Apologies for the lack of updates this year. My life has decided to be all sorts of strange.

First and foremost, I'm in the middle of a divorce. The lesson learned from all of this? If you're a gay man, don't marry a woman. It saves everyone a shit ton of trouble in the end.
I'm moving out of Idaho altogether in a little less than a week. We recently put my granddad in a retirement home, and my aunt and mum have offered me his house for as long as I need it, provided I'm working on my thesis (with plans to graduate in December) and visit him once a week.

A lot of shit is changing, and while I was terrified of all of it a few weeks ago, now I'm just excited to get out of here and start over. Not a lot of people get a chance like this, so I'm going to grab the proverbial bull by the horns and take a chance on myself. If I fail, it's all on me. I won't be able to blame it on anything or anyone else. It's my chance to get my feet back under me, dust myself off, and punch the world in the face.

Here's hoping the next year is better than the last five.

DFTBA, my lovely readers. Thanks for sticking with me.

Musings

It started as a joke, an attempt to make Ho laugh when he was supposed to be super-serious and totally mature. It started with this.

I jokingly called it my spirit animal, said that somewhere inside me, there was a horse with a traffic cone, hoping one day it would wake up and be a unicorn, and that's when it struck me.
I am the traffic horse. I spend most of every day wishing I'll wake up the next day and be someone else, be magically comfortable in my own skin, and it's just not going to happen that way.
I look at myself and see everything I hate, whether it's my masculine hands or my thighs or my own personality, the way I react to things I know pose no threat to me, my own insecurities and fears and dislikes, the fact that I'm pretty sure most of my friends only tolerate me because they don't know how to tell me to go away, and instead of handling any of it in a mature and responsible manner, I shove it aside, hoping everything will be better in the morning, hoping I'll wake up a unicorn and everything will be just fine. The things I like about myself get shoved aside, unimportant, buried under my desire to just be someone else for a change.

I'm never going to just become a unicorn. It's likely I'll never be entirely comfortable in my own skin, whether it's because of my weight or my gender identity and how drastically it differs from the skin I'm in. I'll always laugh at inappropriate times and make jokes people don't understand. My hands will always be large and awkward, and gloves are never going to fit properly. I'll probably never be famous for anything that matters, if I'm famous at all. It's unlikely anyone will ever read anything I write and take from it everything I was trying to say. My friends will probably keep forgetting that I exist from time to time, I'll end up going to a near endless stream of movies by myself, and I'm always going to be afraid of zombies and spiders and being in crowds.
There is nothing wrong with not being a unicorn. There's nothing wrong with not being totally confident every second of every day. It's perfectly alright to have moments when you can't stand the way you look and when you think you've wasted your life trying to be someone you're not, studying something you can't stand, saying something no one has ever stopped to hear.

I am just a horse with a traffic cone on my head. I'm not a unicorn. With any luck, I'll never be one. I'm kidding myself if I think I'll ever fit in with the other unicorns. I fit in just fine with the other traffic horses, though, and maybe, just maybe, I can learn to be amazing at that. I don't need a horn. I don't need popularity or fame. I just need to be me.

More random stuff

I am a smoker.
I mean that quite literally. I smoke on a fairly regular basis. I have off and on for the last seven years or so, and I always seem to pick it back up when I'm unmedicated, stressed, or stuck somewhere in my life that I just don't want to be.
Now, before you get on your soapbox and tell me how horrible cigarettes are for me, trust me, I've heard it all. I spent years on that soapbox. I know all the graphic details of what smoking can do. Remember, please, that the only person who has any say what goes into my body is me. You're allowed to have an opinion, you're allowed to try to convince me to stop, and you're allowed to speak your mind. You are not allowed to judge my worth based on this, just like you shouldn't judge me for my past.
Allow me to be hypocritical for a moment and tell any of you who don't smoke to never, ever start. Ever.

In the months since I picked smoking back up this time around, I haven't had a single panic attack. I've had vague bits of anxiety here and there, but that's normal (or so I'm told). I've been unmedicated in this bout of things since early September, and I'm fully aware I'm using smoking as a crutch. It's something I can directly control. I can't say if I'd still be panic-free right now if I didn't pick up a pack again. I don't know. I can't see diverging timelines.
What I can say is right now, I actually feel pretty ok, even though pretty much anything capable of calming me down long-term has been self-destructive and somehow despite the fact that I haven't had more than three hours of sleep in a single stretch in what's starting to feel like forever.

I've been fighting the urge to just leave everything, get in the car, and drive until I run out of things to see. For the first time in a long time, I just want to chase the unknown, not know where I'll be the next morning, and be utterly and completely free. I want to meet new people and not have them know anything about me unless I directly tell them. I want to see new places and do things I'd never do if I stay here. The wanderlust is just getting stronger the longer I let myself stagnate in this town. I love my friends (most of the time, at least). I have a fantastic husband who puts up with far too much bullshit from me. I'm near my family if anything happens, and I've never wanted much more than that until now.
I don't think anything fantastic will come from running away from my life. It's not like I can afford to live on the road right now, anyway. Maybe some day, if I manage to not totally fail at making my life worth something, I can justify taking a month to just travel and see everything. For now, though, I just wander around a town I know like the back of my hand. It's enough to get me by until I find some new inspiration.

I miss things.

I miss old friends, as well as places I used to haunt on the internet (where I met the majority of those friends). If any of you are reading this, know I miss you, the conversations we had, and knowing that I'd always have someone to talk to, even if it was 4 AM on a weeknight and we both had places to be in a few hours.
I sometimes miss my old life, before everything burst out of me and refused to be a secret any longer. I don't miss how it felt to keep everything inside, but I miss how easy it had become for me to just not talk about it. I miss how it was easy to be around people because I didn't feel the need to talk about everything, and I miss how easy it was to just make up a persona around strangers.
I miss the days when I didn't need to justify my bad habits with excuses like "at least I'm not drunk all the time" or "at least it's not meth".

I can't change what's already happened, but I can sure as hell take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Maybe some day I'll actually believe that.

Why Overachieving is Awesome

For those who don't follow me all over the internet, I'm not dead. I'm just in the middle of National Novel Writing Month.

I've stumbled across haters early on this year, some of them particularly more frightening than others (I'm looking at you, dude who has sent me legitimate hate mail through the USPS. Yeah. The cops know about you, by the way, you creepy motherfucker). This is almost on par with last year, when some people decided the appropriate reaction to "Oh, I can't write that many words in a month" was to tell me to kill myself.
What the actual fuck, you guys.

I have some important things to say in regards to all of you.

• My word goal is not your word goal. I do not expect you to chase the Million. I don't expect *me* to chase the Million. It is not for everyone. I am not trying to invalidate your words, nor am I trying to make you feel bad about not writing more. My goal is in no way whatsoever related to yours. Telling me to write less so you don't feel inadequate is not ok by any standards. Telling me to slow down because I'm writing too fast is not ok. Telling me I should do anything to make you feel better about your goal/pace/wordcount other than asking for encouragement is not fucking ok.
• You have absolutely no right to try to make me feel bad about needing to challenge myself to more than 50k in a month. NaNo is one of the best challenges I get in the year because it makes me churn out those longer stories, the ones that only writing 50k would barely make a dent in the plot.
• You have no right to tell me I don't need the inspiration NaNo provides. If I didn't need the inspiration NaNo gives me, why the fuck do I come back to this every year? If I don't need the inspiration, why am I not published already? Why am I not doing bigger and better things? It's because I need this month just as much as you do. I need a month to forget about everything else in my life and WRITE.
• You have no right to make me feel like less of a human being just because you don't understand why I would want to write more than 50k in 30 days. By extension, you have no right to make ANYONE feel like less of a human being because you don't understand the "why".
• You have no right to try to play off a blatant bit of hatred with a "lol, just kidding". It is hateful, it is hurtful, and we have feelings, too. One negative comment is enough to undo literal hundreds of positive comments from other people. I try very hard to support everyone, whether you manage to write five words or five hundred thousand words. I try hard to not make you feel bad about your word count, and I try hard to not make you feel bad if you're behind your pace goal. Right now, I'm catching up for the 11k behind my pace goal I happen to be, and when you point out that my pace goal is more than you can write in three weeks, express hate, and pass it off with a "just kidding", it fucking hurts. I am legitimately afraid to post in threads other than the two main OA threads because people keep posting "I hate you all lol jk jk" messages. I don't snap back with, "haha, you suck because you only have two thousand words I'm kidding just joking haha it was a joke". If I did, you would be pissed. I should not be afraid to post anywhere. I should not be afraid to ask for help in a genre lounge, or introduce myself to the other 20somethings. I am tired of the thinly-masked hate, I am tired of the blatant hate, I'm tired of the people who think we don't have feelings, and you have no right at all to do this to us.
  
• Your word goal is just as impressive as mine. Writing 50k in a month is an awesome achievement, and I'm not just saying that to make you feel better. Six years ago, if you'd asked me to write 50k in a month, I would've thought you were absolutely fucking insane. We are all overachievers. We're all doing something awesome this month. Just because my wordcount is higher doesn't mean I'm doing any better than you are; I have the exact same struggles to find time, figure out my plot, and make my characters more than two-dimensional.

Now, some of the awesome things about overachieving.

• I have met more insanely awesome people than I ever imagined through the OA thread this year. They're a support community, there when everything falls to shit (which it has several times this month alone), and they never make me feel unwelcome, whether they're aiming for 55k or the Million alongside me.

• I know more people through the OA thread and chat who are genuinely happy when I hit my next goal that it almost (almost) makes up for the people who feel nothing but irrational hatred. I love that we are all cheerleaders for everyone, that we all support each other, and we can have friendly wars with each other and not worry about who wins or is better or any such thing, because we've long since accepted that most of us have different writing speeds and pace goals.
• These people support me no matter what. If I manage to write a single word. or write 70k in a day, or if I finally get to spend a night with my husband, or if I finally get a freaking night off work, my fellow OAers are there to celebrate with me. When my grandfather passed away on Tuesday, the OA thread was the first group of people to know because they understand what it's like to be in the middle of an insane story at an insane pace and not want to write a single fucking word. They're every ounce of inspiration I need exactly when I need it, and they're the comfort I need when I'm wondering just why the hell I do this every year.

I spend more energy than is really healthy or relevant to my actual life cleaning up drama, be it from other OAers (that's right, we're not fucking perfect), the people in my daily life, or the people I'm forced to interact with because they don't understand why I do things the way I do.

I do not have time to answer your questions about my word count. I do not have time to respond to every person who pops up with a "You know you're not supposed to count words written before November, right?" question. I do not have time to deal with you and your distractions from your own novels, and if I could turn off NaNoMail from non-approved people, I would. I don't ask you about your word count, so why the fuck do you think you can ask me about mine? Am I constantly prodding you, asking if those words you have were legitimately written in November?
No.
I'm not.
And even if you had brought some over, would I care?
No.
It's none of my fucking business what you do.
Stop thinking what I do is your business.



Now, for the love of everything that's holy, can we knock it off with the fucking drama and get back to the writing? 

This post left intentionally vague.

Today is an important day for me.
Seven years ago, on October 6, I didn't die.

As a cheesey celebration of that fact, I'm declaring today "Friendly Graffiti Day". I know far too well how much a little bit of kindness can make everything ok, even if it's just long enough to make a terrible decision REALLY obvious.
Join me, if you want. Scrawl nice things on bulletin boards, in bathroom stalls, in random forum comments, on tumblr (when the maintenence is over), wherever someone might need it. Use post-it notes or pens or scratch things with keys.

I love the people I know, and every day I get to spend knowing them is an awesome day.



Also, you.
Right there.
On the internet.

You're an amazing person. You are loved, you deserve the best, and you are beautiful. Never, ever forget that.

NaNoWriMo, general insanity, and working all the time

NaNoWriMo lurks on the horizon, I don't have a plot (or characters), and I am once again seriously considering going for the big Million.
I have a million and one reasons I shouldn't go for it, like my work schedule (six days a week), MLing on my own for the first time, moderating a part of the NaNo forums, my total lack of free time, my lack of anything to write, and yet here I am, trying to convince myself all the reasons I have NOT to do it are better than the one reason I have to do it again.

That reason, you ask?
It's not the glory. It's not to piss off the people who said I couldn't do it last year (and still don't believe I did). It's definitely not the utter lack of sleep, dangerous overcaffeination, and blatant disregard for personal well-being. Writing the Million last year was one of the most ridiculous and fun things I've ever challenged myself to do, and while a large portion of it made very little sense, it did get me writing more than my standard crap genres. That's right. The reason I want to do it again is to make myself write in genres I don't typically touch and have fun doing it.
I know me. If left to my own devices, I'll write the same boring fantasy adventure story with the same boring characters, vaguely disguised as a new and unique plot. Sure, I could go adopt a plot, adopt characters, and run with it, but I would still tell the same story every single time.
That's why. That's why I want to ignore everything screaming at me to not do this, and what part of my brain I'll listen to in the end is still undecided.

Quick little update

Between getting a job (and keeping it) and finishing some sewing commissions, I've once again ignored my blog.

'Letcon 2012 was fantastic, as was getting out of this town for a while. Life (in most aspects) has been good. That's right. Not just ok. Good. Outside isn't as scary, I'm writing again (thanks to Camp NaNo), and I've finally put chords to some of the songs I've been scrawling in random notebooks all year.

Also, I'm part of this video blog with my fellow 'Lets (although not all of us are vlogging). I promise I'm more timely about my vlogs than I am about this blog.

Still not ok.

Things haven't been anything close to ok in a long time. I'm honestly forgetting what it feels like to be ok.

While recent events should make me feel less ok, they're honestly making me feel better in my own little way.

So here it is.

I know I'm a tremendously vain, self-centered, and selfish person. There's no denying that. I need a lot of attention. I tend to ignore people because my spotlight NEEDS the attention. Blame my childhood. Blame my adulthood. Blame my general terror about life in general. Make sure you blame me, though. Admitting all of this won't make it instantly ok, especially if I've been snubbing you lately.
I'm sorry, by the way, if I have. Apologizing now probably doesn't do much to help. From here on, though, call me on it. Tell me I'm overdoing it, or that I need to back off/cool down. Tell me that you need attention, too. Be mean. Be nice. Be whatever you think I deserve. Make me feel things. Slap me, if you want. Don't be afraid of what might happen.

My life is in the middle of a few Big Changes. If you can't support that I'm trying to be a better person, you know where the door is. It'll be easier for all of us if you use it now. I won't run damage control, I won't try to fix everything. I'll miss you, sure, because I trusted you enough to be myself, but I won't blame you. I'll be a bit jealous. Most days, I wish I could walk out the door and leave me behind.

A couple months ago, someone I tried way too hard to be friends with after a misunderstanding turned into a full-blown "I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU NO MORE" fight (lacking only the Frenchmen to throw cows and taunts around) informed me that I've changed, and that I wasn't the person she loved when we first met. It's true, in many ways, that I'm not the same person I was when any of us met. It hurt because she was half the reason I made any progress in my head at all. She was one of the few people who was there when the story came spilling out. For lack of better terms, it sucked. Our entire reconciliation was strained and for the sake of a mutual friend. The whole thing was a mistake, but at least she had the balls to walk out when she realised it. I would've sat forever, afraid to say anything.




And then there's the rest of me. The part of me that will want to just stop and sob hysterically over losing you. The part that will be furious about me using poor sentence structures when I try to rationalise this all in my head.
I'm going to be upset. Losing friends sucks, especially when I was comfortable enough to not hide behind the walls I've always hidden behind. In the end, though, it's like being dumped by the person you thought was 'The One'. It sucks. I'll cry like an idiot. I'll pretend I'm perfectly fine with you leaving, then I'll post an angry blog/facebook message/send a few angry texts. Eventually, though, I'll get over it and move on with my life.


Losing anyone you care about is not pleasant, but honestly, I'd rather it happens now. I stand by what I said. If you can't support me, you're not my friend. It's not worth the effort on either of our parts to try to fix it. If the trust isn't there, it won't be there again.

I am not ok.

In regards to silly fears

My fear of zombies is fairly well known. It remains to this day one of the few things that will trigger panic-filled episodes just by me thinking about it, and I'm not talking deep contemplation here. I'm talking that fleeting thought, much like 'Oh, did I leave the gas on? No, I'm a fucking SQUIRREL!' (I shall refrain from more references people don't get.)
I've known this whole time that zombies have made me unbearably anxious (which is roughly the last eight years of my life) that it's an unlikely, at best, scenario. I'm well aware that it's silly to let myself panic over this. The other day, I realized something (on my way to get a massage during a thunderstorm, which triggered two other major anxieties, but that's a different story).

Years ago, my brother was obsessed with the supposed alien invasion that was going to happen on January 1, 2000. The winter of 1996, when my parents were just starting the divorce paperwork, my mum, my brother, and I went to stay with my grandfather over Christmas break. We went to see Mars Attacks!, which was very much not a scary movie, but I was on the verge of my ninth birthday and it was TERRIFYING. My brother did pretty much nothing but make fun of me for it and as his obsession with aliens grew, so did my terror.
As I grew up (and as January 1, 2000 passed without an invasion), I got a few laughs in at my expense. Let's face it. If other life exists in this universe (which I firmly believe is true), I sincerely doubt they're just going to invade because they can. The nightmares disappeared, as did my fear. It was a full ten years after I first saw Mars Attacks! that I was actually able to watch it and realise it's freaking HILARIOUS. Of course, by this point, zombies had moved into the part of my brain aliens used to inhabit.

It's not just me. My brother, after seeing the first Jurassic Park, decided cloned dinosaurs would be the death of us all, while I decided for the second time that I wanted to be a t-rex when I grew up. It's a ridiculous fear. We both recognize it now. Back in 1993, though, dinosaurs running amok just happened to be the scariest thing my brother could imagine. In 1996, aliens became mine, and in 2004, zombies took over for aliens. I'm terrified of being outside at night, I can't stand being in crowds, thunderstorms occasionally (but not always) launch me into panic attacks, and I can't let a passing thought of zombies cross my mind without feeling my chest tighten and my heart beat faster. Even here, just talking about my fear of zombies, I'm telling myself that the panic is completely unnecessary. My brother copes with his fears by laughing at them, but he's afraid of salamanders, spiders, and cloned dinosaurs. Spiders are easy to smash. His wife can move salamanders should they ever find one. Cloned dinosaurs? Unlikely, at best. His life has been free of velociraptor attacks since 1985.
Mine are a little harder to laugh at than his. I can avoid going outside at night, I stay away from large crowds (especially in places I'm not entirely familiar with), and I avoid reading and watching things that involve zombies. If a thunderstorm rolls in, I find my flashlight, make a cup of tea, and read a book until it blows over.
There are some things I won't get to enjoy to the same extent as other people, like zombie walks (and the local zombie carnival), even though I'm pretty damn good at doing zombie stage makeup. Zombies have become so prevalent in today's culture that it's hard to avoid them. That little bit of doubt I've convinced myself exists, the bit of doubt that says humans are totally capable of making this happen may have some truth. That doesn't make zombies any more likely. I know this, and I'm not going to let a panic attack grip me and run every time I accidentally let a zombie thought shamble across my mind.


I'm not saying I'm going to go watch a bunch of zombie movies and read ALL the apocalyptic novels. That's still asking too much. I am, however, saying this.
Zombies, you've held my heart and mind in terror for far too long. Some weird shit happens on this planet and it has been for years. It'll keep happening long after I'm gone. "OMFG ZOMBIES!" is not a rational reaction. Twelve years ago, I would've blamed it on aliens. I'm terrified of zombies, true, but I'm not going to let it control my life. I'm not going to hide inside, terrified of every noise I hear through a window, terrified of every movement I catch through the curtains over this. Letting fear control my life hasn't given me a very fulfilling life so far. Spending three weeks unable to go outside, even to check the mail or get something from the car, is not ok. If zombies are going to happen, I can worry about it then and only then.

'Vagina' is not a dirty word

It's true that most of the time I don't identify as a woman, but it is also true that I don't identify as a man.
Recently, a Michigan state representative was thrown out and barred from speaking in a debate about abortion for saying the word 'vagina'. The abortion debate itself is neither here nor there; I acknowledge that it is a highly sensitive subject. I will not force my beliefs down your throat, and I ask you do the same. In exchange, though, I ask that you at least listen. I will do the same for you.

My issue with this matter lies in the fact that 'vagina' is not a dirty word. It should not be found offensive, nor should saying it be punishable.

If you would like to do a bit of reading yourself, here's a couple links. If you find others, including links from the other side of this whole argument, please link me to them.
I've heard the argument all morning (mostly from following Maureen Johnson on twitter) that she was "baiting" the men in the room. I agree with Maureen on several points. If we're not allowed to call it a vagina, what the hell are we supposed to call it? As Representative Brown said, "If I can't say the word vagina, why are we legislating vaginas? What language should I use?"

I have a vagina. No one has any right to tell me what I am and am not allowed to do with my vagina but me. Who I choose to have sex with is not the law's business, nor is my right to birth control, my right to equal health care, and my right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. This last statement does depend upon when you believe life begins, and this is not something I wish to go into at the moment. This issue is not black and white. Believing that there are EXACTLY two sides to any issue is close-minded and foolish.


When I was seventeen, I was raped. I've told very few people about it (and even that didn't happen for several years after the fact), but it's slowly becoming something I cannot keep quiet. In the aftermath, I very nearly killed myself. Had the resulting pregnancy not ended in miscarriage, I don't know if I would have gone through with it or not. Access to birth control was extremely limited in my home town, thanks to the highly conservative population.
Two years later, in the middle of an abusive relationship, I made the choice to not bring a child into the world. Again, I told no one for years after the fact. I was not in the place physically, emotionally, or mentally to care for a kid, and carrying a pregnancy to full term would have been dangerous in more ways than one.


Thanks to a medley of medical problems (both physical and mental), it is my choice to not have children (although I reserve the right to change my mind as it is my body, and I alone may make that decision). Before you wonder why, take into consideration the likelihood of passing on bipolar disorder and any number of other potentially hereditary mental illnesses that have cropped up in my family. Any spawn of mine is likely to be just as messed up as I am, and while I can tell myself I would be a GOOD parent, I have no way of guaranteeing that. The thought of putting someone else through what I've been through is terrifying, and there are loads of children in this nation's broken foster care system who could use a home. It seems selfish to insist on passing on my defective genetic material while denying someone else a home.


You have the right to an opinion on all matters, but so do I. If I disagree with you, that's fine. The second you try to take away my right to an opinion just because I disagree, we have a serious problem.
My vagina is angry. It's angry because people who do not have vaginas are attempting to tell me what I can do with mine. It's angry because people still try to make me feel ashamed for making a decision about my own health and well-being. It's angry because I have a voice, damn it, and I will not be silenced.

Mixed States

After a strange and frankly almost terrifying evening spent awake on my couch, scrawling out as many words as I could convince my brain to write, I met my therapist for an 'emergency' session early this morning.

Last night, my head was a scary place to be. I've been so blatantly Red, so on top of the world, practically indestructible, that last night nearly took me down. Many, many thanks to the people who stayed up with me over the internet just to make sure I wouldn't do anything stupid.

I'm fairly certain I've never experienced a mixed episode quite like last night. I've never felt so utterly broken, so useless and ready to die. After making sure the sharp things were hidden, I resigned myself to staying awake. My mind is still racing, mostly back into the Red, but just the fact that my mixed states combine the energy with suicidal ideation and completely remove my mental filter reminding me suicide is not an acceptable answer is frightening. I've learned over the years to anticipate the Red and the Black, but the mixed states are damn near impossible to notice until they're here in all their terrifying glory. If Red and Black are a rollercoaster, mixed states are being stuck upside down in the middle of a loop, yelling and screaming at yourself for getting on the damn ride in the first place.

No, I am not ok. I know I will BE ok, though. Just give me some time. I'm not going to act on the things my mind suggests to me, no matter how tempting they may be. I'm on this rollercoaster until the end, and I'm not about to get off it before I see where it goes.

Small victories

Yesterday, I managed to get myself outside.

From a little after 1 AM to now, I have been on my couch, which is the closest I will be to outside after dark.

I think these drugs are helping, if they aren't making things perfect. I'll take what I can get at this point. 

Also, you shall have to forgive me, Blogger changed the layout of things and my font sizes don't show up on the page the way they do in the previews. Complain at me if I make a change that's too hard to read, by all means. 

Between the release of Diablo III and my random anxiety attacks, I haven't left home in almost a week.

My doctor prescribed a new anti-anxiety drug for me (and it's not the "in case of panic attack" sort, it's the "take this every day and you'll feel normal again" sort), so we'll just have to see how it works out. I am notoriously bad with daily pills, and I've had some stupid reactions to medications I've been on before.

I don't WANT to be medicated. There's a part of me that is damn proud of my own ability to cope with my lack of sanity without pills, but it's at the point that I cannot function if I do not do something. The rest of me just wants HELP.

Now I just have to conquer my own shameful feelings about needing help.

Stuff

I am clearly not adult enough to update my own blog more than once every seventeen years.
That's fine, though. I can handle my own lack of maturity. I've been handling that for the better part of my life, after all.

A close friend of mine died last night. It's so weird to SAY that. I've been fighting the fact that he's gone all night, all morning, right up until now. He was never past tense to me, and he still isn't. Perhaps I'll cope with it better after the funeral. Perhaps not. Regardless, he's still an unbelievably important person in my life, and that will never change. I refuse to accept that death is just the end of all things. I don't believe in an afterlife. Death is just the end of the physical being. It can never take away my memories.

I've been so mad at myself for feeling as close to normal as I've felt in years, mad because what right do I have to be ok? One of the best people I've known is gone. How dare I?
He would be so mad at me now if he could see how I've been beating myself up over something this silly again. This has to stop. All this self-torment, all this negative self-talk. It has to end NOW.
And that, right there, is why I'm going to go right on being ok. Whether or not I have the right to be ok at this point in my life is a battle for a different day. I am, for once, in the middle, stable, not in danger of falling off the tracks.

And you know what?
It feels pretty fucking fantastic.



Song of the day:
Beautiful Gas Mask - The Mountain Goats

Important Things

It seems a lot of people don't understand my hatred of Valentine's day.
I was told distressingly often yesterday that I am MARRIED now. I MUST celebrate V-day. I MUST make it special.

Now, I'm not going to be all hipster about it, even though I do agree that it's a holiday made to make people spend money. I'm not going to sit here, insulting everyone who celebrates it.

I hate Valentine's Day because it alienates people. I remember what it's like to be single on V-day, which a lot of people seem to forget the minute they start dating someone. Hell, I haven't spent V-day single since I was SEVENTEEN, but I still remember that it sucked.
Aren't we supposed to celebrate unity and love our fellow humans? Doesn't it seem a little silly to spend a specific DAY lavishing all your love upon a person? If Valentine's Day is the only day you're showing love to your significant other (or your friends), then YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. Every day is a day to show your love to the people around you. Whether you have an Other or not, V-day should not make you feel like shit. It should not make you desperate. It should not make you lonely.

Yesterday, I celebrated "I don't have VD" day. I actually got some Uni officials interested in it (as well as our Planned Parenthood rep and the Women's Center), and I think next year we're going to have a booth to help spread awareness about STDs and other such things. This year, I just had a few friends wandering around with thrown-together pamphlets and free condoms. 'Twas fun, despite the weird looks we got.

So, what do you celebrate? Are you a fan of Singles Awareness Day? VD Day? Or, are you convinced you have reasons Valentine's is worth celebrating?
Why?

Dear You

Dear You:

You told me this would be ok. You told me we could be friends, that you'd stop waiting for my relationships to fail just so you can rush out of the wings to whisk me off my feet. You're trying. I can see that. I can try to understand, if nothing else, how strange it is to force ten years of these feelings back under the rug. Neither of us was ever really remotely decent at handling them. We're still horrible at it. That's why I blog about them, write you letters you'll never read because I never have the figurative balls to send them, and you keep it all bottled up inside.
It's probably why we never dated. Can you imagine that? It probably would have ended in disaster. I don't think we were ever meant to be more than besties, and it's totally fine with me.
It was fantastic talking to you again, face-to-face, after seven years of just the occasional email, a phone call or two, plans to meet up that were cancelled last-minute. I'm glad we took the time to meet up for coffee, even though I think we were both a bit scared of what we'd talk about, what we'd do, if we'd end up yelling at each other, or if I'd slap you and walk out again, like I did so many years ago. We're nervous, still, about how this will play out. Afraid of what our next move will be, utterly terrified of confronting whatever feelings we may have had for each other, feelings you still have, feelings I tried to ignore for so long that they changed into something else, something desperate and lonely, stuck in the dark, something that just wants a friend back.
We're a lot alike in a lot of ways. I'm not talking about things like our combined undying love of Final Fantasy VIII, or the random YuGiOh card games we had during lunch, the day I beat that boss you'd been stuck on for weeks, or even when you taught me the Pokémon card game just to have me beat you in a tournament mere weeks later. It's more than that. We always seemed like such a perfect match because we understand what it's like to be forgotten, the quiet one, the gamer, the nerd, the outcast, the social leper, ignored by friends and family and teachers.
It's foolish for me to expect you to just drop everything you've felt for ten years because I can't handle it. It's foolish for you to expect me to feel the same way. I haven't exactly treated you well, but you haven't been particularly good, either. We're letting what we didn't have, what we almost had, define how we treat each other, when we should focus on what we DO have, the things we've had this entire time.
Maybe we should start over.

Hi. I'm me. It's nice to meet you, all over again.
I'm cynical, stubborn, and hard to get along with. I'll argue grammar with you and kick your ass in Scrabble any day of the week. I hate admitting defeat, I'll never stop fighting for what I believe is right, and I will defend you to the end of my days. If you need me, I'll drop everything and make sure you're ok, or that you'll be ok.

Who are you?

Letters, and other things

So, I've developed this habit - call it what you will - of writing letters to people I doubt will ever read them. They're usually to past whatevers, exes, friends I've lost contact with, and people I see every day but can't manage to say what I want to say.

It's calming in a lot of ways to get the words written, especially if you're like me and you have a much simpler time writing how you feel than speaking it. I like to think I come off considerably more eloquent on paper. Even if writing is hard for you, it's worth a shot. No one ever has to read it, not unless you thrust it in their faces and say, "HERE! I WROTE THIS!"

Whiiiiich is what I'm going to do now.
I've come pretty far since I started this blog up in June. While I'm still batshit crazy, I've managed to put a few old demons to rest. Writing has always been a way for me to take a step back and see things from a different angle. As a good friend keeps insisting, "It takes courage to step back, because you never know if there will be ground to stand on."

First, the not-so-hard one, from several months back. (May 7 '11, if you must know).

Dear Ex With a Capital E:
I've been over what I'd say to you if you ever made the mistake of coming near me again a million times in my head. Granted, the chance of this happening is slim, considering the restraining order I have on you. I have this tendency to run situations over and over again in my mind, which you would know had you ever actually paid attention to me.
Of all the things I want to say, I have one thing that wants to be said more than anything.
Thank you, you pompous, arrogant asshole, for never being physically abusive. Sure, you were a total jerk. You fucked around with my head more than I'm really ready to admit. I'm not trying to say "Oh, sure, you were an emotionally abusive fucktard but at least you never hit me." I'm trying to say that if you ever HAD, I probably would never have found the courage to stand up to you. So thank you. Thank you for making me realize I'm worth more than you'll ever be, and thank you for making me into a stronger person. Thank you for staying out of the lives of my friends. Thank you for disowning your little brother for being gay, as he's the best friend I have in the world and I wouldn't have him if you hadn't been such an ass to him, too.
Now that I have that out of the way, there are a couple more things I want to say.
Part of me is absurdly proud of the way I handled you trying to break into MY apartment (NOT YOURS). The rest of me would feel bad if you hadn't deserved it so fully. I revoked your right to a name, and it made it that much easier to get over you.
Notice what's going on here? No, of course not. You couldn't pay attention to me unless I was doing something wrong, so why would you notice now? This is me, putting you in the past where you belong. My life is so much better without you fucking around in it, and yet I STILL find myself hoping you'll find a way to be happy with someone. Even though you REALLY fucked me up, I learned a few really important things from you.
So, Ex, I have no more regrets. You were one of the more painful chapters, but what's done is done, and I wouldn't go back and change it if I had the means. A story without heartache and tragedy isn't much of a story. There's more I would like to say, but none of it needs to be said. I won't say it was nice knowing you. It wasn't. There's nothing left to talk about, and I don't want your apologies. If by any chance you ever read this letter, know I'll never look back fondly on any of our memories, but I'm a better person now than I ever was then.

Sincerely,
Me

Now, a not-quite-as-easy, but still pretty easy one. Written just a couple days later (May 9 '11).

You:
I don't have a name for you yet. You didn't really hurt me in the way the others did. You were pretty much my best friend for a really long time, and while we never dated, we both WANTED to. But we never sucked it up and took that step.
I'll admit it. There are days when I DO wonder what life would be like, had I actually had the balls to move past being your best friend. Six years is a long time to think about that, though. There's something you should know, and even though I've told you this all to your face, you seem to have missed the point.
If I'm ever single again, I won't get in touch with you. Not the way you want, at least. Whatever we had together was over years ago. MAYBE we could have been something special, but we were never willing to commit to it. Whatever could have been is NOT. It never happened, and it never will. I miss being your friend. I miss when you were happy for me, regardless of who I was with. I miss when you and I could sit down and talk about anything. Those days are gone, though, because you can't seem to grasp this simple concept.
I am HAPPY now. I'm happier than I've ever been. Fiance makes me happy. He keeps me happy. He has never made me feel awful about myself the way the Others did. He games with me, he tries (and fails) to kick my ass at Scrabble. I would like to be your friend, but that's all I can offer you. I want you to be happy, too. I want you to move on from me because you've wasted the last six years waiting for me to want you, and I never will. Please, if you actually care about me at all, move on. Find someone who makes you as happy as you think I would. I want nothing for you but the best, the brightest, the nerdiest, and I CANNOT BE HER. I'm sorry. I wish I could make you as happy as Fiance has made me.
Please move on. Please find someone who will love you as much as I do, but in the way you're looking for. Please find someone who will treat you as well as you deserve, someone who won't hide like I did, someone who can accept you EXACTLY the way you are and love you all the same. Please, just be happy. You deserve to be happy. You really do, whether or not you believe it. You deserve all the things I can never give you, and someone who will love you as more than just a best friend.
I want my best friend back. I want it more than anything. Until you get over me, though, that can't happen. So, for both our sakes, please find your way to be happy again. Please. I don't ask a lot from you, and maybe this is the biggest thing I've ever wanted, but it's all I want. I want you to be happy.
I won't wait around for you, like you have been for me. I owe it to you to be happy, too. If nothing else, be happy for me. I've found everything you couldn't give me, and I'm not letting it go.

Good luck.
Me

And here's last night's, which made me realize that I am going to be JUST FINE.

Dear Ex With a Capital E:

Y'know, normally, had I literally run into you in the grocery store, I would have backed up and run you over with the cart a second time. Maybe a third. I had all these things I wanted to say to you, and they all flew out the window. You looked so vulnerable.
I never expected you to talk, though. The double-take almost made me laugh, when you finally realized that yes, I'm still me, I just don't weigh as much as I ever did with you. It was nice having an almost civil conversation with you. For the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of you. I didn't try to run away, or bury my feelings under everything I could possibly find.
I'm glad you're in therapy. I'm glad you're trying to make things right with people, especially me and your little brother. Hell, I'm glad he linked you to the one thing I thought you'd never read. I'm glad you read it.
But.
I can understand why you want to be my friend. After all, you always did latch onto people who were stronger than you. Who am I to blame you for wanting to be around your betters? I hold by what I said, though. I would rather shoot myself in the eye than be your friend. I'm not angry anymore, even though a lot of people think it would be perfectly justified. You can want my forgiveness all you want, but you'll never get it. I don't hate you. I almost pity you. You never deserved me, and I never deserved how you treated me.
I was a bit surprised that you weren't angry. I almost expected you to hit me, right there, in the middle of the cereal aisle.
But you didn't. I guess you really are seeking help.
It's been almost four years. Thanks for giving me that last little bit of closure I needed. Don't get me wrong, I'm fucking glad I never have to deal with you again. Good for you, though. Good for you for finally getting yourself the help you've needed for so long.

With kind(er) regards,
Me

The point of all this, you ask?
When you can't understand what's going on in your head, take a break. Breathe. Start at the beginning, the first thing you know, and get it out. Keep picking at it, until the sweater unravels and there's nothing left to say. If it doesn't help you figure out what to do next, it might at least give you some idea of how you feel about where you are.
I'm not so worried about the ground behind me. Even if there's nothing, I know I have friends and family who will catch me when I fall, who will shove me back onto that steady footing. Moving forward has always been harder for me. I'm eternally willing to stagnate, not healing, not regressing, not doing anything. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what's coming, afraid of what I'll do if life bites me in the ass again. I'm afraid of moving forward, and I know there's nothing for me in moving back. The past belongs back there. There's no use in reliving it. The future, though, is anything and everything, whatever I choose to make of it. I don't move forward, step forth into the world, because the sheer terror of messing up keeps me here, butting heads with everything, eternally chasing the king around the chessboard.
Even if you can't take the step back, you have to know when to stop trying to step forward, and you must know when the stalemate needs to be broken. Trust yourself. Know yourself. Believe in yourself.
That's really all you need.

What Bipolar Disorder Is Not

So. It's come to my attention that people who should really know better don't know what is and is not bipolar. Here's a handy little guide for you, then.

BIPOLAR DISORDER IS NOT

• why I'm pissed at you. I'm pissed at you because you do stupid shit, then blame me getting angry on "bipolar disorder". There's a pretty big difference between justifiably angry and "bipolar".
  
• an excuse for mood swings. Mood swings happen for a number of other reasons. You get over them. Mood swings are entirely normal. Just because you were happy ten minutes ago and are sad now does NOT MEAN you have bipolar disorder.
• "just depression".
  
• "kick-ass". It's not kick-ass. It's a mental disorder.

BIPOLAR DISORDER IS

• severe changes in mood, affecting one's ability to perform every day tasks. Get it? SEVERE. Bipolar disorder gets in the way of you functioning as a human being. There are also "mixed state" episodes, but that's a story for a different day.

BIPOLAR DISORDER COMES IN DIFFERENT FORMS

Lifted straight from the National Institute of Mental Health's website, there are different sorts of bipolar disorder.

Bipolar I Disorder is mainly defined by manic or mixed episodes that last at least seven days, or by manic symptoms that are so severe that the person needs immediate hospital care. Usually, the person also has depressive episodes, typically lasting at least two weeks. The symptoms of mania or depression must be a major change from the person's normal behavior.

Bipolar II Disorder is defined by a pattern of depressive episodes shifting back and forth with hypomanic episodes, but no full-blown manic or mixed episodes.

Bipolar Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (BP-NOS) is diagnosed when a person has symptoms of the illness that do not meet diagnostic criteria for either bipolar I or II. The symptoms may not last long enough, or the person may have too few symptoms, to be diagnosed with bipolar I or II. However, the symptoms are clearly out of the person's normal range of behavior.

Cyclothymic Disorder, or Cyclothymia, is a mild form of bipolar disorder. People who have cyclothymia have episodes of hypomania that shift back and forth with mild depression for at least two years. However, the symptoms do not meet the diagnostic requirements for any other type of bipolar disorder.

Now that we've covered that, there are also Rapid Cycle forms, which include what I have. They're irritatingly vague in description. Rapid cycle entails four or more mood episodes per year. This can be anything from an episode every two or three months to multiple episodes per day. Some people will call the extreme rapid cycles (daily/multiple per day) Ultradian Bipolar Disorder. (Ultradian cycles are contained within a 24-hour period - the circadian rhythm.) Interestingly, studies are showing that women are more likely than men to have rapid cycle forms, and those who had their first mood episodes in their teens are more likely to have a rapid cycle than those who didn't have an episode until later in life.

Mood episode? What the fuck does that mean?

Alrighty. This one's simple. It's an episode of an 'unbalanced' feeling, involving depression, mania, hypomania, or any combined elements thereof.

LIES PEOPLE BELIEVE

Bipolar disorder is different from manic-depressive disorder. No. They're the same thing. The latter is simply an older name.

Bipolar disorder is not a mental illness. It is.

Bipolar disorder doesn't exist. Hate to tell you, toots, but it does. I'm not making shit up.

There's only extreme mania and depression, nothing else. Alrighty. Bipolar II covers most of this. There's hypomania, a less severe form of mania, lacking the full-blown grandiosity and psychotic tendencies of mania. Hypomanic people tend to function better, as well. On the other end of the spectrum, we're not all slitting our wrists because we're SO DEPRESSED. Moderate depression is just fine, too.

People with bipolar disorder are abuse victims. JUST NO.

A bipolar person cannot function in a normal job. Not always true. Some people may have genuine trouble functioning. It goes with the territory. With a proper diagnosis and treatment, though, they should be entirely functional.

OTHER SHIT WORTH NOTING

Bipolar disorder tends to run in families. This is particularly fun when your family unit is like mine, and there's mental illness on both sides. This is how my brother ended up with a tendency toward horrible depression and I ended up with the bipolarcoaster.
Certain other 'problems', we shall say, tend to co-exist (or occur) with bipolar disorder. OCD is right up there (co-occurence has been linked to genetics, as well), along with a plethora of anxiety disorders and social phobias, ADHD, and various forms of substance abuse. Those with bipolar disorder tend to be more at risk for other health problems (which can trigger mood episodes), including thyroid problems, diabetes, and migraine headaches.

Not all people with bipolar disorder are medicated. Personally, I'm not. I've been on practically every drug they make that might possibly level me out. The ones that actually do make me feel nothing - no happy, no sad - and that's worse to me than the cycles. There was one that worked wonderfully, did everything it was supposed to... and then I had an allergic reaction and had to stop.
There are other forms of treatment. My doctor prescribed me birth control (I am biologically a woman, for those who are new) in the hopes that regulating my hormones might help keep things manageable. Granted, it doesn't help that I also have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and don't want babies. Birth control has been a steady part of my life for five years. Most "standard" medications interact poorly with birth control. While I haven't noticed any changes to the crazy, I am less worried about other parts of my life, which helps reduce triggers.
I know several people who are completely unmedicated and rely on good friends/family members to keep them in check when the coaster hits them hard. Some see therapists, others don't. It's a matter of personal preference.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle! G. I. JOOOOE!