chores

I woke up at 5:30 today. My fit bit tells me I got 3 hours and 25 minutes of sleep, but I think it started tracking later than it should have. (I am a super restless sleeper, apparently.) I have an online workshop to throw myself into after Lorelei takes a nap. Our Echo Dot will remind me to do my second yoga session after 1 (yoga videos on an app are super convenient for making schedules).

Technology is neat.

My problem with stats is that I have trouble breaking away from them. I obsess. I started using Habitica in August, and I haven’t missed a day of using it since then. It doesn’t help me get anything new done, and I don’t use it to track my more difficult routines (like my bedtime routine) because there are too many steps involved and it’s already really deeply ingrained anyway. I don’t use it for one-off tasks, work schedules, meal planning, my workout routines – all of that goes into my bullet journal or my health planner. I keep doing it to check boxes and get experience points. Lather, rinse, repeat. It literally adds nothing of value to my life at this point, and I should probably let it go.

I’ve been on a purge this year. I think about what healthy relationships, positive relationships, restorative relationships should look like, and I cut out the rest. I don’t mind being a shoulder for people, or always being the first to reach out, or only talking once every year. I do mind the drain of negativity and cruelty. I used to thrive on being unkind, but now seeing that behavior in myself just makes me turn that anger inward, and I don’t need reasons to involve myself in that cycle. I would rather just let it go.

Kindness has become a precious commodity that I guess a lot of people hoard for themselves and the people closest to them. Those are not my kind of folks. I prefer those who give kindness freely, even when it might not be comfortable or convenient for them.

Why hold onto anything that doesn’t enhance your enjoyment of life?

rusty

I can feel that my Rexulti is starting to work better (less paranoia, less anxiety), but I’m still full of tension and disappointment. I have to remind myself sometimes that I am not on medication to have bottled joy, but as a tool to help me find more peace in the day-to-day.

…sometimes, happiness doesn’t make us feel happy. (Gretchen Rubin)

I tried to jump headfirst into a daily yoga routine a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes that kind of thing works for me, sometimes it doesn’t. This was more of the latter. Today seems like a good day to give it another shot. Maybe change my approach. Or yeah, definitely change my approach. Maybe only do one session instead of three back-to-back.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. (People say Einstein said this, but who knows)

I took one of my final tests to become a Crisis Counselor last night and I’m not sure how I did. It stresses me out because this is a thing I really want to be a part of, but I’m not sure how good I am at executing the steps they laid out for me. I’m still caught up on my ways of thinking. Most of it comes naturally to me, but some aspects of talking to people through the site are still foreign to me. Even if I don’t pass this test, I can try again. And besides, I am my own harshest critic.

I feel like writing used to come naturally to me. I wrote my first book (okay, very very short novella) in middle school. (High fantasy thing, it was actually awful, but my mom said she liked it.) I have written in some capacity for a long time. And I’ve sang since my grandad was still alive. Since the end of 2014 though, I virtually stopped doing both of those things. Two of my favorite coping skills, down the drain. Now that I’m rusty with both, I don’t feel confident practicing either of them.

Making myself do it anyway, though. Fake it til you make it, right?

black hole

I have nothing to say and I don’t want to bother you, but I wish you would reach out. I’m having a bad brain day. I tried to tell you earlier, but my fingers tripped up. I defaulted to pretending I’m okay even though I’m not.

I can smell my own urge to color my hair again. Bleach. I don’t even have any bleach.

You’re active on Facebook. I’m sure the person you’re talking to is more important than I am. Not just to you, but in general.

Is it passive-aggressive if I post this? Is it passive-aggressive to reach out in general without directly reaching out to you? You said you would always be there, but you don’t even seem to notice me at all anymore unless I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, and my medication may not be working as well as usual, but it still works well enough to stifle the sounds before they even reach my throat. There’s too much stuffed up in me now, and it’s overflowing a little, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Sometimes, I feel like I should disappear before I leave too much of a mark on Lorelei. I don’t want her to be as sick as I am. On good days, I feel like an Okay Mom at best. On bad days, I am all guilt. Why did I choose to be sick? And when? If I kill myself, do I get to try again? Is that the reset button?

I’ve been picking at my face again. The whole world can see when I’m not doing well because I get covered in scabs. I don’t mean to, but my hands find my flaws and try to smooth them out. I’m no healer. I always seem to do more harm than good.

I have nothing to say, except that I feel like there’s a black hole where my sternum should be. I wish you would reach out, but maybe I would just suck you into my chest and you would disappear into me. Or worse, maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you are too tethered to text messages to even glance at the gaping hole or notice that I’ve been picking myself apart.

Maybe I’ll take a nap.

pre-medication adjustment

Seasonal depression always hits me pretty hard. I’m surprised it didn’t really make a dent until December this year. Usually, my mood drops pretty dramatically in early September (cool holdover from past trauma!). Finding a way to cope in the past was, frankly, not as important to me as it is now. Having a toddler who depends on me has made a huge impact in my desire to find solutions rather than just sitting in bed and eating dry ramen.

Been there, done that. It’s still an oddly appealing option, but I don’t succumb to the urge. I thank my meds.

After my daughter was born in October of 2015, a social worker came into my hospital room and asked me questions about my mental state. In the past, I may have dodged these questions out of self-preservation. Sobriety (not just abstinence, but a commitment to personal growth) has taught me to do otherwise. Giving birth terrified me. It was the reason I didn’t want to have children up until this point in my life. The inevitability of giving birth was, to me, a thousand times more daunting than any part of motherhood. I admitted that I had suicidal thoughts and that I self-injured during my pregnancy.

She called CPS.

The woman my family and I worked with during my daughter’s early life had no desire to take her away from me. She told us flat out that she didn’t think she needed to be involved, but we were required to continue through the process anyway. We were required to have routine inspections, take Lorelei (my daughter) to her checkups, and I was required to go back to therapy and see a psychiatrist. The idea of trying medication again, after many failed attempts, was daunting, but I was not willing to risk losing my little newborn.

I tried a small handful of medications before landing on the ones I’m on now – Rexulti and Effexor. I know it disappoints some people that I’m on medication (namely, my mom), but I’m not sure if I’ve ever had such clarity as I do when I’m on the correct dosages. If there is some amount of mental willpower that I need to exert in order to feel this way, I don’t without my medication. I don’t have the drive. I am too easily distracted by my anxiety and my mind racing with absurd hypotheticals (if you don’t hold your breath until the light turns green, a car will smash into the passenger side and you’ll die!).

To bring it all back, I am sinking.

Today is my last day before I move up to 2mg of Rexulti. I am making this adjustment because the suicidal thoughts have come back. When Lorelei sleeps, I sleep. And she sleeps a lot, so I do, too. My paranoia is creeping back in, too. I recently half-convinced myself that my partner was cheating on me. A friend brought me home from work and I decided to surprise him by not telling him that I had gotten a ride, but when I reached our apartment door, I was struck with the realization that I should have messaged him to give him time to let his lover leave. At least I haven’t deteriorated into believing that Greg (my partner) is in touch with my rapist and that they’re conspiring some way to ruin my life and then murder me. I’ve believed that one before, with many of my partners. (I would venture to say most.) (Yeah, I still write stories, they just don’t typically leave my head.) This paranoia caused tension in a lot of relationships, but I don’t feel it so much when my medications are at that sweet spot. My unfounded paranoia is one of many symptoms of my mental illness.

May tomorrow be better.

brainspill

The word “brainspill” was a command I made up when I was in a long-term relationship at the end of high school and for about a year afterward. My boyfriend at the time was not much of a talker, but I tried to mold him into someone else by demanding that he share his innermost thoughts with me when I demanded it. I would say “brainspill”, and he was expected to say whatever was on his mind, no filter, no hesitation.

I recognize that this is an unhealthy thing to do to someone and would never make this demand of someone now. (Fortunately, my current partner is a storytelling master, and an open one at that, so I seldom feel the need to ask him what’s on his mind in the first place, but I digress.)

Be the change you wish to see, right? Maybe by being open and honest, others will be open and honest with me. I have lived this truth – to the best of my ability – for the last four years and some change, since I realized that drugs and I are a dangerous combination. Well, not that I realized it just then – I had that particular epiphany in September of 2007, but I’ll get into that in another post. August of 2013 was just when the revelation actually decided to stick.

I struggle with the belief that I died in a car accident when I was 17. Ten years later, and I can’t shake it. My mom told me once (as I was coming down from a salvia trip) that it doesn’t matter if I’m dead or not if I’m still experiencing some version of “life”. Terrified that this existence is some kind of test, that I am missing the signs, that suicide is the only way to “win” or avoid Hell, her words only bring me a little bit of comfort.

I don’t know how much I subscribe to the whole “diagnosing mental illnesses” thing. What I do know is that I suffer from periods of suicidal depression, impulsive and occasionally euphoric mania, and intense delusions. Medication helps with all of these things. I would rather risk dying sooner than continue living the miserable life that I tried to self-medicate myself out of. My psychiatrist has my best interest in mind, and he puts coping skills before medication adjustments. I hate that it’s taken me more than a decade to find a psychiatrist that I can trust – not to mention medication that actually puts me at ease.

I am a public person, but I isolate. I am open online, but I don’t really reach out to people. My phone is too heavy. The keyboard is too far away from the bed. Maybe blogging again will help me to get some of this garbage out when it feels like too much.

Like now.