Still alive? Yep, yep, appears so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is all. ^.^

Meh.

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

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

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

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

Got crush?

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

YAY OBAMAAAA!!!! XD

The allure of the crazy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE.

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

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

Hooray! For... stuff.

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

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

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

--CRYSTAL HAS A JOBBBBB. JUST HIRED TODAAAYYY.

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

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