More Nauseatingly Personal Things

Figure I should probably balance out this depressing blog with something at least vaguely level-headed. Updates in my life, for anyone who cares. I'm really embarrassed about a lot of this, so I'm not going to promote it on FB or any other social networking site. If you've somehow found your way here and you're reading this, you're a sweetie pie.

I've started the new semester. Not usually a big deal, but I'm taking that obligatory algebra class I need and more often than not I'm staving off tears when I'm trying to work through a simple concept I should've learned ages ago. There's probably nothing I suck worse at than math. Microbiology is pretty okay so far, but I'm already working myself up into a tizzy at the prospect of doing my 8-10 minute presentation on a to-be-announced pathogen in front of the class. It's just a matter of how much medication I can take and still pull off being somewhat lucid, yet have a grip on my anxiety, too.

Speaking of anxiety and medications, I went to my long overdue visit to the psychiatrist the other day. He evaluated me for about 90 minutes. (After reviewing my dissertation-length self-evaluation.) It was honestly a really hellish experience for me - not because of the doc (he was great; understanding, clinical, and just the right degree of sympathetic. Very unlike anyone I've seen before), but because of my worsening anxiety. I have this problem where if I have to sit down with someone for some kind of meeting or talk (with a doctor especially, but could even be a friend or coworker), I panic in the middle of conversation. I was on .5 of a Xanax at the time, too, which is usually more than enough for most people, but I was still panicking. It scared the shit out of me, because I didn't think I was physiologically capable of having an anxiety attack on that much Xanax. It's just getting so much worse. The social anxiety and generalized anxiety are both becoming less manageable, as well.

But, as I said, he evaluated me with question after question for awhile. Doctors normally write me off as being a junkie or junkie-to-be if I tell them I use Xanax daily, or even occasionally, but this doctor truly understood that I have a disorder. Disorders, that is. His final diagnoses:

Under the umbrella term 'anxiety disorder':

1. OCD (established since I was 5, though)

2. Panic attacks & Agoraphobia

3. Social Anxiety Disorder

4. Generalized Anxiety Disorder

5. Depression/Dysthymia

7. +/- Eating Disorder

6. +/- ADD

The last two are iffy - not official diagnoses, but he thinks they're high risks probably resulting from my anxiety.

Yeah, I'm kind of balking. But not really surprised. This is all shit that has been glaringly obvious to me, but I've refused to acknowledge most of it, because...well, everyone wants to be normal. Or at least functional. But I guess I'm eligible for certain different types of accommodations and scholarships now, so there's that. I just wish I'd had those accommodations in high school. Would've saved myself a lot of time popping pills in the bathroom stall, desperately looking for empty alcoves in the library, and white-knuckling every stupid high-stress school function. Goddamn assemblies. Fuck RHS. Oh my god, the counselors were laughable. Most people have no idea what it's like to have a legitimate panic attack. ("Just take slow, measured breaths. That's right, in and out. Feel your body relaxing. Okay, ready to present to the class now?")

Anyway, I'm on a slew of different medications to manage this shit. I'm used to doctors being so stringent, but this new guy...wow. Told me to keep taking my Xanax as needed, along with some Clonazepam, Prozac, and Trazodone to sleep. Obviously, I'm less than thrilled about being on an SSRI again, but my OCD is so out of control, I need to do something. It's the lowest dose, anyway, and reportedly the most easily tolerated.

I hate the idea of being so dependent on benzos because I know the withdrawal is horrible, but I just can't do this anymore. The self-harming and not eating has to stop, and I need to sleep somehow. I need to be able to leave the house, to go to class and work, to go to the goddamn grocery store, to be able to talk to people again. So if this is what I have to do right now, I guess I'll do it.

I think it's worth noting that I have tried natural things. I didn't just jump to the pharmaceuticals, because I firmly believe in abstaining from them if you can. (Let me reiterate: if you can.) I've tried various dietary changes, massages, different treatments from a naturopath, aromatherapy, and bud. I really gave the latter a go - really, I did. But it usually only exacerbated my anxiety, and would shoot me into a panic attack faster than I could believe. I'm not sure why. I think it's because I felt my reality begin to change, felt myself lose control, and I'm kind of a control freak. I felt like I was losing my mind. So I'd take a Xanax. Then I'd be high on two substances, relaxed and happy, yes, but insatiably hungry. No one else I know has the munchies like I do. No one. And I have food issues. So. No.

The eating...right now, I'm managing. Eating homemade vegan and nutritarian-friendly breakfast and lunch every day, and dinner, if I can fit it. I'm still really calorie/sugar/fat/salt conscious, but I do eat regularly and healthfully. (The only issue is that my blood sugar is getting too low.) But my schedule's so fucked up lately, it's hard to squeeze in meal time. I wish they would schedule me less hours at work. I have so much goddamn homework it isn't even funny. I literally take homework breaks to cry sometimes. I hate this. So much. It takes me hours because I have no idea what I'm doing. But I need the credits if I'm ever going to advance in the medical field. It's just...the math. I'm so far behind academically that I'm embarrassed to get tutoring help. They'd be blown away by how fucking stupid I am.

I've relapsed a couple of times with the self-harming, but I don't think I'm getting much worse. I only ever do it if I'm desperate for some kind of distraction, or something to help calm me down. I can just feel the tension release and then bone-deep exhaustion right after, and so when I'm done, I can usually fall asleep. I'm just so desperate for sleep some nights. The insomnia is getting really bad. Even if I'm extremely sleep-deprived and so tired my eyelids are burning and swollen, I still can't fall asleep most nights. Medication usually helps. But sometimes it doesn't. And those are the nights I get desperate. I just get so crazy without sleep. I think and feel horrible things I probably shouldn't post here. Sometimes I get so tired and I just feel like dying. What I want more than anything right now is a night's worth (every night's worth, but let's not be greedy) of fantastic sleep. Deep, long, uninterrupted sleep. Can you imagine anything lovelier? It makes me happy just thinking about it.

As depressing as this post as been so far, I'm not as depressed as I was a few weeks ago. I do get that depressed, but I'm generally in higher spirits. My moods are like this during the day, in order: normal to nervous --> anxious --> panicky or panicking --> either having anxiety attack or calming down with drugs --> exhaustion from come-down, depression from overall sense of futility at efforts of productivity/remaining calm, and guilt at depending on drugs for any sense of normalcy. Really, though, this is nowhere near the soul-crushing misery I dealt with a few weeks ago. (On my days off, when I don't have to go anywhere or see anyone outside of my family, I get close to happy sometimes.) I saw quite an improvement when I started eating semi-normally again. And I haven't even gained any weight. You'd think I would, after going from eating nothing but a few apples and oranges every day to meals, but I'm sure as hell not complaining.

My moods are usually worse on school days, because I'm constantly trying to achieve perfection, focus on the actual coursework, and socially interact when necessary, all at the same time. It gets very frustrating. Same sort of story on work days, but milder, because it's so simple and kind of going-through-the motions at this point. (You'd think that would depress me, but the familiarity is comfortable, even though I'm not exactly happy.)

I'm stressing so badly about when I'll be able to fit my work-outs in my schedule. I'll just need to take an hour cut. I need to run. It's the only natural thing that gets me out of my head.

The only thing that cheers me up most days is the fact that I'll be moving after the semester is over. I'll stay with my parents if my dad can find a job somewhere in Washington or Oregon, which would be preferable, but if he can't, I'll transfer colleges/jobs (whichever's possible) and move to Oregon on my own. I won't stand another year here. I can't. I'm going nowhere. I don't care how self-pitying or dramatic this sounds, because it's fucking true - I fucking blossom in any place I've been outside of Idaho or Utah (since those're practically the same). Washington and Oregon especially. I've got that Elvish sea-longing. I was happy there. Genuinely, honest-to-god happy. I somehow found it within myself to actually connect with people there. I slept so much easier. I was calmer. I just felt right. Like something I didn't even know was missing clicked into place. And then it just fell away after I got back to Idaho. It was an intangible thing. But it made all the difference. The contrast made me even more discontent with my situation here.

These people here - they're strange, honestly. And not the good harmlessly eccentric and expressionistic kind of strange. They frighten me. They're vacant. Trivial. Superficial. It's hard to convey in words, because as I said, it's intangible. But it's very real to me. (And please know that these are generalizations - I've met a handful of people very much worth getting to know. But they are few and far in between.)

To know what else is out there, and there's something so much better - it destroys me. But I know that I am leaving. I know it.

There isn't much I'll be missing. Huge exception: Mistah James Facer, since I share a lot with him, and he has a capability to care for others that is so rare for his age. I really appreciate that kid. Dem Facers. I'll miss them. James, if you're reading this, know that I've been grateful for even just having your presence in my life. I'll miss you so much. And I hope that even after I leave, we can talk for hours on facebook chat, because that's so much better than nothing.

So, my current goals are: keep eating regularly and healthfully, and do whatever it takes (short of pulling a Health Ledger) to get some fucking rest. Because eating and sleeping are vital to controlling my OCD, depression, and anxiety. I may be a constant knot of tension and anxiety and perpetually close to tears, but I'll be goddamned if I don't have more hope than before.

Oh, just a little note - I am addicted to fitblr! So I have a fitness tumblr blog now. (Shut up, the irony is not lost on me.) It's really new, so I've only got a few things on it, but I'll be posting recipes, workouts, motivational stuff, etc. It's about health and feeling good. Kinda focuses on veganism, though. It'll be therapeutic for me. (I'll get more content on it soon, promise!)

http://bestillmyveganheart.tumblr.com

I was going to get up today. I was going to go into town and do things just to know for myself that I did them; for the sake of doing them. I showered and got dressed and did my hair and makeup as best I can. I was ready to go.

But in the end, I just couldn't. I couldn't do anything but go back to my room and lay around in bed for hours, because that's all I'm good at. Because the thought of driving terrifies me; because the thought of people seeing me right now is unbearable and I don't know why. The thought of talking to anyone face-to-face makes me feel sick. I know self-isolation is counterproductive to happiness and all that. Intellectually, I know it. Emotionally, I don't care, because I don't have the strength to be anyone's anything right now. I'm so scared people won't understand. They'll think I'm ignoring them, that it's something they did or that I don't like them anymore. And then I'll really be alone. I don't know how to hold onto people. They're always fucking leaving. I don't understand how people act like you're their whole life and then suddenly not. I can't just do that. How the fuck do you just amputate someone from your life? I feel like it's going to happen with the few people already in my life. I'm grieving for relationships that haven't even ended yet and I feel fucking stupid.

I can't stand it when people see me upset. And then I get irrationally upset because no one seems to care. Maybe it's because they don't know. I hope that's why, anyway.

My anxiety is getting worse. And so is my obsession with perfection. I got a C on my term paper the other day. I immediately felt like the biggest failure that I could ever be, and I freaked and started wondering how I could let myself fuck up so badly. Anything less than an A is unacceptable. My grandma had died and my family was caught up in the mess that any death in the family causes when I threw that paper together, and yeah, maybe I wasn't on my game. But I still felt disgusted with myself. I started frantically searching my bag for my phone like I do when I'm starting to panic and I need something to ground me. But I couldn't find it immediately, so I really started to panic. I could feel my heart racing. I was starting to shake and hyperventilate, so I put a Xanax under my tongue right there because I was losing my fucking mind; I could feel it. I kept willing it to dissolve faster and praying to a god I'm not sure I ever believed in to just stop that feeling.

I started to calm down a little after that. My phone was right there, too, if I'd only just looked a second longer. But I swore I could feel everyone looking at me; judging me and glaring at me. It felt like somehow they knew I'd gotten a C and that everyone must've noticed so they must think I'm a pill-popper. I couldn't stop thinking things like, they know you're fucked up and they hate you for it. You're stupid and you don't belong here. You just fucked yourself. Fantastic. You fucked yourself and your fucking A; you're going to fucking fail like you were always destined to and it will be glaring evidence of your worthlessness on your transcript. No college will accept you. Forget financial aid. You're stuck here for the rest of your life working at a job you hate, playing nicey-nice with people you hate even more, and death is the only way out.

I tried really hard to stay for the lecture. Really, I did. But every time someone opened their mouth, I got the urge to seriously hurt them or myself. Mostly myself. So. Fucking. Grating. I could go on about why, but it doesn't matter. What does matter is that I'm a judgmental prick. I really am an asshole sometimes. In that moment, I hated them all. And I knew I needed to leave.

I got home, and no one was there. I wanted someone to be there. I needed someone. I needed someone to tell me I was overreacting and that one C will not damn me, especially given the circumstances. That I would be okay and it's normal to feel like a failure sometimes. But it's good I was alone, really. Because my parents can't handle me anymore. That's why they're paying a psychiatrist to do it for them. I won't say it doesn't hurt, but I can't expect more from them than they can give.

I feel so ashamed of my panic attacks. I don't know why it happens so suddenly and unpredictably. I can't even get my hair cut without taking something to stay calm. It's really embarrassing and I'm afraid to tell people. That's usually the biggest reason I don't want to go out and do anything. I just lie and say I'm feeling sick or I have to get up early for work, when in all actuality I'm fucking terrified of seeing a movie with you, sorry, I just know I'll work myself up into a frenzy.

I get really self-conscious when I panic. I sometimes worry people are noticing. It feels so fucking big and obvious to me when it happens that I figure everyone knows. Everything's wrong and I truly want to die if it'll just end the feeling. Sometimes it stops as abruptly as it starts, and the person I'm supposed to be talking to carries on as usual, funny enough. No one ever notices. Either people are really unperceptive, or I'm just really good at hiding it. I hope it's the latter. Because I need to know that at least some people notice and care when things are wrong.

I'm trying so hard to enjoy things again. I watch old TV shows hoping it'll trigger some subconscious response in my brain related to the nostalgia and I'll feel happy watching it now like I did years ago. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes I get lost in watching ridiculous things like Little Bear or Full House and I forget the present me for a few minutes. But it's getting harder. I'm so fucking pathetic; I can't watch serious movies or even listen to sad songs without getting incredibly depressed. Maybe I'm just sad. I don't know. I don't know what this feeling is. All I know is that it's oppressive and suffocating and it's keeping me from leaving the house; from leaving my goddamn bed, even.

It's just really scary out there. I went to the grocery store the other day because I was out of cereal, which I felt bad for eating anyway. Someone even being in the same aisle as me got me worked up. I couldn't look at the cashier when I was paying. I could barely get the money out of my wallet because my hands were shaking. The florescent lights felt so bright I couldn't look anywhere but my feet while I rushed out of there. All the sights and sounds in the parking lot were just too fucking much. Everything felt hyper-real and like an illusion at the same time, which I know makes no fucking sense. And I have work tomorrow. With people and florescent lights everywhere. I don't know how I ever did this.

Okay, so. There's a dark comedy called Wilfred that I watch. There's an episode toward the end of the second season *spoiler* (hahaha, no one's reading) where the main character trips on a really powerful psychoactive drug. He has this indescribable experience, and he wakes up from it understanding at least a little why he's so fucked up. So he starts crying, which is big, because he hasn't let himself in years. His friend just unceremoniously sits on the couch next to him - really, just this pathetic mess, with vomit drying all over the front of his sweater - and his friend just presses himself to the other's side and holds him for awhile while he just cries. Neither of them say anything for a long time. No advice-giving, controlling, manipulating, dismissing, rationalizing - just being. Simply being present and accepting everything for what it is. I almost lost it then, because there are no words for how badly I want that. I want someone who loves me, at least in that moment, to just hold me and let me be whatever I am right then, even if who I am is fucked up, and to just not expect anything. Someone who doesn't have any agendas other than to just be there in that moment with me, so I'm not alone when I'm this wrecked. I think that is a lot to give. So I don't really feel entitled to it. But I can hope for it.

God, that sounds so needy and stupid. But it's the truth.

I really can't stand myself anymore. I feel like I'm watching myself fuck up everything in my life and doing absolutely nothing to fix it. I have homework, but I can't bring myself to do it. I have texts and messages to reply to so my friends don't think I'm a lost cause or a self-righteous bitch, but I can't. I have my doctor's fucking mental health questionnaire to fill out and I can't even do that. I keep wondering why I'm even here.

Something feels so wrong. I wish I could put it into words. But something in me is just not fitting right. I just feel so wrong. It's like I'm completely at odds with everyone and everything around me. Everything's just incongruous and foreign. I don't remember how it ever felt right. I don't remember it ever feeling completely right. Maybe I was just less aware of it being wrong before. I don't want that to be it, because it makes me panic to think that. But everything's always felt seriously so messed up. I just want to be in the present and not care about that feeling that everything's kind of wrong, but I can't. It's worse now. I'm trying so hard to distract myself with people and things, but it's always there, on the edges of my awareness. Or right in the forefront of it, like right now. I want this feeling to go away so badly. I want someone to understand because if no one does, that must mean I'm going crazy. Really going crazy.

I need to feel right. I don't know how people just do things. Like go into work completely straight and just...do that, for hours. And go to lunch and sit and talk to their significant others like nothing's strange or horribly wrong at all. Or how they eat without their stomachs seizing up on them, how they don't worry about it. How they don't worry about much of anything. They don't base their self-worth on how they look, if they exercised too much that day, or not enough, or if they ate too much, or just not enough. They don't pretend to listen to the person they're talking to, because they are listening; they're not worried about how to effectively stave off a panic attack during the conversation, how to hide the dilation of their eyes or the blood rushing from their face or their breathing coming too fast and shallow like their heart; they don't worry about how to most casually excuse themselves from a conversation so that they can pop a Xanax in the bathroom and remember that, yes, there are other places to be besides their pulsing, panicking slurry of a brain. They don't memorize mental scripts for small-talk, disingenuous and awkward for the small hope that something more intimate could come from it. But intimacy's just a fucking concept. They don't deconstruct, critique, and criticize every little bit of the last social interaction they had with someone, even if it was just making eye contact with a stranger. They don't go out with friends just to maintain appearances, just to maintain some sense of normalcy, even though being around most people feels like anything but. They don't secretly long for something greater, something closer and perfect and uninhibited with another human being, but shirk away the very moment it starts to seem possible. They don't have to plan out every last detail of their next outing, even if it's just to the grocery store; they can be impulsive, and they can adapt. They don't wonder how it's possible to need something or someone so badly and then somehow not be able to stand them at the same time. They don't believe just because someone's being nice, they must have some kind of agenda. They can spend a night out doing whatever, smoking whatever, fucking whomever, being whomever, and not worry about the panic; not worry about the unease of unfamiliarity, the need to go home and hide under the sheets. They don't dread what they know will be another failed attempt at sleep, waking up in a panic for no reason at all; waking up screaming from nightmares they don't even remember. They don't crave self-mutilation to release some of the pressure inside their head; to distract. 

Because living just comes naturally to most people. And I am so tired of trying to do all these normal things, these things that just come so effortless to most other people. I try to imitate. I really do. I try to live like them, do the things I'm not doing right or stop doing the things I'm doing wrong to keep me from being normal. But I have never quite been there. And I feel further from that than ever. It's scaring the living shit out of me, especially this not-knowing.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong, and everyone's just doing a damn good job at faking. Thing is, I can't anymore.