Category: Journal

Seriously. Death Cab for Cutie is the best band, ever. I love them. And I actually do wish the world was flat like the old days so we could travel just by folding a map.

I wanna go to Lucas, Kansas. Badly.

I got the apology I really wanted/needed yesterday. I was just sitting there sort of being bitter that I hadn’t received one yet and there it came… unprompted and well-worded. So I feel at least a little better. I think I’m less paranoid-crazy this morning, though it’s hard to tell.

I had a really rough day in therapy today. I’m not too sure why this is the case. I guess my weekend was just traumatic and I didn’t really deal with it over the weekend. So here I am, a sobbing girl in group therapy, trying to explain why it is that i’m crying… what it is that happened… why it is that i’m so forgiving… and what it is that’s changed. man. what a wreck. so i cried. and cried. and cried.

in addition to crying because of the weekend and because i was somewhere that i could cry without anyone asking too many questions…. in part, i cried because i know that this is a disease i have to live with probably for the rest of my life. i remember being diagnosed with depression when i was 15. i cried. dr. saripalli said that a lot of times this isn’t a permanent thing. that it was something i would grow out of. i felt like my disease was being belittled. like i was unable to explain what i was actually going through. i felt like maybe she thought i was making it up. This isn’t the impression she meant to give me. That’s for sure. But at the same time… it was like… it felt so permanent. And I didn’t want to be told again that I was just sad because I was fifteen. So what. I was sad because I hate abandonment. I was sad for whatever reason it is that people get sad for. I felt so alone. And for the first time in my life I seriously wanted to die.

Now, I want this feeling to go away. But it doesn’t. It gets progressively worse. Depression which used to be indicated by restlessness, sadness, and feeling hopeless without reason is now an inabillity to get out of bed. A nearly complete loss of appetite. A hatred of my body. A feeling of hopelessness which seems to be permanent. A whole new wave of suicidal which I would never actually follow through on. Suicidal, to me, is an obnoxious desire to kill myself in new and creative ways based on every possible death-trap I see.

Anxiety which used to be an occasional panic attack or maybe more than the occaisonal panic attack is now this feeling of nausea whenever i’m in public. I am surrounded by my friends and I feel nothing. Sometimes I get happy and then maybe I smile a little bit… but more than anything I just feel empty. I am afraid of feeling anything but empty.

Mania which used to be occasional irrational decisions which happened as a result of medication is now something that comes unprovoked. A nighttime of conversations when I know I’ll hate the outcome but can’t bring myself to change the words I say or to speak as though I understand the consequences. I’m irrational. I’m rash. I spend money I don’t have. I’m impulsive. I hate it. Mania is a pseudo-happiness when you don’t remember the last time you were happy. It’s too awake to sleep with no consciousness of the potential next crash. It’s I-will-feel-good-for-all-of-it.

I laugh in therapy when I suggest that perhaps what was once Bipolar Spectrum and is now Type II will perhaps turn into Type I and the depression will fade. I am terrified that it will.

I do not want to be different. But I am. I do not want to be a disease, and so I will not be. This will be some strange part of my personality or my body or my brain chemistry that I handle in my own way without letting it control who I am.

Today. Therapy is a list of things I will do differently to take care of myself.

I am only writing this down because one time I read the blog of a girl who had disassociative identity disorder and felt relieved because I knew I was not alone. Because I knew that someday I would find someone who would recognize the manifestation of my mental illness before I did and knew when I was back before I did. So maybe someone finds this and feels a little bit better. Fuck.

I feel scared and distant from God. Please pray for me.

I sort of hate my uncensored diary. I guess the point of it is to journal things and then never have to think about them again… but still. I never want to see or think about those things again. And mostly I just find myself wishing I wouldn’t have written them down.

I don’t want to hide this from people anymore. It’s something that happened to me and as difficult as it is… I need to come to terms with it. And it seems that even with those whom you hold in greatest confidence… sometimes stories trickle out to people who suddenly become on a “need to know” list which you have no control over.

I spent wednesday night in Stormont Vail Behavioral Health Clinic because I am having an extremely difficult time dealing with the everyday life. It’s not even that I’m particularly stressed out. it’s more that I don’t know how to handle freetime without obsessing over my problems, flaws, and insecurities and sinking into dark depressions.

I know that I have isolated myself from people who really care about me and who really want to be there for me. While these actions were often carried out while I understood the full weight of what I was doing, I felt mostly powerless as I knew that allowing these people to be there for me would basically guarantee that I would have to acknowledge the problem. I believe that I’ve apologized to the people who I have harmed most as a result of this. Still, I want it to be known to everyone that I have apologized to people and that I am now conscious of what I was doing and the reasons behind that. I thank everyone for their understanding and for being by me at this time.

I don’t want anyone to blame themselves for this. Whoever you may be. I’m in a rough spot in my life and I am learning to get out of it by myself. No skill could be more important. If you’re a close friend or whatever… I need you to be understanding that I may not be the best person when it comes to consoling you right now. I may not be the best at cheering you up. And I may not be the typical “fixer” that I usually am in life. I need to focus on myself. Please take full advantages of whatever resources you have outside of me. If you’re not a close friend or whatever… just be understanding when those people who you are close to in your life go through a time of immense need. Understand that we don’t mean to push you away the way that we do… we just don’t know how to get help for ourselves and are terrified to let other people force us to get that help. Pray for us. Talk to us. Continue to ask us out even when we turn it down again and again. Tell our parents that we’re going through a tough time when they call to accuse you of not being there for us. There is no greater friendship than the one that understands and survives depression.

All my love.
Let’s be free.

Today didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped. But it’s ended really well… and that’s what matters. I wish I could better explain the little things that seem so silly to everyone else but matter so much to me.

I also wish I had more conditioner. Yah, I bet that would be great.

I’ve been listening to the Decemberists all night which has put me in a relatively nice mood. Though some of it makes me sad and sort of melancholy… they at least sound pretty happy. I listened to all of Castaways and Cutouts and I’m now on track 2 of Her Majesty. Yay. I’ve been knitting too. Working on that hat. It’s a really good experience, as far as knitting goes, cos I’ve never done a purl stitch before. And this hat forces me to do three of them after every three knit stiches for a fun ribbing pattern that you can’t really pickout cos it’s such a fuzzy yarn anyway… i’m sure it’ll be more obvious when the hat is more knitted… I like it a lot. I love the yarn color the most I think. It’s just so exciting. watching it turn into a knit object. and i think it’s sort of sad almost to see the skein unwind. in this really fascinating way.

I sort of meant to be blog about identity (againagainagain) but then i got distracted. I guess right now I think we’re all transitory. That is just an excuse to use the word transitory again.

“Will you stay here? For a while, dear? Till the radio plays something familiar.” – The Decemberists, “Billy Liar”

Oh, also, I’m excited cos my friend John who I haven’t talked to in years and I have been commenting on each others myspaces. How fun.