lisbeth welsh Archives | The ManifestStation

When Death Keeps You Alive

October 4, 2017

CW: This essay discusses suicide. If you or someone you know needs immediate help, please call 911. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting CONNECT to 74174. The world need you.

By Lisbeth Welsh

“Adrian died yesterday.”

I was 11.

“Adrian died yesterday.”

Adrian was 20.

He seemed like such a grown up to me then. Now I’m staring 40 square in the eye. I realize how short his twenty years actually were. My last memory of him is the top of his legs. I stood looking out of my parents upstairs landing window. His gold Ford Sierra was parked outside. I looked down from above, his torso and face obscured by the sun visor.

“Lets go see Adrian.” My friend Sara said.

“No not tonight.”

I was 11. He was 20. How would I know ‘not tonight’ would turn into ‘not ever again?’ How could I know that I was staring at him in the exact seat he would die in the next day? I will spend the rest of my life wishing I’d run out to that car. But I was 11. It wouldn’t have re-written history. I know that. I know that because I have spent years battling my own monsters. Twenty years. No more than the amount he survived. From eating disorders to self-harm to depression and anxiety. With no self-respect and little self worth. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, courage

Change is supposed to be good, right?

November 3, 2016

By Lisbeth Welsh

If you want something to change, then you have to make a change. And that’s what I did. I made a massive change, uprooting my life from Las Vegas and returning to LA. After almost 2 years in the neon desert, I (thought) I was ready to return to my beloved Southern California. To be back near the ocean and the beach and away from the blistering heat and soul-less sin city. And so I moved.

I am fortunate that I currently have a job that I can do anywhere so there was no big new job to pin it on, no date of any relevance just a lull in my schedule that gave me an opportunity to pack up me and my dog and reposition us back ‘home’. But coming home has not been so easy. My friends and sense of community are here but my family, are not. They’re still thousands of miles away in the UK. My prior home, is managed by a rental company who have out priced me in my rental budget since I left. So, not for the first time in my life I’ve had to pick myself up like a random little pin and drop myself in the middle of a map and begin to rebuild and reboot my life. Continue Reading…

Grief, Guest Posts, Letting Go, self-loathing

My Biggest Love, My Biggest Regret

October 21, 2015

By Lisbeth Welsh

I’d never been hit before. But then I’d never fallen in love with someone else’s husband before either. I sat there and took it. The screaming, the swearing, the cold hard sting as her hand connected with the left side of my face. After all I deserved to have to sit and take it. I had no leg to stand on. I had done it. Been in this affair. I was the other woman that was blowing her life and marriage apart. I deserved it.

Did I deserve for him to look the other way and allow her to hit me? For him to not try to stop her? For him to look away? To stare down at his feet?

But what did I expect, he’d continually allowed her to hit him in arguments throughout their marriage. Apparently. He could ‘take a punch’. Apparently. If he had spent 33 years letting her hit him, why would he stop her hitting me?

Three years later I still feel that sting. I still live on anti depressants and anti anxiety medications. I still don’t sleep properly. I still walk under the cloud. I still haven’t forgiven myself.

He was my boss. And so was she. Her name was the one that sold the brand. She was probably the one that had to sign my pay check every week. And every week she signed that check for me to hang out with her husband and for us to fall deeper and deeper in love.

I suspect she knew long before she confronted it. In fact no, I believe she willed us into being. I walked into working with a couple who were falling apart. Whose family was falling apart. Whose grown children were a mess and plagued with self destructive diseases and addictions.

“I hate him.” She would throw those words around every day. She would constantly stop, roll her eyes and mutter how hard it was to deal with him. “I’ve told him, he either gets medication or divorce papers.” The comments were endless. He never said one bad thing about her to me. He didn’t need to. She would say it all to me for him. Continue Reading…