What now?

What am I going to do?

Will we break up?

Will I quit my job?

Will I be without a place to sleep and keep my belongings?

I’m stressed, obviously. There’s been a breakdown. I had no idea the topic of housing would do this. But the stress is so high, I cannot think. I cannot make decisions about the simplest of topics any more. The anxiety is high, the stress is high, and I can’t focus on anything.

Schoolwork, tonight, seems irrelevant, when I don’t know really what my life will look like in two weeks. I mean, obviously we’ll just move in with his dad for now. Right? And I won’t mind it, once I’m there. I’ll adjust and it’ll be fine. (bf has executive fuction issues, too. Nightmare combo when it comes to this topic, it seems. or maybe he doesn’t care as much as I do, about where we live?)

But I’m mad that we never discussed it. We can’t, now. It’s too late to have a rational conversation with me. My walls are sky high and I can’t think. I’m in the haze. My mind is fuzz. My pulse is fast and weak. I shake a lot and my muscles are in pain.

I can’t talk anymore. This is shut down and I don’t know how to get out of it. So I say to myself, I could just leave altogether, and where would I go? I put in a sort of MORE official notice for my work last week. So I’ll have no income. But I’ll get a minimum-wage job, very parttime, and have a pathetic income. I looked up housing; I can’t afford anything around here on my own. So what am I going to do?

I have dreams about going Home all the time now, as the vacation slowly approaches. I’m wearing a wig and different clothes. Will that be enough to disguise myself? Maybe I shouldn’t go Home. I’m still too afraid of how my ex could respond if he sees me.

I have this headache. I get it every day. It comes along with this black, black, blackness in my head. How can I see the world in a positive way with this blackness hanging over my head?

My grades are still good. I’m doing all right, in school. It’s EVERYTHING else that is falling APART.

I ran this morning. I don’t mean that I physically ran, although I should do that for health reasons, but I left. My bf let me know that he was going to go grab a coffee with his roommate and his gf and I was free to join or meet them there or whatever, and I could sense they were in a hurry, so I started to say I’d like to join, but then could sense it again, so said go without me. I had just gotten out of the shower but actually only needed shoes in order to be ready; I’d already gotten dressed. Then I had this huge anxiety attack or something and like the walls were closing in around me. Like I just stand there and can’t make up my mind. Days go by and I just stand in one spot and can’t make a decision about the silliest things anymore. The sun rises and sets and I haven’t moved.

So I packed my school things and left and turned off my phone location settings so nobody could know where I was even if they looked. But I calmed down some minutes later and turned it all back on and wrote a note to say I’d be back soon. I’m just falling apart.

I spent like two days ago, I think, dissociating. I can’t take this stress right now. I’m so behind in so many things.

Afterward, today, my bf and I met his parents at the animal shelter near here, and we got to meet all of the cats and dogs. It was nice. My bf had set that up yesterday for me.

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First appointment with my new psychiatrist today (Journal#053)

I had therapy this morning. I’m not sure how I got out of bed and made it only um, was it 15 minutes late? Still, that’s pretty amazing. Especially considering that at the time my appointment should have started, my uncle (who is my ride) was out front washing dog poo off his shoe). LMBO. I did not hurry that process along…

Wow, it’s really sad but I don’t remember much from therapy today because I was so tired. I remember birds that I wanted to photograph but didn’t, and I remember encouragement to locate/test-bike/try volunteering at an animal shelter. ❤ But I’m kind of forgetting a lot of everything else we talked about today, which is really sad.

Then I went to work. I’ve been trying to avoid coffee but I wasn’t going to make it through an hour without trying caffeine. So I did that. I stayed awake. I was actually somewhat productive, and I felt really good about that. I wrote myself a list of to-do’s for tomorrow at work, broken down into bite-sized pieces so I should actually be able to do them, regardless of my mood/productivity-level.

Okay. So I left work early, and walked quickly to my psychiatry appointment. I have had some misgivings about meeting her because her initial paperwork was very money-focused. I mean just about every packet explained yet again how many hundreds I’ll owe if I miss an appointment without calling like a week in advance (well, the amount of $ and advance time is in direct proportion to the length of the missed appointment). Sheeeiiit. I will have to wait and see if this happens. In the past, I have simply quit the person then and there. Even though it was my fault for missing the appointment. But I can’t justify wasted money like that. But yeah anyway, I’m getting stuck on the money part again.

ANYway, so I was ready to quit her just from reading through half the paperwork (I gave up after the first half and didn’t look at the 2nd half). BUT it turns out she seemed very nice. From one appointment alone, I like her so far. Time will tell. But she seemed to listen well and she seeeeeemed to understand some things. She expects to meet with me again next week and have some kind of plan formed. I can’t. freaking. wait.

The part of all this that makes me the most hopeful of all is that I feel as though, somehow and somewhere and somewhen, she, my therapist, and maybe even my primary care doctor will try to figure something out for me. That’s never happened before. Dammit I’m crying again for the freaking 10th time in two days (is it a full moon or what?!?! Hang on, lemme check… | Hmm, 9 days left. Shouldn’t be having any mood swings yet. Anyway).

Yeah, so it’s kind of hopeful. I mean, I don’t want to get my hopes up but. It felt hopeful. I don’t want any part of new medications. I want to be done with the current ones. But, here I am, daring to hope. A bit.

Oh my God[] I want a life back. I want to be alive again and live and feel safe and be able to see my parents and my dog and my pony. I want some sense of normality and to feel alive and worthwhile. I want to feel capable(not exhausted) and productive and reliable and dependable. What if this is possible?

Not my most “up” day, perhaps. (Journal#052)

I cracked open my laptop tonight to see if writing a post would help me feel better. I may have had an anxiety attack a little bit ago. I’m not sure. Tears were involved. I’m actually not much of a cryer so it’s always a big deal to me when I cry. It means something is off, either my blood sugar, menstruation, or a bit of an anxiety attack.

So here goes my exploration. First of all, Saturday. Saturday, I did what I’d intended to do. I rested. I napped. I rested some more. I think I did chores that evening. Sunday, I spent most of it with “Joe”. We watched tons more episodes of Star Trek TNG and we went on a walk. I’ll admit to you guys that we may have snuggled on the sofa while watching. All G-rated, but his arms were definitely around me and my head was resting on his chest and I didn’t want to ever move again. Ever. Complete. Bliss. If I could freeze those moments in time and just let the rest of my life play out like that, I would. Nothing more and nothing less.

This might sound positive but it is not. I don’t know if I’ll be able to put to words. something extremely important and desperate. something that does not deserve to live in me but it is there and will rear its head whenever and however it damn well pleases.

Desperation.

Desperation. Forgive me, I may offend as I try to type this. I don’t know what I’ll say or how this is going to come out.

All I can do is say PTSD. How else could I possibly describe it.

In my second year of college, I was starting my mental breakdown. It went on through the whole year, getting progressively worse the entire time.

There came a time when I consciously realized the desperation that had grown within me. At lunch, I would sit with a group of people in the cafeteria. I would sit with them. I would stare at them. I would try to memorize them and their presence with me and their company. I was desperate. I would not go for food any longer; every second spent getting food was a second not spent with them. I would begin to cry when one of them would have to leave to go back and study, attend class, etc. The loneliness.

It got to where I would begin to cry preemptively. Lunch would have just begun and I would burst into tears because I knew they would all have to leave shortly. I cannot put this into words strongly enough to convey. I would have done anything. What did I have to lose anymore by that point? I was desperate for company and did not attain it.

But also, I could not. Because even if someone tried to spend a moment with me, I was wracked with the loneliness and knowledge that they’d be leaving shortly.

THERE IS A WAY IN WHICH COMPANY WORSENS IT. It gives me that taste again. It gives me something to miss again. In many ways, it is easiest and best to be alone. Because otherwise, this neurotic part of me can rise again.

Well it did today. Tonight, I was so lonely I cried. And I wanted a hug. And I wanted company. And I don’t want to be alone right now.

The higher the high, the more painful the fall. I have had this now for over a decade. How did it subside long enough for me to date and marry? I don’t understand.

I thought, perhaps tonight I was triggered because I had just finished filling out a psychiatric history form for a psychiatrist I am finally going to see. But I did perhaps an overly-thorough job of going back all the way to the first time I was diagnosed with anything, and going forward from there, which means I did give a quick mention to that year of college and the time following.

Will this loneliness-I-would-kill-for-companionship feeling go away? Please, please let there be some way of letting this feeling die once and for all.

It’s a loop, too. It fuels itself. Because guess what keeps people away quite easily? Being neurotic. So my desperation for you, once I can no longer hide it, will be the very thing that keeps you away, fueling my desire to sacrifice any and all aspects of myself for companionship.

And, once it is in full swing, this is not something that will leave my head. I will not be able to think of anything else during the 24hr day. I mean this literally. It’s never occurred to me before now, but perhaps there is some OCD in there as well. As is, these are reasons I do not trust myself and I think I am dangerous to others (because I HAVE gone through times when I would say and do anything. Lie. Be someone different. Set aside anything Real for just one moment of time with someone). But I wonder now, if I were to consider it anymore as nothing more than an intrusive thought, maybe I could treat it as such. It feels more Real and more Tangible and more Controlling than that, but maybe, just maybe that’s all it is now. I wonder if I can think of it that way. I wish to God[] I could be normal and have normal, healthy relationships.

[[P.S. I was still in tears when I cracked open my laptop to try and explore this topic here, but before I started this post, I read all of the beautiful, so kind comments on my previous posts. ❤ ❤ I didn’t feel as lonely then. Thank you, everybody! ❤ ]]

Just a journal post (Journal#029)

Fountain

This is just going to be a journal post because I feel like writing down some of what’s taken place the last couple of days.

So, tomorrow is Sunday. Two days ago, I did not go into work. I did not intend to stay home. It just happened. My Taskrabbit told me that one of the train stations I use was closed down. In my groggy head, I decided I should best see if any of my coworkers were going to go in, and to let them know if I wasn’t. But I don’t have any of their phone numbers. And I couldn’t remember how to access my work email from home. So I sent out a text to the guy who trained me, because he remembers things like how to log into the email and stuff. So while I was waiting for him to write me back, I fell back asleep.

And I did not wake up again until 1:30p. I went upstairs and was a wee bit talked to about my irresponsible behavior. (Everyone means well when they give me these talks – sometimes they are meant to motivate and encourage me to strive for more; they just don’t realize I’ve been hearing variations of them my WHOLE LIFE. I KNOW I have irresponsible-type behaviors at times. I’ve been so desperate because of them, I thought the only way I could live was to be on disability [I had an appointment and got the paperwork, but only made it through the first page because it was all so complicated and overwhelming]). Thing is, and I know this is irritating and pathetic, but there are certain things about myself that I feel so hopeless about, it’s akin to just wanting to literally die.

My brain can do the lame-o snowball thing in a heartbeat: I was irresponsible today and “blew off” work. There’s “no excuse” = I’m a bad employee = I’m a bad person = I screwed up {yet again} = I am a screw up = why do I burden people with my existence, etc. Heartbeat quick.

So yeah, that was a kind of a shit morning. If you remember, the night before was the night I fucked up with Facebook and let myself indulge in too much sugar that night. SOOO I fucked up the morning / work, I was feeling like a zombie because of the sugar overload the night before… Perfect stage for my cousin & her boyfriend’s arrival that evening!!!

I’m not going to talk about the rest of the visit. I think it went okay. I hope so. I know I had trouble faking smiles sometimes, because I’m still fairly depressed, but I was so glad they were here and I really hope they had an okay time too. I know she has some major health issues and frankly she couldn’t always fake a smile during the visit, either. There were times when she was either in extreme pain or was extremely anxious. I couldn’t tell which. It could have been either or both.

That reminds me, here’s some bellyaching for you. So tonight he says to me, “SHE has real problems. You don’t have a problem, it was easily solvable by [getting divorced].” Nothing like having my own fucked up head be compared with a loved one who is suffering a lot of physical pain and some emotional pain besides. Note to self: Just fucking pretend around him from now on. Don’t reveal any inner thoughts and don’t let on when you’re down.

Maybe it’s time for another fresh start. I think my job is getting me DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN. It’s horrible and I don’t want to ever go back. The job is falling to pieces internally and I just don’t want to be anywhere near it. And I have one day left to apply for the health insurance. Just thinking about it is making me cry, literally. I really want to apply. I hope tomorrow will not be too late. It’ll be my only goal for tomorrow.

I feel like, one of my biggest problems is probably that when I’m down, I can’t recall what it was like prior to that, and it feels like it’ll stay for weeks or months. It just occurred to me, because I’m fairly down, that I feel like I’m an annoying fuck who’s always down and bringing everyone else down and on & on & on. It’s like, once I’m up again, things will seem so much … see so much farther into the distance / being able to see the sun, far away. / this is immediate, intense and overwhelming. But next week could bring back a stable feeling, more cheerful and bright and hopeful and there could be some possibilities. Maybe there will be just one thing in the world that I look forward to again.

I started looking up new jobs today, but didn’t see much. I’m more interested in trying classes again anyway, but I told that to my brother and he said I was putting the cart before the horse again. That I have to have a stable job and then just do a class at night or whatever. I can’t juggle multiple things like that, but maybe a halftime job, halftime student thing would work. I just … Dunno. I’m off.

(WP deleted my spacings again/tried to recreate 😛 )

Suicidal (recording a memory from six months ago) (Journal#027)

I’m only here to jot down a memory I just had. I am NOT suicidal right now! I’m just remembering things because of my little mis-hap with Facebook a little while ago.

I remembered something that I don’t think I’ve told anybody.? I don’t remember telling anybody, but if I spoke with my therapist or psychiatrist around that time, I might have told them. But I don’t recall it. You might be the first people I’ve told. It hasn’t crossed my mind a single time since I moved.

It must have been shortly before my divorce, because that’s when I was having bloodwork run, I asked the phlebotomist to kill me. In hindsight, I’m not sure how I got up the nerve to actually ask that. What a strange memory of such a bad time. I asked her if she would please inject some air into my vein so long as she was there with a needle anyway, and assured her that nobody would be able to tell it was her. She didn’t seem to understand what I was saying. She finished her job, I got up and left. I promptly forgot about it. Later that evening, I got a call from the hospital. My phlebotomist had reported the conversation. They were calling to check in. I was still severely depressed but I must have talked with my psychiatrist or therapist or was about to the next morning or something. I don’t remember the details of that, but I remember I had either seen or was about to see somebody and was feeling like I’d make it that far without any problems. So that was that.

P.S. It’s weird to think that I didn’t even care. I wasn’t relieved and I wasn’t disappointed that she did not respond to my request at the time. It was just nothing. If she had complied, I also wouldn’t have felt relieved or disappointed. I didn’t feel anything but emotional pain at that point.

P.P.S. Tell you what. I don’t even know for sure that this is the time right before my divorce. This could very well have been from the time before that, the first set of blood tests I had to have run because of a poor choice I made, and closer to the start of the beginning of the end of the relationship. That almost seems more likely. That would have been the time when the shit was hitting the fan. That would have been the time when I was so afraid of what was going to happen when realization set in. But I know I was saying suicidal things before the divorce. I wish I could remember. Even though I’ll probably just forget it again anyway, I wish I had the whole story in my head, right this second, so I could study it and understand it. But it’ll just go away again anyway. The past is the past is the past. It’s just become the present for a brief moment, but soon I’ll lock it all back away where it belongs, in little, far-away bits of my brain that I don’t access much.

Well now I’ve done it. (Journal#026)

Fins

I just royally fucked up. I went to Facebook to reminisce about some of my old fish, and share some pics with my folks and cousin, in light of one of my bettas, who is 4 years old, has just stopped eating. The other Old Man Betta is still healthy.

But anyway, one of the pics brought me the fuck DOWN. Because my ex has a comment on it. And the link is black because we’re no longer FB friends. I couldn’t understand why I could view his new profile pic. I would have expected him to have blocked me. Anyway, so my curiousity drive me to … Fucking click the name. Which didn’t look like a link. But it was.

Then of course I kept looking and scrolling. I was looking to see if he’d said anything nasty about me, I guess. I didn’t find anything publicly, so I should be grateful. Or I shouldn’t care. And seeing all of our mutual friends commenting and supporting him. They don’t talk to me anymore. One of them texted me when his wife had their first baby a month ago. I later wrote back to ask how he(my once friend) was doing, silence. That’s not the first time. They won’t talk to me.

Because after what I did, I was the Monster. And he was the one in desperate need of help and support. And that’s the way it was. And they still support him. And I got to see pics of the his new girl. And thank God he’s doing good and has that support or he might have tried to contact me again, and I can’t have that. I’ve been too mixed up as it is.

There will ALWAYS be things I cannot share on here. As much as I want to be Free and write and say whatever I want, that’s not a reality. Not unless I want some really, seriously bad things to happen.

P.S. I don’t use FB anymore because I couldn’t figure out who I needed to block amongst all the mutually-known people. Too complicated. But my pictures are there.

To self-injure or not (Journal#017) with 2 updates

Gray Autumn Tree

By the time I’m here, posting, it’s already in my head and won’t go away. The choice is made. I already have the knife with me. I’m already in a private location.

I took clonazepam at least 40 minutes ago. So the anxiety has subsided. But the self hatred is still here. Maybe I can talk myself through this until I no longer feel this way.

What happened? I came home from work late. I chose to stay late, off the clock, to write the post about washing dishes. See, I wash people’s dishes as part of my job at work, so it was on my mind, and I was super excited to write that post. So instead of coming home, I stayed and wrote.

I made it home and was talking with my mom on the phone. She had questions for my uncle. He was home so I put her on FaceTime so she could ask him directly. That all seemed fine.

But then there was a little incident where she asked me if my brother knew that we’re not doing Thanksgiving until Friday. So I had the mental image of him arriving a day early, so I said hey, I’ll write him right now. So I minimized the video window and went to text him. For those of you with an iPhone, it doesn’t stop the FaceTime — you can still hear each other like a regular phone call. You just can’t see each other.

Well my uncle freaked out. I can’t repeat the words because I’ve forgotten them. But it was basically a tantrum of sorts. DON’T WRITE HIM NOW. WRITE HIM LATER. I’M TALKING WITH YOUR MOM. I froze. I wasn’t moving. I wasn’t writing him and I also wasn’t switching back over to FaceTime video screen either. It raises a stubborn bit of me and I sure as hell wasn’t going to switch back with him screaming at me and panicking. As with any animal training, you respond back in the calm times, not the enraged times. Of course, I am not a human psychologist and he did not calm down but freaked out even more, yelling at me not to write him, not to write him, stop it, why aren’t you stopping it, what is wrong with you, just do it, switch back, I have to see her in order to talk with her. He was finally just going to walk away. My reaction is basically, and meaning no offense to y’all, but Jesus Christ. Calm the fuck down and talk to me like a civilized human being. I had stopped all actions — I WASN’T writing him — I had NOT even pulled up a text window — why was he still panicking?

So basically I let the conversation go on a bit longer (I turned the video back on) and then said look, hate to cut this short, but I have to go to the bathroom. He suggested to keep my phone and continue talking with my mom but I wasn’t having that. If they wanted to chat still, they could have called each other back on their own damn phones but I wanted to go into my room and cry in the dark. I wasn’t going to keep it together much longer.

I took my clonazepam then, and kept it to just one tablet, as tempted as I was to take extra and just sleep now through tomorrow. I’d like to stay asleep for days. It did cross my mind to research if overdose is possible on clonazepam alone, which is one I haven’t researched in quite a long time.

HERE’s the real moral of this story:

When you are starting to allow yourself UP times — like the times I’ve written about with the moments of peace, of contentment, of joy, of gratitude, of bliss…. Well with that, I’ve opened myself up to a shit ton of possibilities of getting hurt emotionally. It’s like, opening the chest up slowly and the good starts to come in… But the excessive sensitivity and quickness to feel hurt is right up at the surface, too. I wonder if really it is more useful to live in a numbed state. I don’t know if I can handle the ups and the downs.

On the plus side, writing this all out has actually removed my about-to-cut status. I’m going to pee and then go to bed. I’m already in my jammies and have brushed & flossed my teeth. What more is there to life? I will certainly meditate again tonight.

**UPDATE** It’s the next day now. I just talked with my mom about it a tiny bit, because she was on the phone when it happened. She didn’t take my uncle’s reaction that seriously. She knows him better than me (they did grow up together). Most people just shrug it off. She thinks it’s possible that he freaked out because I broke his concentration when I grabbed the phone to multi-task. He’d been in the middle of talking about the upcoming menu. [At the same time, I also just learned that my brother *didn’t* know about dinner being Friday and would have changed his plane tickets had he known, and his girlfriend would have been able to come too. So he’s annoyed now. But is literally just getting onto his plane right now (and he only just now found out about the Friday dinner).] But yeah, I do feel guilty now, for having freaked out my uncle who is very ADHD and maybe did panic a little because I broke his train of thought. It’s possible. Ah well, such is life. Can’t win every day.

**UPDATE x2** I am sort of wondering, now, seeing this written out, if some of the desire to cut came from my feeling the loss of control over my own actions (where I wasn’t allowed to move or anything for a moment there). It isn’t just self-hatred — I KNOW that because I feel self-hatred over loads of different things and it doesn’t bring up the urge to self-harm. I’m going to keep my eye on this theory in the future.