon every decision. But know that your growth matters to me, and your happiness matters to me, even from this distance.

If there is to be a future for us in any form, it will require something new – built on different foundations than what came before. Not the intense, isolated connection that consumed us both, but something more sustainable, more honest, more kind.

I am glad you wrote. I am glad you are seeking help. I am glad you are learning to breathe before you speak.

Take care of yourself, Leslie. The world needs people who are brave enough to examine their mistakes and humble enough to change.

Aada

This is perfect. No notes.

The Well

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What brings a tear of joy to your eye?
View all responses

Comments like this:

It takes a strong, sound mind to write about how hard it is to face our own roles in broken relationships and the courage it takes to want to grow from those experiences. Wishing you strength and new beginnings as you move forward—may the “ash enriched earth” bring something wonderful to your life.

It means a lot to get a word of encouragement while I’m getting myself together. My life revolves around inertia, and this is a good beginning.

In thinking of the type of planting I’d like to do, finding a new living situation is at the top of the heap. This apartment will never smell better than it does right now unless they rip it down to the studs. My lease ends in November, anyway, so I’m just going to see what’s out there today and tomorrow…. plans will pick up surrounding moving depending on how quickly I find something. I don’t think an “uninhabitable” charge would stick, but my apartment is not a comfortable place to live. So whether I try and break the lease or not, moving is coming up fast.

I also have mobility now, which means that I have more choice as to where to live. I’m not dependent on the bus system, Maryland Transit Authority will pick me up at my house and drop me off. Therefore, I can look anywhere in either city (Baltimore or Washington). The more news that comes out of Washington, the more I change my mind about moving to Rockville…. but I’m keeping my mind open. Wes Moore (Maryland governor) looks like he’s willing to put up a fight.

I just want a place that’s light and airy, another two bedroom if possible because my sister and dad need a place to stay when they’re in town. It would be nice if I didn’t have to move again for a long time, which is why I’m considering moving back to the DMV. It’s just easier when Lindsay wants to go to lunch if I’m already in town, and she doesn’t want to do Baltimore every time she works in her DC office.

That being said, we both love Baltimore. I need to choose a place to live based on my own happiness, not hers. She will just be happy to have a new space to decorate. 😉

While mine was drying, I checked out of the hotel and went to my friend Josh’s house, where he introduced me to his wife and seven year old son. We ate dinner together and breakfast the next morning, then went to the pool for the last day of its opening this season. It gave me a chance to see a different part of Maryland, where the closest DC Metro station is New Carollton, but still not far from B’more in the grand scheme of things. I made a mental note to add that area to my list.

It was an amazing time to be in the sun, because it wasn’t too hot and there was plenty of ice cream to go around. I enjoyed people watching, although I did not swim myself. The water was cold and very few adults were brave enough. Josh, his wife, their friends, and I sat for a few hours talking and it was the first time I’d really been a part of a group outside of Cognitive Behavioral Health in a long time.

Those are the tears of joy that travel to the well, the deep part of me that needs healing. I am slowly mending from my last disaster and trying to prevent new ones. The well is the place I go to remember progress.

Meetings with Bob, Part IV

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Dear Leslie,

Your words carry the weight of someone doing the hardest work there is – looking honestly at ourselves when we’ve caused harm. That takes enormous courage, even when it feels like compulsion driving you forward.

The sewage backup feels like life giving you a rather blunt metaphor, doesn’t it? Sometimes our external world mirrors our internal storms in ways that would be heavy-handed in fiction but feel devastatingly apt in real life.

What strikes me most is how clearly you see the paradox you’re living in. You hold both your justification and your horror, your context and your culpability. That’s not weakness – that’s the full complexity of being human. Most of us spend years avoiding that kind of dual vision because it’s so uncomfortable. You’re choosing to sit with it, to write through it, to let it teach you.

The distinction you’re drawing between explanation and excuse matters deeply. Yes, your AuDHD and bipolar disorder create challenges. Yes, medication changes can scramble our usual ways of being. But you’re not using these truths to sidestep responsibility – you’re using them to understand the landscape you were navigating. That’s mature self-awareness, not self-justification.

Your observation about “think it, say it” in digital spaces resonates. We all know that strange phenomenon where typing creates a different version of ourselves – often more impulsive, more raw, less filtered than we’d be face-to-face. It doesn’t excuse what we say, but it helps explain why we sometimes watch ourselves behave in ways that mystify us later.

The grief in your words about Aada is palpable. When we lose someone because of our own actions, we don’t just lose them – we lose the version of ourselves we were with them, and the future we might have had. That’s a particular kind of mourning, and it sounds like you’re allowing yourself to feel it fully rather than rushing to forgiveness or blame.

Your blog as accountability partner is brilliant. By writing honestly about your process, you’re creating witnesses to your growth. That takes guts. It also suggests you’re not just processing for processing’s sake – you’re building something, learning something, becoming something different.

The bit about children seeing you clearly made me pause. There’s something profound about how young people can see past our complications to our essence. They don’t carry the weight of our histories or the fear of our potential. Maybe that clarity you find with them is also available to you when you look at yourself – beneath all the context and complexity, there’s still someone worthy of compassion.

You’re rewiring your brain in real time, and that’s messy, imperfect work. Some days you’ll feel the old patterns pulling at you. Other days you’ll surprise yourself with how different you’ve become. Both are part of the process.

Keep writing. Keep looking. Keep holding both the justification and the horror – not because you deserve to suffer, but because that tension is where growth lives. You’re not letting yourself off the hook, but you’re also not hanging yourself with the rope. That balance is everything.

The courage you questioned in yourself? I see it here, in every honest word you’ve written.

Bob x

Dear Bob,

Thank you for your kind words during a difficult time. I have learned another hard-won lesson, though….. that you can be unhappy in one area of your life without being unhappy in all of them. I am devastated by my own behavior and will continue to mourn what could have been a much happier, relaxed relationship than I got….. at my own hand, to be clear.

Seeing the paradox I’m living in is the joy and pain of being a writer.

Meeting adjourned. 😉

Leslie

Meetings with Bob, Part III

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Dear Leslie,

Your observation that “the internet is faster in and of itself” illuminates something essential about how medium shapes message. Those fifteen-minute intervals with Aada created a kind of conversational breathlessness – a rhythm that perhaps made reflection impossible. The contrast you draw with ground-based friendships, where gaps of weeks or months are natural, suggests you understand intuitively that different relationships require different tempos.

I’m struck by your phrase “Full Metal Jackass” – it’s both self-deprecating and oddly precise. There’s something in that description that captures the totality of your reaction to discovering the lie. You write that you “went Full Metal Jackass” as if it were an inevitable transformation, yet you also acknowledge it destroyed any remaining love between you. What does it feel like to hold both the justification you felt in the moment and the horror you feel now?

Your recognition that “some problems cannot be fixed” carries a weight that seems both liberating and devastating. You’ve stopped trying to repair what you describe as unrepairable, yet you’re still processing the loss publicly, knowing she might read these very words. That takes a particular kind of courage – or perhaps compulsion.

The line about choosing to “be weird” intrigues me. There’s an implication that your neurodivergence was partly a choice, which sits oddly against your earlier descriptions of autism, ADHD, and bipolar disorder as forces that “ruined” your chances. What distinction are you drawing between the aspects of yourself that simply are and the parts you chose to amplify or express?

You mention that without this “overarching relationship in the cloud,” everything will slow down. How does it feel to reclaim that ground-based pace? Are you finding yourself reaching for your phone less frequently, or does the absence create its own kind of restlessness?

Your acknowledgement that “a virtual pen pal isn’t a real touchstone” seems like hard-won wisdom. Yet here we are, in another online exchange about touchstones and audiences. I’m curious: what makes our correspondence different from what you had with Aada? What safeguards, if any, are you building into how you engage with readers who respond thoughtfully to your work?

The children in your life as touchstones – that feels like solid ground. How might writing toward them change not just your content but your relationship to vulnerability itself?

You’re excavating with remarkable honesty, Leslie. Even in your regret, there’s a clarity emerging about what went wrong and why. That seems like something to build on, even if the particular relationship cannot be salvaged.

Bob x

Dear Bob,

I got a built-in vacation from writing when raw sewage backed up into my toilet, bathtub, and all over the floor of my apartment. It’s going to be a bear to clean, and take even longer to dry. Having to live in literal shit for a few hours as penitence for my sins has not escaped me.

What does it feel like to hold both the justification you felt in the moment and the horror you feel now?

It feels like ripping your own heart out, because you can see both sides of the story and yet, you didn’t stop yourself from making the choices you made, either. I’ll always know that this was a rock bottom moment, and also reclaiming my life from something that was inherently negative for me, though it didn’t start that way.

I would like to think that I have courage and not compulsion, but I see in myself the tendency for a little of each. It’s because my brain is being re-wired so that Aada isn’t my first thought anymore. Therefore, I never know when she’s going to come to mind and I cannot care if she’s reading or not. The story of how my life is going is why this blog exists, and how my life is going depends on my thoughts.

I don’t have a whole lot of safeguards for strangers because I don’t automatically assume they mean me ill. Aada was not a stranger to me, part of why it was so difficult to let go. We just never met on the ground, whereas most of my readers have no connection to each other.

We became strangers to each other, I would say. I didn’t have any idea how to make anything better, so I just gave up.

What distinction are you drawing between the aspects of yourself that simply are and the parts you chose to amplify or express?

Choices are in the moment, empathy for my neurodivergence and mental illness comes in retrospect. I don’t think that AuDHD or bipolar disorder affect my culpability, but it does create problems. Not all symptoms are good. I have to accept that I have done wrong in my life… that does not mean there is no context.

Context is what I’m trying to write down, and the real compulsion. I don’t think in sound bites, I think about what I’m going to want to remember years from now.

I don’t want the story I’m telling myself about Aada to be false. We are not friends, but there are very good reasons we’re not friends and I cannot ignore the ways in which I brought this upon myself. I process empathy quite differently than other people, and it is this processing of empathy that keeps me grounded. It surprised me when you said that I had no shame about being wrong- I carry it in my muscles. I just choose to admit what’s going on with me… the more oddly specific I get, the more everything reads universal. There is a feeling to knowing you are behaving badly, watching yourself do it, and powerless to know why. I choose to know why, and my blog holds me accountable. This is because readers who do know me can say, “that’s not how it happened.”

Empathy for myself is different from making my friends responsible for med changes that create strange behavior. I am not using disability to explain how it’s okay for me to treat people the way I do. It’s to show them that I’m aware of how my disability affects them. To show that I do indeed know how complicated I can be…. at others, so simple.

I am, indeed, looking at my phone less frequently. I find that I am happier because I can silence my notifications at night without feeling anything. People who need to get through can, but they’d have to pick up the phone and dial.

I feel terrible about myself most days in having regained this on the ground playing field, because I don’t have to wonder if I’m a decent friend or not. I can’t be her decent friend anymore, because it’s so unlikely she’d trust me again. I think back on my behavior with incredulity and shame.

I don’t want to let myself off the hook, because that’s the truth on how the story ended….. me piecing together symptoms of bipolar disorder long after the story has ended in the moment. My impulse control has been phenomenally poor for the length of the relationship, because typing led me to a serious case of “think it, say it.” I said things I would never say in person and so did she.

It cost us both, because I flew too close to the sun. I wanted me to know that in however many years’ time it takes me to need these memories. I don’t want future me to blame anyone else, because I very much could have spent the rest of my life questioning my reality in a fundamental way without Aada really being able to take it in…. that I had problems she’d think were normal and my doctors sure haven’t.

She couldn’t take it in because she couldn’t really see me.

I am not close to many children now. It would be nice to have that distraction, because they do see me for who I am…. with complete honesty.

When I get back to seeing more children, they’ll appear here if their parents agree. That’s the thing about writing about children- you have to get parents’ consent.

Adults can choose to be weird all by themselves. 😉

Thank you for helping me write the next entry, Bob.

Leslie