Happiness

Me = Stupid

I hate when I let this happen.

Nearly everytime I run out of pills.. I completely forget to go and get them refilled. I end up going without my pills for a couple of days and usually the only thing that gets me off my ass and over to the pharmacy is that I start feeling like complete shit.

I did it again this month. My pills ran out a couple of days ago.. and for some reason it never even crossed my mind that I needed to go get them refilled. All it takes is for me to miss one damned day of not being able to take them.. and I am suddenly forgetting to take them at all.

I think I actaully went about four days without my meds this time. And right now I have a killer migrane and I feel lightheaded and woozy. I also feel like I can feel the blood pumping through my veins..that’s the best I can think of by way of explaining what it feels like. It is something I only feel when I go more than two days without meds. I will feel the blood pumping really hard and my heart sort of feels like it is pounding out of my chest and I feel really light headed. Everything sort of spins for a few seconds. It is a very weird and uncomfortable feeling and it is usually the thing that kickstarts my ass into getting the pills refilled… cause I hate it and it makes me feel lke throwing up.

Another thing is that I am suddenly craving strawberries. What’s that about? For a couple of days now… I have been craving them and I ended up getting some when I went to the pharmacy to get my pills. (The pharmacy is inside a grocery store.) So now I am happy.

God, I’m weird.

Getting on with it..

I have actually been feeling a little better lately.. feeling a little more motivated. I’m glad because it really isn’t a good feeling to not have the disire to do a single freaking thing. Including get out of bed..shower..eat..leave the house.. It was scary actually.
But my motivation seems to be coming back more and more.. I started getting the desire to do little things again.

For one I started eating again. Which is always good. LOL

And I got my apartment clean and have been keeping it clean.

I started a new drawing. My first Sam/Dean drawing. It didn’t turn out like I wanted it to and I am not going to post it bacause I am looking at it more like practice. Getting me back into the groove of things. I hadn’t drawn in so long I sort of felt like I forgot how to. And needed to remind myself that I could.

And I have been going out more. To the grocery store with my Mom and over to my parent’s house. Which doesn’t sound like much but considering how things were for me, it is a big improvement.

And I finished the audio fic recording I had been working on. That felt really good. The whole thing was a learning expirence but I really do love doing it.

So everything is going alright for now. Except that my sleep schedule is all shot to hell. Sometimes I sleep too much. And then other times I don’t sleep enough. I am up during the night and sleep during the day. I was actually awake for 42 hours over the past couple of days. That was fun.
I am trying. And that is about as much as I can offer anyone right now.

Reality is overrated

I became completely and totally obsessed with a certain fanfiction I am reading. I have turned it into a trippy sneaker and have been re-writing alot of it in order to make it fit. I would never release my re-write online. It isn’t for anyone else to read but me. And it is completely someone else’s idea so I can’t take any credit for it.

But I have been having so much fun… I have had trouble thinking about anything else. Which means that my apartment became a mess again. (I have since cleaned it back up though) and I have been putting off other responsibilities. Such as taking my phone back to Verizon, and calling the student loan people.

But with the fic and the new season of Supernatural starting…I have had absolutely zero desire to live in the real world.

I have been on this dose of meds for about two months now. And I am pretty sure they are not working. It wouldn’t be so easy for me to become obsessed if they were. My next appointment is in a couple of weeks.. I have a feeling she will be increasing them again. Hopefully the next dose up will work better.

And I decided that I was willing to try getting back into counseling, but when I called about it.. they told me that the program that I was under that paid my co-payments wasn’t doing that anymore.. so in order to see a counselor..I will have to pay a $50 co-pay out of my pocket. Which I can not afford. Especially since this means that my co-pay for my p-doc visits are no longer covered. So I will be paying that $50 out of my pocket too from now on. There is no way I can afford that AND $50-$100 a week on counseling.
I barely have enough money for food now as it is.

*yawns*

I have been feeling really weird the past couple of days.. I feel very scatter brained..like I can’t focus on anything for very long.

Nothing seems to satisfy me. I keep jumping from one thing to another. Can’t even focus long enough to really get into and enjoy a fanfic.

It’s really frustrating so all I want to do is sleep so I don’t have to deal with it.

The other night.. even though I had slept almost the whole night..after sleeping most of the day before…I just couldn’t handle the thought of a whole day ahead of me feeling this way so I took a couple sleeping pills to knock myself out again.

I slept so hard and had some really wicked dreams… but when I woke up I felt like absolute shit.

I could barely move. I felt like I was still drugged…my arms and legs felt really heavy and it was absolutely exhausting just walking from the bedroom to the livingroom. My head felt like it weighed a 100 pounds. And I had a killer headache. And I was still so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open and concentrate on anything. I ended up going back to bed for a while longer even though I didn’t really sleep. But I woke up feeling a little better. The headache is finally gone and I feel a little more awake.. but I still feel really weird.

I suddenly have this urge to go for a walk. Get out of my apartment. It’s funny, sometimes I have to remind myself that there is a world outside my apartment. It’s actually shocking to look outside my window and see all that space..

I have been thinking about writing the second part to the post I titled “Bad luck, or not?”…the one where I really get into the past and everything that has happened to bring me to where I am today. But it is really intimidating..And I am not sure I want to think about it that much right now.

Writing it all down makes it real.

Even though I know it is real..that it all really happened..it is just difficult to sit back and go over it all again because it is the main source of all my grief. It’s the reason I am in such a fucked up state of mind. It’s why I have the basic beliefs that I have.

But it is important to get it all out.

Podcasting

I have discovered the joys of podcasting.
I was already listening to fanfiction recordings by fans but I hadn’t realized that there were so many other kinds of podcasts out there.

I don’t have an iPod so I thought I couldn’t even listen to them anyways.. and then I found out that there are programs that will enable me to listen to them on my computer.. and will even let me save them as mp3’s if I want to keep them and put them on my mp3 player.

So I am using Winpodder which is perfect for me cause it works right through my Windows Media Player.

I went through a bunch of sites but the one that seemed the best so far is podcastalley dot com…
So far I have been focusing on self-help podcasts.. stuff about motivation and guidance..

The ones I like so far are..

Shadow and Light: A Guide Through Bipolar Disorder
Law of Attraction Tips
Yes You Can!
Life Challenges Podcast
Dream Your Life, Live Your Dream
Motivation to Move
The Daily Boost
No Excuses Weight Loss
Daily ProsterityGram

I am trying to be more positive.. It’s tough though.. But I am trying. Trying to change the negative recordings that are playing in a loop inside my head. Trying to have hope.

I went out to dinner with my parents the other night. It was their 35th Wedding aniversary..for some reason they wanted me to come along. I think they are just worried and want to get me out of the house. And babyback ribs at Chili’s is a good motivator. LOL

It’s a mess..

My apartment is a mess again. But thankfully I actually feel a little more aware today. I feel a little more awake than I usually do. Like things aren’t quite so cloudy.

Thank God, because everything needs cleaned. And the cable company is coming over to hook up my new cable modem sometime within the next few days… so I want the place to look decent then.

I am really excited about getting the cable modem. It is cheaper and faster and I can get back to downloading things at a reasonable speed.

I usually listen to music while I clean. Something to keep my brain focused on and make the whole thing a little less dull. But lately I have been listening to audio recordings of fanfiction while I clean. It helps alot more than just music… I almost act on auto pilot while cleaning because I am concentrating on listening to the fic. And I have a new recording of a good and long fic to listen to this time too. So it shouldn’t be so bad. And I always feel so much better when my place is clean.

The only thing I want to do before I start is get something in my stomach.

Bad luck or not? Part two

I have been thinking about this for a while now and I really should get back to this topic. Seeing as how it is probably the biggest thing I have to deal with and one of the major sources of alot of my problems.

So where did I leave off?

And that was only the begining…

Well.. obviously after all that I started showing some of the the classic symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress. Nightmares..constant anxiety.. avoiding crowds..paranoia…flashbacks resulting in panic attacks…and uncontrollable bouts of crying.

I continued to gain weight..but I no longer cared.

And they were constantly increasing my medications. Each doctors visit they would ask me, “Do you still want to die?” and I would be honest and say yes. Their response to that was to increase my meds.
Then..at my next appointment..they’d ask again..and I would say yes.. so they increased my meds again. And they kept increasing them, until one time they asked me again..and I was able to say..No..I didn’t feel so much like I wanted to die anymore. And I stayed that that dose for the next few years.

I tried going to counseling. Went to several different people. One actually said to me..straight up..they couldn’t believe I was actually still alive.

And I can honestly say.. I didn’t want to be. I may not have been obsessed with it so much anymore…but I was actually really fucking angry that I couldn’t kill myself.

See..I knew what it felt like to be the one left behind. And I loved my parents too much to do that to them. I knew what it would do to my parents if I did. So, as much as I may have wanted to..I couldn’t do it. I was stuck here.

So now I was on all these medications.. and they were pretty expensive. Totaling over $500 a month. I didn’t have any kind of insurance..so my parents were paying for it out of their pocket.
So it was decided that I needed insurance..and the only way for me to get it was to go on welfare. But in order to qualify..I couldn’t be living with my parents..I had to have my own place and provide my own meals.
So my parents decided that I was getting my own apartment. And within a couple weeks I was moved out. And let me tell you..I was NOT HAPPY.

I was NOT ready to move out on my own. But I was given no choice.

At the time I was taking classes to get my GED..and I had met a girl there who said she was looking to get a place of her own too. So we found a place together. It was a double and we had no furniture so the whole place was empty except for the few bedroom things we brought with us.

I got on welfare and I got the insurance and food stamps. And I finished the classes for my GED. The thing was, is that I had gone to school for the whole 12 years and the GED tests weren’t any harder than 9th grade work. So I scored such a high score that they gave me a diploma.

Moving out though.. proved to be too much after the past summer and I ended up having my first breakdown. I guess you could call it a nervous breakdown. I don’t really remember those weeks.. it was like I no longer existed.

I ended up moving out into another place where I would be calling my parents up in the middle of the night in hysterics for no real reason. Nighttime was really bad for me. I hardly ever slept.. so I was always up all night. And several times my mom would have to come over and try to calm me down.

I was EXTREMELY paranoid now about loosing my parents. I was convinced that they were going to be killed somehow. Everywhere I looked I saw death. A million different ways to die. I started hating to ride in cars because I was so afraid of getting in a accident. And I was tortured over the fact that my parents were out there driving around and I couldn’t stop them.

If my Mom called me too early in the morning, I would completely panic. Cause no one calls at such early hours unless they have bad news. And every time I had learned about another death that past summer..it was after being woken up by my Mom really early in the morning.

And I refused to let my parents leave me without telling them I loved them. Because I knew that it might be the last time I ever saw them. I still do that to this day.

Then my parents decided they were leaving.

My Dad had retired and they had bought a huge moterhome. They were selling everything to live full time in their moterhome and travel around the country.

I was devestated. They were all I had. And they were leaving.

I couldn’t help but feel abandoned. And to this day I still feel some resentment that they left the way they did. When they knew how bad it was for me. But they wanted to travel and it didn’t matter how much I may have needed them…they were leaving.

The fanfiction connection

I had this little epiphany a couple of weeks ago and I have been thinking on paper about it for a little while now…trying to find the right words to describe it.

For months now I have been completely obsessed with reading fanfiction in my fandom..(Supernatural)..and I never dreamed that there may be a deeper connection to my messed up psyche than just that it was fun and I needed something to pass the time.

Then one day it hit me. As I started to think about what exactly I got out of reading these fics. I knew I must get something out of it if I spent literally ALL DAMN DAY doing it. (God, I sound like Dr. Phil) Because most days.. up until really recently anyways.. I spent literally every waking hour reading fic.

So I was thinking about what exactly I loved about the fics I read. Why did I love them so much? How did they make me feel? And I realized that almost all the fics I read have several things in common.
They all tell a story about two people who meet..are drawn to eachother.. extremely attracted to eachother. They go through all the emotions of infatuation..lust..friendship..and love. They experience the excitement of realizing that the person the love, loves them back. They experience the excitement of that first kiss…first date. The passion and intensity of the first time together…the realization that they have found the one they want to be with forever. The joy of knowing that the one they love feels the same way.
The fics always include so much more than this.. like angst and drama. Fighting for the one you love..surviving through tough times..and getting through the hard times together. But these are the few core things that they all have in common. And they are the main things that keep me coming back.

And then I realized why I loved reading about these things so much. Because through reading a fic.. I get to expirence these things through the eyes of the characters. I get to feel what they feel.. expirence what they expirence. And I can’t help but feel like that is the closest I will ever get to expirencing these things myself.

My only experience with love ended with the one I loved killing himself. Love to me means nothing but heartache and loss. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be able to make it through the tough times with the one you love by your side. Having that person be there to support you..and getting to be there to support them.
I can’t imagine getting to feel and expirence all those wonderful feelings that come from falling in love myself and still get the happy ending.

When I read these fics.. I am shown what it must be like. I am shown one of the things that makes life worth living. And it makes me realize exactly what I have been missing. It makes me realize just how big this gaping whole in my heart is…and makes me want to fight to be able to get to have all those things for myself.

When I feel like my life is hopeless…and I feel like I don’t have the strength to keep trying… they help remind me what I am fighting for.

I am hoping that I can get through this mess right now..with waiting to find the right dose for my new meds..and fighting my brain everyday..searching for a reason to get up every morning..and someday be able to find that place where I am able to start expirencing these things for myself. It’s really the only thing that is keeping me going. And reading these fics everyday reminds me why I can’t give up yet.

Even during the couple of weeks when I was mentally checked out…refusing to care about anything or keeping fighting..I was still reading these fics.. and I think that they may be the reason that I was able to eventually bring myself out of that state of mind..and get to a place where I am able to consider fighting again. Because I never let myself completely forget what it was I was fighting for.

Bad luck or not?

 decided that I needed to get into one of my biggest issues here. I guess you could call it my outlook on life. My basic belief system.

One of mine has to do with God. I was raised to believe in a God who was all powerful, all knowing. He has nothing but love for us. He is omnipotent. Could move mountains if he wanted to. Performed miracles. He knows our hearts..knows how we think.. how we really feel. I was taught that if you were a good person, if you followed the commandments, you would be rewarded. You would be blessed.

So I started to worry when my life started to fall apart. When nothing but bad things were happening to me. I guess you could say that the first thing was my being Bipolar. But back then..I really didn’t see how that was much of a problem. I had just been diagnosed and I had no real idea of the effect it would have on my life.

It was 1996..I was a senior in high school..I was in love.. I had awesome friends.. and parents who cared about me. I had no reason to be depressed.. but I was. I clung to my boyfriend..who I loved more than anything..like my life depended on it.. and did my best to deal with my conflicting emotions.
School became too much. I had already been in the alternative program for “problem” kids..which was supposed to make things easier on me. But I still ended up getting sort of homeschooled. Where a few of my teachers actually came to my house and taught me. I was six credits shy of graduating.

My friend Ryan was the first to die that year. He and his best friend Dustin, another friend of mine..were in a car accident. Dustin went through the windshield and Ryan was crushed by the roof when they rolled over several times. Dustin was in a coma when we had Ryan’s funeral..and nobody knew if he was going to make it or not. Luckly, he did. But he would have years of surgeries..and physical therapy ahead of him.

Then my boyfriend killed himself. He shot himself in the head.

I died that night. It’s really the only way to describe how I was after that. I was breathing.. but for all intensive purposes..I was dead.

My parents panicked and put me under a 24 hour suicide watch. They hid all the knives and pills and wouldn’t let me out of their sight. My Mom did just came out and asked me once if I really wanted to do it..and I told her that I didn’t really want to. That I had thought about suicide before..but it had always been this idea. It wasn’t something real. But Jon made it real. He made it something that could actually be done. He made it an option.

I didn’t care about anything anymore. I stopped the homeschooling…stopped seeing my friends..stopped taking my karate lessons..(which I had been doing for six years..I was a black belt)..just stopped living.

I had found out about Ryan after my Mom poked her head into my room very early, waking me up, and it was like deja vu when one morning, about two months later, she did the same thing. Only this time, she told me that there had been a plane crash. That the French Club at my school had been on their way to Paris and the plane had exploded shortly after take off. There were no survivors.

I had known about the French Club’s trip to Paris. My best friend, who I had known for seventeen years, had been saving money to go on that trip. But I hadn’t talked to her in months, since Jon died, and I realized that I had no idea if she had been on the plane or not.
With my heart in my throat, grabbed the phone and dialed her house. It was only 5:30 in the morning but I didn’t care. I had to know.
Her Mom answered and all I said was, “Erika?” And her Mom said, “Don’t worry, Kelly. She wasn’t on the plane.”

Even though I felt better knowing Erika was ok.. When I got downstairs, every channel on television was showing video of the burning wreckage of the plane..floating on the surface of the ocean.

I had actually been in the French Club myself. But had quit during my junior year. It had been a couple of years since then so I couldn’t really say exactly who had been on the plane.

I was in shock. The whole town was in shock. This was the kind of stuff that only happened in movies. Talk of bombs and terrorists…Things like this just didn’t happen to little towns like us. But now, instead of watching the reporters on tv talk about how total strangers had been killed..we were watching them talk about people we knew. They were talking about my friends..some of whom I had known my whole life. They were talking about explosives and wreckage and terrorist threats. But it still didn’t feel real. Not until they released the names of the people who had been on the plane.

That day, I found out that 18 of my friends were dead. Kids I had known my whole life. Kids that I had seen every damn day at school. Friends I had made through Erika, who was two years younger than me.

The days after that were filled with grief and fear and finding out who’s body had been pulled out of the ocean that day.

Reporters from all over the world swamped our little town..surrounding the high school..where everyone was meeting to share their grief.

I was there.. I was sad of course..shocked.. and horrified. But I didn’t cry. I didn’t grieve. I think my brain had short circuited or something. Because I kept having to remind myself what had happened. And that I should be more upset. But it never came. I was completely dead inside. I had lost the ability to feel anything.

The high school turned into a funeral home. And every funeral was broadcasted live all over the world. People from all over the world were sending gifts and money and all kind of things, to the high school.

It had only been six months since Ryan’s death…four months since Jon’s.. and by the end of that summer I had gone to 22 funerals.

And that was only the begining…but it’s been a long night..so I think I will have to pick this up again tomarrow.