Dare to Hope - Hope to Transform

Rather cliche year-end survey

2009-01-02T21:50:00.006-07:00

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Quite a bit... It's been an eventful year, if not in too many positive ways. For the first time I did an actual hospitalization treatment program for my ED, got hooked on the Simpsons (albeit twenty years late, really), busked, got a ferret, got on welfare.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't remember making any, actually. This year my new year's res's are: money and a book draft.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Doesn't quite count as someone close to me, but Linda, a blogger I've been following for quite a while now , had her second and he is just absolutely cute. Also my... I'm not sure how she'd be 'related' to me... My partner's mom's cousin's granddaughter had a kid. Hee. Also, my close friends Marque and Dylan had their first beautiful baby girl, Emma Rose. Seriously, I love babies and kids in general but this little baby is gorgeous beyond cute.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

A good friend of mine from back East was murdered. It sucked. And I still keep thinking about him and wondering what the hell is wrong with people.

5. What countries did you visit?

"Can we list counties instead? Because not so much with the exotic travel in 2008." I like and am yoinking Linda's answer here. Aside from no money to travel I had no car to travel with for the latter half of the year...

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

Hahaha money. I know, I know, money won't buy me love and it won't make me happy and all that crap... But people who say money is worthless have never scrounged for pennies to buy something, anything to eat. I will not hesitate to say that poverty can be a severe damper to recovering from an eating disorder.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

January 24th, the day I started inpatient; September 20th, my four year anniversary!; October 31st, my first night on the floor at Nordstrom's. There are other dates which, for their trauma, ought to be seared in there but for better or worse I seem to have blocked them out. Quite literally...

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Not getting evicted, arrested, or sent to debtor's prison. Also, getting a good job that I love, being 'wife' and mama to a beautiful lady and our three baby cats and one baby ferret.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Eh. We'll leave it short, sweet, and vague with "car fiasco".

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Aside from the relapse which put me inpatient at the beginning of the year it's been remarkably healthy! Thank jeebus for that one, at least, given all the rest.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My Blackberry makes me happy every single day ~~it's not got its service suspended~~. I'm also loving the apartment, the ferret, several super cheap seasons of Futurama, and the blanket I bought/made when I graduated PHP.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Everyone in this country who voted for OBAMAAAA!!! Everyone who voted NO on Prop 8 (seriously, even though the...achem, conservatives, beat us, it still means a lot that we tried). The state of Colorado for going blue as a New Hampshire aristocrat despite all the religious cluster bombs in the Springs! Tina Fey for rocking my world and saving the election. (Uh, in imagination and theoretical application, not literal... Though the offer stands, Ms Fey!)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Freakin Sarah Palin... Casey Anthony. Blagojevich. Marylin Musgrave and that whoreish chick responsible for Prop 48. Those responsible for Prop 8, too, for that matter. Mugabe, Putin, BUSH (can't forget that bitch, neh?), Israel... Many who deserve to be drenched in kerosene and tossed in a bug zapper this year.

14. Where did most of your money go?

You know, it's seemed that every time I had five bucks there were at least ten people demanding it. Seems you truly can't get a drink of water for free anymore.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

God, I've gotten super excited about many things this year. The election and all things related would pretty much dominate...

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Haha, the Obama song. Also Swing Life Away and that one song by Lilly Allen, something something something the way the cookie crumbles something. Both will always remind me of poverty and romance and attempts to romanticize poverty.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: 

a) happier or sadder? Happier, undoubtedly - at this time last year I was relapsing hardcore and facing more hospitalization.
b) thinner or fatter? Haha a good ----- 'fatter'.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer...

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Fun, luxurious, relaxing things. You know, massages and cotillions and money baths and other rich things like that.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying... I'm pretty sure I've shaved a good forty years off my life with all the worry this year. Damn, hopefully somehow I'll still be in the black with the years gained from a stint inpatient...

20. How did you spend Christmas?

With cousins and aunts and uncles and thinly connected distant relations and their cute babies. It was a good Christmas!

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?

I had a couple new fuzzy carpet shark loves this year. :-P Molly, who in her short life with us hopefully had as great a time as we did with her, and Charlie, her successor.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Futurama baby. Also the Simpsons (old seasons, not current crap) have risen steadily in the ranks. South Park remains strong as ever though.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Did I know about Palin this time last year? I don't remember. There's a couple people I'm distinctly angry with at the moment that I wasn't last year but I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate them.

24. What was the best book you read?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his sexalicious Hundred Years of Solitude stole my freaking heart, despite all the weirdness. I've read quite a bit this year and enjoyed it all immensely.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Hm... Think her name is Stina Nordenstam. She's sexy.

26. What did you want and get?

A sexy apartment!

27. What did you want and not get?

Money?

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

Hmm... Se7en, Dark Knight, Harold and Maude, uh.... God, my brain is failing me tonight.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I worked on my birthday but I regret it not one bit. There is nothing like working-on-your-birthday sympathy to get great tips!

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

God I hate this theme, but, money.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Finally graduating from the Cheesecake Tighty Whiteys and then 'trying'?

32. What kept you sane?

God, a good chemical combination of fluoxetine, lamotrigine, buproprion, crystaline, and THC.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I am still a complete puddle of mush for my Angelina. Six kids and still sexy... Nom... Also, I would in less than a heartbeat go straight should President Elect Obama ask. I'm really, really sorry Mrs President, but if he asks I don't think I'll have the willpower to say no.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Props 8, 48, and the whole damn election in general. I narrowly avoided god only knows how many heart attacks this election season!

35. Who did you miss?

My brother. George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Ben Franklin, and whoever those other guys are.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Erica, Lindsay, Ainsley, Johnnie, Stephanie, Judi, lotsa cool people this year!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

You can get by successfully on a lot less than you think you need. That said, there is still a line.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

We'll sit on front porches and swing life away
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I'll slave 'til the end
I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand!

2008-12-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

Moderate improvements to the financial state... Well, minor, really, but I'm not and have never been one to give in. We scraped by for December and now it's a matter of figuring out next month... I'm pretty sure we'll be okay but am DEFINITELY still taking commissions because things are still really shaky.

If anyone would like to commission a scarf or plate or, I dunno, anything, you can just email me with a request. My paypal account is novareproject@gmail.com and that's the same email by which to reach me. For those who have me on facebook I've got several scarf pictures posted there. I'd also be happy to email them. Unfortunately I can't post photos to my blog directly from the blackberry, which is still my only source of internet accessibility.

Thank you guys for being there... I'm sorry for the craptacular lack of posts the past months.

something of an emergency

2008-12-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

So. Since last posting I've switched to a new job at nordstrom's which, overall, is going well... But the last two weeks were absolute bullshit and since at Nordstrom we make comission I'm screwed.

The rent check will be cashed any day now and my account is $250 short.

I have scarves and gorgeous plates and art to sell... They'd make good
Christmas presents for people....

I hate calling on charity. I've never not worked my ass off for the things I need, the past two weeks included. But right now I really need help.

Semi-temporary computer!

2008-10-07T13:41:00.002-06:00

Crystal's mom has given us her laptop so that she can get papers done more effectively... She's been typing them out on her QWERTY keyboard on the Blackberry. Rather inefficient.

I'm kind of just sitting around sick today... Not horribly, dreadfully ill, just a cold. Enough to knock me on my ass a bit, though. There are not many new developments out here. Crystal's worried because I've been cutting back on food again... It's really not a hundred percent intentional, though - we just can't afford any groceries. Right now I have in my cupboards: cereal, oatmeal, some flour, canned fruit, and a couple half-empty boxes of 99 cent pasta. I eat when I'm at work but otherwise it's tough to do much with what I've got in stock.

To compound matters, through a series of events I'd rather not detail, we no longer have a car and likely will not have one for quite some time. The grocery store is not walking distance from here, nor is it on a bus route. Sooo... still trying to figure out how that one's going to play out.

In the mean time rent is paid for another month. In an odd stroke of luck, our apartment is close enough to the main offices that we can piggy-back off their internet, so that's one other worry diminished. One positive thing about having a computer with internet access again is that I can once more put out job apps. I sent out sixteen last week, three of which were to head-hunter sites. I have yet to hear back from anyone but please, please put in a good word for me with the saints upstairs.

Hours and sales and business are so horrific right now that I'm lucky if I can procure twenty hours a week. In those twenty hours, I'm even luckier if I can walk with $200. By doing the math, I've figured out that in order to simply break even with just a $50/week grocery budget, I need to pull in about $500 a month. Right now this is simply not happening. We're overstaffed and under-businessed (yes, that is now a word) and the GM we've had since last August is running the place into the ground. If worse comes to worse, I'm about to start looking for a different restaurant job just to help pay the bills better while I continue to search for something office-y.

To supplement income, I've started busking. I'm actually loving it quite a bit more than I thought I would and am trying to head downtown at least several times a week to perform. After finishing this post I plan on working on setting up a busking blog, so keep an eye out for that one.

So in conclusion... I'm still alive, still scraping by, and still flipping a bird to The Man. It'll take more than this financial crap to stop me!

so will it work to update from my blackberry?

2008-08-21T23:41:00.000-06:00

Life's kinda weird right now. In some ways it's better than ever, but in others it's at a nerve-wracking level akin to my dog food days that first summer in DC.

The reason I'm updating from my blackberry is that my computer died and I can't afford to get or even finance a new one, and aside from that had my cable/internet service shut off recently because I can't afford to pay the bill. I've got lots of plates and art projects that I want to list on Etsy to try to bring in some cash on the side while I continue my ongoing quest for a job that will actually be adequate for my bills and needs but have no way to get the pictures up.if it weren't enough that I have no computer and no internet service, my worthless ex-roommate stole my digital camera (and iPod) as a parting gift when we moved out. So I have no way to take the pictures which I have no computer to load them onto and no internet to use Etsy anyway. Mom and dad... I'm sorry. I feel fucking terrible about the digital camera and it's one of the best presents you've ever given me and I feel like losing it is somehow my fault for not protecting it well enough.

Wow, I'm an overflowing bucket of cheer.

On the plus side, I'm making rent on time each month, not getting evicted, still have a job and gas for my car, I'm in a great relationship and have two beautiful, healthy cats, I've got some great friends and my best friend is expecting her first in a week and i'll be an "aunt" so... Things could always be worse. It's kind of a best of times, worst of times scenario at present.

I don't see my financial status improving any time in the near future, barring a deus ex machina, but I'm getting used to it. I'm reading obsessively again and doing lots of art even if I have no way to sell it. So it's all good, in its own way.

Well, one obnoxious thing about updating via blackberry keyboard is that a qwerty is much more time-consuming than a reggae, so my thumbs are getting tired. On the plus side I do have this option available to me, so when I have the patience for it I'll be more likely and able to update, if only in brief.

Hope life is still bright for all my readers! Siri, if you're still around can you e-mail me your current address? You've been on my mind a lot lately and i'd love to write sometime. Peace!

A moment of minor mourning

2008-07-25T16:29:00.002-06:00

For my computer. ::hangs head::

Over the past year or so it has slowly succumbed to old age and decay... Or something... It started with spiderweb cracks on the screen which spread until only the bottom left quarter was still visible... Those lines were joined by white bands... The touch pad started to go... The speed slowed to I-25 at rush hour... Then yesterday I opened it up to find this odd tartan of a screen, red and black and blue with spider cracks and nothing resembling words or icons remaining.

Yes, the screen is the worst part of the current problem, but the computer itself is also so far gone that it doesn't seem worth buying a new screen to tack on to the computer. Probably I'll find some way to hook it up to a screen for at least long enough to download all my data, though. (I know, shame shame SHAME on me that I have never made data backups in all the years I've owned computers. Yes, I truly know better than this. No, even multiple losses have not made me shape up.) Crystal's school rents iBooks for fifty bucks a semester so what I'm thinking is that we'll rent one of those when school starts in a few weeks then buy a CPU when we can afford it then eventually a new laptop. Jeez.

So I bring all this to the table to say that my computer access will be even more limited than it has been, at least until school starts. The computer has been such a pain to use over the last few months (try blocking out three-quarters of your screen then putting a dark mesh over the rest) that I haven't even wanted to bother, hence the sparce updates and all. At least that should change once there is a new computer! Hopefully!

Well, the library computer is about to time me out. Sooo peace out my dears. I'm leaving to go camping on Sunday and should be back late next week; otherwise I'll be in the middle of nowhere and pretty much unable to communicate. I doubt there will be cell phone reception but I could always be surprised. Tchao!

2008-07-10T23:48:00.002-06:00

Crystal and I tried to have a "house"-warming party today... Only problem was a grand total of four people showed up over the course of six hours. Many more had said they would come but I hadn't really counted on them, anyway... Servers are really damn flaky people. Still, I thought the promise of pizza and beer might have helped.

So, basically, Crystal and I need to find some more lesbian/straight friends in the Denver area. It's sad, I posted an ad on Craigslist just for the hell of it, but not a single person responded... There is no love for the me. Ah well.

In other news, I'm finally starting to get up to a therapeutic dose on the Lamictal. I'm only at 50mgs right now but I've noticed a slight difference at least. I've been keeping a mood journal, tracking my ups and downs in particular, and they're starting to even out. I meet with Dr C again in a couple weeks and that should determine what I'll be taking regularly. We'll see!

Umm... Blah, I'm a bit zoned out and am having a hard time thinking of anything to write, so I suppose I'll cut this off. Peace!

I'd like to buy a diagnosis, Pat.

2008-06-26T17:37:00.003-06:00

So where have I been? MOVING. Honestly, that's been the biggest, busiest thing lately... Between April and May it was all about looking for a place to move into once our lease expired in June. From May to the middle of June I was packing and working and cleaning constantly so that we'd be ready to make the shift on June 13th.

And now we're here!

The new place is absolutely freaking gorgeous and I love it. You know that place where you walk inand just know that you're home? It was kinda like that. Not sure why, but even entering the furniture-free, blank apartment just felt right. It's a bit pricier than our last place (and it's just the two of us paying this time, no help from the mostly-worthless roommate) and because of all the security deposits and fees and costs of moving it's been a huge, constant financial scramble. Particularly seeing as we moved in on the 13th, which is mid month and therefore left us with only two weeks to gather the entire next month's rent.

In addition to the constant working, my depression has been worse worse worse. I doubt it could be picked up too well from the sparse updates I've been giving, but my meds started giving up the ghost about a month and a half ago... Conveniently coincident with moving and financial stress... Go life. Isn't it just lovely like that?

I was able to save up for an appointment to my psychiatrist two weeks ago and up came that old freaking label I can never manage to escape: Bipolar. I've been given this diagnosis by pretty much every psychiatrist I've ever had, given familial evidence and personal instability, but continue to balk at it. Granted, I have had one certifiably manic episode. No one, not even myself, can deny that. It was full-blown mania with psychotic delusional symptoms and all. However, this episode was also one hundred percent chemically induced. I started on Lexapro and within three days was delusional, unable to sleep, suffering paranoid hallucinations (inanimate objects seemed to be conspiring and attacking, for one thing), talking my head off and incapable of maintaining a single train of thought. I wasn't out buying snake bite kits or trans-European vacations but it wasn't that far off.

Reasons I've used in defense of my non-bipolar-ness:
-Chemically induced, and the only true manic episode I've ever had. There have been hypomanic episodes but never anything close to the Lexapro incident.
-Similarities between DID patients and Bipolar patients, due to instability within the self and conflicting displays by alters.
-Lack of true manic episodes or strict demarcation between highs and lows.
-The fact that Bipolar is the diagnosis en vogue right now. Twenty, thirty years ago, I probably would have been labeled borderline. Fifty years ago, schizophrenic or schizotypal. And now: Bipolar. How should I feel about this? Accept it as accurate or refute it because of the commonality?

A couple factors have lately made me start to reconsider the label. For one thing, every doctor I've ever worked with, even from the very beginning, has thrown it at me. Yes, Bipolar may be the favorite label these days, but does that mean it is always illegitimate? The very fact that I deny it so much makes me think I should reconsider... After all, strongh denial always seems to be characteristic of those people who truly deserve any particular label.

One other consideration is that I trust Dr. Christensen more than any psychiatrist I've ever worked with, perhaps excepting the doctor I had in DC. He really does know his shit. When I told him about the diagnosis in the first place and that my manic episode was purely chemical in origin, he nodded and said, "All right." Then we moved on. "Now, though, he's been working with me pretty intensely for about six months and, very carefully, brought the issue up again at our last appointment. After this amount of time, I know that he knows me as more than a case file. When he gently said that he didn't want us to "fully dismiss the possibility" I don't think it was because he just wants me to have another label to add to my list.

Additionally, I have been on mood stabilizers more than once before, and they have helped me significantly. Previously I've attributed this to it helping with controlling the DID (mood stabilizers have been known to help ballance multiples out) but it's possible I'm just trying to explain away evidence because I don't want Bipolar added to everything else. Depression, anorexia, even DID can eventually be cured in many cases, but bipolar stays with you forever because of its physiological foundations. I can't stand the idea of being medicated the rest of my life.

Soooo... Not sure what my opinions are on this matter, but I'm back on mood stabilizers. Lamictal helped me a lot before and the only reason I stopped taking it was that I hit my prescription cap with insurance. This time Lamictal is just about to become available in a generic form so I'll actually be able to afford it long-term! The brand name is an extremely expensive medication so it's a relief to know I'll have the generic available.

Lamictal has to be increased really slowly because of risks of complications with the body's tolerance, and I've only been on it a week now, so I'll let you know. I should be at a therapeutic dose in another three or four weeks.

So that's what's going on right now. Yay.

In other news, GO OBAMA!!!

2008-05-16T15:07:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure how to begin an entry of this nature... Probably, even if you haven't been following all the news reels you're still aware of the earthquake that took place in China on Monday. It's four days later and they're still dealing with aftershocks and, increasingly, with an extraordinary lack of fresh food and water for the survivors. Cleanup and continued excavation to search for bodies and any survivors is probably going to last months.

Please, I don't usually try to recruit anyone for personal causes, but if there's any way you can afford just TEN DOLLARS you can make a donation to the Red Cross international disaster relief fund. (It's the first choice on the site provided.) I'm broke as hell right now but somehow this still feels more important than my rent money or bills. Skip Starbucks three times over the next week and there's your ten dollar donation.

I mean, I'd give anything to be in China right now, working hands on to help as many people as I could... But I can't. Thank god for the internet, though, right? An instant donation to go directly toward helping all these hundreds of thousands of people. That's a pretty huge fucking deal. I don't know what all ten dollars can buy, but I'm thinking it's at least a few cases of bottled water or antiseptics or, hell, even gas money for the guys working the excavation equipment.

Please, please, please, if there's any way you can make a donation, do.

http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main That takes you directly to their donation page if the link above doesn't work.

Pictures!

2008-05-08T13:01:00.006-06:00

No exciting news about my trip to Fascinations yet, or about my job hunt, or sundry other things... Just a brief picture post before I have to head out. If I can ever get my ass back in gear I'll supply you all with a decent update sometime on the near future. >.<

Not sure if I mentioned it in the blog, but recently we purchased a dining room table and chairs set which Crystal had the brilliant idea to turn into a recovery project. After all, isn't the dining table the 'center of healing' and all those other cliches? Anywho, I've been working on this project for a few weeks now and it is turning out to be a pretty fantastic deal. The other day we purchased a set of clear glass dishware which we have also been working on decorating so that our new apartment (move in on June 13th!) will be all snazzy and crazy and bohemian.

"Before" pics -

And after!

Walking around the table clockwise, starting in the front, it looks like this up close:

At left is a close-up on one of the two chairs.

Here are the cups and plates which have been made so far... (Crystal decorated the beer stein on the left; the rest are things I made.) I also have four more large plates, four small, two coffee mugs, and four bowls left to do. :-D I plan on listing some of them on Etsy to see if anyone would be interested in buying some, because they just are turning out to be so damn cool! I haven't been this proud of my art in a while.

You can't quite tell in the picture, but the left-hand plate is covered with song lyrics from a Northstar album. The center print says "I am the piano that nobody plays when everybody's home."

I'll keep posting with pics as more of the project is finished.

Therapist #30869054

2008-04-14T23:50:00.003-06:00

Well, I did make it to see the new therapist today. It's so frustrating seeing someone at the school counselling center, though... I can't develop any sort of rapport before they move on to a new internship! I'll only be seeing this one for four weeks, when the semester ends and she goes off to somewhere.

Actually, I'm rather peeved with them in the first place... The head of the counselling center told me that I'd be seeing a practicing clinician, not an intern, since I really need more intensive help than a grad could offer me. That and I have a tendency to intimidate interns. I mean, think about it: I've probably been in therapy far longer than they've been studying it! And of course there's also the little factor that I'm quite a bit crazier than the finals stress, break-up grief, homesickness, that most of the students at the school come in for.

The biggest problem I have with new therapists is called ACTIVE LISTENING. It's the therapy practice in vogue (I thought Jung started it but Crystal tells me it's way more recent) and it's a load of crap. No other way to put it. Basically, active listening looks something like this:

Me: Basically, I'm just having a really hard time adjusting back to real life. I feel guilty when I eat because I feel like I'm betraying an old friend but I feel guilty if I don't eat because then I'm betraying myself and everyone who's been supporting me.
Carol (therapist): I'm hearing that you're dealing with a lot of conflicting thoughts... That must be a very stressful thing for you.
Me: Yeah... It's like either way I can't win. It's so much easier to fall back on ED patterns because they're so familiar and simpler. I don't have to think about it to act on my anorexia but it takes constant effort to pursue health.
Carol: It sounds like you're pretty discouraged. I can see how it would be tempting to revert to the old, familiar habits.
Me: ....Yeah.

Me: Blah blah blah, something about the work I've already done in therapy.
Carol: I just wanted to say how very impressed I am by the amount of work you've done... You have so much insight into your thought processes and struggles! It seems like you have been working really hard to be serious about recovery.
Me: OH MY GOD WHAT I'VE ALREADY DONE IS NOT THE POINT. IF IT WAS, I WOULDN'T BE HERE BECAUSE I'D BE HANDLING LIFE ADEQUATELY BY NOW.

Sigh. Active listening just pisses me right the hell off. If that was what I was needing from a therapist, I could just go talk to one of the empathetic robots that AI scientists are working on now... Active listening is easy enough that ROBOTS CAN AND DO PRACTICE IT.

If I'm paying a therapist to help me, I'd like a little more participation than an echo plzkthx.

That said, tune in next time for a discussion of my latest trip to the sex store and why I feel American society is hypocritical, prudish, and operating on out-moded Puritanical ideals! (Because I'm never on a high horse or anything.)

A dingy little window in

2008-04-08T14:39:00.003-06:00

I'm having a Bad Day.

Yesterday was supposed to be my first appointment with my new therapist through the UCD counselling center. I've already done my intake and everything but because of spring break and some trip or other the therapist had last week yesterday was the earliest we could schedule an appointment. When the alarm went off at 8:30 I looked it over, thought about how desperately I wanted to sleep, and disabled the alarm.

Lora called me later that day and left a message since I looked at the phone, saw who it was, and ignored the call. In the gentle, unaccusatory therapist tone, she said how her schedule had me down for ten and it was now noon and she wondered where I was. She made sure to preface any sort of admonishment with an, "I know we haven't talked for a few weeks, so I'm sure you must have forgotten or something came up." Yeah, my anorexia came up. And it says it doesn't want any more therapy.

I woke up around 12:45, meaning I should have gotten my first meal around one. I finally decided to prepare something around 2:30. According to the clock on my cell phone it is now 2:51 and my two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and glass of milk are barely touched.

Every time I pick the first sandwich up for a nip (bite wouldn't be accurate today) I think about the list of "behaviors" I'm engaging in... Small bites, check. Excessive chewing, check. Eating in order, check. I've got a couple of sandwich rituals which aren't on EDC's list but those certainly fall under the behaviors category for me, too. Eat in a spiral until the crust is gone, avoiding any actual bread content if humanly possible. Once completed, eat back and forth from top to bottom. Rest sandwich on the back of the hand instead of holding it.

One of the few big annoyances I found at EDC was their list of behaviors, complimented by a thoroughly unhelpful list of ways to counteract those behaviors. Instead of taking miniscule bites, take normal bites. Instead of chewing too much, only chew necessary number of times before swallowing. Vary order of foods instead of eating safe foods first. Etc.

I feel like it's been forever that I've been doing this damn recovery thing. I'm bored with food and eating. I feel like I eat the same things over and over and even if I vary the way it's presented it's still the same basic food. Really, there are only so many choices. I don't know whether it's worse that I've been maintaining or worse that I'm supposed to be gaining weight... Every time I go in to see the nutritionist she does her little blind weigh-in with the somehow muted old scale, purses her lips and tells me that I'm not losing weight but I'm really not gaining it either. Really, though I feel like my body has exploded from its acceptable confines, I'm only about back to my pre-relapse-that-put-me-in-the-hospital weight.

As always, one of the biggest things holding me in check is the fear of financial detriment. I've got such a tenuous grasp on finances right now and if I start to hard-core relapse again my quality of work will be down, my energy and hours will be down, my medical expenses will be up. Aside from that, so much has been invested in my treatment over the last few months that it feels like a betrayal of the basest kind to just jump back in to my eating disorder.

Has it really only been two and a half months since I started up again with recovery? Crap. And I'm supposed to stick with this thing for the rest of my freaking life?

I miss the excitement of dying. That sounds ridiculous and counter-intuitive but it's true. As boring as starvation is, there is still a strong element of danger and thrill at the fact that I'm a few inches from death at any given moment. For one thing, when there's no food in my system I'm basically living off whatever adrenaline I can muster to get me on my feet. I don't know why it feels like such a testament to the will to be able to say, "I'm starving myself to death but I'm not going to actually die! Just you watch!" but it does. I guess in its own way self-imposed starvation is a David Blaine type of performance art.

3:06 and I'm almost halfway through sandwich number one.

My head hurts. I miss feeling invincible by being able to go without anything resembling food all day, for several days or weeks or whatever. Now I start to get tetchy and dizzy after maybe two hours. I feel weak, depending on food like this. I'm disgusted with myself for making this lunch in the first place and, moreover, for eating it despite all my convictions to the contrary.

Every time someone at work tells me they're proud of me I alternately want to sob or punch them in the face. I don't look "good". I don't look "better". Can't they see that I'm betraying myself to the weakness of 'health'? Why can't they understand the power and beauty of starvation? Why do they look at me like I'm crazy when I say that no, I'm really not happy with how my body is changing? The worst part of it all is that my metabolism is so revved since it's in organ repair mode that I have to eat twice as often and significantly more than normal, healthy people, so all these coworkers who knew I was going in for treatment for my anorexia now look at me eating a meal or large snack every two hours and think I must have been faking. Every time we make eye contact their expressions say, how can you possibly be anorexic if you eat so damn much?

It seems like all I do is grocery shop and eat. And then go back to work to earn more money for more groceries.

I saw Annie last week as I was leaving EDC from the nutritionist's, and she looks awful. My heart broke for her but I was insanely jealous at the same time. Erin and Crystal and I had dinner together at Red Lobster a few nights ago, the first time Erin and I have seen each other since we were in program together... It felt like all we did was watch the other one eat to see who had more and who ate faster and who showed better "self control". I desperately miss all my friends from EDC but what I'd been afraid would happen is exactly what's taking place: our biggest connection to each other was the program and now that we're out the bonds are broken.

Recovery is a bitch.

Is she alive? Or is this just an April Fool's prank...

2008-04-01T15:02:00.003-06:00

Why has it been so hard to write? I don't know. Primarily, life lately has been work, work, work, work, AAAAH WORK WORK WORK!!! It's amazing what six weeks out of work will do to your financial stability, even with outside help. Actually, at this moment I'm having a mild freak out because our paychecks just came and they were (combined) a couple hundred less than I was expecting.

How do I begin describing life at present?

I miss the security of program, for one thing. I'd never been able to fathom Munchaussen before spending so much time under the care of others but now the appeal is pretty easy to recognize. If for no other reason than I didn't have to worry about planning, purchasing, and preparing each of my six meals a day the idea of PHP has a somewhat dream-like quality. I've probably said this a thousand times already but I had completely forgotten how damn expensive it is to eat as much as a normal person is supposed to (and then some, in my case). I honestly used to see food as a sort of guilty commodity, purchased only when my basest animal impulses could no longer be ignored. It's still hard to not look at the hundreds of dollars I spend as frivolous expenditures. I'm late on my car payment and will have to be a few days later still because I have no groceries left in the cupboard. One example among many.

Another struggle is that I'm once again facing the feeling of being absolutely bored with eating. I suppose that when one consumes as much as I do on as little a budget as I have it may be an inevitable thing... Or perhaps I'm short on recipes and ideas. (Hint, hint, dear readers! Lolz.) Or, as a third option, maybe I'm just weird. Either way, it's to the point that I open up fridge and cabinet and just stare at it all with distaste despite the hunger I'm feeling again now. My current staples are chicken, rice, potatoes, PBJ, cheese, yogurt, milk, and ritz crackers. Factor those out to six meals a day, every day, and it gets highly repetitive.

Okay, technically I probably shouldn't say six meals. It's three meals, three snacks. However, the snacks to me seem like meals... They've given me a snack list to choose from, and it'll have options like: 1 yogurt, one slice bread, two tblsp peanut butter or two servings fruit, 1 1/2 c. cottage cheese, one serving cereal. These, to me, are more than 'snacks'. When I think 'snack' I think a handful of crackers or a yogurt or a serving of fruit... Not this AND this AND this.

On the happy side of things, I am really working at this thing with an intensity and seriousness previously unseen. Crystal even admitted that I'm surprising her and surpassing the expectations she had for me and EDCD. Not that she was expecting me to fail or whatever, just that she hadn't anticipated I'd really try to get healthy and not just less sick.

Because I am who I am, artsy fartsy crap is a big part of this. We just purchased a dining room table and chairs a couple days ago (yay craigslist, fifty bucks for all!) and Crystal had the idea to turn it into a really recovery-oriented project... Since the dining room table is the main battleground for healing and all that schmaltz, she had the idea to collage over the top of it with encouraging images and words and such. I'd already stated from the get-go that I wanted to make the table all crazy and bohemian and absolutely insane looking but Crystal really gave it a direction.

Haven't started on the table yet but I started work on a couple of chairs yesterday... One I'm just painting and haven't got much direction on yet, but the other I've taken a bunch of my 'sick' jeans and cut them to pieces which I'm wrapping and gluing to the chair. It's pretty freaking awesome, much neater than the haphazard picture it suggests. Very Soho/Greenwich Village/Dupont/Eastern Market/San Fran/etc. I'll post pictures and progress pics as things come along. ^.^

Speaking of sick clothes, the things that fit are falling away slowly but surely. It's getting so that I hate going into my closet to pick something out... Much easier to keep one or two outfits readily accessible to avoid any possibility of pulling something on only to realize it fits like Spandex. I'm holding out for a while as the weather gets warmer, though, both to hopefully help stabilize moolah and wait to purchase clothes that will last me the season instead of a few remaining weeks or months. Mostly I alternate between work uniform and sweatpants.

Despite this, I'm still not gaining the way EDCD wants. I can tell my body is changing and am royally freaked out by it but whenever I go in to meet with the nutritionist she purses her lips a little and asks what I'd be willing to add to my meal plan. I'm not losing, she'll say after the blind weigh-in, but I'm really not gaining, either. Apparently I have the metabolism of a hummingbird.

The nutritionist's comments about my not gaining aren't enough to thwart mirror melt-downs on a regular basis. Any lingering BDD seems magnified now that my body actually is changing. Depending on the moment I'll be in tears because I think I've surpassed the girth of an aircraft carrier or because I see no change and think I'm a failure at recovery and shouldn't be bothering. There appears to be no win. Pulling on too-tight clothes which fit yesterday is not in the least helpful. Similarly, the day I pulled on a pair of jeans and realized they stayed up without a belt now caused one of the worst relapse-y days yet.

Well, I need to go find food for the day. I've yet to put something in... But then again I didn't get up until 1:30. (Restaurant closer schedule.) Blaaaah food. Why is something so banal such a complex, pain in the ass issue? I may never figure that one out.

Love and hope to all y'all. I'll try to be less negligent in the future!

A weeebsite, a weeeebsite!

2008-02-27T15:16:00.002-07:00

Hey hey hey!

Oh, so much excitement... Squee!

Yesterday was my last official day in program. I'm gradumacated! Hopefully as I start to slide back in to real life I'll start dutifully recording my experiences in the partial hospitalization program, reporting on my epiphanes and heart-wrenching confrontations and whateverthehell else... For now, I'm STILL on my back with the flu. And on Nyquil. Nyquil is not very conducive to writing long, musing, introspective tracts.

However, an exciting bit of news is that I just officially put up the first Novare Project website prototype!!!!! Being the computer genius I am it only took me three days to figure out how to actually publish the site once I'd finished creating it. Go me. It's still quite raw and bare-bones, but you can order shirts more easily and directly than through Etsy, as well as being able to see the new designs that I've got all purtied up! I want to say there are two completely new designs and I've made a couple of modifications to the old ones. So, please, go take a look!

I HAVE A DOMAIN NOW!!!! MWAHAHAHAAAA.

http://www.thenovareproject.com

There is where you will find me and all the other interesting bits of crap. Yay!

Naptime now... Nyquil make me goofy.

Wow, what nonsense

2008-02-23T23:38:00.002-07:00

Good god, can't I be healthy yet? Breathing.... Oh how I miss it.

I've worked a little on the website and still hope to have it up by Monday but I'm on hiatus from site work for now. Because my brain is on hiatus from me. PROFOUND.

Ummm...

Crap, I really have absolutely no idea what I want to say. I have this big compulsion to write blog entries, quite probably because I can't speak, but the thoughts to create those entries are just not anywhere to be found. So I think I'll go back to bed.

This has been the most pointless entry ever, courtesy of me.

Quick way to purchase t'shirts!

2008-02-21T20:47:00.003-07:00

At long last, I've found a site builder which is free and can actually be fathomed by my feeble, flu-addled brain. (Go figure, I get over the stomach bug to come down with full blown influenza or something really damn like it.) I was supposed to have my graduation from PHP today but because I'm so ill we've had to reschedule my last two days in program for Monday and Tuesday.

Sooo I've got the whole weekend left bare to work on a website! A new shipment of t'shirts arrived and I've finalized work on two new designs, revamped a couple of the old ones, and, damn! I'm especially happy with the new shirts.

Also, eating disorder awareness week is coming up incredibly soon! (By which I mean Monday, I think.) I hope to have the site up and running with all the new designs and ordering options ready to go by the start of ED Awareness.

Take care! I'm off to find my lungs... they went flying out somewhere in the course of this update.

Very brief update

2008-02-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

I've got about two minutes before breakfast starts, but a lot of drama has been happening which I should update you all on... So, bullet style.

-Daniel came home a couple weeks ago, strung out on something, totally irate and irascible. We had a big conflict, in which he outright refused to pay back any of the four months' utilities that he owes me, as well as to pay this month's rent. Talked to the office and, despite a bunch of different points in our lease, they insisted that if Daniel didn't pay Crystal and I were responsible for it and they were going to proceed with eviction if we didn't come up with the money. I scrounged and got together the $560 which Daniel owed, between rent and late fees. We have less than a hundred left in our account, but at least we're not getting evicted.

-Last month, as a birthday present to Crystal, I put unlimited text messaging on our cell phones. When I got the bill a week ago, it was almost three hundred dollars because it didn't reflect that the change had been made. I got in contact with them, because the salesman had assured me the plan would be enacted that day and backdated twenty-four hours as well. According to a TMobile customer service rep, the guy lied to me. According to customer service dude, the charges are valid because our billing cycle ended that day and, as such, no change could be enacted until the next cycle. So now I have to find out a way to come up with $276.

-I haven't even LOOKED at utility bills this month.

-I'm beginning my last week in program. This means I've still got about two weeks before I get back to work.

-Daniel is refusing to move out, but also refusing to pay. Again violating points in the lease, the office refuses to do anything, saying it's a "roomate problem and therefore a personal settlement". Which is bull. He's on the lease, and the lease states we're responsible jointly AND singly. We're trying to find a new roommate because how the hell are we going to pay next month's rent? But we can't move someone in because Daniel won't leave.

-For a bunch of reasons I don't have time to discuss, terminating the lease is really impractical right now and we really have no option but to stick it out until june.

Blah, breakfast. Got to run.

100th post!

2008-01-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

--Day Eight--

This has been a helluva lot harder than I anticipated, which is primarily responsible for my lack of updates. Every day I resolve to blog/journal more, because the last thing I want to do is end this and look back knowing I have no record of it, but every day the emotional and mental strain leave me so exhausted that I can't even think of writing an entry. You'd think that having been in therapy as long as I have I would have better anticipated the labor involved in eleven hours a day, seven days a week.

Speaking of, I've only got about five minutes for this entry before another group starts.

My moods are all over the place through the course of a day. I feel like all my nerves are constantly on the surface here... I may be doing fine one minute but then something comes up in group or session or meal and it's as though someone's broken through my calm as easily as the skin which covers scalded milk. Often, my primary emotions are anxiety and disorientation, as even after a week I can't get the hang of what comes next or whose names are whose.

Meredith is my primary therapist, and I love her already. We've only had three sessions (God, that few?), one Mondays, one Thursdays, and I've been doing my best to dive right in, covering the basics as quickly and openly as possible, so that we could start actually working on some of the issues which have brought me here. My primary care physician is Dr Ross, medical physician Dr Rooney, and psychiatrist Dr Christensen. I love all but one of them, with whom I had a really bad conflict last Thursday and for which I've still not forgiven her. April is my dietician, Stephanie is my so-far best friend here, and there are about 4359879487221 bajillion other millieu therapists who lead groups and I can't for the life of me remember all their freaking names. (Oh yeah, and there's Pam, family therapist, Trish, program director, Shae, interview and initial coordinator, Ricky, financial lady, Laura, art therapist, Sue, psychodrama.... Seriously, SO MANY PEOPLE.)

Crap, group's getting started. I really will do my best to be less negligent!

Today is my day

2008-01-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

PHP - Day 2

I've got about twenty minutes before lunch, so let's see what sort of an entry I can shape here... By the time I left yesterday, I was too overwhelmed and reeling to make sense of anything that had happened or form a cohesive entry, so I didn't bother trying. Today I've not got much time, but I'll give it a shot.

The rooms and halls are rapidly, gratefully, growing familiar to me. Each face is no longer a complete stranger - I've eaten meals with them, seen them cry, heard them expose quiet fears and secret hopes. It's amazing how a program like this can bond you together so quickly... I mean, for nothing more than sheer numbers, you're spending a good eleven hours together each day, eating all your meals together, and when not doing that, engaging in deep, serious, heartfelt conversation. I guess it'd bond any group quickly.

....God, that was about the shmaltziest thing I've ever written. I'm gagging on the saccharine.

I'm in our little breakroom/cubby/coat room, on the computer (duh) while Courtney and Erica perch on facing couches behind me. My group let out a little early, which is why I have this long break; half the patients are still in a different group. (Aggravatingly enough, the sack which has my chapstick is in that closed room with all of the others. It's driving me batshit.)

My morning's been a little scatter-brained, as I took the light rail for the first time today and it took quite a bit longer than I'd anticipated... I got here a half hour late, right as breakfast was about to start. I ate %100 of my breakfast, even though I seriously didn't think there was any way I'd be able to do it... A cup and a half of raisin bran, a cup of milk, and one carton of yogurt. It was more of a breakfast than I've eaten (barring special occasion brunches) in years. But I did it!

As an interjected aside on meals, we prepare our own breakfasts but have lists from which to choose things. Everything has to be portioned out, left in the cup measures for the millieu therapists to verify, before we can eat. Lunch and dinner are brought to us pre-prepared and pre-portioned; all we have to do is reheat them and select a fruit and a drink. I successfully ate %100 of my dinner last night, too, but yesterday's lunch (my first meal at the center) was a lot harder than I'd anticipated. I uncovered the plate to find half of it mounded in pasta, the other half portioned by a chicken breast and some mixed vegetables. Those I was fine with. Pasta... Not so bueno. I only managed about %75 of that meal, and ended it in tears unable to choke down another noodle because I was so overwhelmed and ashamed and fearful.

Back to today.

After breakfast, I was bundled off into a cap to St. Somebody-or-other's Presbyterian Hospital for labs. Normally they would have done them yesterday, I was told, but since it was MLK Jr day the offices were closed. My arm got stabbed, I oozed three vials, I pissed in a cup, and all was well. I meet with the doctor this afternoon to discuss the lab results.

When I got back, I went in for the last fifteen minutes or so of group. The title of today's entry came from that: we talked about how making the distinction between our own thoughts and desires and those of the eating disorder can make a huge difference. One girl, Stephanie, mentioned her wedding day and how she was pretty much free from the disorder for just that one day. When asked why, she answered, "Well, I guess because I just woke up that morning and said, this is MY day - not my eating disorder's."

That kinda resonated with me. We also talked about eating disorder-imposed "deadlines" (lose this much by this date, eat this little by tonight, do this many crunches in this amounth of time) and how they never can be met, only expanded. When one deadline arrives, none of the qualifiers seem to make it good enough and there's just another, harder one put in place.

That made me think about the fact that claiming the day as my own, purposing to be more present-minded, can help both those aspects: if I'm in the present, deadlines lose importance, and if the day belongs to me and not the disorder, its demands mean nothing anyway.

Aaaand have to go in for lunch now.

I'll see if I can update again later; otherwise, peace!

Blather.

2008-01-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts... I'm at a constant level of baseline panic as the days until inpatient narrow to hours. It's making things really difficult at home, at work, online. My words are all stunted as my fingers freeze in anxiety and... whatever else I'm too freaked out to think to say right now. I'm treating Crystal and my friends horribly, snapping and mouthing off way more than is even usual. I can't concentrate at work for perhaps obvious reasons.

All I can think about is how scared I am to do this, how badly I want to back out, how desperate I am to be healthy. I obsess over every detail of the things I'll miss about my anorexia. This obsession makes me think I 'like' my eating disorder a lot better than I know I do... But there are still many things I'm going to miss about it. It's strange how integral grieving is to recovering from an eating disorder.

That's all I can think to say right now, guys, I'm sorry. I'm sure that once this thing actually starts I'll be so much calmer and better able to function... I know from experience that nine and a half times out of ten the dread is so much more insufferable than the event itself.

Where things stand

2008-01-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I never thought it'd actually happen, but... Unless something weird and sudden comes up, I start PHP Monday morning.

The assessment went really well this morning. I loved everyone whom I met at the center, and their facilities were pretty awesome. I was expecting them to have their own building(s), but they're actually just on the tenth floor of a big, fancy executive complex thingy. I think they have pretty much the entire tenth floor of the building, though, as their offices certainly weren't cramped.

I met a few of the girls who will be in PHP with me, although sort of indirectly. Since PHP runs seven days a week, they were obviously there for their standard treatment days and I ran into a few of them on session breaks. The place was really laid back and the girls seemed nice; the extent of our conversation was nonetheless limited to sympathetic smiles.

.... Kinda running out of things to say. I'm still a bit overwhelmed by all this, particularly in light of the fact that it's actually going to happen. Hypothetical PHP stays are scary but still easier to handle than real ones.

As a slight aside and final note, I cried today for the first time in any therapy session to ever have taken place over the past five, six years of outpatient care.

A quick note from work

2008-01-13T15:39:00.001-07:00

I love that there's a Comcast kiosk in the mall lobby, right outside Cheesecake Factory... I'm blogging while on my half hour break. ^.^

I'm starting both to align myself to the idea of PHP and, in some ways, get excited about it. (I usually refer to it as 'inpatient' in my head and to others, since PHP is too lengthy to explain and it is essentially inpatient anyway. Inpatient without the hospital bed at night.)

I've been writing obsessively, to the extent that when I was stranded yesterday without a notebook while waiting for Crystal to get off work I went out and bought a new one. When I'm this stressed and anxious I can't function without writing. Urban Outfitters is my favorite store and happens to be right down the hall from Cheesecake, so I go there a LOT. When I put my purchases on the counter yesterday, the girl knda pursed her lips, looked at me, and said, "You know, I swear to god you're in this store every other day and every time you're here you're buying more notebooks." Hee.

The newest notebook acquisition is probably going to serve as a recovery journal dealie, to be filled in the hospital and out of it. I'm sure that I'll put parts of it in here at some point.

Word is starting to get around at work about me leaving to go inpatient. Servers are some of the most notorious gossips in the working world, so once one person found out it was a matter of hours before eveyone knew. It's not that I mind this, per se... I mind the way people react to the news. Most of them don't have a decent concept of what anorexia is or how it manifests. Maybe I'm the first person they've known who has and ED and is open about it, I don't know.

To this end, every time I put a morself of food in my mouth now, I'll catch some coworker or another giving me this sideways expression. You know the one: How can you be anorexic? You're eating right now! Several people have come up to me and said as much, ignorantly declaring, "You aren't really anorexic. I've seen you eat before."

God, if being healthy were really as simple as eating that one meal that someone happens to witness. It would certainly make my life a lot easier!

I wish I were as fluent in conversation as I am in my writing. Believe it or not, I'm a pretty damn awkward conversationalist. I write well, I'm great at speeches, have good poise, but only when it's rehearsed. If I'm put on the spot about something uncomfortable, like anorexia, I stammer like Jimmy on South Park. Okay, not quite. But I blush, utter far too many 'um's and 'uh's, and more often than not will totally evade the question in a string of nonsense, however unintentionally. It makes explaining something like why-I'm-eating-if-I'm-supposed-to-be-anorexic incredibly arduous.

Aaand it's just about time for me to head back in. Hi, my name is Tina, how are you guys doing, I'm going to be your server today, just to let you know a little about tonight's specials....

To expound upon earlier thoughts...verbosely.

2008-01-09T21:41:00.001-07:00

Ex post facto, as is so often the case, I'm thinking yesterday's post may have been made a bit rashly. By which of course I mean that yesterday I was basically freaking the f-k out and somehow had the misfortune of getting my fingers onto a keyboard, thereby spilling a noxious pile of disjointed, jumbled, frenetic words. Contrary to popular belief the best writing is made with a level head, not one stressed and emotionally charged.

My initial shock at the Drs' assessment of my case is still pretty much the same as ever. I still fail to understand how I need inpatient care; to some extent, I'm still questioning whether or not my level of health or illness requires something so extreme as intensive outpatient. Okay, that's a bit of a lie: I know I could do with some outpatient treatment. But inpatient still does seem over the top.

However, since yesterday's phone call with Drs Roberts and ...a woman whose name I forgot... the general consensus among friends and relations seems to be that inpatient care might not be such a bad thing for me.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this.

For the reasons I listed yesterday, I still believe myself to be in a fairly healthy place. Particularly when I compare myself today to myself two years ago (or even one year ago), today's self looks a world healthier than I was previously. Water and hundred calorie fasts are no longer a routine thing for me. For that matter, I haven't intentionally fasted in quite some time. My periods are regular, my fatigue has lessened; although labs haven't been run for me in well over a year my body feels like everything is working well. When I eat, I don't do well making sure my meals are healthy and ballanced and supplying all necessary nutrition, but neither are they comprised solely of high fiber vegetables and...more vegetables.

My question about what health should look like that proves I'm so far from it still stands. I'm beginning to ask myself if the main reason I think I'm healthy is that I'm comparing myself to a prior, sicker version of myself - not to a normal, healthy standard of existence. Granted, I'm much healthier than I used to be. My life is not in immediate danger from any starvation consequences. But does that mean that I'm to the standard of health that is the goal of recovery? If not, how far away am I really?

Following are my principal objections to the partial hospitalization program:

-FINANCES. Call me a jew if you will, but worries about finances are still the number one concern about this program.
-->Aside from the fact that the program itself will likely cost far more than EIOP, it will be an eleven hour a day, seven day a week commitment. This, simply and unavoidably, will not allow for me to work. Even if I were able to get my work to allow me to come in at 8 each night to help close, that would leave me with a potential for six hours sleep per night. Therapy is hard work in and of itself, even a one or two hour session once a week. Realistically, there is no way I'd be able to go from eleven hours of therapy to four hours of work to six hours of sleep to start over again.
-->Crystal and I work hard to meet the bills each month as it is. She's going to have a much tougher course load this semester, meaning she'll have to work less. If I'm completely out of work (or even on a greatly diminished schedule) there is no way we'd be able to make ends meet. (Although, as Crystal pointed out, our food budget will go down since the center'd be feeding me five times a day. Somehow this seems ironic.)

-Triggers. This may seem silly at first glance, but think about it this way... It's been a long time since I was fully immersed in my disorder, seeking out thin pics, thinking about eating and not eating constantly, obsessing about the possibility of breathing in calories or the calories contained in chapstick.
-->Visually, I'm afraid that being in an inpatient facility would present me with a whole lot of girls who are seriously ill. I'm not to a place yet where this seems unattractive to me - contrarily, it'd definitely make me extremely jealous.
-->Verbally, I know that many girls get some of their best tricks from staying inpatient for a while. I know that this does depend some on 'you get out what you put in', but that doesn't mean there won't be tons of conversation about how to tongue pills or wipe butter off on your slacks or slip food into sleeves/purse/shoes. Even if I'm seriously trying not to pay attention to this, it is probably going to be triggering to be surrounded by it.
-->PHP feels to me like I'd be re-devoting my life to my eating disorder. Crystal says this is stupid and she's probably right, but... Like I said, it's been a long time since I was thinking ED thoughts every second of the day and to jump into such a rigid, complete schedule of treatment feels like I'd be backsliding. Crystal pointed out that it'd be devoting twenty-four hours of my day to recovery thoughts, not anorexic ones, but in my head it doesn't feel that way.

-Perhaps most stupid of all my concerns, I'm terrified to go into the PHP program because I feel like I'd have absolutely no control over...anything. Myself, my time, my recovery. (When I told this to Crystal she shrieked, "EXACTLY!!!" But.. Meh.) I suppose some part of me feels like recovery is a way to teach me self control in a healthy way, and therefore I want to retain control over the recovery process. I feel like I'd be okay with three days a week because then most of my time would still be my own, like I'd have certain time devoted to therapy and the rest of the time devoted to whatever else I felt needed to be done.

Even the times I have been inpatient before, I never relinquished control. Granted, I was in a really worthless facility, but while inpatient I found ways to skip meals, self-injure, avoid any participation in group activities; hell, when I was finally fed up with inpatient I found a way to lie so completely and extensively that I got them to release me long before they should have.

I feel as though, historically speaking, every time I've let go and done as I was told by people who cared about me, it only made things worse. Why should I give up my life to total strangers?

Sigh.

So there's where things stand. I suppose nothing will really be known for certain until I talk to them again and then set up the actual intake exam. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

Does... not... compute...

2008-01-08T15:11:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned recently, I've gotten to a place that I'm seriously pursuing recovery. For myself, no one else, I want to be healthy and experience what life healthy looks like. To this end, I did some research into area treatment centers and finally contacted the Eating Disorders Center at Denver, since its programs seemed to offer best what I was looking for. Yesterday, I got my first call back from them. I spoke with one of the doctors over the phone, doing a basic clinical assessment thingy, then discussing the extended intensive outpatient program they offer.

My biggest concern was that they'd say I was too healthy for the program and should probably look into just weekly outpatient therapy or perhaps some of the group programs. After all, I've been maintaining pretty well, I eat on a daily basis, I don't really count calories at all anymore, and on and on and on. From my perspective (and historically speaking, given my case), I feel like I'm pretty much recovered. I just need help to get there all the way.

About an hour ago I had another call from them, this time a conference call between the assessment clinician and the EIOP program head. My initial response was a sinking, oh crap, feeling. They said they'd been discussing my case and given what Dr. Roberts and I had talked about yesterday, they didn't feel the EIOP program is going to be appropriate for me. Damnit. I knew that was going to happen. Crap.

What I didn't in a thousand years see coming was that they said the EIOP won't be enough for me.

They think I need to do the partial hospitalization program. Sdsogiherh?? Geh?? The program is seven days a week, eleven hours a day. I'm not sure how many weeks long it is.

How the hell do they think I need that level of care? Crystal agrees. Wtf?? I can't even get this to enter my schema. I really, honestly, truly, cannot understand what they are saying. I was sure I'd get turned away for being too healthy, not get told I needed partial inpatient!

Reasons I think I'm healthy:
-I've got a good fifteen, twenty pounds on my low weight. I've been maintaining this pretty well for the last year or so.
-I eat every day, usually twice, sometimes with a snack. When I'm hungry, I detect that, respond to it, and don't ignore it.
-I drink regular soda now. I drink 2% milk. I even eat red meat again! I eat butter, cheese, pasta, all those horrible horrible evils I wouldn't allow to enter my lips.
-I've even eaten McDonald's more than once in the past year. For the longest time I wouldn't even set foot on the premises of a McD's for fear that I'd somehow breathe in the calories. And now I've eaten it! Willingly!
-I eat Chipotle. On a regular basis. (And I always get extra sour cream on my burrito, and I like it!)
-I don't visit pro-ana trigger sites nearly as frequently as I used to. I'm no longer a member of the ana elitist comms. I'm not a member of any pro-ED comms, for that matter.
-Did I mention I eat pasta? And cheesecake? And butter? And that I can enjoy them?
-And that I don't calorie count? (Usually..)

What is health supposed to look like that I'm so far from it? I haven't been amennhorhaeic in a good year and a half, and even then my menses were only irregular, even when I was clinically emaciated. I don't exercise obsessively, I don't purge, I don't abuse laxatives anymore, I eat salad dressing... I cannot understand this. I seriously cannot get it to enter my head. I can't wrap my mind around it.

Am I really still so crazy?

Aside from that whole level of cognitive dissonance, let's just stop to look at some logistics right now.

HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO AFFORD A PARTIAL HOSPITALIZATION PROGRAM.

I've talked to my family and my dad has said he will help pay for the EIOP, which is incredible and the only way I'd be able to afford to do that in the first place. And with that, I'd still be working full-time so that I could afford rent and loans and bills and crap. I wouldn't be able to work if I was in the hospital eleven hours a day! And I wouldn't be able to afford to live if I wasn't working!

I'm really in an effing pickle here, bitches. First, do I really need this? And second, if I do, how the hell can I pull it off?!?

To sum up the year

2008-01-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

Since I graduated from my livejournal days I've avoided doing all those surveys and memes that so thouroughly infiltrated all my LJs... But screw it, I still love those things. Here goes!

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Wow, quite a bit. I dropped out of school, I moved across the country, bought a car, leased an apartment, got baby cats, read an unabridged copy of Les Miserables (a long-time goal of mine), went a whole year without weighing myself daily (which technically has been done before, but not for quite some time), came out to more than just therapists/really, really close friends about my multiplicity, gotten slightly tipsy, gotten blazed, driven to the Rocky Mountains, hand-sewn a stuffed animal... I guess it's been a bit of a bang-up year!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? You know, I don't really remember making any resolutions last year. I was a bit too depressed to think of much that optimistic. My official resolution this year is to get a better job, one not in the service industry and with more regular hours. Any other resolutions are currently pending.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? A few co-workers have had babies, but they're not particularly close to me.

4. Did anyone close to you die? My grandmother, but she was more close relationally than close personally... She was kinda distant toward her grandkids.

5. What countries did you visit? None. Le sigh. Perhaps that should be another resolution...

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? A solid, well-paying job with great benefits. My own pair of skis. A good treatment team who can finally help me to kick this freaking eating disorder. And pet mice!

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Hmm... April 7th, when we bought our first car, and June 19th, when we moved into our apartment. Oh, and July 5th, the day we got our baby cats!!! It's really nice that this year I don't have any calamitous events to remember! Prior to 2007, many memorable dates involved suicide attempts, hospitalizations, major injuries, surgeries, getting kicked out of places.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Dorky, but probably the table cloth which I finally finished crocheting.

9. What was your biggest failure? Failure to truly devote myself to finding a kickass treatment team. I gave sporadic efforts, but by not committing myself to the search I didn't ever accomplish much of anything.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Not really. 2007 was more about recuperating from mental illness and shoulder injury than acquiring anything new. God, what an awesome thing to be able to say!

11. What was the best thing you bought? Baby cats!!! Although, the car is pretty damn cool, too. ^.^

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Crystal's, for her courageous work at overcoming some serious social anxiety.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Nicole Richie. I will never, ever forgive that witch for the Labor Day crap she pulled. Various politicians. My soon to be EX roommate, Daniel, for way too many reasons to bother with right now.

14. Where did most of your money go? Rent, student loans, and bills. Boring!

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Recovery. Nothing's really happened with that excitement yet, but at least it's here!

16. What song will always remind you of 2007? Hey There Delilah, by Plain White Tees. Primarily because it was overplayed so goddamn much.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Infinitely happier. Still fighting depression quite a bit, but much improved.
b) thinner or fatter? This time last year... Crap, I'm not sure. I think slightly thinner, but it goes up and down and up and down.
c) richer or poorer? Much better off! Not fantastic, but not flat broke and relying on charity anymore.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Exploring Colorado, actually. I was pretty sedentary at least as far as tourist-y crap goes. There's so much lame, neat stuff here and I haven't looked at any of it.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Nervous breakdowns. Good god, but when the MDEs hit in 2007 they knocked me flat on my face. Usually literally.

20. How did you spend Christmas? With Crystal's family. It was my best Christmas in YEARS.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007? Hopelessly, with two fuzzy little balls of yowling fluff.

22. What was your favorite TV program? South Park, yet again. House, briefly. American Idol, sometimes.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Daniel. Ugh.

24. What was the best book you read? Undoubtedly The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers. Oh man, but the final Harry Potter ranks waaaay highly up there, too....

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? You know what? It's kinda been a musically stagnant year. I still love Decemberists and Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley (although their new album sucked dismally and shockingly), briefly enjoyed Paramour, wondered about Tegan and Sara (only to discover I really didn't like them as much as I thought I would), and lost interest in Rainer Maria and Brand New. Otherwise, lack of money has greatly limited any musical acquisitions. Oh, actually, I guess you could say I became really interested in The Shins. However, I lost the cd promptly after buying it, so I didn't get to appreciate it much.

26. What did you want and get? Baby cats! (Theme? What?) Car! Apartment! Megan got a new stuffed animal (a giant purple unicorn), Katie got her easel, Claire got...something..., The City of Dreaming Books, Harry Potter book 7, HP-OOTP the movie, psych meds. :-P

27. What did you want and not get? "Nothing in particular comes to mind, other than “a new president”." Hee. I really like the former surveyer's answer. However, I can also add skis, my own apartment (though that's coming soon), a really good job.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Possibly HP-OOTP, actually. No, I'm not a nerd. Seriously though, I was a bit disappointed in this year's crop of new movies.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? Drove to Boulder for the day, which was simple but super fun. After that I went out to dinner with my girlfriend and best from from MD, who flew out for the occasion! Oh, and the number would be twenty-one.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A magical windfall of $100,000 or more. I spent more time worrying about finances this year than... Okay, no, metaphors are dangerous here.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Briefest way would be to say "Urban Outfitters". Alternative answers would be: hippie chic, urban, bizarre freaky crazy person, tights/leggings/big sweaters (eighties throwback?), and a Cheesecake Factory uniform. The last was the most frequently worn fashion.

32. What kept you sane? Wellbutrin. South Park. Baby cats. Snow. Crystal.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Angelina Jolie, as always. Scarlett Johannsen, Barrack Obama, and Edward Norton.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? Gay marriage/gay rights. Unsurprisingly enough.

35. Who did you miss? My baby brother. This lonliness for him hasn't stopped since I left my parents house, and probably will never stop until I move into the house next door to him or something.

36. Who was the best new person you met? Either Marque, who has become my best friend in CO, or my manager Kory, who has become something of a surrogate dad to me. Either way, pretty cool.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. While it may seem like you should save every penny in every way possible when you're hard-up for cash, the little treats and splurges are the only things which keep you going until times get better.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. On The Bus Mall, by the Decemberists.

In matching blue raincoats, our shoes were our show boats
We kicked around. From stairway to station
We made a sensation with the gadabout crowd.

And oh, what a bargain, we're two easy targets
For the old men at the off-tracks,
Who've paid in palaver and crumpled old dollars,
Which we squirreled away
In our rat trap hotel by the freeway.
And we slept-in Sundays.

Your parents were anxious,
Your cool was contagious at the old school.
You left without leaving
A note for your grieving sweet mother, while
Your brother was so cruel.

And here in the alleys
Your spirits were rallied
As you learned quick to make a fast buck.
In bathrooms and barrooms,
On dumpsters and heirlooms,
We bit our tongues.
Sucked our lips into our lungs 'til we were falling.
Such was our calling.

And here in our hollow we fuse like a family,
But I will not mourn for you.
So take up your makeup
And pocket your pills away.
We're kings among runaways on the bus mall.
We're down on the bus mall.

Among all the urchins and old Chinese merchants
Of the old town,
We reigned at the pool hall with one iron cue ball
And we never let the bastards get us down.
And we laughed off the quick tricks-- The old men with limp dicks--
On the colonnades of the waterfront park.
As 4 in the morning came on, cold and boring,
We huddled close in the bus stop enclosure enfolding.
Our hands tightly holding.

But here in our hollow we fuse like a family,
But I will not mourn for you.
So take up your makeup and pocket your pills away.
We're kings among runaways on the bus mall.
We're down and out on the bus mall.

Lost of stuff!

2007-12-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

Today crystle got a really cool letter all the way from Greese! She has a bunch of new pen pals from all over. I dont know her name who sent this one but it had all sorts of cool stuff with it like a C.D. and some buttons and one of them had a picutre of a girl riding on a rinoserus! Megan and i want to send siri a package with stuff like that so that she can have fun opening it like we did. even tho it wasent are package anyway!

We got lots of cool things for Christmass. Like a coat which is wite and soft and has bird fethers in it to make it relly warm. and a cage and stuff so we can get mise! and a relly relly relly fun book calld the city of dreming books its about a dinasor and the dinasor is a riter like tina and it gose to this place calld the city of dreming books and it has lots of advenchers. And thers pictchers in the book so its even more fun becose you can see what happens to him. His name is optimus yarnspinner and its the longist name iv ever herd of!

O yea and we got other stuff like candels and bubble baths and girly stuff so we get to be more like girls i guess. crystles mom gave us so much stuff.

O and the best part was that on Christmas it snowed ALL DAY LONG!!!! It was snowing when we woke up and there was like four inches on the grownd and then it kept snowing and snowing! and we got a flat tire on the way to Crystles cousins house but some peple stopped and helped us to fix it. We got are gluvs all dirty becose we let Amber use them when she was fixing the tire becose it was so cold. But it was okay becose then we got new gloves for Christmas!

Okay I want to go read more about optimus yarnspinner so were gonna go now. Happy christmas everyboddy!

Love

Lacie and Megan

Mistletoe! (...or something title-like.)

2007-12-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

Crap, I guess it really has been a while...

Between work and Christmas preparations I've barely had a scarce minute to do anything lately. They're so short-staffed that they have me serving again a few days a week, which is actually nice as it means I've got a better income on a more immediate basis. Yay Christmas spending money.

I've got the day off and my body decided hey! what an awesome time to get sick. Sooo I'm spending my time off planted on the couch with Nyquil and a box of Kleenex and an overwhelming supply of South Park. It's getting old pretty fast. My mind is occupied with drugged up thoughts of all the things I should or could be doing....if only I didn't feel so crappy....

The latest updates on the medicinal front would be warranted, I suppose. I stopped taking the Abilify after three weeks, because I started getting these really bogus nightmares every time I'd so much as close my eyes for a catnap. Additionally, I started noticing weird bruises appearing without any known cause. I chalked these up to possible anemia or something, but as soon as I stopped the Abilify the bruises went away, so I'm thinking that must have been what was causing them.

Currently, I'm still on Welbutrin XL 300mg, although I'm not sure how much benefit it's giving me. I brought that up with the psych when I saw her a few weeks ago but her decision was to keep me on it for now.

She also started me on Prozac, which I find ironically funny: Prozac, oldest of the anti-depressants, last resort SSRI for me. I started that on the 26th of November, so I guess it's been about three weeks. The majority of the nasty side effects have gone down, thank crap. I was getting some mad, miserable sweats, headaches, and serious anxiety the likes of which I hadn't experienced in a few years. Again another Prozac irony, that it should be the mildest SSRI but have some of the worst side effects. I've honestly experienced more grief from this than I did Effexor or even Lamictal.

It's hard to say if I'm noticing any benefits yet. My depression has certainly alleviated over the last few weeks, but whether that's due to medicinal workings or the Spirit of Christmas is impossible to determine. I've got more holly jolly this year than a pack of festive elves riding reindeer through a wrapping paper plant. The reason for that would be that this is pretty much the first 'real' Christmas I've had in about three years - last year I'd dropped out of school and made an abrupt cross-country move to live with my girlfriend's mom, and the year before that I was fresh off two hospitalizations, a suicide attempt, and spent the start of Christmas break looking for a homeless shelter to stay at when the dorms closed.

This year I've got my own place, my own car, a good income, two baby cats, and a loving family to celebrate with. Things are pretty much AWESOME.

So, like I said: Christmas Spirit or Prozac? Who the hell knows. (I'm hoping it's both so that once Christmas is over I'll still have the happy.)

Ummm what else. Nyquil's wearing off so I feel groggy but sick again...

My latest reading conquests have been Only Revolutions and Wicked. Yes, I know, I'm basically the last person in the world to read Wicked. Meh! Both kickded ass. I want to get some of the other books by the Wicked guy, whateverthehell his name is.

...thinks...

Okay, I guess that's all. I'm too busy hacking my lungs out to come up with a decent entry.

All I want for Christmas

2007-12-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

The title of course is misleading: the following subject is not the only thing I want for Christmas. In fact, there are quite a few things that I'd love to get for Christmas (not the least of which is financial stability, but that's a whole different kettle of fish). However, this next item is something which I've been thinking about increasingly over the last month or two and am now trying earnestly to obtain.

If you're reading this entry chances are you've read some of those preceeding it as well. This being the assumed case, you've probably caught on to the fact that my eating has not been nearly as good as it could be lately. A big thing I've been noticing is that even though I'm eating at least a meal a day and am trying to at least eat something when I'm hungry, I may be doing the actions but mentally I'm deteriorating again. Distorted body image has been again growing more distorted, obsessive thoughts more obsessive, calorie counting once again almost an unconscious act.

And all that makes it sound like it had ever totally gone away in the first place.

I've never once willingly addressed my eating issues in therapy. This may sound surprising, considering I've been in and out of therapy since I was seventeen, but if you think about all the other issues I've got to deal with (depression, DID, etc) and then take into account that I haven't wanted to talk about my eating... Well, it's been easy enough to steer conversation into other areas that I'd rather deal with. Perhaps that's one fault with the therapy styles so far used with me: it's been way too easy to just change the subject when I don't want to talk about or address something. But now I'm really sick of it.

The therapist I've seen recently (Chris) has next to no experience treating eating disorders. Aside from that, she only sees clients once every other week. Out of all the therapy I've done, the only time that was really intensely helpful was when I saw someone twice a week. Once a week was pretty much just enough to keep me from getting worse, but I didn't see a whole lot of improvement.

All these considerations in mind, I've decided (and have talked this over with my psychiatrist, who agrees) that intensive outpatient would probably be a really good idea for me at this point. After looking into it some, I've found a treatment center in Denver which appears to have a really good program, great treatment team, and should hopefully be able to work with my insurance. It's through the Eating Disorder Center of Denver. (Fitting name?)

The program I'm most interested in is their Extended Intensive Outpatient Program. It's twelve weeks, three nights a week, four hours a night. You work with a nutritionist, psychiatrist, therapists, etc... Dinner is eaten together with group therapy immediately following. There are a lot of the things you'd pretty much expect with an outpatient program... Group, one-on-ones, body image workshops, art therapy, etc. But, from what I've read on the site, it sounds like they've got a really solid program set up.

The center offers three different levels of care: inpatient, EIOP, and a weekly group follow-up thing. I'm sure that I don't need inpatient care (for one, I'm not in a serious enough place medically) and the last sounds like it really wouldn't offer enough. Sooo I've sent an e-mail asking for more information about the program and admissions procedure. Mostly I need to know about the cost and how much my insurance would cover...

...Well, I think that's actually about all I meant to discuss. At least, I can't really think of anything else... I'll keep you informed as I find out more and if/when there's anything else major to report about this. Cross your fingers!

Mo Co Fo Sho

2007-11-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

In this blog, I have made it a policy not to discuss my views on homosexuality, gay rights, queer theory, etc... I don't exactly hide the fact that I am a lesbian (if you've ever met me in person you'll know that I'm actually exceedingly open about the fact), but I do know that it's an extremely touchy subject for some people.

Especially considering many girls with eating disorders come from hyper-christian or otherwise strongly fundamentalist homes, I've chosen not to broadcast my gayness in this blog for their and their families' sake. Sadly, I have no doubt that if I were to discuss these subjects with prevalence, many readers would be completely turned off to everything I have to say - even though I truly believe I have some important, helpful things to say about eating disorders and recovery therefrom.

Today, however, I'm going to break with tradition.

If you're strongly homophobic, get hives and nausea from the sight of a gay person, notice your eyes start to bleed around us, etc, you may want to stop reading now.

...Well, I was going to start this with a rousing speech about how today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, but just found out it's actually next Tuesday. Nevertheless, this is transgender awareness week, so it still applies. Sorta.

If gay men and women suffer an abnormally high rate of murder and hate crimes, transgendered individuals have to face so much more. I simply cannot fathom the amount of hatred and fear these people have to deal with on just walking out their doors each morning. It is both disgusting and heartbreaking to witness suffering on such an extreme level for such a petty reason.

Hate groups like Focus on the Family's Love Won Out or PFOX (a response group to the better known PFLAG), when addressing the issue of transgenderism, love to cite the American Psychiatric Association which still classifies something called Gender Identity Disorder. According to these groups, it is evidence that even the psychiatric community agrees that transgenderism is a disorder.

GID is a disorder. However, it isn't aptly named. The poor choice of wording leads ignorant, badly informed people to believe that GID refers to transgender. In my opinion, just as Multiple Personality Disorder was renamed Dissociative Identity Disorder to stifle the prevailing confusion of DID with schizophrenia and BiPolar disorder, GID needs a new name. My personal suggestion would be Gender Confusion Disorder. Particularly after having lived in Washington, DC, worked in restaurants (which for some reason get a really high rate of gay employees), and having attended one of the most gay-friendly universities in the country, I've known a lot of gay and transgendered individuals. To say that gender identity is never disordered would be just as stupid as saying it's a disorder to begin with.

Let's start by defining some terms. Sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity come to mind as good places to begin. Scientifically speaking, your sexuality is the sex you are based on genital identification. Typically, this is a simple one. Unfortunately, it isn't always... Many people are born intersexed, meaning they have either ambiguous genitals or, in rare cases, both sets. Someone who is intersexed is not transsexual. A lot of parents will arbitrarily choose a sex for children born this way hoping it will simplify things later in life. Your sexual orientation refers to the gender to which you are predominantly attracted (i.e. homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, asexual).

Gender identity refers to the gender with which you most strongly identify. Someone who is sexually female may identify as male but not choose to actually undergo a gender transition. Same applies to male-to-female individuals. Some scholars have suggested that St Joan of Arc falls into the former category, and there are examples of Egyptian Pharaoh who were sexually female but adopted male attire and behaviors to fill their roles. Other people, like myself, prefer to label themselves as androgynes or gender queers. Basically, that means that we don't identify with one sex or the other and instead feel somewhere in between the two cultural standards of gender polarity.

For whatever reason, males who identify as female receive by far the majority of persecution for their gender identity in religious, political, and cultural settings.

Increasingly, many states are taking action to enact laws which will specifically protect transgendered individuals' rights to safety and normal life. One really touchy subject would be restrooms and public showers: should a trans female be allowed to use the womens' facilities even if she is still genitally male?

In Montgomery County, Maryland, where I grew up, a law was proposed and voted on Tuesday to allow transgendered individuals to use the facilities appropriate to their gender identity. Given that Montgomery County also houses several of the largest, most strictly fundamentalist churches in the state, this caused a HUGE stir.

National groups (like PFOX - Parents and Friends Of eX-gays) spread the word trying to get as many people as possible to protest this measure. They argue that it is a bill to allow men into women's restrooms, thereby opening the gates for a flood of pedophilia and crime.

What protesters to do not seem either to realize or just accept is that this measure is not to allow men into women's restrooms. The point of this bill is to stop forcing women to use the men's room.

A crossdresser is not necessarily someone who is gender identified with the other sex. A crossdresser may refer to a transexual, or it may just as easily refer to a heterosexual man who sometimes wears women's clothing for sexual gratification. This is not the same thing as identifying as female. A transgender female, possibly aside from her genital sexuality, is female. If someone identifies as female in the way this bill is aiming to protect, it does not mean they are pretending to be a woman to gain a better vantage point for preying on other women. They're dressing and behaving in a feminine way because they feel that they are female.

Connecting back to my earlier mention of Gender Identity Disorder, I want to explain why I feel that there is often a disordered connection when referencing questions of gender identity. The term most commonly used now is gender dysphoria. Dysphoria basically means distress, or a mental disconnect between what one wants and what is, or what one wants and one believes to be right/true/etc. Why I'm having a hard time explaining this today is beyond me, considering I'm dysphoric about other issues nine times out of ten... Dysphoria is an inner conflict which causes mental and emotional distress, is I guess the best way I can think to succinctly word it.

Gender dysphoria is listed as the main sign/symptom for GID. Basically, this means that to be classified as having GID you have to show significant distress and discomfort over your sexuality vs what you feel to be your appropriate gender. This part is often undoubtedly disordered. I've had the privilege of being good friends with several transsexuals over the last few years, and the most heartbreaking thing has been watching as they struggle with feeling like freaks and mistakes, or that they're stuck in an incorrectly sexed body, that there is no hope or remedy, that life will forever be marked by painful, awkward feelings of somehow being made wrong. This is gender dysphoria.

The reason I argue Gender Identity Disorder is the wrong term is because once the person has figured out how to fix the question of gender (be it sexual reassignment surgery, transvestism, acceptance), the dysphoria greatly diminishes. It's a matter of recognizing and accepting one's gender identity - the identity itself isn't the problem.

Here I'm going to shout out to K.T., Brandon, Rae, Ben, Jeremy, Melissa, Tammi, and all the other wonderful, awesome, ridiculously brave queer and trans people I've had the chance to know. I don't think any of them read this... But if they do, they need to know how awesome they are.

This week, I am incredibly proud to say I come from Montgomery County. When they bill was put to the vote Tuesday, it passed unanimously. Maryland may still have a long way to go when it comes to recognizing equal rights for gay, lesbian, and transexual individuals, but this bill passing is a huge step. I'm still not proud to be an American, because this country is waaay behind on so many issues, but at least I'm proud to come from Mo Co.

Yay pictures!

2007-11-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

I have an extended aritcle/rant coming, but because I don't have enough time to finish it before work, I want to post some pictures from today. Because they RULE.

Danny, chicken nuggets, and Tinkerbell.

Crystal and Danny at Starbuuucks. (She's on her third book, hence the bored expression.)

One of my two favorite pictures from today. Squee!

Rawr!

At left, me with the dorkiest facial expression I have EVER MADE.

For once in a long while, a picture I kinda like. Crystal is an awesome photographer.

Last but not least, a picture of my beautiful baby. Because that's how every entry should end!

To see the rest of the pictures, visit my newly created Flickr account. Yay! (Already loving that thing.)

Options

2007-11-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

The reason for the persistent lack of blogging boils down to my freaking depression. To put it simply. Lately especially I've felt like a completely boring person whose words are all mundane, trite, repetitive, and generally not worth reading. This sort of sentiment plays very badly into the inspiring-Tina-to-write-ness.

I've thought, perhaps I should write about the medication situation. Perhaps I should blog about my frustration with the search for a therapist. Maybe about my worries for my little brother's mental health needs. Maybe about the flash in the pan interests I get every so often (see currently: transgender rights and queer theory). Certainly all of these could be turned into interesting topics. I could write about my 'plans' to tour Europe, or my literary ambitions, or even the obsessive knitting I've been doing lately. I could talk about new people at work and the latest restaurant drama/gossip. My life isn't boring.

The problem is that depression warps the most exciting events until they feel totally lifeless and dull. I'm in one of those episodes where on many occasions I feel nearly catatonic.

It doesn't help that when depressed I obsess over all the minor details in everything. Pertinent to this blog would be the way in which I analyze each entry and come to the conclusion that this blog has lost any sense of direction and is possibly beyond repair. I further pursue this train of thought to examine whether I should redirect it toward eating disorder related topics and current events which relate to the subject, or narrow it into a recovery journal encompassing any of the many things from which I'm trying to recover. Then I worry this would result in a journal blog, and I decide that I've had far, far too many of those since I first discovered the internet.

For now, I'm thinking the best decision might be to allow the blog to continue without a precise goal and hope that something congeals in time.

Shifting topics back to more recently visited waters, I'd like now to discuss the Abilify situation. To put it bluntly, I've stopped taking it. While on it I noticed absolutely no benefit; in fact, it seemed to be giving me more of an opposite effect. While I've not been suicidal in quite some time, while on Abilify my feelings of hopelessness increased significantly. I'm not sure if Abilify has any sort of extended release, but around six to nine hours after taking it I invariably experienced a major mood crash which left me surly and miserably depressed without any apparent triggers. The final kicker was that around the start of week three I started getting major nightmares which pretty much zapped my sleep of any value. I got some pretty ridiculous nightmares on Zoloft, and these reminded me a lot of them. (The fact that I almost never get nightmares normally but was experiencing them even during brief naps on Abilify was an indicator to me that the medication was causing them.)

So that's that.

I see the psychiatrist again on the 25th and am staking quite a few of my hopes on the appointment. Granted, I'm under no delusions thinking a trip to the doctor will cure everything ba-boom! but I'd still like to hope maybe some sort of progress will be made. The last time I saw her (and also the first time I met with this one, actually) we discussed the various medications I've been on and she basically said we may want to try trycyclics or even MAOIs if we can't find an effective alternative. MAOIs scare the crap out of me and, as such, I'm only going to try them if all other options have been exhausted... But honestly, to be reminded that there are still so many options yet untried is really encouraging to me. Watching so many SSRIs get scratched off the 'possibles' list is more of a depressant than whatever is causing the depression to begin with. Lol.

...I'm tired. I shouldn't blog tired. It makes me say inane things like 'lol'.

I'll end here, I suppose. Sleeeep. It sounds so nice.

Brief entry to notify all concerned that I'm still alive

2007-10-30T12:29:00.000-06:00

God, it's been nutty out here. Crystal's needed the computer quite a bit for school so I've not had it during the day, and I've been stuck working pretty much every night.

Why? Because my stupid, lazy, irresponsible fifteen-year-old of a roommate got his ass fired. For the ridiculously petty reason that he, oh, you know, just STOPPED SHOWING UP. I may be slightly peeved about this, even though it happened almost a week ago. His doing this means that all of us left in the bakery are completely screwed over when it comes to hours. Everyone was already bordering on weekly overtime because we're so short-staffed... Now we're just trying to get accustomed to it.

Really, relations with him are stretching quite thin on a basic, general, over-arching level. For reasons I've yet to determine he's pretty much stopped giving a sh-t about anything and anyone but himself and his desires. (For instance, instead of repaying me the utilities bills on time, he went out and spent two hundred dollars on a Halloween costume. The next day, he got fired.) He insists he's got several jobs lined up, one of which will pay him (I kid you not) "ten thousand dollars a day". He's taken to consuming disproportionate amounts of the groceries I purchased while never contributing ANY... On the occasions he does buy groceries, he keeps them locked in his room. He continually launches petty arguments about anything from the cleanliness of the apartment (since getting fired he's been keeping it clean, pretty much for lack of anything else to do) to habits of ours which tick him off (even though we keep ourselves to ourselves and out of the common areas)....

It's just getting totally ridiculous. And, again, I've not been able to figure out a good reason WHY this sudden, complete change in behavior. I'd peg him for DID or bipolar but for the fact he's pretty much one of the sanest people I've ever met... Just really, really, really immature and spoiled. I'm starting to wonder: is there something completely pathological that I missed in the several months of friendship predating our renting a place together?

Sooo... Those are my current roommate issues, in a nutshell.

I've got a few t'shirts to send out today before work... Orders have still been trickling in now and then. The Boston Globe interview I did a while ago finally was published and is actually really neat. It's not brought in the renewed interest in the project that I'd hoped for, but it's still a pretty cool thing nonetheless. Sadly, I wasn't able to get a hold of a copy of the newspaper for myself... Despite searching in multiple places I wasn't able to find a store which carries the Boston Globe. Sigh.

If you're interested, though, the article can be found here. :)

Hmmm... That may be about all I've got for now. There's a picture post in the works, pending on me having time to write again. With the holidays coming it is, unfortunately, not highly likely that my schedule's going to clear up any time soon.

Hope all reading are doing well. Loves!

P.S. Totally forgot about this one and don't feel like creating new segues into the topic, so here ya go. Can anyone tell me how long the reuptake is for Abilify? (Reuptake may be the wrong word for that one...) I've been on it two weeks now and am really not noticing much difference at all. It's rather disappointing, particularly since I thought it was a medication which starts to work pretty much right away. Oh well. What's one more strike? (Oooo, Rockies BURN.)

Rambling status report

2007-10-16T23:13:00.000-06:00

I'm having one of those days where I have absolutely no clue how to begin an entry. Everything seems trite, cliched, or simply like a lame hook to grab the reader and keep you interested. I hate it when even my writing, the thing which keeps me getting out of bed in the morning, manages to feel like so much work.

Yesterday I met with a new psychiatrist at Aurora Mental Health. About a month and a half ago I'd gotten prescriptions for Effexor XR and Welbutrin XL through my Md, once I explained to her that I'd been on them before and had been forced to stop taking them because of insurance and financial troubles a few months ago. However, with how complicated my depression's been proving to treat, the Md made me promise to find a psychiatrist to take care of any further prescriptions. I had an intake with a therapist at Aurora a couple weeks ago and she referred me to a psych within the practice.

God, that all sounds so complicated. Seriously, the referrals and phone calls and rescheduled appointments and intakes and continued appointments and referrals and referrals and referrals are freaking exhausting, especially to someone in the midst of a major depressive episode. Funny how my depression truly has gotten WORSE since I started on the meds this time. It will be such a total relief to finally find a treatment team I can work with so that this ridiculous searching will be over. If I have to keep hopping from doctor to doctor as I've been doing for the last ten months I will not last much longer.

Things with Chris, the new therapist, have not been going well. After the intake I realized her definite lack of experience with the areas in which I'm in need of expertise. After the second session it became clear that there was no way we'd be able to work with her... She's never worked with DID before and took a very Jungian approach to the whole matter, addressing 'personality parts' and stressing that each alter is not really an alter but just an aspect of our person as a whole. Perhaps needless to say, but this did not go over well.

Fortunately, the meeting with the new psych did not go nearly as badly. I was happily surprised to find a female doc (my last psychiatrist was male and I had an unexpectedly difficult time with it) and more pleased to find that she really thoroughly knows her stuff. She was not even surprised when I mentioned having been on Lamictal for antidepressant purposes (a relatively newly found use for the drug) or Provigil, or when I asked about other meds or used terms obscure even to the psychiatric community. Dr Sharpe seemed not much more familiar with DID than anyone out in Colorado has been so far, but at least she seemed to take me seriously and didn't act all condescending or disbelieving.

Dr Sharpe and I decided some med tweaking is very much needed. I've been medicated for nearly eight weeks now but have noticed absolutely no positive effects. In fact, the effexor has been making me so absolutely exhausted that I'm barely functioning anymore for how sleepy it makes me. I slept fourteen hours straight the other night and after being awake for just a few I was ready for a nap. Considering these factors, Dr Sharpe's view was that I should wean off it. Discouraging to think that I've only been on it eight weeks and now I'm going off it again...

For now the Wellbutrin's staying as it is. Dr Sharpe was rather irritated to learn that someone had prescribed Wellbutrin to a recovering anorectic, but...eh... Be that as it may, and inadvisable as it is, I'm staying on it for now. Historically it's been the drug which has given me more benefit than any other. At the same time, though, the doc did point out that it could be a huge part of why my appetite has been so seriously reduced lately.

Last but not least, she's having me start a new drug: Abilify. (LAMEST NAME FOR A DRUG EVER.) It's primarily listed as an antipsychotic and mood stabilizer but says that it may be used for alternate purposes as well. Yes, sounds kinda weird and dirty, but whatever. It's a pretty new drug, only FDA approved five years ago, so the full array of uses hasn't yet been determined. We'll see how it goes... It seems there's about a fifty fifty chance it'll make me completely somnolent or a total insomniac. Huh. Not sure why it has those two opposite affects on random people.

I'm starting it at 2mgs a day for a week then upping it to 5mgs. This actually seems to be a really low dosage in general.... A lot of people start at 15mgs and then move to 20 or 30. More than that sets most people stuporous, from what I've read on the forums. I guess time will tell how it affects me... I'm really just hoping for something positive this time. I need a break.

Dr Sharpe also said she'll try to help me find a therapist who'll actually be helpful... Right now I just can't manage to keep searching. I'm worn out and depressed and the meds are making it worse.

This is also just about the worst effing entry I may ever have written. It's got about the same profundity as the things I write when stoned... Only I'm experiencing much less enjoyment at present. It appears anti-depressants are not as tasty as good pot. :-P

Some exciting developments

2007-10-13T15:21:00.001-06:00

Nothing on the Danny Jr front, unfortunately, but some other things related to the Novare Project which I'm really thrilled to report!!!

October 9th (was that Tuesday?) saw the release of Frank Warren's fourth PostSecret book, "A Lifetime of Secrets". I've read all the books and visit the website far more regularly than church, and want to report that as far as I'm concerned this is the best one to date. The secrets are arranged fairly chronologically and it makes for an incredibly powerful read, as earlier secrets are echoed by total strangers later in life, others are refuted, others repeated. As far as anyone (except the submitter) knows, all these secrets are sent in by totally different people who've never met each other, may never meet... Yet so many of us share the same thoughts and experiences even while we feel totally alone.

I'm rambling a little, but point being: the book is really, truly awesome. I'd highly recommend you go buy it if possible.

The way this connects to Novare is that Frank has continued to be an awesome support to it, continually helping provide me with media opportunities and suggestions for ways to continue building on the project. Thursday he appeared on the Today Show to discuss his book... And, as Laurie pointed out to me in an e-mail, he gave a shout-out to the Novare Project! The above links to the video (I haven't succeeded in finding a way to embed it here) and the shout-out is in the last ten seconds or so of the interview. (The rest is super awesome, though, so don't skip it.)

Something really exciting about this... I was actually contacted by Frank's publisher earlier this week... She e-mailed me to ask if I'd be interested in flying out to New York to appear on the Today Show for that interview which you saw above. How freaking exciting is that?? I mean, as you can see, the logistics didn't work out for me to go to NY this week...

But in further communications with the publisher, I was able to tell her how seriously interested I am in doing something like that and she said that I'd be 'at the top of her list' for some upcoming media opportunities. One of them will be with a pretty major talk show next month... And I really, really, really hope that it'll be able to work out. I don't really want to say which show it'll be, in case it doesn't work, but I'm super seriously hoping. Of course, if anything does pan out, I will let you all know first of all.

Wish me luck!

Report from the negligent blogger

2007-10-06T19:14:00.000-06:00

It's been difficult to write lately, for a couple reasons.

Primarily, depression's been rendering me verbally and intellectually useless. Actually, for that matter, I've pretty much been worthless for any sort of activity, either... I've been sleeping ten, eleven, twelve hours a night, taking naps when possible, and otherwise lying on the couch all day like some random inanimate object.

The other night I woke in the middle of the night screaming... I tried to explain to Crystal that I felt like all the sorrow of the world was seeping into me, that I could feel all the horrible things that were happening (particularly to children) in every part of the planet and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I still feel this way to some extent, only less...dare I say, less narcissistically? I know that there is no possible way I can beging to understand all the suffering in all the world. There are a ton of things I've never experienced or seen or heard, and hope not to. But still... What I do know is enough to make me feel miserable.

My eating has gone to shit lately, the worst part of which being that I have really, truly, honestly been trying so, so hard. The problem is that every bite now takes an effort the likes of which I've not experienced in several years. I chew and chew not because I'm counting but because all my muscles feel exhausted and my throat refuses to accept the food unless it's down to almost nothingness. If anything, all this battling to eat makes it feel as though I've been eating significantly more than usual, despite clear evidence to the contrary. A couple people are pressuring me to go to the doctor, if for no other reason than to prove to me that my weight is getting dangerous again. (I haven't owned a scale in about ten months, haven't been on one in a month and a half.)

It's so hard to write about this subject honestly and yet withhold as many triggers as I can. Ugh.

I'm seriously left trying to understand where my eating has gone so wrong as to cause this weight loss. I guess it's hard to notice such things when weight loss doesn't immediately trigger a warning light for me... At first it feels like a nice reprieve, becoming something comfortable and easily ignored before it becomes a serious concern. I could stop worrying about how I'd afford new clothes when I outgrew the ones I've worn for years. Worry less about affording food. Continue for hours and hours at work without becoming distracted by hunger.

Starvation habits are just so damned familiar to me that even when I'm trying to eat well and take care of my body, it is beyond simple to slip back into them without even realizing. I guess that's what it boils down to.

Returning to restricting habits has, I suppose, been more of a comfort and an anxiety alleviant than an active fear of food/weight/body or a conscious war against it. Toss in the long hours at work, financial concerns, and stress over the secondary issue I'm about to bring up... And it would appear that the result is me, quietly disappearing.

To abruptly transition... A huge factor in my recent stress levels has been a little kid called Danny Jr.

This four year old is Crystal's half brother, who lives relatively close to us with Crystal's dad and stepmom. He is freaking adorable, super sweet, loving, silly, intelligent, creative, curious, imaginative, and generally awesome. He's also been subject to a serious amount of neglect over his lifetime and, increasingly, physical abuse. (God, I feel like some sponsor-a-child ad.)

Jr's dad, D., has been a severe alcoholic since (if I remember correctly) he was about thirteen. He was abandoned at a young age and taken in to a foster family who housed kids for the government money; all in all two foster parents and five foster kids living in a trailer park. I've heard stories of how D.'s 'parents' would regularly dose him and his siblings with Nyquil when they wouldn't quiet down fast enough. One of D's siblings is currently 19 and has three children. Another is a cocaine addict. The others I don't know about entirely... D's foster parents still live in Illinois, although his mother is close to her end now from a wide variety of health issues, many of which have been brought on by negligence in personal care (i.e. extreme obesity, diabetes, lung problems, cirrhosis of the liver, etc).

Jr's mom, S., also abuses alcohol. I don't know very much about her beyond that she dropped out of school sometime around or before highschool, ran away at some point, and has been surviving by waitressing at Denny's and filling odd jobs for years.

Currently, D., S., and Jr all live in the back room of a skeevy dog kennel and grooming shop right off the highway. It's one of those run-down rows of brick buildings, glass windows held together with tape, iron bars, parking lot paved maybe twenty years ago, only ever frequented by people who've been going there for twenty years. Also in the lot are a liquor store, a nail salon, and a sign for an architectural firm filling a dusty, empty window.

When you walk into the front door (which I was glad to see finally got its glass replaced; every time I've been there before it was splintered like a brick had been thrown against it) you're first accosted by the noise of the dogs. I've never been there without seeing at least a half dozen of them.

A split second after the noise comes the smell... The dogs all run loose over the rippled linoleum, shitting and pissing as god wills it. One wall of the kennel is floor to ceiling dog crates in a sort of wood and steel frame, a few lucky crates lined with pillows. (There is a hand-printed sign encouraging patrons to donate pillows for the dogs to use... The few that have been given are a motley collection of worn out throw pillows and lurid couch cushions.) Even the stainless steel grooming tables are encrusted with dried out filth, gradually flaking off to join the rest of the mess on the floor or settle beneath curls of torn linoleum. It's hard to determine what color the floor is supposed to be... Perhaps needless to say, it's a grimy shade of yellow-brown, accented by rugs in each corner resultant from dozens of doggy haircuts.

Jr isn't really allowed into the shop, though. The owner, B, understood that the conditions of hiring D and S to work there meant that he'd give them room and board and allow Jr to live there as well, but he wants him neither seen nor heard. Jr pretty much stays in the back room unless B is out, the shop is closed, or someone comes to see him. They get paid now and then, under the table, a couple bucks in cash so that they're off the books because D owes so much money in back child support to two ex-wives and four ex-children.

The other day, in explaining how she defended their home to a social worker who recently visited, S described their home as being "just like a studio apartment". When Crystal and I lived in a crappy Washington DC studio, it was a lot bigger than the place the three of them live. Additionally, it had a kitchen. And a bathroom. With a shower and bathtub. This place has none of the above, except for a small toilet room and the shower heads used for grooming the dogs. D and S have a small, electric stove which rests on a table in their room, making up the kitchen. When we went to visit for Christmas this stove was actually out on one of the grooming tables in the shop to allow more room for cooking.

I'm not afraid of filth, let me make that clear. Normally, smells and mess and years of accumulated dust won't phase me. Bother me, yes, some, but I can deal. I've had many friends and several relatives over the years whose houses have been several miles below what you might come across in Home and Garden. My grandma smoked copious numbers of cigarettes and probably hadn't cleaned her house in a good forty years despite generations of labrador retrievers and all that smoke and the usual dirt of living. I'm relatively accustomed to uncomfortably dirty environments. B's shop really, really bothers me. It is truly hard to stay there more than a minute. When we go to get Jr I try to stay in the car if and when at all possible.

When you enter the family's room, you first notice the oversized flatscreen TV in the corner. It's always on. You see shelves with a few food stuffs and the range stove I described earlier, along with a few Broncos memorabilia and a dart board. You see discarded wrappers and crumbs of varying sizes and colors littering the 'kitchen'. To the left is a double bed which D and S share. In the middle is a faded floral couch which looks either to have come with the place or been dragged in off the side of the highway. The couch is the focal point of the place, the center of activity, the throne for the sedentary rulers. It typically is adorned with over-filled ashtrays and sour, empty beer cans. To the far right is a toddler mattress on the floor for Jr. The kennel dogs come and go.

I don't doubt that D and S love Jr. My quarrel is that love is NOT enough. They DO NOT know how to treat or care for or raise a child. Whenever we're over there, D and S try to chat with Crystal and I while yelling at Jr to be quiet and go sit on his bed. He's learned the art of crying in silence.

Jr adored me from very early on... My guess is that I was one of the only people he's ever known who got down on his level and talked with him seriously about whatever he wanted to - even if that meant a two hour discussion/game of what if your eyeball fell out and you had to look for it on the floor and put it back in. He's a four year old, and beyond that he's a very active little boy, so when he tries to play rough with me I don't mind it. He's not trying to hurt me, anyway... When he throws a little punch it's to see me groan and throw myself back in an exaggerated parody of defeat. When D or S see this behavior, though, they scream at him to not play rough with girls and to go to his bed for time out. It doesn't matter that I explain it's my fault, I encouraged the game.

As Jr's gotten older, it seems that D and S have found him increasingly difficult to deal with. He went from baby to mobile toddler to opinionated, rapid, excitable little boy. I don't think they know what to do with him, don't know how to respond when he doesn't behave calmly and quietly like an adult. Over the last few months, spankings have progressed to beatings, sometimes and sometimes not alcohol inspired. He always has new bruises on his head and arms when we go to pick him up, which he explains with shrugs and avoided glances. One recent beating sent him to the hospital.

Connected to the fact that they don't know what to do with him anymore, D has now announced that he plans on shuttling Jr off to live with his foster parents in Illinois. (Do you remember these foster parents? If not, please see the above description.) Initially he said the family would go live in Illinois... Now the plan is to find a car, make the drive up, dump Jr and leave. In some twisted, morbidly ironic twist of fate, living with the foster grandparents might actually be WORSE than the environment he's in now.

Crystal and I have been trying to take him for a day or two frequently over the last few weeks. It's never much... Just take him to a park or let him play with our cats or read some stories or play some games. Just socialize with him. Love him. Whenever we have to take him back, he doesn't tantrum or cry but becomes sullen, obviously upset, distressed, anxious, starts telling wilder and wilder lies about why he can't go back. Something which upsets me in a seriously visceral way is that he doesn't even call it going home... He just says over and over not to take him back to B's. Last week he said, "I don't want to go back because mommy and daddy don't love me anymore, and so I don't love them neither."

So now, the source of my distress. We love this little boy. He's tied to Crystal by blood and me by marriage, albeit future and pending on legality. It's bad enough to watch his present situation deteriorate, but the thought of him being sucked into that trailer home in Illinois is worse. Right now, Crystal and I are very seriously contemplating the long, arduous, emotionally wrenching, financially draining, exhausting concept of a custody battle for Danny Jr.

For many reasons, Crystal's and my home would really be the only readily available place to take him in which could care for him and give him the love and nurturing he needs and deserves. Also for many reasons, I'm scared shitless. Crystal and I are still trying to get financially stable, just the two of us; what the hell would we do with a four year old? Even with government aid we're looking at a seriously low socio-economic level for the forseeable future. And besides, I'm only twenty-one years old. Crystal is only nineteen. Are we prepared to raise a child? Maybe. But beyond that, are we prepared to fight for, adopt, and raise an emotionally damaged four year old?

We keep going back and forth and up and down and inside out and sideways over the same questions and the same answers. Maybe, I don't know, probably not, we could try, what other options do we have. The truth is, both of us really do want to raise Danny. We love him and know him enough to see so much potential, so much worth fighting for and nurturing. We would love nothing better than to be the ones to give him the care and love he needs.

But how the hell can we do this???

And now we return full-circle, as life is wont to do, to the subject of my not eating. Maybe it's got to do with the ENORMOUS FREAKING ULCERS that all this stress is causing. (Okay, so maybe they're figurative ulcers. Mental ulcers?) When I eat it's not even just eating dollar bills anymore... It's eating dollar bills that should be going to help this little kid. ....God, yes, I know I'm talking crazy. I'm good at that. It's a talent, perhaps a hobby.

Does anyone have advice to chip in on this one? Please, this is an open request and plea. Send me a website, tell me an anecdote, give me some phone numbers, whatever you've got. Even just an, 'I'm thinking of you.' Something tells me I'm in over my head on this one.

Picture post!!!

2007-09-25T23:34:00.000-06:00

My mummy and dad sent me a digital camera for my birthday! I've been wanting one for ages and now, finally, can document my life in more than just words. How awesome is that?

Now you can finally see my babiez! This is Frankie, the soft and squishy one who loves cuddles and love and dry kibble more than anything else in the world. He does not chew. Just tips it back and gulps. For some reason we don't have any pictures of Tallulah on the camera just yet (probably because she never stays still long enough, for one thing) but I'll make sure to get some to you soon.

What could fit more naturally together? A soft, fuzzy ball of yarn and a chubby, furry ball of kitten. He is SUCH a lover. And his squooshy belly is so awesome for snergling. I loves my kitties.

Random picture taken on my birthday; me in a bookstore in Boulder, looking at random books. It was a seriously cool bookstore, btw... It had once been a big old ballroom with a dance floor and stage and all, into which they at some point put some arm chairs and bookshelves and such and turned it into a bookshop. It was an awesomely neat little place. If Boulder weren't so far away, I'd probably just move in and live there somewhere between Poetry and Psychology.

Yes, I did have a couple drinks on my birthday. (I was extremely disappointed that the waitress didn't card me, either! I mean, come on, of all days not to card... LAME.) I've tasted peach bellinis before and they're always my favorite (at least so far). I mean, we're basically talking a slightly alcoholic Slurpee. Oh, and on the left in the picture is my bestest friend from forever, Shannon, who flew in just for the weekend, because she is THAT AWESOME.

You guys won't care much about these, but hey, it's my blog and I want to have the photos in it for later. These are from tonight: we went to BDs Mongolian BBQ with a bunch of friends from work to celebrate my birthday. On the left is Larken and on the right is Nate/Keanu, doing something weird with his tongue and a strawberry. Because he is Nate.

Makeda and Eric, lovebirds and both too gorgeous for their own good. Although, in this picture, they just look high. For some reason almost everyone who came tonight was stoned out of his or her respective mind. Geh?

Awful picture, but I realized that most of you have never seen a picture of Crystal's and my roommate, Daniel. So this would be it.

For some reason, after a good dinner and a couple beers, an ass-slapping war seemed like a really fun idea. I've included this picture mainly because it just turned out so freaking cool...

Obligatory group shot. ^.^ Left to right: Nate, Daniel, Crystal, Larken, me (in awesomely obnoxious tights), Emily, Makeda, Eric, John, and John's girlfriend Sarah whom I just met tonight.

Sooo, that about sums it up. Yay pictures!

Titles are lame. -shrug-

2007-09-24T23:08:00.000-06:00

Hey guys, sorry for the long lapse. T hasn't really felt like updating, for a wide variety of reasons, so I've decided to take it upon myself to give the readers what they want. i.e, an update. (What the hell does 'i.e.' stand for, anyway? Some Latin crap would be my guess, but I never exactly payed attention when we took Latin classes. What's the point in learning a useless, outdated language?)

My name is Claire, and you may call me The Awesome One. Muahaha. No, but seriously, I'm basically the person who does the most and is out most and rocks the world the most beside T. Chances are, if you've known us for any period of time really, you've met me at least once. People at work have, Shannon has, family has many many times, random people at the grocery store or on the street. Others vied for the position of First Alter To Post but in the end all agreed (even if grudgingly) that I had the right to it. So nyah!

So basically here's what's been happening over the last couple of weeks.

We went to the women's health center and got the titties ultrasound-ed only to be told that everything is fine and we should drink less caffeine. I guess technically we don't drink as much as most people since we hate those freaking energy drink things, but we drink soda like it's heroin. (You know, if you drank heroin.) We really haven't cut back much but we've been trying to limit soda to when we're at work, and it seems to be helping. Still, it could also just be the time of month, though, since the lumps fluctuate with our cycle.

I don't think she mentioned this before but we also had this nasty mole that was supposed to get removed like a year ago and we finally went to a dermatologist and got it biopsied. They didn't really remove it, I guess, but they still sliced it off over the top for the biopsy and so you basically can't see it anymore. The doctor said it'll probably grow back after a while, though. Anyway, the biopsy came back negative, so it doesn't really matter one way or another. Yay.

Our birthday itself passed pretty quietly. God knows T's not exactly a big party animal, right? We drove up to Boulder for the day with Crystal and Shannon, who flew all the way from Maryland to the freakish boredom of Colorado just for her stupid birthday. Awwwwwwww. Boulder was all right I guess, but it was a bunch of lame-ass hippies. So in other words, Shannon and T had a fabulous time while I basically retched all day because hippies are so stupidly annoying. Seriously, hippies are all full of sh-t.

Mostly though in the last few weeks we've just been working for way, way, way too many hours and too little pay. Several people in the bakery have either been fired or voluntarily quit or transferred from the bakery to other parts of the restaurant and so they've been working the rest of us into the ground. On the plus side, the paychecks are big.

OH YEAH. I completely forgot to discuss the therapist sitch. Essentially, she sucks. I mean, she's really nice and I'm sure she's good in her own way and within her own realms of expertise. Problem of course being that she has absolutely no effing clue what to do with a crazy multiple with some eating disorders, some self-mutilation issues, some OCD, some of a little of a lot of things. In discussing her views on treatment goals she danced around it to try to appease us but couldn't fool me with how she was just trying to hide that she feels integration is the only ultimate treatment goal. I seriously about lost it on her withered old british ass.

T called and cancelled with her tomorrow but just did so with an excuse instead of calling the whole thing off. She's all upset because every one of the four different people she's seen in Colorado have had no clue what to do with us, said they'd help us, and ultimately sent us on to another worthless person. I mean seriously, they just keep shuttling us around, insisting that they're "helping" us and that they just want to send us to somebody more equipped to deal with us but they really just send us to someone else who has no effing clue. Maybe we'd have better luck just opening the phone book and pointing at random. Ann though thinks we should contact Doc M, our last therapist, and ask if she knows of anyone in Colorado and that's probably the best idea. Ann basically isn't good for much more than clever and practical ideas like that. :-P

Oh, so last thing before I go, because I fail at remembering important things to report on... Frank Warren contacted us a couple weeks ago to let us know that a reporter for the Boston Globe was interested in interviewing T about the Novare Project thing and we basically said hells yes, so tomorrow we're doing a phone interview with them tomorrow! T will probably make sure to let you know all the random glitzy details about which I really don't much give a sh-t.

Also, her parents sent her a digital camera for her birthday, so picture posts should be coming again soon. There are a couple from when Shannon was here, a few of the freaking kittens, and I know she wants to take pictures of her thread crochet stuff so she can sell them so we're not always so damn poor. I don't think we're used to having a camera yet, so there aren't many pictures because we keep not remembering to take any.

Well, I guess that's about all there is to say for now. We've got a stomach flu thing so we've been not moving all day and plan on doing so again tomorrow so we can feel better. Talk about putting a kink in the whole recovery thing... Effing stomach flus.

I'm sure you'll hear from me again before too long. Ciao kids.

--*---Claire---*--

Not much of an entry, but something

2007-09-10T10:21:00.001-06:00

pWhat to write? Today, any update feels like an obligatory post more than an enjoyment. Not sure why...

In the past week, I have been to get my titties ultrasound-ed, the dermatologist to get a mole biopsied, and the new therapist for an intake. Item one went fine, item two was probably fine but am still waiting to hear back, and item three was also fine. I wasn't particularly impressed with this therapist, but neither did I have anything negative to say, really. It was an intake anyway so it was more me talking and answering standard questions than anything. I'll go back for another appointment and see how it goes from there.

On a side note, it's cold and grey and drizzly, Tallulah is draped across my lap/forearms, and Frankie is curled up next to me. Both of them are warm, furry, and purring, and precious. I don't know how I have survived depression without kittens for so long.

I'm starting to feel the effexor a smidge. Although my writing is stilted and sucky today, I'm sure it's not the fault of the medication... I'm sleepy and lazy and don't feel like writing is all. The effexor is contributing to life by making me feel a little more human and a little less hysterical on an average daily basis. It's pretty cool, actually. Scratch that: thank god for medication. I've needed it so badly for so long. I'm still getting to a maintenance dosage on it, and as such haven't started the Wellbutrin yet... Probably next week for that one. I do have both prescriptions filled, just haven't started taking them both.

Really, all that's been going on lately has been work. One person in the bakery transferred out to a different work station and another was fired last week, so we've got a lot of holes to fill. This actually works out well for me, as it's the slowest time of the year serving-wise (much better to be paid by the hour and have lots of hours, even if they're boring) and in addition to that, Crystal and I came upon an unexpected $800 bill. It is throwing quite a kink into an already struggling machine. We've gone from chicken, rice and the occasional salad to easy mac and peanut butter and jelly. It especially sucks that this should come right when it did... Just before my birthday and our three year anniversary. ::wibble:: What little I'd saved for the occasions now has to go to this damned bill. Well, not all... I'm still going to make sure something nice happens for each. Just, it won't be as nice.

Le sigh. At this point, I've actually got to be headed back in to work... I've got a server shift from 11:30 to 3ish, then have to be back at 7 to close the bakery. Lame!

So where do we go from here?

2007-08-29T13:13:00.001-06:00

The more I've been thinking about it, the more I've come to the conclusion that it might be best for me to answer some common misconceptions about DID. It feels lame, but there ya go. It's sometimes hard to realize that most people really don't have a clue about what DID is, and those who do probably don't understand it at all beyond a confused sort of basic concept. I hate Q&As, though, so I'm going to kind of do this as a cohesive entry, just sort of answering unasked questions.

I'm not demon possessed. For one thing, my alters aren't tormentors - at least, no more than any people can be when they feel like being irritating, and that's only some of the time. They don't suggest that I do things, they don't make me miserable, they don't urge me to behave badly or whatever. One important thing to note, too, is that I don't perceive my alters as coming from somewhere else, some outside source - they're as much a part of my body and mind as I am, and have been for pretty much as long as I can remember. For me, being alone in my head, having only one set of thoughts, is as weird a concept as the idea of having more than one person is to you.

Also, to say that DID is a therapy-induced phenomena is just bullshit. Pardon my French, but there it is. If nothing else, I've known about my alters long before I had a term for what they were called, years and years before I ever started therapy or took a psychology course or in any way knew what DID even was. The best way I've thought to describe it is that when I talk to myself, my selves talk back. It's always been that way. I don't even have to be a part of the conversation; there have always been other people there chatting away. (Yes. It can be extremely distracting.) I guess it's like being in a chat room, to a certain extent.

I first remember being distinctly aware of alters when I was about thirteen. Still though, as with most people with DID, thirteen is about when I first start having any memories of my childhood... I know that the whole reason I started keeping a daily journal when I was eleven was because I was so freaked out that I often couldn't remember what had happened to me the day before. (This is called dissociative amnesia - the reason I don't have memories of some things is that other alters were 'fronting' and therefore are the ones who experienced the events. Those times when I've been blanked out and unaware of what was going on because someone else was fronting are called dissociative fugues.) It's incredibly interesting to look over some of my earliest journals, especially... There are several very distinct handwriting patterns, one for each person who was writing. We're not even all right-handed.

Contrary to media portrayals, very few multiples have just two personalities. I certainly don't. If you want to get technical and statistical, the average number you'll see in most authoritative sources is actually sixteen alters; or seventeen people, altogether. The main person is usually called the 'host'. We have all agreed that every single one of us HATES that term. It makes it sound like we're freaking parasites or something, perpetuating that idea that DID is demon possession. We've had a hard time thinking of some better term, though. We tossed around the idea of saying the 'original' for a while, but that's not accurate, either... Often the person who is out most in adult life was NOT the original person. We've loosely decided to call Tina the front-runner, but Crystal doesn't like that term and not everyone agrees... For lack of a better one, it works.

Everybody has a name. Probably you'll know most, maybe all of them, eventually... Some of us are really shy. Most are younger than Tina, a couple are older, a couple are the same age. Some get older as the body does, some don't; some have ages that fluctuate depending on the day and how they're feeling. Everybody picked their own names, but we kinda more just felt like they were supposed to be our names... They were just the names that felt most right. They fit best.

The alters DON'T all have specific 'jobs'. Nobody's specifically the angry alter, the sad alter, the dangerous alter, the sex alter. Yes, some could sort of be classed into things... But no more than you, based on your personality, could be classified an angry person or a happy person or a playful person. You're not always happy all the time and it isn't your JOB to be happy. Make sense?

Sometimes, when the system is having a really really hard time functioning because of depression or whatever, we do have specific alters with specific tasks. They come and go, though, and don't have names. They're not full-fledged people, just jobs. That's all they exist for - somebody to make sure the laundry gets done or the bills get paid or whatever, like robots. They're called fragments, or splinter personalities: we just call them frags. Like I said, though, they don't always exist. In an ideal world, we're able to function well enough that we can be responsible for our own things. When times get really tough, though, they are certainly helpful. Wouldn't everybody like a robot who always made sure the dishes got done? :-P

The reason DID is still a disorder is that it can be pretty damned hard to get everyone to cooperate and function well together. You've seen reality TV shows, where a bunch of people get tossed into a house, told to live together, share common goals, whatever... Imagine they were all tossed into the same body. And that they all had some sort of psychological disorder before that happened.

In particular, DID can be dangerous when one or more alters are suicidal. One of ours in particular has had lots of serious bouts of suicidality. She understands that killing herself kills everybody, but when she is really depressed she tends to be convinced that it would be something of a mercy killing. That even though not all the alters want to die, they'd still be better off in the long run if they did. Similarly, when one of the non-recovery oriented anorexic alters wants to fast, or an alter wants to cut, or one of the young ones gets frightened and hides somewhere without warning, that can put everyone in jeopardy.

Some people believe the goal of therapy should be integration; all alters merging into one cohesive person. We solidly disagree. To us, that feels like murder. A lot of multiples feel that way about integration... Why sacrifice the lives of beautiful and unique people because some cultural idea of normal says there should only be one mind in one brain? Having more than one person in a body is not necessarily harmful. Often, it can be beneficial. Our goal in therapy is to have a working, cooperating sort of family system.

I think that's about all for now? It seems like we're running out of things to say, so I guess it'll have to do. If you haven't yet, I encourage you to look at some of the links we posted... They really are good. The Significant Other's Guide is helpful for anyone who knows an alter, not just SOs.

Multiple Confessions

2007-08-27T17:14:00.000-06:00

It's so hard to write when your hands are shaking...

Perhaps as long as the science of psychology has been around, people have prescribed art and writing assignments as ways of healing damaged minds. I've always used my writing to help me cope with painful emotional and mental difficulties that have come up throughout my life. Especially lately, as I've been preparing to re-enter therapy for real and seriously this time, I've been increasingly aware of the fact that I can neither be fair to you, as readers, nor fair to myself without being completely honest in this blog.

It isn't fair to YOU because you've come to read a truthful, raw, sincere blog. It isn't fair not to give you the complete picture, to skate over aspects of my life which I'm too frightened to discuss. For one thing, it may well leave you lost since you'll only be getting fractured glimpses. Beyond that this incomplete, bullet-style relation is boring, if nothing else. It's all the reasons for which I hate abridged books... and yet that's what I'm doing to my blog, for fear of the consequences of honesty.

Granted, whoever first said honesty was the best policy must have led a pretty damned sheltered existence at best. Complete honesty is only an occasionally wise move, subject to factors variable and diverse as the audience and the weather. I'm not endorsing a life lived entirely in lies, but discretionary disclosure and carefully tainted perspectives can still get you out of a hell of a lot of trouble. How many thousands of people would have survived over the years had they only told a small lie when pressed by the man with the sword?

So now you see a bit of the dilemma I face. Honesty for the sake of true, quality writing? Honesty for the sake of my recovery?

Lies for the sake of face, humiliation, security, friends...family?

As I've known since the first of my livejournals to this, my most recent and current blog, there are more than faceless strangers reading the words I type. Even through those periods in my life when I've tried to hide my words, I knew that if someone really wanted to, they'd find a way to read them (and often did). I'm sure of many who read this and suspect many more, ranging from lovers to best friends to siblings and parents, uncles and aunts and therapists, cousins, former teachers, coworkers, casual acquaintances, schoolmates, god knows whom else. That's a whole lot of an audience. I've now way of knowing if they read daily or when the fancy hits them, if they care about me as a person or find this an interesting read. I've had people find my blog by googling random subjects or being referred from and recommended by well-known sites.

...All that makes this blog seem a lot more impressive than it is, and the stakes much higher than they are.

In the end it boils down to me being aware that the confession I want to make is controversial even in some of the best of academic and psychiatric circles. Media portrayals, which adore any slightly comical, novel idea, love to misconstrue the realities of it to fit into their needs, to the detriment of anyone trying to come out about their situation. Popular opinion loves to snatch quickly at what they understand, add a liberal helping of speculation, a portion of doubt and ridicule, and a heaping of false facts and gossip to everything they hear and see.

All these things said, I wish to discuss a couple more disclaimers before continuing.

To my friends: please comment with your support, but don't do so without being informed. While this is an entry about something I'm frightened to reveal, I'm actually quite happy with it in many ways. It's not nearly as shameful as outsiders think. It's complicated, yes, and can be quite embarrassing, awkward, even dangerous, but this is neither a death sentence nor a mark of disability. Just an aspect of who I am.

To my family: you are the biggest reason I've hesitated; not gonna lie. Your religious views in particular make this an especially complicated thing to discuss because as much as you learn and are willing to research, many churches remain way behind the times on psychiatric issues, leaving you in an unfortunate position of being subtly or blatantly misinformed and not aware of it. I ask you now to show me the respect of not talking to me about this until I give you the okay. I encourage you to learn more; if you want, I'm happy to recommend books and websites and Crystal probably can show you even more resources than I can. But please, don't send me a long letter/email/phone call telling me you're praying for me and recommending resources of your own and encouraging me to talk to a pastor and that you understand/have answers etc, etc. Please don't be offended, but I don't want your resources. This is something I've been aware of for years, and I've done tons of research on my own. I've talked to doctors with specialties and degrees you probably don't know exist. Especially when I lived in DC I went to institutes with 'National' in front of the title to make sure I could get the best care possible.

...God, that makes it sound like I'm dying! Okay. Before I go any farther and make you think I've got some rare, bizarre brain dementia or fungus or am infested by sentient, parasitic slugs (Animorphs, anyone?), let me state first and foremost that aside from any previously mentioned health issues, I am fine. There is NOTHING organically or physiologically or otherwise physically wrong with me. This is completely mental, and even then I hesitate to use the common nomenclature 'disorder'.

My name is Tina Malament. I'm twenty-almost-one years old. I'm a waitress. I have major depressive disorder, anorexia nervosa, obsessive compulsive tendencies, various other diagnoses....

And dissociative identity disorder.

Commonly misinformed, many people call it multiple personality disorder (which is an outdated term).

I don't have a good side and an evil side. (Please do me the courtesy of not relegating me to a coin or a comic book villain!) I'm not demon possessed. I'm not bipolar, I don't alternate between highs and lows born from a chemical imballance.

To clarify on my pet peeve, I DON'T HAVE F-ING SCHIZOPHRENIA! I don't hear voices the way you might think; I don't have a false perception of reality or hallucinations or a savior complex. Dissociative Identity Disorder (hereby: DID) is often portrayed/labelled in mass media events as schizophrenia. See also: Heroes, Me, Myself, and Irene, Fight Club, etc. Some of those have elements of DID which are pretty accurate.... Others are completely bullshit off the mark. (Actually, I really liked a lot of the way it was portrayed in Heroes, beyond the artistic licenses taken... The way she looked when switching personalities and the way she described the amnesia are pretty good. Fight Club, on the other hand, sucked. Great movie, but sucked.)

If you've seen/read Sybill, you should know that I have no desire to be hypnotized and integrated. It would probably not help, for one thing. That book, while seen as a sort of media authority on DID, is roughly fifty years out of date when it comes to the actual assessment and treatment of the disorder.

Yes, I have more than one 'personality part'. They're called alters. Yes, they have names, genders, age ranges, complete memories and life histories and very diverse opinions on life, the universe, and everything. Some of them often appear more harmful than others; some are sweet, some tend to be very angry, some exist for very specific purposes and can seem simplistic because of this. Many are good at things which I'm bad at, or vice versa. We have different opinions about freaking everything, speak differently, have different typing and spelling errors, different tastes in foods, even different health problems. We hold our body differently depending on who's out. We like different clothes and colors and activities.

Probably you'll get introduced to everybody as they see fit. Several have already written the entries in this blog; you may or may not have noticed when writing styles shift, vocabularies and sentence styles vary. Maybe you'll notice now that you're looking for it; who knows. Maybe when you expect someone to be a single, cohesive person it's harder to realize when they aren't.

I think we're going to cut it off now. That's probably enough to think about for one day, right?

Here are a couple of websites for you to look at since we barely covered the basics of what DID is... We've been over it so many times with so many people that it gets really tiresome to discuss after a while, particularly when there are so many valuable resources on the internet!
--->Merck - fairly awesome for overview purposes, except for the treatment goals part.
--->Religious perspectives and misperceptions answered. Sort of.
--->Surprisingly good FAQ section on a random AOL-sponsored information site.
--->The Significant Others' Guide to coping with DID

Oh yeah, one final thing... Please, please, do me a personal favor and DO NOT go to wikipedia for information about this. Their entry on the subject was so inflammatory and ill-informed that it made me write a nasty letter to wikipedia about it and create an account so that I could try to go in and edit the entry. (Which I never got done, but still, I worked on it. The entry is so riddled with error that it needs to be completely rewritten and we haven't had the energy for it.)

Shannon, thank you for all the support you've given us since we told you. Probably if you hadn't taken the news so well we wouldn't be able to come out here and now... (Are you proud?)

Readers... We now humbly await your thoughts.

Status overview

2007-08-25T11:48:00.000-06:00

Well, at long last, we have internet in the apartment. Hooray! Commence celebrating!

Essentially what happened is that the modem arrived Monday but, when we tried to set it up, it quickly became apparent that the little plastic bundle of wires and microchips was completely worthless. (When all lights stand solid red it's never a good sign.) I called Qwest and scheduled for a technician to come over today, on the first day off I've had in a week. Quickly, painlessly, in the course of half an hour, a new modem was slipped in and set up and now all is well.

Otherwise, there's little to report from Colorado. I've been working close to constantly and fighting off a cold/sinus infection/thing with about as much of a respite. Today being the first day I've had off since last Saturday, I plan on parking my ass on the couch with South Park, movies, what-have-you, trying to find something to eat in the bare-bones kitchen, and otherwise resting and allowing my respiratory system to heal. Ideally I should be picking up shifts and trying to bulk up my hours and income, but at the moment I think healing needs to take priority to allow for the rest.

Money, money, money. Cursed money. It feels as though we live in a perpetually broke state of existence though, in reality, it's probably not as bad as it seems. Granted, things are tight. Nevertheless, we are meeting our bills, paying for our groceries, and even affording some nice perk now and then (see also: internet access). Funds will undoubtedly be getting tighter as we come upon the hurdles of Crystal's books for the semester and the newly acquired doctor's bills...

I saw a doctor last week and now have prescriptions for both Effexor and Welbutrin. Started on the Effexor starter pack several days ago - as such, have yet to see any effects or benefits, really. Plan on starting the Wellbutrin after reaching a maintenance dosage for the Effexor so as to pre-empt any conflict between the two while upping the levels. I figure that if there will be negative side effects from one or both, it'd be best to watch them one at a time so I know which medication is causing the detriment.

In addition to the prescriptions, I got a couple of referrals. I suppose I'll be honest about what the one is for: my breasts have lumps.

Dr. Schimke gave me a referral for a women's health clinic to do an ultrasound... There's a large one in the left breast which I noticed about a month ago, and a smaller one in the right, about the size of a marble. They vary in size depending on the day (and, I'm guessing, my cycle) and are also very tender - the doctor thinks they are cystic. Still, though, she's referred me out to a specialist to have them checked out and make sure there's nothing seriously wrong. I'm trying not to grow alarmed. As she said, I'm twenty years old, relatively healthy, there's not a history of breast cancer in my family... Everything ought to be fine... The appointment is September 4th, and I'll let you know as soon as I know anything else.

I'll also update you on the therapist situation as soon as I've met with her... When I called Aurora Mental Health, they told me it would likely be forty-five to sixty days before I received a call back to schedule an intake. Instead, they called me two days later. I've got an intake scheduled on September 5th. I'm rather apprehensive about it, as the therapist they've got me slated to see doesn't have the specialties I'm looking for, exactly. She's experienced in trauma and dissociative disorders but not eating disorders... Still, though, she's been in practice for many many years so I'm sure she's come across them before. Her main areas of expertise are couples counseling and drug/alcohol addiction - I'm really not sure how d.ds and trauma counseling fit in there. We'll see.

With that little overview complete, I'm off to rest more and read more. I finally finished Atlas Shrugged last week and started on Les Miserables. I'm already three hundred pages in to the unabridged version, surprising no one more than myself. Who would have thought I'd charge through Les Mis with such voracity? It's comforting at least to read great works when I'm out of school... I feel less lazy and ignorant.

I wish all of you the best as you start back in to school for the fall. Remember to take care of yourselves in the midst of the chaos.

Still alive and still kicking that dead horse

2007-08-15T11:18:00.000-06:00

Jesus H. Is this REALLY the FIRST chance I've had to update my blog since returning from MD on the 2nd? Answer: Yes. Yes it is. Suck.

Our piggy-backed internet officially decided to give us the boot at home, so that greatly limits my ability to update. Then too, working 40+ hours since the first morning I was back doesn't help at all in the free time department... I've been making a lot of money, but, god am I tired.

Today would have been my fifth double shift in a row but for the fact that a friend offered to pick up the AM shift so that I don't have to be in until 5:45 tonight, allowing me time to settle my ass at It's A Grind (BEST COFFEE SHOP EVER), with an iced chai (I've recently become a fan: finally, I'm a true lesbian!), a checkbook to be ballanced (hooray internet banking; I don't want to begin to think about how snarled it is), a blog to be updated (at this point I feel the need for a parenthesis after each statement), and a doctor to be found (I suppose I'm trusting to fate and location since I know no one here). (Parentheses: the new black. Or comma.) Damn but that was the longest sentence ever.

Oh yeah! And also, I have a birthday party to plan if I have time! Old as I may feel, I still am only partially legal. Isn't that lame? It's not even as though I drink, but the mere fact that I can buy and own a car, rent an apartment, join the military, what-the-f-ever, but not get a glass of wine at a restaurant pisses me off. All this will change on September 16th when my last Big Birthday for twenty years will occur. It's weird, planning my twenty-first... Honestly, I've felt so old for so long that it seems trite.

...Wow. What do I have to say? This is nothing but a tangle of rambles, all frustrated before the point of meaning. This is actually how I've been feeling lately about my life in general, though whether or not the two are in any way connected is debatable.

Lately, waitressing has felt even more thankless and dead-end than it already has... Though I'm still bringing in a fair amount, enough at least to pay the bills, I get off a shift feeling more as though I've been begging for change or turning tricks than legitimately being paid for a job well done. Every 5$ tip on a 90$ check (see also: last night) makes perfectly executed service feel like a joke. If the person will pretty much tip what they're going to tip regardless of the service I give or the check they run, why bother? I ruin myself every night trying to make sure each table receives exemplary service but whether or not I'll be paid for that effort is a crap shoot.

My shoulder has been bothering me again, too, increasing with the hours I work. Hell, it's only been about eight months since my surgery and I'm back to double shifts pretty much every day I work... At this pace, the healthy, whole parts of my body won't stay such for long. People don't realize that waitressing takes an incredible toll on your body. Although I've been eating more I can't gain any weight or keep on what I've got because of waitressing so much... I may be eating Cheesecake Factory food every day, but the calories are all offset by the loaded plates I cart all over the restaurant, the trays of drinks, and constant speed-walking. I'm solid muscle, knots, and strains.

Yucky part is, I've got no clue where I'd rather work or what I'd rather do. What job can I get with a year's worth of college that has adequate pay, benefits, and satisfaction? That I'd enjoy? I have no clue. Especially with working in a mall, it seems that everyone here is older than I and stuck working too many hours in a dead end job because it's the best option they got. So many people here in Colorado are working to pay for the homes, cars, and KIDS on minimum wage, yet I'm making at least twice that and complaining about it. Why does it feel like that makes me a terrible person? I don't think it does...

Last night I was mourning my complete lack of connections here. I didn't exactly have the most outrageous network in DC, but I still new enough people that I could know where to go if I had a question about something, needed help. I had a Pulitzer prize winning author, senior literary professor at George Washington U offering to mentor me and help me become a better writer. I had opportunities. Now that I'm half a country away perhaps I'm not completely cut off from any way to improve but I certainly feel the disconnect. I don't know where to go or who to talk to. I've got no school, no professors, no friends outside my dead-end job. The only way up at Cheesecake is to step into management and I'll be damned before I become THAT much of a corporate whore.

...Of course, then I look at complete complete train wreck entries like this one and think that I ought to have learned better by now than to still have literary aspirations. I can't even keep a blog in one piece.

Well, my thought are trickling out at this point and I'm having a hard time sifting through the silt that remains. I'm going to now return to my doctor search... I've finally got health insurance now through Cheesecake, meaning that I can at long last find a therapist to stick with, a psychiatrist, and get back on some medication. With any luck, maybe my thoughts will be a little more cohesive and I'll have a better time trying to plan and think and do anything with some cocktail to temper my crazy thoughts. It's about time, I can tell you that much. I'm tired of crying myself to sleep at night with absolutely no provocation.

For those who so love to complain about the infrequent updates

2007-07-30T20:42:00.000-06:00

Shannon, this one's for you. :-P

It's come to my attention that my picture(s?) may be circulating the nets, specifically certain livejournal comms, as thinspiration. ...No, screw it, no, I don't want to write this update right now. I'm too tired and still way too conflicted about this issue to think it through clearly. I guess, can I leave the subject with the words 'cognitive dissonance'? Because that epitomizes and summarizes how I'm feeling right now. I feel guilty, hypocritical, flattered, guilty again, jealous and triggered by the thought of my own image as thinspo. It's doing quite a work on my head.

The rest of my body is sunburned.

The rest of my thoughts are tired.

And all of me is going to bed now...

Entry in Brief

2007-07-22T14:10:00.000-06:00

If you'll take a look to your right at the Etsy widget, you may notice a new picture. This is because the self-injury awareness/recovery design is done!!! Yay!!!

...Not sure what all to say about that other than yay, it seems.

Actually, I mainly just want to get my butt off the computer and back to HP and the Deathly Hallows. I'm about three hundred pages in and want to plug away at it some more before working tonight... Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter ZOMG!! LOL. Ummm, yes.

Idle hands...

2007-07-16T23:02:00.000-06:00

It's odd how days off actually seem to be what kill me a little.

Working thirty-five to forty hours a week exhausts me on every level, but conversely it gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning, shower, dress nicely, and generally pull myself together. I've lately had a bad habit (tongue in cheek on that 'habit' part) of dissociating somewhat throughout the work day... I'm the dead-end job zombie on so many levels. Is it better to go through a series of depersonalized days, but to get through them nonetheless, or to be like I was in DC and fall apart all the time at work? I'm starting to think the reason I never was promoted to a trainer position was that they couldn't trust my emotional stability... God knows how many times they had to send me home because I couldn't stop sobbing.

When I've got a day off, though, it tends to be bad news. Work keeps me busy, work keeps me distracted. More importantly perhaps, it keeps me talking to people and smiling a lot (even if the smiles are fake - fake it 'til you make it?). Days like today, I'm bogged down with household chores and domestic errands, like three hours at the DMV and hundred-dollar grocery trips. By the end of a 'day off' I'm more tired and emotional than a work day. More prone to sobbing and manic cleaning sprees as a method to hopefully ward off self-injury.

I play with my keettens and try to channel the emotional tension/energy into art projects, but more often than not I get frustrated with the whole affair and stare hopelessly at a blank page for hours. I try to read, but internal chaos can be unbelievably distracting. It's like being on a poorly fitting medication; the words jump on the page, lines blur and buzz, my eyes read and reread and generally can't stay focused for sh-t.

Being alone while Crystal's at work is especially bad. I talk to myself, I talk to myselves, I talk to the kittens, I talk to the walls. I fall silent when I feel especially crazy. The silence hems me in and makes me feel crazier. I turn on the TV for company and get angry at the characters for always saying the same things, never varying, never wavering or blinking if I scream at them. (Film characters are quite pretentious that way, it seems. Worst of all, if you watch the same movie twice, you'll notice no one ever does anything new, not so much as a sigh or a sneeze. ) So I turn off the TV and am again stuck with that god-awful silence....

Come August first my new insurance kicks in. God help the man who stands in the way of me and a psychiatrist... First thing I'm going to do is get on some meds.

Don't get me wrong, I still think medication tends to be overprescribed. From what I've seen, too many people are on it who don't need it, and the stigma surrounding medication because of that means that too many people who legitimately need it are afraid to take it. Our system is completely f-kd up. I want to slap every media guru who's referenced happy pills and made derogatory comments about crazy people, therapists, Freudian psychology, psych meds, and on and on and on. All this stigma and negative stereotyping doesn't make our lives any easier. It's hard enough to get onto medication because of personal fears; external derision helps nothing.

....Can you tell I'm a little out of focus tonight?

That's why I need medication... To calm the racing thoughts just a little, temper the moods, ease the rumination, soothe the reason-less hurt. Medication really does exist for a REASON. It really is meant to help, not stupefy or control or drug you happy. It doesn't work that way, for one thing. Medication isn't going to cure me in the slightest. It's just going to help calm me enough that I'll be able to get a more solid start on recovery.

Reflections on self-injury

2007-07-14T19:49:00.000-06:00

Sigh... After an eight AM meeting, I opened this morning... And now, coming on briefly after I got off, Crystal closes tonight. So no baby all day. Makes me sad.

Feelings of instability have increased markedly lately. My feelings about eating (if not quite my habits themselves) have begun to improve, but the depression and anxiety hang around as they always have. It's been about four or five months since I last cut and the urges are strong again. They never really go away.

I don't talk about my cutting much. I guess that it's something which feels like it's always been with me and still feels more like a friend and companion than a bad coping mechanism or dangerous, destructive habit. It's one of those things which therapy has yet to talk me out of. So far most, if not all, of my previous therapists have wanted me to go to an inpatient facility to tackle the issue.

I've always argued around aggressive treatment/inpatient as primarily a matter of affordability (after all, right now I can't even afford therapy in and of itself) and secondarily as a Not Really Major Issue. Somehow the infrequency of my indulgence makes me think it's less of a problem. (Isn't it?) Things have never been so bad that I'd cut multiple times a day (well, not usually) and as a general course have been once every few weeks at most. Over the past year and a half or so, once every few months. That's not a big deal. Right?

Of course... There is the porning. Like I used to food-porn with anorexia, I cut-porn now. Most recently, the scenes in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Professor Umbridge's wicked little quill have provided both a trigger and feelings of satisfaction, at least to some degree. The internet teems with triggers and 'porn'. The imagination fills in where my physical actions continue to refrain. While physically I may not have cut for months, I guess you could say I'm a total porn addict. A few times a day, maybe. Constant daydreaming, sometimes.

Here's the thing, though. Technically, I'm not harming anyone by this. Beyond that, I'm not sure how to stop it. Beyond that, I'm definitely not sure I WANT to stop.

I never 'gave up' cutting as a personal resolution or a decision to recover, heal, overcome. I never have wanted to stop. (This was another reason I argued against inpatient: most places, unless you're a serious medical harm to yourself/others, require that you sign a contract certifying you're entering the program of your own initiative and with a strong desire to recover.) I suppose it's a sign that my thoughts in this area are still ruefully unhealthy or something, but no one's ever managed to convince me either of how cutting hurts me or how I'd be better off without it.

The reasons I've physically stopped are simple: other people. Namely, Crystal, my little brother, and total strangers who see my body and look horrified. Were I completely alone and able to ignore others better, I'd probably continue to self-injure on a weekly or daily basis.

I don't know how to deal with the sense of loss. I don't know how to cope with the feelings of self-hatred, anxiety, loneliness, emptiness, self-loathing, inadequacy, helplessness, mania - even just boredom. These are all some of the things which drive me to self-injury, physical or imaginary. When I'm not self-injuring regularly I feel a loss of identity and a lack of completion. Something is MISSING. I grieve for it in a way usually reserved for close loved ones. In the same way that I get confused about who I am if not an anorectic, I don't know who I am if not a cutter. (God, how BDSM does that sound?)

There's a hotline that I've often been referred to and never called - 1-800-DONT-CUT. It's supposed to be really good; I've read much of the book written by the people who started the line and they actually run the only inpatient program I've so much as considered for self-injury. (The reason I've never called is that when I'm to the point that I want to actually self-harm, I don't want anyone to talk me out of it, deter me, or break my mood.) Lately I've been wanting to call them just to talk about this in lieu of a therapist: how do I face the sense of emptiness that comes without cutting?

I wonder a lot if this is a normal feeling. More and more the Powers That Be are looking down on calling self-injury an addiction, opting instead for a more learned behavior, benefits/rewards approach, but I still feel like 'addiction' may be the best term. After all, don't recovering alcoholics, smokers, drug addicts reference this feeling of confusion, lack of direction, etc? (Hell, isn't that part of what AA and its higher power teaching is about? Just redirect that passion!) I don't know. It's one of those areas that I'm left aware both of my personal lack of knowledge and the communal lack of understanding in this area.

Therapists have given me dozens of worksheets and thought pattern charts and you-name-its to fill in, to understand the thoughts and emotions that drive my urge to self-injure. These charts often backfire and, instead of helping me to break it down and understand my feelings, lead me to think that I'm either too damn crazy for a chart or just plain have a glitch in the system. I've got so many filled out charts with reasons ranging from the classic 'anger at' whomever to things the docs can't understand (or accept as truthful) like boredom, feeling 'too' happy, feeling distractible, and missing someone.

Several docs have been adamant that all my urges are simple: anger turned inward. ...even though anger is rarely a motivating feeling.

Several tell me it's frustrated sexual energy, or sexual fear, or sexual something. (Freud is aliiiive!)

Others still insist I just want attention. (After all, I gave up a long time ago on trying to hide all the damn scars where most cutters will still opt for long sleeves no matter the weather.)

In the end, I often have to wonder if anyone truly has a solid understanding of self-injury, its triggers and motivators. Maybe that's why it's so hard to want to give up: if no one can help me understand what it is and how it works in the first place, how can they convince me it's an altogether 'bad' thing?

------

In other news, August 1st my new insurance kicks in. I stopped seeing Shelley about a month ago and have been (again) out of therapy since then. I've been unmedicated since February due to the whole insurance cut-off fiasco. All improvement, stagnation, or backsliding has been the result of lack of any sort of treatment whatsoever beyond the self-nurture I've learned to give myself.

I have the number for another therapist with whom I'm supposed to call and set up an intake... She has a lot of extensive, varied experience and works with an organization which seems to have really good policies toward medication... So I guess that once August rolls around we'll see what's what with that.

Assortedness

2007-07-11T19:35:00.001-06:00

It's a bit of a weird day... I'm really homesick for my alma mater (which technically isn't, since I dropped out. but I'll always think of it that way), to the point that I've been sitting around studying textbooks for the hell of it and accidentally typed in my school e-mail address when trying to access my blog account. It's bizarre and painful to think it's only been seven months since all that sh-t happened. I'm all droopy and benadryl-groggy, too... Wasn't feeling well earlier today, took a pill, slept all afternoon, and now just feel disoriented. Hooray! >.<

'Lots been on my mind lately. Not updating makes me feel like a heel, but then when I open ze laptop I have no idea what I want to say. Usually ends up I say nothing, as you've seen. I wonder then if anyone still reads, (remind myself there have to be updates before there will be readers), wonder whether I've said so much as ten meaningful things in the last few months, wonder why I bother. Recovery lately has very much been a story of stagnation. Perhaps my thoughts and entries (i.e. the lack of content in said entries) merely reflect that.

The past couple weeks had me worrying quite a bit about Frank Warren, the PostSecret curator. There was a week's lapse in secrets for no explanation; the only change made to the site was to remove the link to the suicide hotline and one of the encouraging survival stories that's been there for ages now. Being the anxious sort of person I am, I e-mailed him a few times and when I didn't receive a response went so far as to find where I'd put his contact information ages ago and called him. If you followed the facebook drama especially, you'll know that hundreds of people were worried something seriously wrong had happened to him or his family - I include myself in that number.

Thankfully, he reappeared this Sunday with a new batch of secrets and a brief message of explanation. I gotta be honest, though: as a long time blogger, xanga-er, livejournaller, I still feel kind of hurt at the way he disappeared. I mean, a leave of absence is one thing. I've done it myself numerous times when things have gotten really bad. When you've got a huge crowd of readers, though, who have come to anticipate punctual updates, you can't just stop without any sort of reason. In the lj world, that's called pulling a limeybean. It's akin to internet suicide.

Blah.

To transition to something less angsty and pissy... I give you CAT MACROS! We got our two little kittens last Thursday and they're the cutest pains in the ass you'll ever meet. Frankie is a grey tabby, Tallulah is a black-and-white 'socks' kitty. Unfortunately, my bluetooth receiver isn't working (i.e. no phone pics) and I don't have a digital camera, so I'm trying to figure out the best way to tell you what it's like with teh kittehs. Cat macros are my latest obsession and so, without further ado, here's my Life Wif Kittehnz post.

Approximately what Frankie looks like. And yes, that would be Frankie as in Sinatra, because this boy is the loudest whiny little brat EVER. He is a little more grey than this kitty, with more moozlepoof (see the rules of cuteness at cuteoverload.com).

Did anyone ever doubt the trouble and naughtyness of a kitten? Or two kittens...? Yes, they is naughty monkeys. But oh so cute.

Especially at night. When I'm trying to sleep. Only, imagine vampire cat attacking YOUR neck, ot the other cat's.

Tallulah has a problem. She begs. Shamelessly. FOR PEOPLE FOOD.

KITTEN FARTS KILL OMG.

Aww squee. See, at the end of the day, THIS is why we got kittenz. (Cheaper than therapy and meds?)

OH YEAH, and, P.S.

We saw Harry Potter and TOOTP last night!!! God was it awesome. Yes, there were flaws... I mean hell, they turned the longest book into a barely two hour movie. But STILL, it was awesome. Go see. I will see it again.

PPS.

For more cat macros, go to www.icanhascheezburger.com. Kthxbai!

Huh? Whazzat?

2007-07-05T01:39:00.000-06:00

God, has it been a week already? I'm such a neglectful blog-mommy.

It's been quite the busy week. I've not put a pen to paper beyond shopping lists or taking orders at work... Forget journalling, writing, or any other form of creative expression. The art supplies remain packed. The shirt that needs to be shipped still has yet to be painted. I've been reading a good bit but that's about all the self-nurturing/development I've been up to.

It seems like I'm in one of those rough points in my life where I'm too busy scratching a living to get to enjoy it. Basically, this sucks. Waitressing really doesn't offer much by way of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment at the end of a twelve hour double shift (re: today). I'm tired, drained, and brain-dead, but have nothing to show for all my work but swollen feet and a wad of ones and fives. No provocative writing or pleasing artwork. Hell, not even a clean house.

I'm too emotional to write well about anything related to mental illness. I'm too tired to research something to write a stimulating entry. Underweight girls, depressed, cringeing girls, girls with scars on their knuckles made me cry today. The weight of the world feels so, so heavy right now...

This entry is making no sense...

In other news... TOMORROW WE'RE GETTING KITTENSES.

Sleep?Yeah... Sleep good... Tina go sleep now...

Still alive? Yep, yep, appears so.

2007-06-28T11:23:00.001-06:00

So here I am, newly apartmented, at long last with a day off to do all those things I neglect all week long. I finally have time set aside to pay the bills, read a book (my mind feels like it's been melting), update my blog so you know I'm still alive, and get my hair cut. Seriously, I look like some shaggy ninety's reject. Or like I'm wearing a bad wig/toupee. I've been told it doesn't look as bad as all that....but since when has my self-image ever been healthy?

Over the past week, I was a scheduled double Friday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I made a lot of money, true, but damned if I'm not exhausted. By the end of last night's shift (ten hours all told yesterday) my feet were dragging. The pain and cramps in my legs kept me awake for a good while, which sucked. OH. Another reason for the tiredness: Crystal has been going through training class this week, meaning she has to be at the restaurant at 7:45 each morning. In order for me to get there for my shifts at 11:30 it meant I've either had to drive her and stay at the restaurant even longer or, as I've been doing, drive her there, drop her off, go back home and sleep for two hours, then go back to work. Uuuugh.

All the physical strain of working has really sucked... I'm all bones again. It's been getting really frustrating and hard to force-feed myself several times a day, every day, when my appetite has been so down. Even when I am hungry eating feels like such a chore - necessary perhaps, but loathsome.

The problem with the lingering anorectic mindset is that eating doesn't feel important to that part of my mind. Optional at best, pointless at worst. The logic says why bother eating if I'm only going to have to do it again in a few hours? (Interestingly enough, when I attempt to apply this to other bodily needs, like peeing or sleeping or getting a drink, it doesn't work. In fact it seems more than a little silly. However, as it goes with eating, it seems perfectly like a perfectly natural train of reasoning... Hmm.)

I'm trying to figure out how to continue to get myself to eat despite all the disinterest and undesirability. It also doesn't help having my own place now, knowing that whatever food I want to eat I must first buy... My fridge is evidence of hoarding habits trying to reinstate themselves. No no no! I can't eat that! If I eat that I won't have it later, and there might be some reason I might need it! What if I'm really hungry later? Can't can't can't!!! To this end I'm trying to avoid pastas and canned foods which will last forever in the event of hoarding... Fresh foods can't be ignored or they'll go bad. Still, though, the fridge and freezer tend to be full while my belly is not.

Shelly and I had our last session last Thursday. She gave me the number for another therapist, who I've still not called... It's hard not to look at our few weeks coming to an end as a way to stop therapy (again) and save money. I guess I've got my dad to thank for the fact that finances worry me more than anything else in the world. Finances make me scared to eat (it feels like I'm eating dollar bills), scared to do anything fun and romantic with my girlfriend, scared to pursue any hobbies, scared to spend a little frivolous cash to make life bearable, scared to pursue therapy because of all the bills. Which is easier to handle in the long run, though: weekly therapy and medication or hospitalizations and the cost of being out of work?

Got to spend money to make money, I guess is how the saying goes.

Shoutouts:
---Shannon, I swear to god I will call you. Today.
---Siri, thank you so much for your comment, honey. I've been thinking about you a lot and plan on writing as soon as I can.
---BECKY!!! HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! EVERYBODY TELL MY SISTER HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! SHE'S EIGHTEEN TODAAAAAY!!!!

That is all. ^.^

Meh.

2007-06-18T21:58:00.001-06:00

I don't know whether to give you a happy YouTube video to make you smile or to talk about what's most on my mind right now. To do both feels wildly inappropriate.

Crystal, Daniel and I move into our new place tomorrow morning so I may not have internet access for a while. At least, not ready access... I know the clubhouse has it so I'll be able to get on there, but it will likely be infrequent. (...I know. Because my posts are so regular as is.) Pictures will come eventually on the apartment front - my bluetooth receiver seems not to be working, so unless I figure out why I'll have to find the money for a new one somehow.

Things on my mind:
--- My grandma passed away Sunday, June 10th from lung cancer.
--- I just found out about an hour ago that a friend of mine died the same day. I'm not sure why, didn't know she was actively sick, but she had severe anorexia and I'm sure it's a direct cause.

This entry is dedicated to Ida Mae Walker and Linda Saunders.

Got crush?

2007-06-14T20:30:00.001-06:00

So... I have a new favorite thing. Also, I WANT THESE T'SHIRTS. And I want Obama. God, this is hilarious and so fantastically awesome... I already get teased so much for being a political fangirl. I missed the presidential debates last week because I had to work, and I was so ridiculously surly to everyone who crossed my path that night...

YAY OBAMAAAA!!!! XD

The allure of the crazy

2007-06-14T12:20:00.000-06:00

We're getting down to the wire on moving day. Eek! Packing, moving, planning for moving, and of course working around moving are all busily taking up my time and thoughts. I've taken several days off this week, for which I feel rather guilty, but at the same time recognize as a necessity. I've needed the time to pack and get done other things which I've been putting off (for instance, going to get our car registered. Which I'm supposed to be doing now...).

My mental health status or lackthereof hasn't been helping in this whole process. Possibly the difficulties are being caused by the extreme stress of relocating coupled with the stress of Crystal narrowing things down in the job hunt. More probably it's related to that and other life factors like a lack of badly needed medication, unstable therapy situation, and family stressors. I've been trying to spend as much time as possible outside since even though I was never diagnosed as Seasonal Affective and don't really believe I am, I HAVE noticed an undeniable improvement in my mood and mentality when I spend lots of time in the sun. (Similarly, my moods start to decline most sharply when the sun goes down or a storm comes in.) Nonetheless, things have still sucked a lot.

The breakdown I mentioned in the last entry has been the worst of the 'episodes', at least. I also choose not to write about it, just leave it at 'bad'... It involved me raging in a way quite uncharacteristic and taking out a lot of the distressed agression on those closest to me and most undeserving. Crystal and I agreed that the file is going to be sealed and I think that it's absolutely the best decision. Or maybe I just want to save face.

Every night has held with it some mini bout of shoe-staring. Last night I about lost it because Crystal and I were in bed snuggling, the covers got messed up, and she wouldn't let me fix them (as a way to try to help me through some of the more dominant compulsions I face). Instead of achieving the hoped for result of me realizing that rumpled covers really were not that big a deal and would not ruin my life it sent me into some mild hysterics. More than once Crystal's had to drive back to work after dropping me off because I couldn't function on my break because of anxiety and depression.

My thoughts have lately focused a good bit on trying to understand the somehow 'romantic' lure of mental illness. Why my brain reasons that crazy people are more interesting, more likeable than normals even though I've got personal and objective reason to contradict that... Mental illness is boring. Shoe staring is boring. Breakdowns and neurotic fits are frustrating and hard to deal with; they don't make you a more interesting, alluring, mysterious person. They make those near you pull their hair out and wish to be less in love so they could just walk away and leave you to sort it out on your own. Starvation turns you into something ugly and inhuman, not enviable and elegant. I've never been able to understand why the starved brain thinks its body graceful when it's anything but. What's the appeal of bruised everything and fainting spells? What is it about mental illness that I'm so afraid to lose?

There's a big difference between eccentricities and neuroses. Eccentric, yes, maybe can be alluring. But hell, I've got eccentric in lethally excessive doses. What I've got is more along the wide-eyed, silent, slack-jawed, back-away-slowly-from-the-crazy-lady lines. I've met eccentric people, I've met people way more unballanced than I with bents toward the psychotic and hallucinatory. I fall somewhere in the middle, I guess, possibly a little closer toward the extreme end. Doesn't mean I haven't still had awful days, the days where you don't shower for weeks on end, can't remember how to dress yourself properly, can't manage the bare minimum required for human communication. (You know, the days where people stare because you break down crying when trying to order your Starbucks. That sort of thing.) ...Or, as evidenced by this post, can't manage the linear thought necessary for blogging.

Why does this somehow feel desirable to me? When in the midst of it, it's hell. I know this. I can't trust my mind to be logical, I can't trust my senses to give me honest assessments instead of deceptions. And yet, somehow, there's still some element that feels like a game. Like it's not an illness to be cured but a...something, to be conquered and tamed and used. This crazyness, for all its torture and isolation and inescapability, is more familiar to me than anything close to 'health' and 'normalcy'.

I've somehow got these wild ideas that 'health' will turn my crazy manic thinking sprees into a brown and grey Kamazots world. That I'll lose the multi-colored Dr Seuss-ness to utilitarianism. That to be able to trust what my senses tell me about the world will mean that I get really boring reviews. It's that fear that medication will cause me to be numbed instead of better.

NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE.

I've got enough logic left to know this. I know that when I'm healthier my emotions are slightly more tamed, I'm able to have friends, communicate with people, hold a job successfully, and even work toward a better place in therapy instead of just struggling with damage control. I know that medication does not numb me out but does make things like rumpled covers less catastrophic, decisions like which movie to rent manageable and not life-altering. Medication makes my laugh easier and my tears have reason before flowing.

So then of course, the big question is: if I know all this, why am I still so afraid?

Hooray! For... stuff.

2007-06-08T18:33:00.000-06:00

Jeez, it's really been a week and a half since my last update? Sorries. Crystal and I have been intensely busy over the last nine days, for what it's worth.

--I've gotten a solid start on the newest t'shirt design (at long last, a design for self-injury awareness and recovery!!!) and will reveal it as soon as it's finished. Eventually I plan on having the t'shirt fabric in a different color (suggestions?) but at present it's going to be the same as the others in an effort to save funds and use pre-existing supplies.

--We.... FOUND A FREAKING APARTMENT. Plan right now is to move in June 19th. It's a two-bedroom, third floor place with 1050 sq. ft., a fireplace (wtf? eh.), incredible kitchen, two bathrooms, deck, walk-in closets... God it's beautiful. Yet again I leave you with a 'pictures coming soon'. Hopefully, furniture will be coming soon, too. Money, too, for that matter...

--CRYSTAL HAS A JOBBBBB. JUST HIRED TODAAAYYY.

--I had a complete breakdown last night. It was bad, bad, bad. Perhaps that's what's killed my negligible literary abilities. >.<

Well, I've said all I set out to say with a surprising lack of loquacity. Hope you're all filled with peaches and sunshine.

Incurable cases?

2007-05-31T13:07:00.000-06:00

It Gets Better - Jenni Schaeffer

This is my personal inspiration for today, which I thought I'd share with all of you. After actively fighting this disorder for almost a year and a half (as opposed to passively, which constitutes the latter half of my life) I often feel like I should be well now. I should be eating regularly, enjoying it, maintaining or gaining weight --- especially not losing and not caring, or finding vicious celebrity gossip 'thinspiring'.

I do miss being under a hundred. I miss being dizzy all day. I miss the bruises all along every ill-padded bone. I miss regular self-injury. My eating disorder has been nothing but abusive, spiteful, manipulative, selfish, ruinous, and yet perhaps I will always miss it.

Lately, you've been watching me relapse to some extent. Perhaps it's not been much of an active relapse, but I've still not been doing a whole lot to fight it too hard. The past few weeks have been the sort wherein eating somehow feels like an exhaustive, distasteful chore whose purpose is obscure and value inconclusive.

Today I'm trying to reinforce the understanding that it is okay to relapse. Probably this is not the statement most professionals would want me to be saying, but be realistic here. Relapse will happen. I'm not saying it is okay to embrace it. I'm saying it's okay for it to happen. It is okay to accept bad days along with good.

What's not okay is to welcome it, engage with it, actively pursue it and see how bad it can get. Today I'm trying to look at my life and say, all right. I've been having some bad times lately. My eating has not been what it should be and my attempts to thwart it haven't been up to par. Now that I understand this, I can accept it as something which happens from time to time instead of beating myself up about it for being the worst recoverer ever. I can acknowledge the bad and try to pick myself up again instead of saying, crap, I failed again, I must just not be cut out for this health thing. I can let the relapse be what it is and then let it go.

One thing Jenni wrote in her article in particular stood out to me: her realization that the belief she held about being too ill to recover was false. I remember many, many journal entries along those lines and can now realize that even in the midst of a bad spell I'm still able to see how far I've come toward health and that I'm still moving toward it even despite a two steps forward one back progression.

I still often feel that this disorder may always be with me. But I know now that it does not and will not always control me. I AM NOT TOO SICK TO GET BETTER!!! I was not the sickest, I was not the least sick, but I AM getting better in spite of everything!

Be encouraged!!! You probably feel like a hopeless case. Like no matter how many people say they understand, they really, truly don't. They can't see inside you and realize what a horrible, twisted, incurable creature you are. Like I'm full of sh-t for saying that I know what you're feeling. I won't claim to be all-knowing or all-answer-ful. But I will say that I have felt that before. Sometimes I've felt that my core evil was so warped and disgusting and pervasive as to be a tangible force. I've felt that it defined every part of my being so inextricably that all I would ever be able to be was worthless.

So not true.

Please, please don't listen to the lies this disorder tells you. It tells you you are worthless because it makes you easier to control. Would a person who highly valued and loved herself be as easily inclined to destroy herself as one who thought she were worthless? It's all a power scheme. A vicious and effective one, but only a scheme.

It is possible to break from this disorder and grasp the health that seems so impossible.

A Bizarre Turn of Events

2007-05-30T21:45:00.000-06:00

After a few hours thought and cross-referencing, I've decided that this is indeed legitimate and, as such, warrants an entry. On first encountering this bit of celeb gossip on a friend's livejournal page I really didn't believe this thing was true. It's just so out there, so ridiculous and offensive and insane that I didn't think it could possibly be anything but spiteful, manufactured, grab-for-attention rumours.

And then... I found it referenced on MSNBC. Gossip rags and celeb tabloids I can overlook. MSNBC on the other hand is a pretty reliable source.

Apparently, Ms Nicole Richie threw a Memorial Day party over the weekend. Her e-mail invite to friends somehow got leaked to the press and is now causing a big stir... Reason being?

My fellow Americans its that time of year
To celebrate our country by drinking massive amounts of beer
Let's stand together as one, live the American dream
Take shots, pass out, & wake up with our pants ripped open at the seems
Let's glorify this day in your sluttiest tops and your tightest pair of tsubi jeans
Even though we have no f----g clue what Memorial Day really means!!

There will be a scale at the front door. No girls over 100 pounds allowed in. Start starving yourself now. See you all then!!!

Can you see why I thought this fake?

Part of the reason I've hesitated so many hours before writing this is that I have no idea how to respond to it. It's just so bizarrely over-the-top offensive. Just... Damn. Her rep (and she herself, in interviews) claims it was a joke, that she's 'not a serious person' and people shouldn't take her as such. At the same time, her friend Mischa Barton collapsed at the party and had to be hospitalized (apparently from a bad mix of antibiotics and too much liquor...? That's what they're claiming, anyway). A psychologist from one of the tabloids theorized it's her way of acting out; a big giant f you! to recovery.

This whole thing just sickens me. How to respond to something so obscene? Nicole Richie is to recovery what Mel Gibson is to racial tolerance, it would seem.... God. Maybe after I've slept on this I'll have something more helpful to say but right now I'm left looking for answers as much as the next person.

Thoughts on this? Anyone? They would be greatly appreciated.

Sources:
Monsters And Critics
MSNBC
EntertainmentWise

Scares and scars

2007-05-27T23:14:00.000-06:00

Short entry, just some thoughts for the day... Thirty-two hours worked since Wednesday, putting in more tomorrow.

At the intake Tuesday, new therapist Shelley saw my scars and said that I was a keloid healer. Back when I was big into getting new piercings, keloids were a phobia of mine, so I didn't believe her when she told me my scars were keloids.... After some research today, I've determined they are indeed NOT keloids. For one thing, it's incredibly rare for white people to get keloids; fifteen to one ratio black/hispanic to white/asian/other. Also, keloids are more tumorous in appearance - my scars are just raised, red, and uglay.

Conclusion: they have healed abnormally, but are call hypertrophic scars, not keloid. The biggest reason this is a comfort is that hypertrophic scars reduce in time. Keloids get bigger. Also, h. scars are much more treatable than keloids; because the latter get bigger over time, removing them will just cause an even larger keloid to grow in more than half the cases.

For comparison, keloids vs. hypertrophic, this proved quite the useful link. DO NOT GO THERE if scars will trigger you! Please, please know and respect your limits.

In other news, my scars hurt today. They're like my trick leg... Any change in the weather makes them prickly and painful.

In other news.... Sleep. That is all.

The search for a cure

2007-05-25T23:50:00.000-06:00

My fingers can barely lift themselves from one key to the next tonight. Washing my hair seemed like too much effort, with all the lifting of the arms and the scrubbing of the fingers. My entire body is dead weight.

After a couple phone calls from the new therapist, Patti, last week, I've begun again the search for a new therapist. She felt that it would be good for me to look more for someone who could provide better continuity of care since the CU Denver counselling center takes frequent, long breaks during the semester periods, as well as the fact that since the therapists there are interns they switch out regularly.

Another factor is that they ARE interns there... To be honest, I got the feeling that she was a bit overwhelmed by my needy crazyness (as therapists so often have been when dealing with me). She mentioned that it'd probably be best to find someone more experienced. To me, this means, "Holy hell, kid. You're a nutjob. Go find someone with a doctorate and roughly twenty-five years dealing with clinical crazies and maybe they can handle you." I'm sure that's not the exact translation, but it's close.

All that said, yesterday was intake number one of god knows how many. I really liked this therapist, though I don't think she's the right one, either, unfortunately. Her name is Shelley, she's an LCSW (licensed clinical social worker), been in practice since 1989.

That last bit is a big plus for her - many of the docs I've seen in the past haven't been in practice all that long. I like that she's experienced. On the other hand, though, (and this is a big reason I think it may not be the right fit) her experience does not lie where I need it to. I forgot to ask exactly what her areas of expertise are, but I gathered enough to know that she has not dealt much at all with dissociative disorders and has only had a couple of cases of eating disorders. Both these are rather major issues. In the case of eating disorders, the clients she did have were both well in to their recovery stages. While I think I'm well on my way, Crystal isn't so sure - and I've learned that she frequently has better judgment about my mental status than I do. Particularly lately it's been rather clear that I'm not as recovered as I seem to think I am, as I've been losing weight and eating less and caring less about the fact that I'm eating less.

Really, as much as I liked her as a person, appreciated her method and felt comfortable with her, she did not have enough qualifications treatment-wise, I think. The biggest positive things about meeting with her were things like feeling comfortable talking to her, not feeling threatened by her or condescended to, feeling like I was truly listened to and taken seriously. These indicate that she's definitely a good therapist but don't necessarily say anything about whether she's the right therapist. Follow?

She, like every other brain doctor who spends five minutes talking to me, seemed deeply concerned and quite adamant that I get back on meds as soon as humanly possible. Ironically enough, only when I'm having a saner day can I see the logic behind this. I still struggle with the concept of medication. It feels like a crutch, a fake cure, a symptoms-masking treatment that does nothing to actually cure. It feels somehow, in some not-easily-explained fashion, like the easy way out when I should be able to work my way out. Do not pass Go! Do not collect that two hundred dollars, hippie! You march your ass through each of those spaces and figure it out the HARD way. ....Aand the reasoning itself makes only about as much sense as that poorly planned metaphor.

There's an organization called Aurora Mental Health which I've thought about trying and which Shelley strongly recommends. She used to be on the board there and says they could find a way to help hook me up with medication until my insurance coverage resumes in August. Additionally, they've got a broad base of experience and knowledge for all things crazy, so chances are good that they could match me up with the right doc. So they're my next stop on the mental health errands...

Haha, don't you love how my coherence dissipates the longer I write and the tireder I get? Yes, tireder, you heard me punks. I've got to be at work again in less than twelve hours now. Perhaps next entry will come sooner than the ridiculous break this last has been... Sorry, readers.

This is Frasier Crane, wishing you all a good day and good mental health.

Is this really what passes for a blog these days?

2007-05-16T15:25:00.000-06:00

So basically, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am to move to Canada once Crystal graduates. More on that later, I guess...

It's been incredibly difficult to think what to write. Despite having days off and an overactive mind, I can't seem to focus any of these thought trains into a chiseled sort of entry or, for that matter, any form of writing longer than a disjointed paragraph. Additionally, as I've tried to consider topics worth discussion, I've been painfully aware that most of what's on my mind is depression-related and depression at my level is excruciatingly boring. Friends often challenge me to write a book and I can't seem to convince them how any book I could poop out now would be little better than Dr Zhivago right now. The depressive's mind, by nature, ruminates on topics like a cow that ate a bag of mulch and gravel. Endlessly. And often with indigestion. Depression is an endlessly churning sack of monochromatic muck.

Even exciting events can be turned dull when viewed through the depressive lens. I could tell you about the hail we received or Amber's graduation last night or how we almost got killed after a booksigning in Denver a few days ago. All these things, in the appropriately caffeinated fingers of a witty person, could be turned into side-splitting or riveting anecdotes. At the moment I'm more likely to say, "Yeah, we went to see Barbarah Kingsolver talk a couple nights ago and there was this big thunderstorm and then we walked home in the pouring rain and got chased by a raving drunk who was packing heat." (Granted, that one may be kinda interesting REGARDLESS of the bare bones explanation.)

Side note about the experience in Denver: I am about fifty times more frightened of downtown Denver than I EVER was of Washington, DC. I was less afraid walking home alone in DC than I was walking three blocks to a LightRail station with Crystal and Jody the other night. Because damn. People can officially give up on trying to convince me to look for an apartment downtown.

I ought to write about how pants that should be too small are baggy, about how depression kills my appetite kills my motivation kills my giving-a-shit. I should write about how my new therapist broke up with me after two sessions and I'm back looking for a new one again. I should write about the fact that I'm working six of seven days this week.

Sooo many topics to cover! So many books to write and bills to pay and t'shirts to make/send and apartments to look at and the rest and the rest!

Instead, I watch Michael Moore films while crocheting doilies and getting ready to leave for work, and when I DO finally get myself to open ze laptop and attempt ze entry, it looks like THIS.

Mental illness is ridiculously frustrating.

Confrontational feeding

2007-05-07T21:58:00.000-06:00

It's always hard to tell where you draw the line between wanting sensitivity and understanding from others and trying to recognize where you yourself are perhaps being too touchy. All through childhood my dad was quite insistent that I took myself 'way too seriously' and needed to learn to laugh at myself... Personally, I often felt that was a bit of a harsh judgment, but that's neither here nor there.

In any case, on this particular occasion, I've got little to no doubt that the comment in question was out of line.

I've been through more than a couple managerial transitions in my time spent working the restaurant industry. I've had maybeee....two? general managers that I've liked. Yes, two, that's the right number. I like this particular, current general manager least of all so far. He's very heavy with the sarcasm when displeased, and not afraid to bitch people out publicly either. He's a good six foot something, all football player looking, a bit snaggle-toothed and overall quite intimidating. Quite the asshole.

On Sunday mornings he gets extremely stressed out. He always locks himself in as the expediter to make sure ticket times aren't running too long and the foods all get out correctly and whatnot, since Sunday brunch has a slightly different menu and can be stressful for the kitchen. Because of this, Sunday mornings he institutes a unique rule which I have the most impossible time remembering: employees may not make any modifications to their meals.

As I, granted, frequently do, I forgot about this rule yesterday when ringing in my food before going on break. I remembered almost immediately after sending in the order....but unfortunately, once done is done.

When I went to get my food from the line and take it to the back for my break, the GM was up in his usual spot and decided to make a scene, or maybe just an example, of it. As mentioned before he's a big man and has a big voice to go with it, so when he raises his voice at all it's definitely audible.

"Tina. Hey, Tina? Next time would you do me a favor and just not eat?"

...

That very morning over coffee with Crystal I talked about the fact that I've been really struggling with body image the last couple weeks. (Wow, I forgot to write this anecdote... When I went to the doctor last Saturday I realized quickly the part I'd forgotten to put in my medical istory: anorexia. The reason I realized this was that when they took me into the back the first thing they did was to put me on a scale. Fully clothed and facing forward. At this point, I realized that, fully clothed, wearing shoes, and having just eaten, I was a good ten pounds less than I was when last weighed, without all those other factors. Unfortunately, to the eating disordered mind there is nothing like finding you weigh less than you thought to trigger the desire to lose more.)

The whole affair triggered a panic attack and rid me of any desire to eat. I guess it was evidence of how far I've come, though, that I still did eat my lunch.

More of the latest

2007-05-02T14:15:00.000-06:00

Off to the right hand of the screen you may notice a new page element. To be honest, I kind of feel like a douche for creating it in the first place and, as such, don't know if I'm going to keep it... But yes.

For those who've followed my blog/life for a while, you probably know that I had to drop out of school when I lost the battle with FAFSA and AU financial aid. Both sources explained that because I still have occasional communication with my family, they cannot prove or believe that I don't still get money from them and, therefore, refuse to acknowledge me as a financially independant student.

End result? Your tuition is due. Pay or drop out by...TOMORROW. (True story. I had twenty-six hours notice to pack up and evacuate.)

I've long wanted to start some sort of personal fund raiser, but, again, I feel really douche-y doing it. I know that people can respond in absolutely incredible ways when there is a need... I don't know. I guess maybe I'll stop before more desperation is revealed. I hope that somehow, eventually, something will work out and I can go back to school. Maybe this (and you guys!) will be able to help.

Motivation? Anyone? Anywhere?

2007-05-02T11:56:00.000-06:00

There's nothing like hacking your lungs out on a beautiful, breezy, sunny day off work. I mean seriously. You should try it sometime. Because wow.

Actually, today's been anything but exciting. I tried to get downtown first thing today for my second appointment with the new therapist but it didn't work out so well... Crystal and I forgot to set the alarm and as such were out the door about ten minutes later than we should have been. By the time we reached the LightRail station (in a breathtaking eight minutes instead of fifteen...yay sports car!) the lots were all full. At this point in time I was feverish and sneezing and completely out of it. I vaguely remember giving Crystal a tearful "I GIVE UP THERE IS NO POINT LET ME DIIIIE!" speech, but it's hard to say what really happened, given the fevered memory.

Although it was only around 9:30, it's at least a forty-five minute trip downtown from the station and that is assuming you can find a place to park. My appointment was for 10, meaning the soonest I could arrive would have been about 10:20, and since it's a training facility they're really strict on the fifty minute session rule - i.e. I'd be lucky to get thirty. I tootled around the parking lot for a while, determining to call the therapist and let her know I'd be missing today's session. Considering I am still pretty sick I figured it wouldn't be that far a stretch to cough a little more than necessary and play up the hoarse, croaking quality my voice has adopted.

Next stop was the bank. I found out Friday that some lame-ass company has been trying to make fraudulent charges to our checking account, so we needed to close it out and transfer the funds to a different one. This, my friends, is a major pain. (To be fair, I am really glad the bank caught it early and we didn't have a whole bunch of disputed charges to deal with.) Sooo we had to do that, closing out our barely three months old account in favor of an even newer one. (And then I had to come home and figure out on just how many different sites I had to change my account info.)

I've been sick with this cold thing since Sunday, I guess it was, and it's zapping what few mental faculties I had left me. I was trying to reflect about this in my journal yesterday, but the thing I hate most about major depressive episodes is that I get really, really, really damn boring. I can't think. I have no energy. I can't write worth a load of monkey dung. I honestly lose whatever it is that makes me feel like a mildly interesting, or at least not totally dull, human being. Damn cyclothymia or disthymia or bipolar whateveryouare! Give me back a little hypomanic spark, why don't ya? I need to be productive again!

What's better? Monochromatic depressive episode or frenetic, sporadic mania?

...God, this is depressing. My train of thought has already fizzled out in spite of all the grand plans I had for an entry. I apologize to all my readers, or what few of you remain in spite this insipid progression of words. Blah blah blah blah!

Latest and Greatest

2007-04-25T18:01:00.000-06:00

I am delighted to unveil the following two things.

1. My new haircut!

And beyond that, the thing I am most super excited about and have been working on for weeks and months and aaaages. At long last, Tshirt Design Number Two is revealed!

Front:

Back:

This design will be available on Etsy tonight, once I'm more awake from my nap. ^.^ Also, shirts are still customisable (to a point)... Should you want to, say, have the back of this design and the front of the other (the 20% Will die from their eating disorder) please just be sure to specify as such in your order. (And because I don't have enough parentheses in this paragraph, the stencil for 'Bulimia is a disorder, not a lifestyle' is on its way and almost finished.)

In other news, I saw my new therapist today for the first appointment after the intake exam. She's arright, I guess... Interning and I'm not totally sure she knows what she's doing, to be honest, but for ten dollars a session (THANK GOD SLIDING SCALE) I think it may be worth it to give her some time.

One other thing I don't like so much is that because she is working under the UCDenver counselling center, she'll be moving on to some other location/assignment after the end of the summer. This means yet another therapeautic alliance which will just have time to be created before it ends. Which, for some of the things I'm trying to address, is really not the most helpful, nurturing environment. I suppose it may not be the best thing that my first response was, eh, I'm used to it. :-P Well... We'll see how it goes.

Um, um, um. Hm...

C'est tout!

Recovered? Functioning? Surviving?

2007-04-23T21:19:00.000-06:00

You know, I wish that my depression was caused by my eating disorder and that developing a healthy relationship with food would heal the depression, too. In many cases, depression is a sort of side effect or symptom of an eating disorder... In my case, the more I look at it, the more I feel like it's either the other way around or they're just unrelated for the most part. Perhaps two illnesses which, while caused by different things, happen to have certain overlapping symptoms. (Probably the most likely scenario.)

Earlier today I was looking over some of my old journals, particularly the one I started while on a week-long stint in the hospital following a series of suicidal acts. For one thing, it was a little depressing to be reminded how much better my writing is during periods of hypomania than straight up depression but that's neither here nor there... It's always heartbreaking to me to read my old journals and see how completely dominated they are by calorie counts, weigh-ins, and self-abuse of all kinds. All I talked about was loneliness, jealousy, constant attacks against everything which makes me human and female and a teenager.

....Train of thought is completely derailing, goddamnit. Frasier's on, my stomach is full, my feet and legs are sore from standing all day, my eyelids are droopy, and I've got t'shirts and debt on the brain. I'm terrified I've ruined Crystal's and my life and we'll end up living in a shack in West Virginia we've built ourselves out of cardboard and cinderblocks surviving off doritos and coke and hamburger helper. I can't keep thinking about all this f-ing debt or I'm going to bring on a panic attack. Like, now. God...

My mental health is so much better, in some ways. I eat, more or less regularly, I don't actively focus on restricting, I function, I hold a job (for which I haven't even called out on account of mental breakdown since I started in January!), I pay the bills on time, I make t'shirts and e-mail and blog and help support others, I even have sort of made a couple friends at work. And yet... "function" may be the key word for my current status.

I've been going through days with a lot of depersonalization lately. Just kinda going it minute by minute and trying to make sure I get done what I need to do. Even when I've had the opportunity to do fun things, when I've been getting honors and recognition, when I've been spending time on dates with my girlfriend, I haven't been all there. I've felt incredibly fatigued all the time and that not-quite-sick-but-still-kinda-crappy meh-ness almost non stop. I've wondered if it's a flare up of the mono I had a couple years ago but now am starting to think maybe it's just depression. (Where does depression hurt? Everywhere. Cymbalta...)

Let's hope that the CU Denver counselling center decides to call me back at some point in the near future. And that I can last without meds until I get Cheesecake Factory health insurance in July. Meeeeehhhh.

Brief update

2007-04-19T21:21:00.000-06:00

I say this every time, but I'm exhausted. Due to the current state of fatigue this will be a bullet style entry...

Events of note:
--I chopped off my hair! I mean, not personally, but I comissioned someone to chop it off for me. It's all cute and short and dykey boi-y now. Pictures to come when dark undereye circles diminish. :-P
--The shipment of t'shirts came in today! They will be listed shortly after I finish this entry, so head on over to the shop if you're interested in buying one and weren't able to before the others sold out.

Things I've been thinking about:
--"God Hates Fags". They're planning on protesting at the funerals of the kids from V Tech because they feel that basically everything that goes wrong in America is God's divine retribution for our tolerance of homosexuals. They picket funerals for military who are killed overseas, those who died in September 11th, and all sorts of other events. (For one thing, the fact that these people exist ought to show you how tolerant America is of gays...) I want to... I don't even know. But they piss me off in an extremely significant way. Also? They call these organized pickets "Love Crusades". Just thought you should know.
--The Lab at Belmar. This is a new art gallery here in CO that Crystal and I visited yesterday. It was actually not what I was expecting... People around here have been RAVING about it, but I was kinda disappointed. Crystal observed that it's probably because the art displays there were "happy, and [I] don't seem able to understand happy art". C'est vrai.
--Sleep.

Kicking it into high gear

2007-04-15T21:10:00.000-06:00

--Hi everybody. This is Crystal, and once again I'm taking over because Taylor's being wayyy too modest. She finally has been permanently linked on the Postsecret website and has received about one hundred and fifty emails (in 12 hours) about her shirts, and sold out in a really short time. You should all take the time to congratulate her on her victory!

Also, go check things out on the Post Secret website.

That is all! Now, to let her continue with her entry.--

Wowie zowie. First off, a big thank you to all the different e-mail-ers! Also, a big apology to all those who want shirts and found they were sold out... I'm placing an order tonight and provided shipping isn't too ridiculous will try to get it here two-day shipping.

I plan on replying to as many e-mails as I possibly can, but am not going to start tackling it tonight. I worked a double shift today and am just beat. (Plus, though I'll spare you gross girly details for once, I'm cramping like a...painful, painful, cramping thing...and just don't feel well.) The tiredness and not-feeling-well-ness are melding together into one of those super-storms that overwhelm ships and result in crappy blockbuster movies and...metaphor derailed... Haha, and the whole point of it was to say that I'm too tired to write coherently.

So. I'm going to go paint shirts until bedtime, then work another six hours or so, maybe cut my hair, then come home and do it aaaall over again! (And maybe get to some of those e-mails tomorrow night, too.)

Peace and love and monkey grease. Mwah. Kisses. Nigh' night.

A more thought-out continuation

2007-04-12T12:29:00.000-06:00

Well, I don't know how to directly link MP3s into this thing, nor can I find an actual music video for this song, but I want to put it in so...here is. It's just the song with a boring backdrop that never changes, but the point is that the song is there and in good quality (unlike most of the videos, which are cell phone video recordings of live performances).

The song is called 'Swing Life Away' and always manages to make me feel a little better. Granted, I'm still feeling quite shitty about the money situation, but despite how romanticized the song is it's still a reminder that Crystal and I aren't the only people in a really bad way who nevertheless manage to get by.

In fact, it got me thinking about pretty much all my close friends who've ever been eating disordered or major depressive or just plain crazy... One of the biggest consequences that never gets mentioned publicly is DEBT. All of us seem to be in major sort of debt. More than half have been forced to drop out of college. We've all got incredible hospital bills looming over us, nutritionists, therapists, psychiatrists, medications, ER bills and surgeries.

Continuing briefly on that last comment: yes, surgeries. I have no doubt that, in some way, my poor physical health contributed to me needing my shoulder surgery when I did. I've had joint problems for some time which I have no doubt are resultant from malnutrition taking a toll. Many other girls have nasogastric tubes to pay for, surgery to correct gastroparesis or perforated esophaguses. Surgery and eating disorders have a pretty damn high correlation from what I've seen. I mean, lets be honest.

Eating disorders don't just f-k with your head: they destroy your health. They suppress your immune system leading to a higher instance of other illnesses (i.e. chronic mononucleosis, in my case), brittle bones and osteoporosis, weakened muscular system, damaged tendons and ligaments, liver and kidney problems, tooth decay, on and on. These are all the quiet consequences no one notices until the systems start to break down, and then don't realize that they are, in fact, due to the eating disorder.

Sooo... I'm in a lot of debt. But I'm also not the only one. Maybe I just complain more, and more publicly? Who knows... Today I'm calling AES and the independent lender and working out payment plans, as well as sending off the first small check to start repaying my hospital bill.

I keep trying to remind myself that yes, I've got a lot of people to repay, but I'm only twenty years old. (Did you know that?) I may feel like I'm fifty, but in reality my parents aren't even quite that old. I've got a long time left, hopefully, and if by some freak accident I did kick the bucket then I wouldnt' have to worry about those debts anymore, anyway. Even if it took me ten years to repay these I'd be free by the time I'm thirty.

That's really not so bad in the grand scheme of things...

Right?

...is anybody out there?

2007-04-11T13:30:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, I'M the one who hasn't been posting. But...yeah.

Latest update in my life? BOTH my new tank tops are now gone, I've just laid half my bank account down on a car, need to somehow figure out how to afford the apartment we need to find, payments on my student loans are starting to come up, cell phone bill is due the 14th, I still owe the hospital $1600, can't go back to serving until I find a doctor to check out my shoulder and write a note saying I'm okay to do so, can't afford said doctor, have car payments and car insurance to look forward to in a matter of weeks.

So, basically, I'm really goddamn stressed about my finances. I half-heartedly joked that the only option left seems suicide, but aside from not wanting to die I'd be too afraid of botching it and just being left with even MORE hospital bills.

Maybe I need to start whoring myself.

READ ME NOW!

2007-04-07T17:10:00.000-06:00

WE TOTALLY BOUGHT A CAR.

IT'S TOTALLY A SEXY, RED, 2000 TOYOTA CELICA GT.

ISN'T IT JUST THE TOTALLY MOST BEAUTIFUL THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN.

AND IT'S SO TOTALLY COMFORTABLE INSIDE.

I'M TOTALLY EXCITED. (AND THE WINDOWS ARE TOTALLY REFLECTIVE!)

See? Still alive!

2007-04-04T17:26:00.000-06:00

Damn. I guess it HAS been a long time since I've updated.

Really, there's no good excuse for it. In fact, there is no excuse for it, period. I just haven't felt like it. And I haven't done it. I've laid around on my arse whenever I'm not at work and have had absolutely no motivation toward doing anything. The things on my mind have been subjects I choose not to discuss in my blog for various personal reasons that may remain no matter how public my life goes.

SO. Crystal suggests I write an entry on the character Maris from Frasier. Since moving here I've become kind of addicted to this show and even find Maris amusing. If you've read this blog for very long then you'll know I take issue with the way eating disorders are depicted in pretty much all sorts of television and movies and other forms of media. I hate it when they're made fun or light of and especially when people with them are mocked. But for some reason, Maris is really really funny.

If you don't watch Frasier, the whole premise of the show is about being all pretentious and psychiatric and although it's really Freudian a lot of the time it's still pretty damn funny. Maris is the wife (later, ex-wife) of one of the main characters, Niles Crane, and is a pretty serious anorexic. You never actually see her throughout the whole run of the show. For a succinct explanation, I go to Wikipedia. "Maris is described as an exceptionally insecure, petty, domineering and generally unpleasant woman, selfish and obsessed with social standing. She is described as being extremely thin and rarely eats, consuming only tiny morsels of food when she does. Frasier compares her to a bag of flour: "bleached, 100% fat-free and best kept in an air-tight container". Frasier also once sarcastically referred to Maris as "ounces of fun". She is intensely neurotic and suffers from a wide array of medical conditions and phobias."

Maybe I laugh too lightly, but, again, I think that the jokes made about her are really funny. Some of them come really close to home, but in general I think it's good to be able to look at some of the ways anorectics think and be able to laugh. Honestly, sometimes if I can step back and think logically about things, some of the ways that I think are just plain ludicrous. (That's not to say I can get away from them easily, but seriously, to be terrified to walk past a McDonald's because I think I'll somehow breathe in the calories...It's just funny!)

Well, since beyond that I really don't much feel like updating (or thinking, or writing, hence updating) I'm going to leave you with some of my favorite quotes. So tell me. Funny? Offensive? Or just plain unremarkable? Provide me your answers. Go.

Niles: Just remember that she can't have shellfish... poultry, red meat, staturated fats, nitrates, wheat, starch, sulfates, MSG or herring. Did I say nuts?
Frasier: Oh, I think that's implied.

Frasier: Where's Maris?
Niles: Well, we were just getting ready to leave the house when Maris caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror--

Niles, on the phone: Calm down, dear, calm down. Listen. Take a left, then the second right, then a left again. Okay. Okay, goodbye, sweetheart. (Hangs up)
Frasier: Maris got lost again?
Niles: Yes, she wandered into the kitchen by mistake. I had to talk her back to the living room.

Daphne: You know, when I was younger, I dreamed of being a ballerina meself.Niles: So did Maris. The poor thing could never get her weight up enough.
(I love that one... It makes me laugh and cringe at the same time.)

Niles: Yes, Maris, I'm sure. No, no, you can't gain weight from a glucose I.V. No, no, my little worrywart, there's no such thing as a Nutrasweet drip.
(And this. Because honestly, if you've ever been on an IV, has that not been the biggest worry of all time? Even if it was just saline...)

Niles: It's time I braved the dark streets and got back to my Maris. I just hope it isn't like the lightning storm last month. The only way I could coax her out from under the bed was by tying a Prozac to the end of a string.
(Hehehe. Crystal drew a cartoon of herself trying to lure me off the floor that way... Made me laugh.)

Niles: Maybe it wouldn't hurt to look into getting some of her eggs frozen.
Frasier: I suspect they're only a few degrees away from that now.

Niles: Poor Maris, she's so worried - she hasn't had much hospital experience, except for the usual childhood things - tonsils, adenoids, force-feeding.

Niles: My wife Maris has all our servants down at your campaign headquarters licking envelopes. She'd do it herself, but the poor thing can't produce saliva.

Niles: She's pushed me around long enough. Metaphorically of course. In reality she can hardly push at all. Like that terrible afternoon last spring she spent trapped in the revolving doors at Bergdorf's!

Niles: Yes, Maris and I have taken to giving each other gag gifts. I gave her a cookbook.

Roz, peeking through the keyhole: I see her coat on a hat rack.
Frasier: Look closer. Is the hat rack moving?
Roz, horrified: Oh my God!!

Niles: I've never seen her look so seductive. She wore a clingy gown, crimson lipstick, even earrings, which she tends to avoid as they make her head droop...

Frasier: Maris never let you cook for her.
Niles: That's true. The closest I ever got was restocking the pills in her bedside Lazy Susan.

Frasier: It's hard to believe that's the same woman who once sprained her wrist from having too much dip on a cracker.

...Haha, well, now even if you like the quotes you've no reason to watch the show, eh? I've given you some of the best. Well, in any case, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

...insert witty title here...

2007-03-29T19:17:00.000-06:00

I suppose I'm so obsessed with watching Frida because it in many ways feels like I'm watching my own life played out. Except that she's a lot older, the pain is more physical than mental, her anger is more outwardly directed than inward, and she had about five million times the talent I have. If I could have that much potential for the creation of beauty... I mean, damn. I'm more or less all right with words but my fingers lack any skill with a brush or pen. Sigh.

Force-feeding myself is getting a little easier. I can't say the depression is easing or the appetite increasing but I'm adapting to it a bit more readily, I suppose, and making sure to feed myself is gradually becoming a habit. It's so ridiculous, after all these years fighting my hunger, denying it's there, refusing to acknowledge it, I can barely recognize it at all. I can finally see the face of Hunger but can't recognize it.

Something I've noticed here is that Colorado seems to have an enormously disproportionate number of underweight women. Perhaps it's that Maryland is one of the 'fattest states' in the nation (which is true) and I'm accustomed to being The Skinny Freak, but it is truly heartbreaking to see so many women around me starving. What once would be a serious trigger is now something of a reverse; I get so upset witnessing their suffering that I want to prove I can overcome it. Even from a purely visual standpoint, the constant bombardment with fashionable emaciation repulses me as I can see how unappealing it is. The lanugo, the bones and bruises, the skin sagging and prematurely aged. I want to be sexy. I want my hands to stop shaking, freezing all the time, looking like they belong to someone twice my age.

I can't count how many times a day I'll witness girls bone-checking while staring at the dessert case, chewing gum like their lives depend on it, clearly terrified of so many calories surrounding them. How many times I'm asked for the nutrition facts in a certain dessert. (I know most of them but, thank god, we are honestly not supposed to tell.) More than once, women with bloodshot eyes and sores around their mouths have ordered cheesecake to go and I've wanted more than anything to refuse it to them. Or at the least, beg them not to do with it what I'm sure will be done. I'm usually trying to hide that I'm crying as I toss forks and napkins into the bags.

If I could afford enough medication to numb myself out, I'd go for it. Beyond depression these days, it's like I just can't handle the heartbreak of the world. Numbing me out might be more like ballancing me at this point. Everything sets me off. I have to stop myself, constantly, from saying something to all these girls. (As if I have any idea what to say, anyway. Please eat? I know you're hurting but it's not worth it? Are there ANY right words for a situation like that?)

At the same time, it's so impossible to fight against the non-hunger. Why force myself to eat when I'm not hungry? Shouldn't I be grateful? Shouldn't I feel lucky? It's to the point that I'll go all day and realize sometime around bedtime that I had nothing, or a banana, or a piece of bread. The old bruises are showing up along my spine and back hipbones. I'd gotten used to having warm hands and feet but so much for that. My body is again covered in lanugo, or at least, more covered than it typically is... Gah.

I wish I could afford to go inpatient. I need a break, some hard-core internal work to sort things through once and for all.

Search query: cars, apartments, contentment

2007-03-28T12:05:00.000-06:00

GOD I HATE CAR SHOPPING SO MUCH HOLY CRAP SERIOUSLY YOU HAVE NO IDEA!!!!!

It kinda makes me want to cry a little. And stick big, hot, super-sharp objects in my eye. Because it would be way less painful and obnoxious.

In case you haven't quite guessed, the thing with the pickup fell through. Commence all-around distress and anguish. Perhaps I got my hopes up too high (after all, I know better than to trust...ANYONE...), but they were certainly thouroughly dashed. Kaboom and shatter and all that jazz. I was way past the point of being desperate to end this cockamamie dragon-hunt for a still-working, cheaply priced mechanized beast. Hey, after all, it's only been like two months. Right? BAH.

To point it bluntly, I'm still living in the land of the carless. I still magpie quarters for bus fare and leave the house at 9:20 each morning to make sure I make it to work by 10:45, despite the fact that a straight A-to-B trip is about twenty minutes. I stumble home, weary and sore, from my long, long days to sift through the gravel on Craigslist in a pointless search for fragments of gold. (Or even fool's gold; I may just take what I can get at this point. Anything shiny.) SIIIIIIIGGGHHHH.

The search for an apartment hasn't even begun yet, by the way and for the record. I'm leaving the start of that up to our future roommate, Daniel. I can only take so much.

One of the most frustrating things about not having a car is that it makes sending t'shirt orders out incredibly difficult. Basically, the only days I can make it to the post office are Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and even then it's dependent on me being able to get to the bus in time to catch it before the PO closes.

...I'm having one of those days where my train of thought poops out halfway through. Yes, I know, these days come with alarming frequency lately... Blah... I'd planned on writing about food and other random shite relevant to the supposed subject of this blog but at this point a conclusion seems beyond me. Maybe later today I'll write more, provided my brain gets back into gear. Sorries kids.

Moving onward and upward

2007-03-24T17:01:00.000-06:00

Well, I certainly am exhausted now. Jeez louise!

Most obviously, you may notice the blog format has been revamped. Yay! We have a new main picture (since I'm feeling a little more stuck than happy and in my niche) and at the veeeery bottom of the blog, a hit counter! I've tried to get one of those things since day one but Blogger is kinda a pain in the ass when it comes to HTML inserts - it's taken me quite a while to find a good hit tracker. (Oh, do I miss Xanga's log.)

Best of all... Look to your right. By which I mean to the right of your screen.

See that little thumbnail?

The t'shirt?

HOORAAAAY!!!!

Hey, it's only taken...months... Finally, at long last, the blog is intact, the shop is established, and the t'shirts are listed. The Novare Project finally has feet again. It stands. It propels itself forward. IT ACTUALLY HAS A PURPOSE AND KNOWS WHAT IT IS.

At present I only have half a dozen shirts, but I just put in an order today for a bunch more. Mom, thank you so so so so so much for sending the t'shirt stuff to me! I'm super exciteded. When I've got the energy, I'll e-mail the various sites that linked to me in ages past to let them know all the new developments. It's crazy where this project has led - a new e-mail address, website, even my own damn shop! I deal with a wholesale distributor and am on their 'frequent buyer' list. God, it's crazy.

In addition to melting my eyes at the computer screen, today has been all about cars. I hate cars at this point. I want them all to go melt in vats of acid.

We set the alarms for quarter of seven so as to get to an 'early bird special' at Rocky's Autos, about forty-five minutes away. If the site doesn't give you some clue as to how obnoxious the place is...well...gah. It was POURING rain, cold, and by the time we got to the auto dealer ALL the cheap cars had sold.

It was like being stuck in the midst of a bunch of hypoglycemics scrabbling at pinata droppings. Only you had to pay for the candy. And it was second-hand candy. Slightly used, sort of abused. Sold as is, uncertified, no warranty. To be honest, I'm a bit relieved all the cars were gone, even if they would have been purchased for the price of gravel... I'm completely paranoid when it comes to car purchase.

We were home before noon and promptly crashed to the couch, from which Crystal and I have barely moved all day. (Hey, it's my one day off until Wednesday, I can be lazy. Besides, I've been computer-ly productive.) Jody went out to lunch with a friend then came in and told us to get our shoes on since apparently her friend had a friend who was selling a car and blah blah blah.

That? Was a complete waste of time. Holy crap, batman. It was a 90-something Nissan Sentra which, the mechanic assured us, had about 117.000 miles on it, one owner, all those things mechanics like to assure you. This thing was in worse shape than Amber's car after being totaled, I swear. It had dents (and rust in those dents) on every panel, the rear passenger's side door had a nearly one inch gap between door and vehicle at the top, it drove like a riding lawn mower, and I don't know WHAT had happened to the interior. That thing was scary. And he was asking eighteen five for it, too.

According to Jody, I'm being 'too snooty' in my car shopping endeavours. Beggars can't be choosers, etc. Well... Okay. I know I'm not going to get a fantastic car for $1500 bucks. But that doesn't mean I can't get something that will not look hideous and will last me long enough to earn enough for a better car. Really truly is possible!

For instance. Monday, after I get off work, we will be going to take a look at this little buggy. Jody favors the name 'Tweety', Crystal thinks 'Canary'; Megan opts for 'The Rubber Ducky Mobile'. ^.^

Vrrrrooom!!!!

Zip. Nada. Zilch.

2007-03-22T17:37:00.000-06:00

I have felt completely worthless the last few days, when it comes to writing, advocacy, awareness, and any other productive sort of thing I ought to be doing. It's hard to explain what's wrong, what's bothering me, why I can't seem to manage to do...anything... F-k depression, yo.

I need to get back into therapy and have been thinking about it quite constantly. Problem is, I do not want to be in therapy. Screw therapy. I hate therapy. It's one of those things that makes you feel worse before you get better and it seems that no matter how much time I spend working through issues it isn't enough. Bi-weekly, once a week, twice a week, twice a week with two different therapists, psychiatrists, medications, group, inpatient, intensive outpatient, I'm so sick of all of it.

Which thing is finally going to help me, let alone cure me? I'm in a new place now, do I have to start all over trying to find a new treatment team, setting up all those support systems and networks of trust all over again? (And please, for the love of god, DO NOT start in on me with any crap about finding a church. I did that. Long time. It caused most of this, don't tell me that now will be different, now they'll make it all better.)

The most twisted thing is that I am beter in many ways than I have been in years. Even if I still regularly self-injure, sometimes can't get out of bed, am dropping weight again like...something you drop quickly... Well, point is, despite it all I'm still holding a steady job. I'm still in a relationship and we're still in love. I'm at least surviving. I haven't tried to kill myself (or done anything seriously dangerous) in over a year.

It's a record! Yay!

Gah.

And as Crystal points out, I've basically already written this entry. Probably five dozen times.

Depression is so damn boring.

Rant.

2007-03-21T00:40:00.000-06:00

Dear whoreish housemate:

STOP STEALING MY F-ING THINGS. This memorandum includes, among ALL OTHER POSSESSIONS, my: cash, collectibles, movies, BRAND F-ING NEW CLOTHING, personal treasures, and WHATEVER THE F ELSE YOU MAY HAVE TAKEN!!!!!!!

I'm a tolerant person. I put up with a whole hell of a lot without getting too loud about it. But I AM NOT a total doormat. I CANNOT TAKE ANY MORE OF THIS. I give it maybe a week at best before I snap and stop giving you the minimal amount of respect that you don't deserve anyway.

No love,
me.

P.S. I want my f-king tank top back. And not the one you stole - a new one. I had it a total of two days before you stole it and having other people wear my clothes skeeves me beyond belief. You owe me a new one. Thanks.

Musings, sundry and disconnected

2007-03-20T12:00:00.000-06:00

SIIIIIIIiiiiiigggghhhhh. If I never have to shop for a car again I think I'll be happy. (Except, that's totally a lie. Whichever car we end up finding will no doubt be so gnarly that I'll want a new(er) one as soon as can possibly be afforded.) I hate car shopping. Really, really hate it.

This rapid-cycling depression and hypomania is making life completely impossible and incomprehensibly exhausting. I'm either too hyper and unab le to focus to get anything done or too lethargic and unable to lift my head off the pillow to do anything. The past week or more I've been doing well to make it to work and last my shift without a breakdown, let alone contemplate updates.

Speaking of, I was thinking about this yesterday: DC Cheesecake Factory was remarkably patient with me. I never got fired, never even got a write up, yet I was probably right up there for the Most Unstable Employee award. I suppose consistent competence was my greatest selling point or something, whothehell knows.

Sunday morning I nearly didn't make my bus because dragging myself out of bed and into my work clothes was such a completely overwhelming task. Eventually I'd pulled on my uniform and just sat on the edge of the bed crying, staring at my untied shoes, thinking simultaneously how impossibly difficult and pointless it would be to tie them. But, somehow, I still managed. (And literally all day long almost every friend I have there found some way to tell me I "look[ed] like sh*t", which made me feel a whole lot better.) I still got to work on time and made it through the shift intact without screwing anything up severely.

This anecdote actually brings up two points: first, I'm actually quite a bit more stable than I used to be, despite the fact that it feels quite the contrary. Secondarily, it's evidence to the whole DC-was-more-tolerant point... There were several times at that restaurant where I had to call out because of severe depression/anxiety/whatever, faking the physical only to a small extent since I was so depressed I truly felt sick. Beyond that, however, they had to deal with me disappearing mid-shift now and then, emerging from the coat closet or walk-in freezer after a while, all tear-stained, for no discernible reason. A couple times I came in for my shift begging everyone in sight to pick up for me so that I could go home because either I couldn't stop crying or just couldn't stand the thought of six, seven, eight hours with a plastered fake smile, ingratiating myself to people for their money.

And, of course, there were the couple of shifts that I simply could not go onto the floor because I could not stop sobbing. Including one memorable night that they were already short people and refused to send me home, instead telling me to go to the bathroom and try to pull myself together. I called Crystal, panicking and completely distraught for (as is my bent) no discernible reason, who dropped what she was doing and came running to work as quickly as she could. I'm sure I was completely pissing the managers off since I was...wow, how to describe it? totally unhinged? and they couldn't understand why. All they wanted was a reason but no one had died, I hadn't broken up with my girlfriend, wasn't getting kicked out of school, nothing. I think the explanation I gave was a nothing-everything-I DON'T KNOOOW!!! sort of thing, which didn't seem to cut it.

In the end they really had no choice but to send me home. (I think they gave me like two hours to try to pull it together, though, but it was no use.)

And yet, they didn't fire me. If anything, they undeniably handled me with kid gloves for a few weeks after that; they immediately cut back my hours, no further questions asked, and did all they could to help me through it.

I really don't think this location would be so understanding.

Although, an interesting thought connects to all this: had they fired me for an emotional breakdown, could I have sued? :-P I wonder where psychiatric illness falls on the legal end of things...

...arright, I'm all written out, I think. Don't you just love how my entries sort of fizzle instead of conclude these days? Le sigh.

...Okay, actually, I have NO CLUE how to end this. So I'm just going to let it drop... Crystal suggests saying

THE END

No. No, it really makes no sense. Don't try to understand.

2007-03-15T19:37:00.000-06:00

Oh sigh. I've had two full days completley at my disposal, no requirements, all the time in the world to update, and I've had absolutely no energy or mental willpower. Hell, I haven't even done much cleaning to speak of, and that's normally my first objective for every free day on the schedule. I don't know what's to fault for this lethargy and, unfortunately, attempts to force myself out of it have thus far failed.

I wanted to put a clip from last night's South Park in here but unfortunately the Internet Police have really cracked down on pirated copyright material, quite significantly spoiling all my fun. For the run down, last night Cartman was his usual little bastardly self and through a complicated run of events got Butters' parents convinced he was gay. And he got sent to de-gayification camp. And it was awesome. Tag line for the camp? 'You can pray the gay away!'

Every couple minutes at gay camp you'd hear a gunshot as another camper killed himself.

I love it when South Park gets bitchy and preachy.

...I've been a real snark today, I'm sorry. I don't know what it is or where it's come from anymore than I can put a tag on this laziness. Probably the two are related as whenever I feel unproductive it leads to feelings of worthlessness which in turn make me rude and cat scratchy toward all near me.

There are many things happening around the homestead which are relevant toward my blog theme and which I'd like to discuss but wouldn't be fair to the members of the household to do so. The old personal space line must be respected inasmuch as I'd go apeshit for someone to write such things about me.

Have I mentioned lately that I can't maintain a train of thought long enough to finish a sentence today...

GOD.

This is the best I can squeeze out. My brain hurts. I need to make dinner because I'm losing weight again even though I don't mean to. But perhaps I do on some level. That's the gnarly thing about recovery; I feel ugly and skinny but ugly and fat at the same time. I'm hungry and food porn a lot these days but the thought of eating makes me nauseous. I'm indecisive about any and all food-related decisions. Food, food, food, godamn food.

I'm constantly stressing about cars, medication, psychiatric treatment, taxes, cars, finances, cars, food, work, writing, everything. Maybe the external lethargy is a Girl, Interrupted type example of velocity vs. viscosity... I need to be back on the mood stabilizers I hate so much and can't afford, anyway. Maybe I need to try a different prescription.

MANIA CAN ANYONE SAY MANIC EPISODE I'M LOSING IIITTTTT.

In other news, Siri! I got your package and I loved it. Listened to the CD first thing and it was awesome. I'll make you a mix and write you a letter the moment my thoughts can slow to match the speed of my handwriting.

Jumpier than a cricket on crack

2007-03-13T20:46:00.000-06:00

All right. Lame as I am and lame as this may be I must confess: I'm really disappointed in American Idol so far this season. I mean honestly. They're all so boring! It's like watching a karaoke competition wherein they're all somewhat stoned and kinda just don't give a damn. I can sing acceptably well and it is really not that hard to perform on the stage. Singing is a matter of performance; sell the song, sell yourself, sell the story it tells. We really care more about how you tell it than how well you sing it.

Oh, wait, but also? A slow song doesn't have to be boring. A slow song can give more opportunity for exciting performance than a fast one. That's all. ^.^

By the way, Siri? I'm starting to really consider moving to Sweden. Care to teach me the language so it won't be quite such an awkward move? =-D

...God, I'm completely ADD right now. I can't maintain any thought longer than it takes to think it, far less time than it takes to type it. I'll try to formulate an update later tonight and if not then tomorrow. Day off! Yay!

Wha?

2007-03-12T23:17:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry for all these mad update lapses! It's all the fault of my damned job, to be honest. I get home at the end of a seven, eight, ten hour day so exhausted that updating is the last thing on my mind. (Plus Crystal has been needing it a lot to write an evil, fifty mile long paper.)

As far as now goes... I'm not totally asleep but I'm completely braindead nonetheless. Just kinda staring open-mouthed at the computer, eye twitching absently and intermittently, kinda like the stock market has been lately. (Hell, I'm not even sure if that was clever or just made absolutely no sense.)

It's particularly frustrating since I spend most of my morning commutes contemplating topics that need discussion and ideas that I want to develop. For instance: Family Guy and EDs, the character Maris on Frasier, the ever shrinking department store mannequins, the desirable body type variance among different clothing styles (urban, hippie, sorority, Wal-Mart...). On and on.

Right now though it's all I can do but stare at the words miraculously appearing in this formerly blank text box. Dude... I mean, wow... Watch what happens when I wiggle my fingers.... afgjoaeifjg! Hehe.

I'm going to bed now. I mean seriously. Yeah.

In other news, still no freakin car.

Good Old Evolution

2007-03-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

I've put the Dove 'Evolution' video in here before but, hey, it's cool, I'll do it again.

Also, when looking at that I came across another interesting little link. It won't let me embed but I'll definitely direct you back to it... In response to the Dove ad, some girl decided to make her own evolution video. It's homemade, she looks about fifteen or sixteen, so obviously the quality isn't fantastic, but it's worth watching. I enjoyed it. :) Plus, I think it's awesome that she'd have the idea and act on it in the first place. Maybe it'd be healthy if we all made our own evolution documentaries.

No Rest For The Weary and Other Cliches

2007-03-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm constantly being told that I'm way too bitter. Honestly, I don't mean to be... But I don't know how to help it! Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to have cornered an unfair share on the tragedy market. Or, at the least, the bad luck market which to a crazy depressive may as well be the same thing.

Does anyone reading this know a thing about Colorado Medicaid, how to get on it, and/or have some idea if I may be eligible for it? I'm getting desperate.

My Welbutrin ran out on Sunday. I was able to get to the pharmacy Monday night to fill the prescription only to learn that insurance has decided to stop covering my generic meds as well as the others. It covered a small part of it this last time but said that after what they were willing to pay I've reached my limit for the rest of the year. Considering the fact that the last time I'd been off Welbutrin for more than a day I crashed so hard I wasn't able to get out of bed or stop begging Crystal to let me die, I decided that my only option was to cough up the money so I could get at least one more month covered.

As such, I'm out $76.77 more than I should have been and once this prescription runs out am pretty much screwed. I already had to take myself off Effexor and Lamictal as they both cost around $300 each per month and the lack of them is undeniable.

I miss being able to function. I miss being able to laugh and smile. I miss not crying every day, pretty much hourly, at anything from smudged makeup to the latest calamity on the news. I miss being able to feel like a relatively normal human being.

Aside from the whole medication aspect, I NEED to be back in therapy. Recently I've been seriously aching to be back at an inpatient facility somewhere. I try not to talk about things which would be unnecessary and/or seriously triggering, but...yeah. I would feel so much safer in a psych ward right now.

Beyond those needs, all my medical bills from surgery are starting to come in. Those debts run into the couple thousand mark right now.

Beyond that, though this may sound stupid there's a mole I've been needing to get off for years and in the past few months it's been changing colors and growing and getting scary looking.

Beyond that, I need a car. And an apartment. And the normal costs of living. And cell phone bill.

Jody and Crystal constantly harp on me for never doing, or wanting to do, anything 'fun'. It bothers them that I'm either working, cleaning the house, working on writing and art projects, handling bills and taxes and crap, etc, etc... Crystal wants to go see movies or go to a coffee shop downtown or do something, anything, and all I can see next to those activities in my little mental chart are dollar signs and amounts of time lost. 'Fun' is torturous to me when there is so much else that needs to be done.

They frequently say that taking time to relax and take care of myself is as important as getting those other obligations filled but I just can't see it. I can't take a break from things because even when I try to mind is still tied up worrying about them. I guess that's all part of why I wish I could be inpatient again - it's like the only way I can take a break is to be put in a position where I have no other option.

I'm going to return to my car hunt now.

On Suicides and Faking It

2007-03-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

Although this has been several days in the brewing it’s hard to determine how to begin an entry with this particular subject… The reason it’s been so on my mind is that, aside from the fact that depression makes you think of it, one of the girls whose blogs I follow seems to be preparing her own internet death.

I know that to accuse someone of getting ready to fake their death is an enormous, outrageous, melodramatically serious thing. However, I do know what I’m talking about: I’ve dealt with it multiple times in the past. I’ve thought that I’d lost close friends four times in the past only to find out later that they faked it. I don’t have a clue how many other cases I’ve heard of in which the heartbreaking loss of someone loved and admired turned out only days later to have been completely fabricated.

A suicide attempt is not something to shrug off lightly as a grab for attention. In fact, that misconception is among the top three falsely held beliefs about mental illness that drive me absolutely batshit, right up there with eating disorders are vanity and depression is ungratefulness, etc. Similarly, I think that to say faking one’s suicide is purely for attention is also a grave misstatement. At the same time, though, in all the cases I’ve observed I do feel that attention is a large part of it.

Even for suicide attempts the attention thing usually has at least some role, although I don’t feel it’s in the intentional, manipulative way people typically believe. Any attempt, serious or not, is desperation to get relief and find some sort of comfort. In many cases the comfort sought may well be the element one gets when hospitalized – being completely taken care of, getting a break from school and bills and all the crap contributing most heavily to the depression that led to it in the first place.

For many people caught in a suicidal depression the thought of committing oneself is a lot scarier than the idea of dying. As such, if a mild attempt can serve the same purpose without the humiliation of checking into a mental ward, it seems quite a bit more desirable. Additionally, it lends a twisted feeling of legitimacy since you have concrete evidence proving the depression and need for care.

…This is unlikely to make any sense to anyone who hasn’t felt what I’m trying to explain. That’s the totally sucky thing about mental illness: it isn’t logical and it’s impossible to explain logically to someone who isn’t already crazy.

In any case, what I’m trying to explain is that depression makes you feel completely horrible, hopeless, and helpless. If it hasn’t quite gotten to the point that one seriously, one-hundred-percent, for sure wants to die, a half-hearted attempt shows the world how bad it really is inside and hands over that helplessness to someone else to deal with so that you can have a few minutes to breathe and heal. That, in my opinion, is the attention-grabbing aspect of suicide attempts. It seems selfish to all looking on from the outside but to the depressive it’s the only last-ditch effort that makes any sense. Again, don’t forget that depression is anything but logical.

Returning to the concept of faked deaths.

This… I don’t fully understand. I have theories but I’ve never faked my own suicide, only gone with the real attempts... (Which is more f-ed up? God knows.) In all the years I’ve spent online making friends, having feuds, falling in love, suffering explosive fights, I’ve known dozens of people and grown close to many of them. Because most of the circles I’ve frequented in the past have been eating disorder and mental illness related, close friends have gone in and out of hospitals, inpatient facilities, outpatient treatment centers, disappeared without warning, called me on the phone, sent letters, etc, etc.

Two of those friends killed themselves. One died when she was fourteen and I was sixteen. She just disappeared from the internet and I didn’t even know for sure that she had died until recently, when her mom e-mailed me after reading the article about my t’shirt project and asked if I’d ever known her daughter Jade. The other was not a close friend, but a close friend of a close friend… Her parents found her in her car in a coma a few days after she’d gone missing to us in the online world. She died later of liver failure.

::sighs:: I’m sorry for all the cheer here.

The reason I’m bringing those memories up is that in order to talk about faked suicide with the gravity it warrants, you’ve got to understand the reason it causes so much terror and pain. Because it isn’t always fake. It tears us apart because maybe we’ve lost people in the past and maybe we’re afraid of losing you, too.

The thing that angers me so much about faked suicide is that, while I’m almost sure it isn’t malicious and I am sure there’s just as much hurt going on as in a real attempt, the very nature of it is such that the faker gets to sit back and watch everything going on while they’re supposedly in the ICU, judging all of our reactions, trying to see who’s going to miss them most and who “really cares”. It’s just completely… I don’t even know what word I’m trying to find. Low. Dirty. Under-handed. To lead all your closest friends on, convince them you’re dying or dead, just because you want to see who your ‘true’ friends are…? It seems totally sickening to me.

The hardest part about it is that when you’re in the position of watching the drama unfold it’s almost impossible to call the person out. You’re emotionally shredded, scared half to death yourself, and the thought of falsely accusing your friend of doing this to you is beyond reason.

Right now, the blogger I initially mentioned has supposedly just come out of a coma, her kidneys failing from years of anorexia, now in an intensive inpatient unit. Her neighbor is supposedly the one updating her journal to keep all her friends informed of the situation is her neighbor who, without explanation or apparent reason, suddenly has the keys to her house and all her credit cards and everything. The whole situation is completely impossible to make sense of…

I don’t want to go into all the details there. If she really is as sick and close to death as the writer claims, I don’t want to talk badly of my friend. If she isn’t, it’d be almost as bad to write a vitriolic expose and thereby risk pushing all the buttons needed to make the theoretical situation a real one.

That’s why fake suicide sucks so horribly. There’s no easy way to handle it one way or the other. It’s a full and complete double bind, catch 22, rock-and-a-hard-place suckfest.

Melissa, I hope you’re okay.

Slightly more cheerful

2007-03-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

For the first time in several days I have something on my mind which is not dismally, morbidly depressing and repetitive, so I'm going to write about it. It may still be ED Awareness Week but I am way too miserable thinking constantly about the subject and constantly having my heart break for every person I pass on the street who looks sick... Let me indulge my happy, off-topic thoughts for a bit.

Stranger Than Fiction. Oh em gee. I wanted to see it in theatres but I kind of have a major movie theater phobia soooo... I'm watching it now for the first time and it is spectacular. I mean hell, for one thing it's got Queen Latifah, Dustin Hoffman, one of my favorite movie crushes and still all-time favorite actresses Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhal... And yes Will Ferrell but he doesn't detract too much. ^.^ Actually he's pretty funny without being totally idiotic.

It's cracking me up, in fact.

I think anyone who has ever written a novel, read a novel, imagined writing things, thought about what it would be like to be a character in the novel would enjoy this movie. Seriously. It's like... pieces of myself all chopped up and strewn about and described in a way that's more funny than dismal. Which, if ever I manage to write my memoirs, is I hope to be the way I describe my life. (Anyone read/seen Running With Scissors? I mean, that guy had about the most insane, f-ed up childhood ever and yet managed to come out of it relatively stable and become a good writer to boot.)

Anyway, that other movie... It's just so adorable and funny and yet still revolves around pretty sucky material. Namely insanity and such... Also, Maggie Gyllenhal is really cute in it. She's a crazy awesome hippie college dropout! (Like me! Minus the 'awesome'!)

Okay, so I'm still watching the movie and am rather distracted now... Hard to write and be engrossed in the awesomeness at the same time.

Conclusion: Go rent it, watch it, and distract yourself from any depressing thoughts spiralling around in your mind. Take a break from car searching and working on your freakin income taxes. Have fun.

Post script: Crystal took a picture of me at Starbucks, sooo here it is.

Haircuts and Mannequins

2007-02-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

I get the feeling that all my entries are merely old rants rehashed. Anyone? Anyone? Yeah.

In other news, I got my hair done! This is not a big deal for normal people, but I'm crazy... And aside from that, I haven't cut my hair in like three years. Because people totally suck and wouldn't shut up about my eating habits I was feeling really ugly and disgusting by the end of the day.

Why does everyone who sees a morsel of food enter my mouth feel the need to comment on it?!? I got a mini pizza and a salad for lunch and was so hungry I charged through the salad in like ten minutes... Immediately all coworkers in the vicinity, even my manager, started jibing about how much I was eating, how either I was going to balloon or else must be purging what I eat. I HATE EVERYONE. Actually, after I'd had half the pizza and couldn't stand any more of it I lost it. Said something to the effect of, "Look, you have no right commenting about my eating habits. You have no idea about my history, you don't know if maybe I do have food issues, if maybe I was hospitalized three times last year. So back the f- off."

I wouldn't recommend that as the most polite, poised way of handling situations like that, but it did work.

When I got off early from work I wandered around the mall for a while, talked on the phone to Crystal some, saw all the mannequins in the windows and cried like a lameass, and wandered more. I've been thinking about getting my hair cut for a while now and got the idea to use my extra time to go to the salon. It was actually a really good decision.

I'm of the opinion that few things feel so good as getting your hair done. I mean seriously, isn't it just awesome to have someone play with your hair? And then the shampoo-y thingy and the little shower head thingy all sheurhohgshhhh, it's just awesome.

Watching her go snip, snip, snip as six inches of my hair fell to the floor was extremely unnerving, though.

...Mmkay, I was going to conclude with a picture but can't seem to find my bluetooth device (so that I can get said picture from my phone to the comp) sooo... Yeah.

In conclusion, yay haircuts. It was an awesome way to feel better physically, get some innocent compliments (is saying nice things about your client's hair part of the job description?), and feel better about myself without doing something crazy or triggery. I think everyone should go get their hairstyled just for the hell of it. Yep.

ED Awareness Week!

2007-02-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

(Thank you to Laurie for reminding me. I guess I've been distracted, or just lame and forgetful...)

...Heh. Given the times, I feel like I should wear my t'shirt a lot to make a sort of positive statement. It's strange though. I can be one of the most vocal people ever, speak in front of crowds, publish the nitty gritty ugly details of my life and depression on the internet... But I'm still nervous about 'coming out' to anyone who might actually know and see me on a regular basis. None of my coworkers know about my disorder - not even Daniel, even though we spend so much time together outside work as well as at it. I'm terrified to let them find anything out about who I am outside the workplace.

I preach regularly against stigma and tell others to not be afraid to acknowledge their disorder but when it's my life and reputation on the line it's a totally different story. Don't get me wrong, I'm not confessing to being a total hypocrite. The thing is, for me to admit to anything the person pretty much has to back me into a corner and pose a true/false, yes/no question before I'll confess.

It's embarrassing. After ten years of depression, eating issues, self-injury, even more years of panic attacks and anxiety struggles, it's still utterly shameful to have someone call me out about any of them.

I don't know how to reclaim our disorders. That sounds totally horrible and not as simple and elegant as I want it to be, but the point I'm trying to make is that most, if not all, psychological disorders are an all-time favorite joke subject in this culture.

...God, this is de-railing. I've lost my direction and am rewriting each sentence like five times before getting so fed up I just leave it as is. Ugh. I think I'll cut it short.

Basically, the reason is that I'm really upset (yes, overreacting probably) about my book... I mentioned last week that my favorite book was stolen/accidentally-taken-and-not-returned by someone at work and I've not been able to get it back. As such, I'm currently trying to buy a new copy.

Problem is, a paperback edition just came out (which comparatively SUCKS) and new copies of the hardback edition are virtually gone. This book is too special and means too much to me to buy a beat up used copy and on average the book, new, sells for twenty-five to thirty bucks. Or if I purchase it via Amazon it's 16.79 but won't be shipped out until April. The special edition, which is what I had, starts at $70.

::headdesk, cries:: I want my book baaaaaack!

An entry which makes absolutely no sense

2007-02-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

Won't be much of an entry since it's late and I'm due back at work in about eleven hours. Le sigh. I'm feeling somewhat better, though exhausted. Did NOT want to work today.

My lovely, wonderful Crystal has been giving me all these ideas for entries and they most assuredly are important and need to be written! I wish that I had the energy to give them the attention they need, though. >.< It's hard to think about eating disorder topics and invest enough mental energy when Frasier is too much effort to follow. Ya know?

Um... God. I'm so boring right now! All I want to do is curl up and go to sleep. I can't even think up a single valuable thought with which to leave you kids. The best I can come up with is: cherish your rest. Sleeeep. It is good. Take care of yourselves, loves. Peace to all.

Pointless.

2007-02-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

Ugh.... As of yesterday I can think of nothing but how nauseated and sick and gross I feel. Constantly. Seriously.

I need more pepsid ac or soemthing... Blaugh...

T'shirt update

2007-02-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm working on setting up a shop --- FINALLY.

I'm sorry this has taken so long... For those who've been following my blog for a while, you'll know that I've had some crazy insanity going on as regards my housing situation. It's been difficult to keep stability in my online life when there's none in the 'real' world and unfortunately the latter has to take priority when there are things to be done.

Also, I don't even have the shirts right now. They're at my parents' house in storage because they didn't pass the cut for Really Vital Things Which Must Be Packed when I flew out to CO. I'm going to ask my parents to ship them and the supplies ASAP (Mommy? Daddy?) but until then the shop will stay closed... I don't want to list something for sale that I don't have!

Hope that clears things up a little. If you're wanting a shirt do let me know and I will write your name down but I can't give you a guess as to when I'll be able to start shipping them out again.

Reply to a reader

2007-02-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

An interesting comment was left here yesterday... It was anonymous, no e-mail, no name, so in order to reply to it I'm going to do so here. Readers, should you feel I'm out of line or agree with the commenter or have something to say about this whole business, please chime in. Feedback rules.

I've been following your blog for a while now, and here's a thought: instead of trying to find someone or something (modern society, religion, Hollywood, etc.) to take the blame for those entrapped in an ED, why not invest your energy into helping others like you did when you started your t-shirt project?

...Maybe I'm not making myself clear or perhaps you're misunderstanding me, but I don't think I EVER said society, religion, media, or any other entity was responsible for the eating disorder epidemic. In fact, if I've misstated myself in such a gruesomely inaccurate way I owe everyone who may ever have read this blog an enormous apology.

Eating disorders are in NO WAY the fault of an outside source. Eating disorders are a mental illness. That means that something at some point in time went wrong inside my (for instance) brain, causing me to distort the way I perceive myself mentally and physically. Additionally, that switch made it so that the standards I hold for beauty, health, perfection, and self-worth are warped into a nasty misrepresentation of reality. Normal people don't look at a drastically underweight model and think, wow! she's gorgeous! I should starve myself so I can look like her! No. There has to already be something wrong with that person's thinking to cause looking at someone emaciated to seem desirable.

Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing someone underweight, tired, but otherwise still acceptable and beautiful in the eyes of god and others, my mind takes all those features and twists them around into something disgusting. Either I see someone emaciated and sallow like a holocaust caricature, hair stringy and face a mask of dark hollows and ugliness, or I see someone puffy and jiggly and gluttonous whom I loathe for what I perceive to be greed and a total lack of self-control. For the first person, I hate her for abusing her body and being a hypocrite.

I cannot look in the mirror and see myself as others see me. I cannot think about myself and be proud of my achievements or my strides toward health without being overwhelmed by the thousand little things for which I hate myself.

That is what an eating disorder is. It's why it's called a disorder - the natural order of my thinking about my self and my body somehow got thrown out of whack. There is no logic driving an eating disorder. I'm not driven by a desire to look like a media image or modern societal pressures or a religious motivation for punishment. The reason I do discuss those things so frequently is that they DO have a part to play in EDs. Plus, I keep this blog as much for informative purposes as helping others. In fact, it helps and comforts me to see advances being made culturally and hear others comment on media and religion in a way that challenges ideals I might hold toward them.

While those things in NO WAY cause EDs, they undeniably contribute.
--> TV, magazines, etc, provide an abundance of visual triggers as they put underweight women forth as a positive examples of beauty and achievement.
--> Society embraces those images and translates the messages into something that, to an eating disordered mind, sounds like, "Unless you are emaciated, you are a failure and everyone hates you."
--> Religion - specifically the Christian religion - messes with our heads because there is so much emphasis on human failings and the need to put to death pride and sin. For someone who already hates him/herself and feels they are the completely worthless scum, this can literally cause suicidality. It can lead to forms of self-injury as a way to punish the self for any minor transgression. Eating disorders became the most rampant in any era and culture but our current one in the middle ages when Christianity took over Europe, because to starve oneself showed such great self-discipline and commitment to the faith. Oh! To love god so much that one didn't need to eat! Do you have ANY idea how many saints got their sainthood by starving to death??
...Breathe. Breathing. Okay. Point being. Religion is a HUGE contributing factor in many, many cases. It's why you hear of so many girls coming down with these disorders who are daughters of pastors and religious families, good, stable family, middle-class Americans. Religion.

Also, one more thing on that. Crystal pointed out that I need to balance this, because Christianity is not all bad. My experiences may have been, which is why I am so ranty about it, but many women also are helped by religion, even rescued by it. Many religious communities embrace women suffering from EDs and help them, encourage them, comfort them. They are understanding and nurturing and the wonderful safety that sufferers need.

The reason I tend to be so strongly negative toward Christianity is that I come from a background which was catalyst and even direct encouragement for many of my issues. I suffered too many years of being told panic disorder was my fault, depression was my fault, and anorexia was my vanity. Except not that nicely. I experienced nothing but pain at the hands of Christians who thought they were helping and, as such, am really bitter toward the religion. I don't claim to be any kind of expert on this subject. I just speak from personal experience.

Returning to main point: Being able to live and function healthfully as a member of society as it stands means that I, and others with EDs, have to learn to reallign our thinking toward these pressures so we can cope with them despite our messed up brains.

You are undeniably correct when you say our society is screwed up it's perspective on beauty (thin is in), but please don't throw the baby out of the bath water.

...I love the misstatement of that colloquialism. Otherwise, I think I covered this above.

A few screwed up people shouldn't be considered representative of the majority.

Agreed. Most assuredly agreed. But I still don't see what that has to do with any of the points I've been trying to make... I haven't made any attacks on celebrities or Christians (yes, I attack many dogmatic standards. That is DIFFERENT.) or teachers or whomever. I'm attacking what is already spoken of in a general, amorphous sense: beliefs and standards. It has little or nothing to do with "a few screwed up people".

I'm sure there are probably one or two whacko's at your place of business (Cheesecake Factory?), but it would be quite unjust to label you and your co-workers as whacko's based on the character of just a few.

Not to go into this much, but... You could probably label us all crazy, actually.

That's MY rant and I'm sticking to it. Now, go forth and do something good for yourself and for someone else today!

Well, you may not like it, but I feel that I just did something good for myself and others here. Sorry.

As a final note, I'd like to point out that this blog was not started with any mission statement saying it was going to be just encouragement for fellow sufferers. My goal has been as much to educate as to help - the t'shirts are information, not just personal statement.

And aside from that? It's also my journal in many ways. I write about what I'm thinking about. When I'm going through rough spells, it's not as cheery. When I'm pissed off it reflects that.

Yes, I want to help other girls. They are on my heart twenty-four hours a day. I start crying multiple times throughout the day when I see some girl walk by with a scar from an NG tube or dark hollows under her cheekbones or sores around her mouth. It tears me apart. I want more than anything to just take all that pain away from them, even onto myself if I could.

Speaking honestly about eating disorders, how they feel, what they do, and why they're happening, seems to me like a help for those girls. EDs are extraordinarily shameful and surrounded by stigma and misperceptions. Few people know any more about EDs than what they see on the news or the skinny girls they run into now and then. Education is helpful because if you actually know facts about what this is and what causes it you know better how to help and encourage.

Empowerment is help. Putting to death misperceptions is help. Education is help.

There are more ways for me to help girls with eating disorders than just a little note of encouragement every day. I'm trying to do all that I can, however I can, and will keep on doing so as long as I'm able.

Blah.

2007-02-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

Sooo... Another nine hour work day, another short, tired entry.

Uhm... God, can't think of a single thing to say, really. Certainly nothing happy or encouraging. I've been preoccupied with bad old thoughts and habits and I don't have a clue where I stand with myself or the world. It's a total internal tumult today.

Also, I accidentally left my favorite f-ing book at work the other day and now it seems someone took it. And it's not a cheap book and I want it back. Do I cry now or later?

A departure into the semi-philosophical

2007-02-16T23:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what to do with my life. As of your Sophomore year of college you're supposed to havea pretty good idea where you're going in your studies and career pursuits, which I thought I did. Then the gods and godesses or perhaps just the Nameless Malicious Forces That Be decided once more to give me special attention and mess with me just for the hell of it. Now that I'm in recovery mode, I'm not so sure I want to try to get back on and continue in the direction I was headed.

I hate college. Really, I do. Classes almost invariably feel like a waste of time as dozens of braindead students lock themselves before the flapping mouths of their professors, ingesting the material only to spit it back out on command. There is one acceptable way to learn, one acceptable truth to memorize. College does not accomodate diversionary thinking. Hell, learning is its own flunking religion in this way: one path, one way to believe, blind memorization and acceptance of pre-established theories. The only difference is whether one accepts reason or spirituality as the ultimate guiding force.

The worst part of college study is the grading system. That's what locks students into the right way, wrong way thinking, since if you don't answer with the material desired or the manner proscribed, it's unacceptable. You're forced to abandon independent thought for the sake of impressive grades.

It's a big part of why I was such an awful student, to be honest... I'm afraid I'm rather an impossible person if you want to force me to conform. Damn the chains of religion and the educational system! I shall break them with my wildly rebellious, nonconformist self! (Haha.) I got into more than one quite literal verbal battle with my teachers, even in the midst of their lectures. (Anyone remember my child psychology professor? Or the time we had a guest speaker in my Deprivation of Liberty course?) If I disagreed with the material and the answer I was supposed to supply on the test, I would put my own answer. Sometimes even a snarky comment about how the right answer would be x but here's why I think it's incorrect or incomplete.

Don't get me wrong, though. I adore studying. It's the college system that I reject. For the reason of curriculum I loved studying at a university! It provided me with the resources, direction, and motivation to keep learning. I do a lot of this on my own, true, but not as intensively. I flourished in the college environment and delighted in the abundant resources. I loved being able to approach certain teachers outside the class environment with my thoughts, opinions, questions, conflicts. (Notable awesomes: Professor Reichler, to whom I'll forever be indebted, Professor Mastrangelo, Professor Middents, and Dr Gillespie who actually managed to get me to appreciate the value of literary interpretation as well as authorship.) If I could stay in that scholarly environment forever, all expenses paid, I'd probably do it.

....Where am I going. Jeez. Okay.

I love learning, education, scholarly pursuit. I hate college for its pointless busy work (COUGH, PROFESSOR FREAKING THOMAS, COUGH) and narrow-mindedness (GOD I HATE YOU PROFESSOR THOMAS. I don't know what I want to do with my life.

I'm actually happier right now in my menial job as a cashier and baker at the Cheesecake Factory than I was pursuing a career in psychology. I like a job which doesn't over-tax me and allows me time to think, write, read, and pursue learning on my own. I like to have a job in which I have fun. I seriously don't think I'd be happy as something important, a psychologist or doctor or researcher.

Then the problem comes in. Do I seriously want to keep working these unimportant, going nowhere jobs just because I enjoy them? Do I want to let myself be a nobody forever?

Or... Will keeping these pay-the-bills jobs give me time to become someone on my own? Will I have the dilligence and talent it takes to make it out there, do something, go somewhere without the rigidity of college?

I know that I want to write. Every experience feels like, and is, just a new way to gather material. But am I ever going to USE it? The only thing I ever write is this damn blog. I don't have a growing collection of MS Word documents, unfinished or even barely begun novels, nothing to show for all the things I say I mean to write. For that matter, I can't even think up any plot ideas. The only crap I can think to write about is my own life. Blah blah blah, whine whine whine.

SIGH. So that's my dilemma. College, grad school, doctorate and career or random jobs and endless blog entries?

JK writes on eating disorders

2007-02-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Mmkay, this may seem a little complicated at first, but please bear with me. For one, it's worth it only to see the site itself (if you're a Harry Potter fan) but additionally this is one of the best article/rants about eating disorders that I have seen in quite some time. (Thank you Crystal for finding this for me!)

It's a flash site so I can't link directly, elsewise I'd indeed do so or even plug the text itself... Instead, you have a scavenger hunt!

Step 1 - go to http://www.jkrowling.com
Step 2 - glide your cursor over to the hairbrush. And click.
Step 3 - select the side tab 'miscellaneous'.
Step 4 - select the first article text thing labeled 'For girls only, probably...'
Step 5 - self-explanatory, I hope, but read.

And finally, if you've a mind, come back here and tell me your thoughts.

Ms. Rowling, thank you. I hope that with such an influential article writing this it may make a difference... God knows there's a world-wide problem with eating disorders, at the least in the developed world.

It never ceases to confuse me how in undeveloped countries being heavy is the beautiful, desirable thing. It means you're rich enough, well-off and able to afford enough food to take good care of yourself. The skinny ones are the people without enough nourishment! They're the ones starving because they have no choice.

And yet, here in the countries abounding in food, the standard of beauty somehow got twisted around. The richer you are, the skinnier you're supposed to be. When did power, strength, commitment to success, become synonymous with emaciation? It makes no sense to me.

Please understand me: I sound all soap-boxy in this entry, but I don't mean to seem any better than any other girl facing this illness. I'm trapped in the same illogical thought processes despite all efforts at higher reasoning. There are two minds, one that makes sense and one that can't accept beauty to be humanity in its natural form. It's a constant war, one I can only hope will someday resolve itself in a reasonable fashion.

New links!

2007-02-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

A real post may come later, but in the mean time I wanted to let you know I've added a couple links regarding surviving suicidal crises. You'll find them on the right in the sidebar. :)

Also... Crystal baby, you are amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you for that post. I love you. <333

Sappy blog takeover

2007-02-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Hi, everybody! It’s Crystal, Tina’s devoted girlfriend, with a special surprise Valentine’s Day post for my poor, sick girl.

Later, there will be chocolate and flowers and giant stuffed teddy bears. There will also be Starbucks and dinner. There will also be giant handmade cards, because I refuse the bland Hallmark empire and their froofy overpriced saccharine crap. We bought posterboard, glitter, red foam paper, lace, glue and markers – today’s gonna be a fun day.

Why today, you ask, instead of yesterday? For this reason: my sick girl dragged herself out of bed for a ten-hour shift. On Valentine’s Day, in a romantic restaurant. She’s working so hard to support us, and there are really no words for how grateful I am.

You blog-readers seriously have no idea how lucky you are this girl wandered into your life! She’s got such a big heart I’m surprised it fits in her chest. She cares so much about each and every one of you; her love for her girls seems boundless, her compassion for her fellow sufferers is limitless.

No one’s luckier than me, however. She’s my forever. It’s been two and a half years, and I’m still just as in love as I was when she surprised me with that first kiss on September 20, 2004. So far, we’ve shared almost every single “first” together, and honestly? There’s nothing I’d change, nothing at all.

This is the first Valentine’s Day we’ve spent together out of the three we’ve been in love, and man, I’m going to make it as sweet as possible for the sweetest girl in the world.

I love you, Taylor, and I will, forever.