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I'm thankful for:

• My family. My parents have been seriously amazing through all the junk thats happened over the past several months. They've supported me without question, even when I make crazy decision like going to hospitals in Texas and quitting my job. They've been my financial bailout. They bite their tongue and listening to me cry without offering a million suggestions to fix it (which is huge).
• Progress. I'm still a mess, but its hard for me to believe how much has changed in the past two months, even the past two weeks. Tonight I realized that I'm finally doing better now than I was before going to the hospital. I painted Sunday. I'm reading again. I'm no longer overwhelmed with the desire to end it. The anxiety is becoming more manageable.
• My job. Its frustrating and humbling to work a low-paying retail job despite having a (very expensive) college degree, but I don't think one can ever learn enough about humility.
• A warm apartment and comfortable bed to sleep in. I'm a huge wimp when its cold outside, but my temporary discomfort makes me think about how many people in my own city don't have a home or a warm place to sleep. It breaks my heart, it challenges me, it reminds me that it is by His grace that I am where I am.
• Community. I'm learning so much from these people about real community and how to live love.
• The peace that makes no sense and can only come from the Spirit.

There's much, much more, but I've got to at least try to sleep since I'm working nine and a half hours tomorrow. Why is it so much easier to write after midnight?

Final thoughts, from Jamie Tworkowski:

Maybe Thanksgiving is a chance to remember that which is true, and to say it in the face of the lies. i think it's important to remember that the story isn't over, that there are things worth fighting for and living for, that beauty still happens and love still happens. Hope and redemption as well.

what a week, part 1 (of 1?)

This is long, but its been a week worth talking about (in my little world at least).


Let's got back in time...

Monday (November 17) started a 3 day trip that I didn't ask to experience. It didn't hit til I left my apartment around 2. Driving to Wal-Mart never took that much effort before. I felt drugged, disconnected, a mess...The chaos of Wal-Mart didn't help, my head was floating one minute and spinning the next. I got my shopping done and went home, not really concerned, more annoyed. I went to work, but just driving, again, was a challenge. Every few moments I had to stop and refocus, ask myself where I was. Not surprisingly, work didn't go well. I ended up leaving early (but managed not to have a complete breakdown next to the pipe cleaners and pompoms).

Tuesday I didn't actually left my apartment til 7ish (some could say its laziness, I call it recovery/survival). Again, compeletely disconnected.

Wednesday my mom was here, so I actually got out around lunchtime, but no change. We were trying to cross the street to go eat and I nearly walked in front of several cars. My mind couldn't complete the process of stop, look, wait, time it, then go. A few hours later I called my doctor and he said to cut my sleep meds to a fourth of what I'd been taking. My current dosage wasn't working that well, so cut back that much scared me.

Wednesday night was not good (obviously). I was overwhelmed with anxiety about going back to work Thursday night...what if I still felt bad? What if I freaked out in the middle of everything? What if this never went away?

(ok, quick[ish] background: awhile back a friend told me a local venue had a TWLOHA event on its calendar for November 20th. I was a little suspicious because it wasn't on the TWLOHA official calendar them, so I posted something about it on a forum and was told (by official folks) that they didn't have an Arkansas events planned. So I dismissed it as a weird mistake on the clubs website. And of course, when my boss called and asked if I could work that night I said yes.)

Back to Wednesday...I was bumming around on the internet and ended up looking at TWLOHA's calendar, and there it was...Little Rock, AR: Purpose for the Pain tour with Between the Trees performing and Rene Yohe, author of Purpose for the Pain, speaking.

I was mad...and sad...and frustrated...disappointed...on top of all the anxiety I was already feeling about work, drama/worrry about insurance stuff, etc etc etc...it was too much. Emotional overload. Although I've been getting better, every day takes so much effort just to stay on this side of the line, to keep trying. Constantly forcing myself to cling to hope left me inable to deal with it, no matter how trivial a little dissappointment may seem.

I couldn't even cry. I sat, squeezing my eyes shut, and just kind of shut down. I lost what tiny piece of hope I had.

So I went to bed. Sleep came and went, but as always, time eases pain and helps one regain a better perspective.

Part 2, "a Thursday I didn't expect," coming soon...maybe...

too much

I don't have much left...

I just have to keep going, but its getting harder. Seriously, enough with complications and frustrations and difficult situations.

I need Him to give me a break...

I need things to be easy...easier at least.

An image and a misunderstanding might be the straw that cut the camel's back.

exactly...

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

-Albert Camus

self-diagnosis?

I'm almost scared to say this, but I think I'm getting better...

I've made it through four days of "real" work and haven't ended up in the ER. Not to say it hasn't been rough, there were periods of extreme distress dispersed throughout the past two weeks, but the amount of time spent in crisis-mode is getting (slowly) smaller.

During one particularly dark time I found myself simply googling "suicide" in search of any hint of light. One site had something that stuck with me, so I went back to it tonight...

Although I'm getting better, I feeling like I'm taking the rugged backroads to get there. According to this article,

Suicidal people meet the formal criteria for PTSD...Many of us are haunted by memories of acute crises, acts of self-injury, or extended periods of severe depression. Like citizens of a besieged city, we lived through periods of time in which we had a realistic and unrelenting fear that we would soon be dead. We suffer PTSD simply from having been suicidal, independently of whatever particular traumas may have contributed to our becoming suicidal, such as abuse during childhood or exposure to the violent death of someone else. Our “suicide PTSD” is also distinct from whatever traumatic events may happen as a result of being suicidal, such as involuntary hospitalization or job discrimination. Undoubtedly, most of us suffered many types of traumatic events in our lives, and these events and their consequences need to be addressed in recovery. But the suicidal crises themselves may be events that induce PTSD.

It goes on to list common conditions of those who suffer this suicidal PTSD, several are more real to me than I'd like:

• Problems with memory.
• Avoidance of things associated with the traumatic experience.
• Persistent anxiety.
• Fear that the traumatic situation will recur.
• A feeling of being powerless over the traumatic event. Anger and frustration over being powerless.
• A feeling of being helpless about one’s current condition.
• Being dramatically and permanently changed by the experience.
• An inability to experience the joys of life.
• Feelings of being alienated from the other people and society in general. “I am different. I am shameful. If they knew what I was like, they would reject me. I don’t belong in this world. I’m a freak, an outcast.”
• When people with PTSD try to return to normal life, they are plagued by readjustment problems in the basic elements of life. They have difficulties in relationships, in employment, and in having families.
• Left with unexpressed rage against those who were indifferent to their situation and who failed to help them.
• In personal relationships there are problems of dependency and trust. A fear of being abandoned, betrayed, let down. A belief that people will be hurtful if given a chance. Feelings of self-hatred and humiliation for being needy, weak, and vulnerable. Alternating between isolation and anxious clinging.
• No sense of having a future, or, the belief that one’s future will be very limited.
• Loss of self-confidence, and loss of feelings of mastery and competence.

A lot of the time I just don't know what to do...I've forgotten how to be a real person. Mentally, I can think of where to go and what to do, but emotionally, its like I'm paralyzed. I lie in bed and try to will myself to do something, anything, but I'm completely overwhelmed so I don't move. Yesterday, when I straightened my hair and put on makeup before work I felt so victorious. Its not overcoming laziness, its prying myself out of death's grip and falling into the realness of reality, where tasks are manageable and time does not stand still.

Today has been a partial success. I was supposed to work until five, so I didn't worry much about this evening and how I'd occupy myself, but they sent me home around two-thirty. I got two quasi-major errands out of the way and finally took care of some stuff online...then I laid in bed for two hours. I spent another two hours telling myself to eat something and plan a laundromat trip...paralyzed...

I want to be normal...I want to be functional, or at least be able to blame my lack of activity on laziness.

This is ugly. Reality/alternate reality is ugly. If you read all this ugliness, you're a rockstar. Excuse me, I have to go be overwhelmed now...

broken

The reality of my life isn't pretty right now, but I sometimes forget how shocking and overwhelming it can be to some people.

When faced with a rather ugly but real piece of my life today, a dear friend left. Like, she got up and physically left my apartment.

I wanted to be mad, but mostly I was just sad. Not really hurt that she left, but sad that this is my reality right now. Normalcy does exist for some people, just not for me. Being able to function and deal with life without intense and extreme emotional responses isn't an option for me. The physical manifestations of the emotional trauma only set me further from real life.

I can't explain why or how they way I feel, and I can't will myself to be/think/feel/do any different. I just need someone to accept me as a broken, malfunctioning mess, and not try to fix me. . . because you can't. I need friends, not healers. Someone to see me as a person to be loved, not fixed.