As Seen On TV

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is my favorite binge-worthy show not produced by Netflix. As a lover of musical theatre and all things big, bright, and dramatic, this show is right up my alley. If you haven't seen Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and have thought of starting to watch it, please leave and watch all episodes out right now, and then come back to this post. I'd hate to ruin anything for you. Same goes for any current viewers who haven't seen the latest episode. Because that's all this post is about today.

If you're never going to watch a music sitcom (uhm, who are you? please do it), you need some context. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend follows the life of Rebecca Bunch, a Yale/Harvard Law Graduate who leaves her big practice in NYC to relocate to West Covina, California to find her happiness, NOT to get back with her drama camp boyfriend from years ago, Josh Chan. So she gets a job at a law firm, dumps all her depression and anxiety meds, and goes about getting the man of her dreams. It all goes wrong, at the end of season 2 he leaves her at the alter to become a priest, and sends her into a mental health spiral in season 3. It is a light hearted show with lots of original musical numbers, amazing, relatable characters, and a story line that could go on for seasons.

The latest episode ended with Rebecca attempting suicide. And I want to thank the creators of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna, for this episode, especially Rachel Bloom for depicting the journey to a suicide attempt so beautifully and accurately. As someone who has attempted suicide and sometimes just lives in the zone of "suicidal but don't want to die", this episode highlighted a struggle I personally could connect to more than I would have wished to.

Watching Rebecca pull those pills out of her pocket, look at them, and form the idea to overdose, was a completely silent few seconds that felt like minutes. I remembered that feeling. Pouring the pills out, feeling how they tumble onto your hands, knowing that's a lot of drugs and its going to mess you up. But then not caring. Because you want to be messed up. You want to be so messed up that you die. You swallow them all before you can change your mind. You have to act on the impulse before you get too scared. That's always the thing about it for me, is that I know overdosing is a bad idea, I know suicide will do more harm than good in the world, but I'm hurting and I don't have anywhere to turn.

You know I have somewhere to turn, reader. I know right now I have MANY places to turn. But in those moments, always in those moments, I forget I have people to run to, people who love me. In my mind they are all pretending. They feel sorry for me, they actually hate me and are just pretending, if I go back a failure they'll all ridicule me....my brain is an asshole when it comes to making up reasons not to get help when I'm low. From the episode it is supremely evident that many people will miss Rebecca if she is gone. It is evident in my life that I will be missed as well. But sometimes, my brain wins. Sometimes, it puts blinders on me and tells me I've been deluding myself into feeling loved by my circle. I could tell that's how Rebecca felt in this episode, too.

This episode was a gift. I know I have friends who struggle with suicidal feelings as well, but I've never seen a journey to the darkness that is acting on your suicidal ideations from an outsiders perspective before. I recognized so much of it. The insomnia and then sleeping all day. The loss of appetite. The refusal to trust others. The isolation of oneself. I recognized, and I understood, and in turn, felt that someone out there got it, and that's all I've wanted for longer than I can remember. Is someone to get it. Someone to know how all of this feels. Because none of what I feel is good when I'm in a depressive low.

But there is always hope. The episode closes with Rebecca holding up an empty pill bottle and asking for help. There is a beautiful moment where the call button above her seat on the plane she's on, which says help, suddenly turns to the word hope, and that's when Rebecca pushes it. She's foggy from the pills, she knows she's in trouble, she sees a stranger with a friendly face (a very sweet flight attendant) and asks for help. She has hope. She doesn't actually want to die.

That moment was a revelation for me. I've never fully wanted to die. I don't want my whole body to die. I just want the "bad" parts of me to be gone. The parts that are depressed, and anxious, and the parts that assume everyone is going to leave me, the parts of me that hate myself, the parts of me that tell me that I'm going to die alone and friendless. I want the voice that second guesses every good thing I do, to be dead. I've always kind of hoped there was a way to kill that part of me (I know, go to therapy and get back on your meds), and I think that's why I've always ended up in a hospital. Because I realize that you can't just kill parts of yourself. You have to fix them.

This weeks episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend gave me something to connect to. I saw the events of my recent past play out, and I didn't lose any love for Rebecca, which made me realize that if I could still love and appreciate a fictional character, than my very real friends and family are still going to love and appreciate me, even when I'm broken. The love doesn't go away.

Thank you, Rachel Bloom. This show is a gift.

Alexis Olmstead is a 20something part time retail worker, full time diva, living and working in Bellingham, WA. When she's not working or sleeping, Alexis is working on her first photography series, Alexis Is Alone. For more updates, rants, raves, and letters from the road to mental health recovery, check back sporadically.

You are loved, there is hope. Keep moving forward. 

You're So Toxic

He broke me. I wasn't going to post about this, but I've promised myself that I will always speak my truth from now on, and right now I am broken and as cliche as it is, it's because of a guy. I watched our friendship turn into a relationship turn into something hard and troubled and ugly and that turned into me being too much for someone to handle again and being left in the dust, asked to not contact him for a while. The "we shouldn't talk because we are bad for each other and need to move on" phone call felt a whole lot like he had already moved on.

I was the idiot who didn't see that it was true. We weren't good for each other. Or maybe I did see it. But I stayed because I wanted to feel the way I felt whenever he hugged me, or whenever we had a brief good moment. I wanted to feel warm, and loved. Because of where I'm at in life, I felt like I NEEDED to feel loved by a man to move forward and be okay.

I deluded myself into thinking I couldn't survive without someone, someone who continually told me that I should learn to be more independent. I was independent for a long time. I failed at it. I fail at most things. Our relationship got weird and awkward and ugly because for months now I've been in constant crisis. I've needed so much support that one person alone could not provide. And I asked for too much. I needed to build a circle of people, a circle pretty much already formed, but I relied so heavily on him that he just couldn't take it anymore.

But I told him. I told him someday he would get tired of me. He would get tired of all the crying and the emergencies and the meltdowns and the panic attacks. He would get tired of me always being depressed, always needing attention, always overthinking, always worrying. And he told me he wouldn't let that happen. That he would ALWAYS be there. And now he's literally non-existent in my life and I feel SO alone.

I'm okay for a little bit and then something makes me remember. Something reminds me of all our jokes, or one of "our" songs play. Or I see a late night tv sketch that I want to show him, because I always saved up funny videos to show him on road trips. Or I start thinking. And the thinking brings the self-blaming. It's my fault no one loves me. It's my fault everyone leaves. It's my fault that I'm a toxic force in so many people's lives. Some of its true. Most of its not.

Right now I wish I could call him, tell him that I'm sorry. That I know he wants us to not talk until all the wounds have healed and the scars have faded, but to apologize for the itemized list I have of all the shit I think made him leave. I can't stop crying. I can't stop fixating. I can't stop thinking about him replacing me.

I am so broken. I know this is necessary. Sometimes you love someone but being around them holds you back. He keeps me from recovering fully because I rely on him too much to support me, and I'm afraid if I'm not sick he won't have a reason to stay. But honestly, he would probably still be here if I wasn't SO sick. I need to recover and become my best self. He needs to get his life together. This is big adult breakup with a lot of closure on his end, and zero on mine. But it hurts.

I loved him. I loved him so much as a friend, as a confidante, as something more. He was sunshine. He was the way you feel when you crawl under all your blankets on a cold night. He never failed to put a smile on my face.

But he loved me different, and he loved me less. So here we are.

Him, living his life, unfettered by the heartbreak I'm experiencing about all this. And me, not even able to currently leave the house because I'm so volatile and likely to melt into a puddle of tears.

I'll get over it. Just not for a while.

Photo by Cheyanne Sharpe

Alexis Olmstead is a 20something ball of emotions living in Bellingham, WA. When she's not crying or binge watching Forensic Files, she's working on her new series, "Alexis Is Alone", available to view on Instagram. For more updates on life, her mental health journey, and anything else she finds worthy of writing about, check back sporadically.