How do you know how much memory you've lost if you've lost it?

Well, I can tell you how you know you've lost too much. You walk into a house you don't recognize with someone who says he's your husband and ask your daughter who she is.

Seriously. I can't make this shit up.

See, I... Well...it's a long story. But after a suicide attempt (ok, and 16 years of dancing with various therapists and methods of treating my crazy), I had ECT. Every day. For two weeks. And I remembered nothing.

NOTHING!

I got Dan's name because he'd usually say it before I had to ask him whenever he came to visit me. Which was every day. But I didn't remember marrying him. I just trusted Dr. Madden and the others at the hospital who worked with me that they were telling me the truth that he was my husband.

Eventually it started coming back ~ with a lot of help from Dan and Natalie. Well, probably more Natalie because she was telling me the truth as it was and not "how she remembered it".

I know Dan meant well ~ and honestly, maybe eloping in Portland in the rain WAS everything Dan hoped our marriage would be ~ but ultimately... The fact that he could keep the fact that we had a son who died as a baby from me? That's so confusing. I know he meant well, but...

But he couldn't keep protecting me. Couldn't keep catching me every time I fell. I needed to know what the ground felt like.

So I left.

I'm at my parents' right now. "Winging it" as my daughter Natalie said when I walked out on Dr. Madden after I started seeing Gabe again.

It's not ideal, but it's what I feel like I need right now. Maybe one day I can go home... But who knows.

Do not tell
Do not confide
These longings can't be satisfied
This wave will wash out with the tide
These are feeling you've got to hide
(from "Side Show")

That's how I felt for the longest time. That I had to hide what I was feeling. And it wasn't always so easy. Dan knows me better than anyone...but somehow I managed to keep so much from him. More than he knows I mean.

Oh, nothing like that...just my emotions. Everything I was going through emotionally. He knew some, yeah. but he didn't know. Not really.

I let him think everything was ok. Tried to convince myself the same thing. Until I couldn't. And now I'm learning that hiding things, feelings...that's probably the worst thing I could do. It's not healthy. Showing them, even to myself isn't always easy, but I know I have to.

It's the only way I can survive.

Introduce myself? Really? Ok... Well...

I'm just a normal, everyday mom in the suburbs. Husband, son, daughter... I stay home ~ unless I have to go to Costco. Really. There's nothing that unusual about me...

Well...there is that whole dance with the psychophramacologist... Um... Yeah.

I'm normal. Really.

Mun's note: Diana is from the fantastic new off-Broadway (hopefully soon ON Broadway) musical Next to Normal. She's...yeah. She's cool and all...but a little...troubled. Prompt responses that contain spoilers will be placed behind a cut. I can't guarantee that RP might not end up in some spoilers. But she wouldn't get out of my head about wanting to play.

She's definitely open to RP.