Which is a problem since I take public transit to get everywhere.

I can’t read on the bus or train anymore, which sucks because that’s my 45 minutes of peace that I use as my pleasure reading time. When I arrive at work, I feel sick, but I haven’t eaten anything, so I’m usually able to settle my stomach with a small bit of bread or apple or soy milk.
On the way home, however, it’s a huge struggle to keep myself from not vomiting. It’s gotten so bad that I have small dry heaves or even a bit of bile in the back of my throat by the end of my trip. When I get home, I do throw up. And then again before we go to bed. And again in the middle of the night.

I’m not sure if this is a side effect or not.

Work has been unbearably hot lately, and so has Chicago itself. I sweat profusely at work and have had to bring an extra shirt to change in to just in case. On my break, I take my shirt off and sit in the walk in fridges in my pants and tank-top.

I’m really hoping that this is a heat stroke thing and not a side effect thing. I don’t think I can handle this if it’s a side effect thing. But I’m scared to bring it up to my doctor because he’s quite… terse (however, he did give me all three of my mental health medications no questions asked, including the clonazapan).

N. thinks that I’m suffering from heat stroke.

On the plus side, I’ve lost five pounds in the past week.

I don’t know.

I hugged the dog.
I made some tea.
I sat down to knit.

When N. got home, I broke down again.
And received little to no support. His main focus was on the computer in front of him.
All I wanted, NEEDED, was for someone to hold me while I was feeling my most vulnerable and most destructive in two years.

I screamed at him, locked myself in the bathroom and gouged my right hip with a dull razor that had stupid safety blades. But it got the job done, sharp, slow, better.
Shallow enough to heal quicker than most cuts, but still enough of an irritant to be a reminder for a good week or so.

Last friday, I went in for a scheduled doctor’s appointment and got back on Wellbutrin (300mg), Prozac (20mg), and Clonazapan (.5mg).
I forgot about the nausea, the fatigue, the flushing, the not so hungryness, the irritability, the absolute drone-like mentality you have to suffer through before the body reconciles with the drugs.

Today, I took a clonazapan and I feel detatched from my body, very numb and I would love nothing more than to lie down and never wake up.

But I’m forcing myself to sit up and knit or write because I have shit to finish.

I am such a failure.

Did you know that cheesecake is a grand bitch to purge? It sticks in your throat like peanut butter.
I’ll be surprised if my eyes aren’t bloodshot a little tomorrow morning.

My life is taking new directions, new turns, new opportunities.
I’d like to think that I’m doing much better as myself that I was a year ago.

I’m still recovering, still coping, still learning.
But I have a much better grasp on this metaphorical pill bottle than I think I ever had.

Today, tuesday, I will work both of my jobs, head out to orientation, finish a poem, try very hard not to fall asleep on the train home and go. the. hell. to. bed.

I cannot sleep tonight. Shocking as that may be for myself.
I drank caffeine with dinner.
Caffeine usually never really affected my sleep so much, but it is now that I rarely drink soda or coffee.
Today will be a coffee day.

My writing is largely incoherent tonight, but I just need to write, to see myself creating words that were born in my mind and strung together with my fingers.

I believe my new roommate is entering/tumbling through a sexual and gender identity crisis.
I’m unsure as to how I’m supposed to interact and react with this.
Obviously being supportive and non-judgmental are aspects that are crucial right now, but I’m not entirely sure how I really feel about this. I’m not comfortable, but I’m not uncomfortable.

I think I’m doing this thing where I anticipate the worst situation possible and then act like it’s already happening.
I feel myself getting annoyed at nothing. No.Thing.
She hasn’t even fully moved in yet and I was annoyed that she- god forbid- put something in the fridge.

Hello, I’ve lived alone for a year. I have some serious adjusting to do.

I also have some serious self-analysis to do and some writing to do and some living to do.

my weight is fluxing, I’m getting a cold, I miss my mom, my favorite coworker just left, my brain is rehashing bits of my childhood, today is going to really suck, and I still need to see a doctor.

I want to say that this was possibly in part because it took me so long and so many attempts to actually get in to the book. Perhaps I was pre-biased.
I acquired the book in 2003, I think. Regardless, I’ve had the book for a while and I’m so incredibly disappointed with the entire thing.

A lot of plot holes and chunks of character development missing and a lot of meandering plot explanation that took place. For a book whose scenery changed quite a lot, it felt incredibly stagnant and bland. Perhaps the first fifty pages were engrossing and did well to rev up my reader’s engines, but it was pretty downhill after that.

Neil Stephenson, I ill try to give you another chance, but this book was pretty pathetic.
I really felt like Y.T. and Hiro and Raven could have all had better involvement and development. The relationship between Y.T. and Hiro felt non-existent to me as a reader. It almost felt as though Stephenson had this all worked out in his head and forgot that the reader can’t plug in to his mind.
The book held some interesting points- religion, the technological focus of our current generation and the privatization of our country are all heavy topics that Stephenson tried to nail some opinions down with, but the end of the book felt untied and loose.

I dumped everything except for the clonazapan because it’s still currently having an active effect on my life, even if it’s only a vague placebo. It’s still there and I think I still need it, from a psychological point of view.

Tonight, I dumped out all my old pills in to the toilet and flushed them all away.

And I felt nothing. I’d think that I’d feel something: regret, loss, defeat. I felt nothing. Just a vague, harmonial sense of cleansing, but that might have been left over from the euphoria of packing. If there is such a thing.

I want to say that this is significant in some way. I feel that it is, but I’m not really sure how to voice it or recognize it.
I haven’t been on my medication for a very long time (a “very long time” is technically a year and a half) and I really should be.
I think that me dumping out the old, expired, useless pills wasn’t a “fuck it” but more of an admittance to the expiration dates and that keeping them wasn’t helping. Not taking them wasn’t helping, so why keep something around that I wasn’t using?
I need to see a doctor.
I probably definitely need to start seeing a counselor of some sort on a regular basis, if only once a month.

About a week ago, SS and I sat down for lunch disguised as a packing break (I’m moving to the north side of town and thus have tasked myself with finding any possible excuse to abandon ship on packing and migrate to the Great Out Side of Chicago). She spoke largely about trust and abandonment issues as well as the need to always be Alpha, top, one, The Best.
We have a lot of similarities in that way.

I’m still very broken, I’ve just learned how to manage it so that I can function in this thing called society. I think I’m doing a pretty good job.
I just need to start taking what I’m analyzing and breaking down and cope-structuring here and apply it to my real life.

I am two people: the person who writes here and the person who lives the life. It’s annoying that the two can’t work well together, because I think I’d be pretty stellar in the mental health department if they did.

Welbutrin smells like shit when it’s been sitting for god knows how long in a prescription bottle. Though I doubt the bottle type really matters.
And I remember it smelling like rotten eggs before I let it rot in the bottle.

I read this blog about this woman’s life. Her adventures, her pain, her happiness, her sanities and insanities, her love, her passion, her living. And I am inspired.
Inspired to search for ways and methods to relieve myself of this anger.

I’m not particularly religious, but I am spiritual.
I find my sanctuaries in clouds and thunderstorms, churches in vast forests filled with the potential of lostness, salvation in the simple act of being near water.
So why can’t any of this help me.
Or why can’t I let it help me.

Maybe I’m mistaking these spiritual hubs of mine for simple appreciation of nature.
Perhaps I don’t realise that I’m not spiritual, I’m just attracted to the aesthetic of an ancient tree or the sound of moving water.

I know, right now- in this instant-, that I am confused and maybe more than just a little lost.
I know that I’m angry, that I hold grudges, that I can’t shrug it off.

Lately, at work, I’ve been trying to change my reactions. Instead of getting pissed, I’ll try to play dumb and ignore it.
A coworker, BEP, encouraged me last night to just laugh at the idiocracy of it all. Laugh at the fact that they’re an asshole. Laugh at the fact that I’m not letting it get to me.
But it does get to me. I can’t help this. I can, but it’s hard and the going really kind of sucks right now.

I think it’s normal to get upset when someone cuts you down. Especially when you’re the one at work being cut down by a customer. You’re helpless, fenced in, defenceless. I basically forfeit the right to defend myself when I step behind that counter and punch in on the clock. I really hate to think that that means I also have to forfeit my self respect.

Right now, though, my slef respect is in question regardless of whether or not I’m at work.
I’m doing weight watchers, though right now it feels like I’m only pretending to do it.
I keep falling off this stupid bandwagon and pretending to get back on. I’m pretty sure that metaphore didn’t really work.

I keep saying I’ll start over tomorrow, or start over now and it never happens.
My life is a big ball of pretend start overs.
And it’s because I’m an angry person and I can’t let shit go.

People are always trying to tell you the best way to move. The best way to multitask, the best way to do it their way.

There is no best way. Not even my way.
I am late, early, on-time, exhausted, rested, happy, infinitely sad, destroyed, crushed, angry, appalled, confused, jealous, hungry, starving, financially dissolving, depressed, anxious, tired, unfit, decomposing, bored.

I am all and more and I am one.
One person.
One person alone, fighting.

This life is like a drowning game- keep your head above the water long enough and eventually you’ll learn how to stay that way. Or, you can occasionally dip under and resurface, getting a stark reminder (however short) of what it’s like to be above water, above ground, breathing.

I wake up and I breathe.
It can take anywhere from seconds to hours to get me out of bed. Seconds usually means I’m late. Hours usually means I finally have a day off and my body is so worn down from my constant transit that sitting up is physically painful.

I remember when my feet would swell up after I took my shoes off. The pain was immense and they only thing that brought me relief was to rub the instep on a semi-sharp edge.
Now, they don’t swell as much and I rarely feel the pain (unless I wear different shoes). I believe that the pain is still there, I’m just too exhausted to feel it.

I should really get back on my meds.
I have them- several bottles- but I doubt they’re effective now. Expired, useless. Shelf decorations. Too afraid to throw them away.
I don’t know why.
Afraid of that being a final admittance? Bad juju? That by throwing them away I’m tempting something, daring myself to enter the final boss battle of depression without potions?

I hate you for giving me shitty serotonin levels.
I hate you for giving me shitty dopamine levels.
I have you for giving me addiction.
I hate you for giving me anger.
I hate you for giving me pain.
I hate you for giving me a fucked up childhood.
I hate you.

I try to define myself every day. I attempt to give myself words, description, reinforcement (positive and negative).
It is impossible and painful to try to define yourself when you aren’t yourself.
I don’t know what or who myself is. I don’t know my Self. I’m 24 years old and I’m still looking for myself.

I’m 24 years old and in a healthy, intimate relationship.
I’m 24 years old and starting grad school in september.
I’m 24 years old and somewhat lost.

I actually wrote very instead of somewhat first, but very is the wrong adjective. I’m not /very/ lost. That doesn’t mean I’m not lost, but I’m not very lost.
I have direction in my life, goals, achievements, bits of guidance, loving and caring people. I have shadows and vague ideas of my Self, just not the entire picture.

I’m trying very hard to be okay with that because I doubt many people my age have it truly all together or anywhere near together at all.

+I’m surviving on my own, financially.
+I have two paying jobs.
+I’m able to feed and clothe myself (somewhat)
+I wake up in the morning.
+I have friends, family and coworkers who care about me.

-the number four still bothers me and it’s slowly starting to escalate. Very slowly, but I’ve noticed it affecting me more than usual lately.
-I miss my therapist.
-I’m not on the medications that I need to be on. I’m functional, alive, doing mostly well, but I’d like to be 99% well instead of 75%.

Mission.