I Think I Know How To Pretend To Know What I’m Doing (Or Something)

I haven’t been good at keeping up to date on my blog.  Whenever I think about blogging, I get all anxious about it, and I have to stop thinking about it. I don’t know what that’s all about, but today it didn’t bother me so here I am.

Its been so long I can’t remember for sure what was happening last, and I’m too lazy to check on it, so I am going to assume I wrote about what happened last February when I left my shitty pizza job and spent time at the mental crisis unit. Good times.

So. After that. We moved. Out of the basement apartment that always looked dirty, even when clean, and left me terrified of running into a cockroach for the rest of my life, even after we conquered them. The place where the crackheads upstairs stomped around all hours of the night and day.

Our new home is the upstairs of a 4 bedroom house converted into apartments. It has windows on 3 sides, and overlooks the Humber Valley, with the access trail right beside us. Sometimes in the afternoon I open the curtains and let in all that light, which reflects off the shiny parquet flooring and makes me happy to be out of the dungeon still, though we have been here since July 30.

I did a bit of office temping through the summer, and then started a correspondence course to earn my high school diploma (O.S.S.D.). I am almost done the course, and I am registered at Humber College, beginning in January, to start the process of getting a college degree.

I have always felt that I had a lot of barriers to education. I lived too far away. I didn’t have a diploma, and I hated school, so I assumed that an education was for “other people” and went my own way. College has always been the elephant in the room for me, maybe because I was (am?) half-way bright, and I have always wanted more than can be achieved without an education.

I also have a fear of success. I realized that most times that I had the opportunity to succeed in something, I either ran away from it as fast as possible, or I outright sabotaged my efforts. What kind of fucked up person does this, anyway? Sheesh. I really fucking hate myself, sometimes.

Anyway, these are the things I am struggling with. I really hope I can do college. The correspondence course has really helped me to see that if I try a little bit, I can actually make good things happen. I can learn. I can do it. Because I didn’t know I could before.

So now the barriers are almost gone. I’ll have my O.S.S.D. before the year is out, I dealt with all the stupidness that happens when dealing with Financial Aid and O.S.A.P. and have been approved, and I’m accepted into my program and already reserved my seat. I’m even registered for orientation! This is really going to happen. To me.

Its weird to have hope.

Travels Through Hell

Its been way too long since I have updated my blog, so here it goes.

I started a minimum wage job last fall, and was told at the outset that there would be no raises.  Ever.  They just “didn’t do that”.  The owner, who I worked with on day shift, was prone to mood swings and was a very aggressive, confrontational and verbally abusive type of personality.  She was so disorganized that I had to grind my teeth together just to keep from losing it.  As an example, I would work all day from 9-5 at this slave job, check the schedule and see that I am to return at 10 the next morning.  I would come in at 10 and she would have changed the schedule at home during the evening, reschedule me for 9, and then freak out when I was “late”.

I was all set to quit.  I was declining mentally, and having trouble coping.  After the boss would leave, sometimes I was so upset (I held it in the best I could when she was around) I would hyperventilate, barely able to continue but yet having no option but to do otherwise.  I attempted to change shifts so I would not have to work with her so often, and I tried to talk to her about the issue but there were no positive changes.

My last day was horrible.  It was February 3rd, and after completing my shift of her throwing shit around, seething with misdirected rage and behaving like a two year old, I knew I needed to get help.  Immediately.  I was at the point where I would rather jump out into traffic than go back to that hell, and I had the most desirable urge to take myself out of that frustrating equation.  After seeing my walk in clinic doctor, who gave me no assistance, I went to the emergency department and got some help.

As a result of that visit, I spent 2 days in a mental crisis ward.  This was one of my biggest fears:  being admitted to the hospital because of my mental health.  While waiting to be assessed prior to my admittance, I saw other patients waiting in the same lock down area.  I saw a man with tangled long hair, barefoot, and utterly incoherent.  I heard another man being restrained and needled by several staff, yelling and crying.  I locked myself in the washroom and just cried.  I felt like I was on an unavoidable course towards levels of mental illness I had never traversed before, and I was extremely upset.

Eventually, my man, Biff, arrived from work.  The staff gave me Adavan to calm me the fuck down and I settled in to wait for my assessment.

When the social worker came to do the initial assessment, I was shocked.  The sweater she had on was an abomination and was more likely to cause insanity just by looking directly at it than not.  She was overweight, short, donned in the ugly sweater, and completely unsympathetic.  After talking with her, I was ready to leave, because she didn’t understand a thing I was telling her.  But I waited.  Eventually, the Psychiatrist arrived.  Dressed in galoshes and a rumply suit, he could have been one of his patients.  He had a psychiatry resident with him, and the two of them were awesome.  Between the two of them, they convinced me that a hospital stay would be the best thing for me, so I swallowed my fear and did what they suggested.

As a result of this, I have a psychiatrist.  I see the resident that I saw the night I was admitted, and my last time to see him is later this week.  I still have no family doctor, but I have leads so that’s something I guess.  I am also on a waiting list for psychoanalysis and finally am seeing a gynecologist for other fun issues that I am experiencing.  The one medication I was taking has been doubled.  I have a new one as well, and have been taking high doses of Iron to reduce my Anemia.  I am feeling better every day and hope that I don’t suffer any more serious relapses.  I have to watch stress, and especially avoid conformational, angry assholes.

Part 2 is coming.  Eventually.

Blah.

I spent the evening today with a good friend of mine.  We hung out, vaporized a shitload of pot, and played cards.  After she left, I thought it would be a good idea to smoke more pot and listen to 80′s hair bands and metal stuff I really was into back in the day on my iPod.

As fun as that sounds, I’m not so sure that was the best plan.  Not a terrible plan, but I am rather surprised at the emotional reaction to some of these songs.  Its so much more dramatic to me than the mellow Estranged-ness (1:10-in) I had in mind.

But whatever.  I need to get to bed.

Mental Health Update

I have been working my new job for a little over a week now, and I am pooped.  I can audibly hear my back weeping, my toe hurts because I got a rather minor ingrown toenail and had to dig around to file it down, and I keep forgetting to breathe as I sit here to blog.  I think if I blink too long I’ll pass out.  This is problematic.  I desperately need to go to bed so I can function at work tomorrow but its important to me to try and write…something.  Anything.   So I’m going to try!

Regarding BPD: I have decided to make my recovery a priority in a way that I never have before.  After much despair, uncertainty and the pretty major depressive episode that I experienced prior to moving, I really wanted a fresh start in the big city.  I think I have that underway:  I have a job, money is finally starting to flow in my direction, and I am getting a lot more excersize.  Before the move, I purposefully had become very secluded.  Agoraphobics get out more than I did…It wasn’t good for me – I see this now.  As a result, I have been trying to do more, which is hard, because I could spend every moment of my life doing nothing!  I have slowly been reconnecting with friends that I shut out of my life for the couple of years.  I attended a support group dedicated to Bi Polar Disorder, which was enlightening enough to me that I would like to attend again.  I am back to taking my full dosage of meds daily, and I am working my way up to eating more than once a day.I still need to see a doctor, however.  Although the Cipralex (a.k.a Escitalopram) I am on helps me tremendously, I know it isn’t quite…right.  One thing at a time, though.  Its hard for me to keep this in the front of my mind because I tend to ignore the fact that anything is wrong with me the moment that I am feeling better.  I find being Bi Polar is a huge inconvenience to what I want to do with my life, and I don’t know if I’ve fully come to terms with it.  I just don’t want to overwhelm myself with this while I am still trying to adjust to working again, because I know I’ll go back to ignoring it completely until it gets so bad that my life in endangered.  I can predict the abnormal things that I will do and then I attempt to circumvent those events…fuck.  I just lost that thought.  I really need to sleep….but first, in an effort to get used to more positive thinking, I decided to end my posts with three things that I am either thankful for or that just make life better.

1.  Biff.  He is my rock.  He makes me want to be a better person, and he makes me want to be as healthy as I can be so I can be with him in this life as long as possible.

2.  Our bed.  One of the very few new purchases we’ve made together:  its a queen size pillow topped rectangle of comfortableness, a refuge from the cold hard world, and the place to recharge before facing a new day.  We love it so much we named it:  Herman.  No joke.

3.  Kitties!  

Turning Over A New Leave

A number of new things have occurred lately, and as much as I love to bitch and whine about how shitty my life is was, I think I need to take this blog in a new direction.  Or I plan to, anyway…we’ll see how it goes I guess.

I was in a really bad place mentally/emotionally for awhile, and as a result, all my posts were equally as dark.  Its a great creative outlet for me and it helps to keep me out of the ER most of the time, but I’m really not that person.  Well…okay.  I am that person…but I’m not just that person.  I am so much more than what I have chosen to write about up to this point and I think I need to start over.

So…hello to anyone who is out there and has stopped in for a visit.  I’m kind of a downer, but I like cool music and I say random and amusing things from time to time and for once I have more to drink than just water, so you are welcome to come whenevs.  I’m really going to try and be more…well rounded or something.

Also…

I got a new job.  Its a shitty one and I’m overqualified, but it has a lot of really great perks, including free and/or discounted food, zero responsibility and it is in walking distance.  I was terrified that I was going to be too ill to make it happen, but so far so good.  I think the boost in household income and the novelty of leaving the house for an actual purpose has been enough to yank me out of a depressive phase and into what passes as a manic phase for me.  Awesome!

And…

We are moving.  Again.  Same general location (we are really loving our little corner of the city) but somewhere better.  We need to get away from Stompy above us, who stamps around hard enough to rattle the ceiling fixtures all day and all night, every day and every night.  Every single step she takes is way too fucking loud (late at night all I can think about is wood chippers and chainsaws and it stresses me out).  We are not getting anywhere enough sleep and are actively looking…its sad that its only been 39 days since we moved in, but at least this is something we can control.

I have a lot more to talk about, but I’m really tired and need to get to bed so I can lay there and listen to the stomping for a few hours before work happens.

*Fuck.  This ending isn’t very positive, especially after I just said I would be less negative.  I guess I need to practice more.*

This Is Why I’ll Never Embrace Pop

Somewhat Damaged by NIN

So impressed with all you do
Tried so hard to be like you
Flew too high and burnt the wing
Lost my faith in everything

Lick around divine debris
Taste the wealth of hate in me
Shedding skin, succumb defeat
This machine is obsolete

Made the choice to go away
Drank the fountain of decay
Tear a hole exquisite red
Fuck the rest and stab it dead

Broken, bruised, forgotten, sore
Too fucked up to care anymore
Poisoned to my rotten core
Too fucked up to care anymore
Broken, bruised, forgotten, sore
Too fucked up to care anymore
Poisoned to my rotten core
Too fucked up to care anymore

In the back, off the side and far away
Is a place where I hide, where I stay
Tried to say, tried to ask, I needed to
All alone, by myself, where were you?

How could I ever think it funny how
Everything they swore it wouldn’t change, is different now
Just like you would always say, we’ll make it through
Then my head fell apart, and where were you?

How could I ever think it funny how
Everything you swore would never change, is different now
Like you said, you and me, make it through
Didn’t quite, fell apart, where the fuck were you?

“It could be worse. A woman could cut off your penis while you’re sleeping and toss it out the window of a moving car.”

After spending the better part of two days alternating between weeping and barely controllable rage, I am feeling better.  And by “better” I mean “not likely to drink bleach…today”, which is, well, better.  So let me try my first post in almost 3 months again.

My last update was June 9th, and I was adjusting to my new meds, lying to everyone in my life about pretty much everything relevant to my life, and my mother was behaving like a total twat.  We had no income and no clue of how to make our goal of moving to a larger city a reality.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Somehow, the move happened.  It was a terrible event, actually.  Biffs’ family was less than careful with our belongings, and although we don’t have much, and have even less that is actually nice, it felt really disrespectful to watch our shit get wrecked more in one day than we would inflict in a decade of daily use.  His brother brought his new girlfriend along to help, whom I never met and Biff barely knows, and all sorts of awkwardness ensued.  His mom was her usual self: semi helpful and although controlling but nice on the outside, we always wonder whether she has some other agenda.  Once it was over, we discovered we had a cockroach infestation, though it took us a bit to realize what they were, since we never saw one in person before.

Biff got a full time job in a warehouse, and it is very physically demanding.  He loves his job, and seems to view it as a free gym membership.  He started a week before moving day, so he spent the last week living in fleabag motels so he could work while I dealt with the multitudes of things that needed to be dealt with.  That was really hard for us both, but we made it through, moved, got rid of his family, and started our life together in the largest city in Canada. Oh, and we have gotten the roaches under control.

My rant from earlier today is still true:  we are not doing well financially yet, and won’t be until I start working, too.  I got a call from another job agency today and did their stupid online tests to prove that I can use Excel & Word, and can type faster than 12 wpm.  Its for a pretty upscale company, and I’m scared that they will decide I’m too ugly to be a front desk representative for their company.  But at least its something, and hopefully this, or something as good will turn up soon.

I feel like this evenings’ betterness has been coming for awhile.  A person can only handle so much despair, desperation and destitution before bottoming out, and I really hope that I can begin climbing out of this hole…again.  I know that things could be so much worse, and they also can get much better if we hang on to hope and keep trying our best.

“Things could be so much worse”  has crossed our lips a thousand time or more the past few months.  My new mantra.  And its true.  To quote the brilliance of Tyler Durden, “It could be worse. A woman could cut off your penis while you’re sleeping and toss it out the window of a moving car.”  This line of thinking keeps me sane.  It keeps me breathing.  I lost it earlier but now I have it back…I think.
—————-
Now playing: The Pixies : Where Is My Mind (1988)
via FoxyTunes

I’m A Failure At Life, Why Not Be A Failure At Blogging, Too?

Despite my best intentions, my beautiful new WP blog has fallen by the wayside.  I don’t really know what to do about that.  I’ll attempt to do better.

A lot has happened since my last update.  We moved to Toronto into a shitty apartment in an okay neighbourhood.  I don’t like it any better than our okay apartment in the shitty neighbourhood that we just left, but we plan to move again once I am working again.  And yes, I am still unemployed.

I’ve applied to a lot of jobs here, and have had a couple calls, one interview, and possibly another later this week.  Things are looking up, but it still feel so…hopeless.  I just can’t even articulate how bad I feel now.  I worked so hard at getting my recovery back on track, but now I’m borderline suicidal…again.  If I actually cared about myself, I would be really concerned.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad to be here in the city, and Biff is working full time.  We collected welfare for 1.5 months (they sent us $200 a month – yippee) , and thats long over already.  But there isn’t enough money to even eat.  I’ve been taking a half dose of my meds to make them last longer, as we can’t afford more.  Very soon, we won’t even have insurance on my ancient car, so we’ll be driving illegally.  Awesome.

I love my kids and my man more than anything, but if something happened to me, like maybe I was accidentally run down by a TTC bus, it would totally be okay with me.  because I just don’t see how anything will ever get any better.  Not when I’m involved to fuck it up.

Blah.

I guess it has happened again.  Despite my best intentions, I have been unable to be motivated enough to write…again.  I’ve been so unbelievably exhausted and unable to string together any sort of complete thought to put up here, but I hope to get past this SOON.

I still have no employment on the horizon.  I applied for yet another job that I am perfectly qualified for: I have excellent references and a strong resume, yet no one has contacted me.  I really don’t feel like I’m in a place to be working, but I am hoping that if something materializes and I make myself go, the improvement to our quality of life will be substantial enough that it will help me get over this hump.  All I need is an opportunity, but there is just no work to be found.  Biff and I want to move to another city where there appears to be no shortage of work in the job banks.  The problem is that we need work to get the money to move, and it looks like there will be no work for us unless we move.  Welfare may still have to be an option, but so far we have avoided it.  I really hope something changes.

I spoke to my mother twice in the last week, and she has settled down a little bit, so it wasn’t as weird as before.  She has a sofa she wants to give us, and we could really use it, as the old futon is leaning at a 45 degree angle due to the stripped screws that hold it together.  We don’t have access to anyone with a truck, though, and she is getting really intense about when we are going to take it.  She’ll likely take it all personally if we can’t take it, so I imagine things will be all fucked up between us again before June is out.

There is a lot happening in regards to my almost 13 year old daughter as well, but thats a whole other post.  She will be going back to her dads’ on July 1st, and I think that will help me as well.  She has added a lot of stress to our home with her outright refusal to be parented, and it will be better for her to be out of the city.

The new medication seems to be working, but its really still too soon to tell how well yet.  I have to return to the ER to see a doctor and get more meds soon, but the worst of the adjustment period is over.  I hope.

With any luck, things will turn around for the better and I won’t be so useless.

My Covert And Defective Medulla Oblongata

I haven’t even been on my new medication for a week, and I’m already sick of the side effects.  I still am trying to get over this awful cold that is residing in my chest (no Bronchitis thank goodness), so between the side effects, this chest thing, the effects of the OTC cough medicine, being still mentally unwell and this heat wave, I am feeling like 25lbs of shit in a 10lb sack.

In the last few days, I have lied to no less than 7 different people regarding my illness.  Me: “Oh yes, I’m still trying to kick this terrible case of Bronchitis *cough*hack*wheeze*”.  Them: “How did you manage to get Bronchitis at this time of the year?”.  Me: “I don’t know, but I’ve been sick for over a week”.  Then I agree that yes, the antibiotics that I am on really suck, and we commiserate together until I can change the subject.

One of these people is someone I used to work with, and we see each other occasionally for coffee to catch up on old work gossip.  She had a conversation in front of me once with a lady at work about how her son was seeing a girl who was Bi Polar, and they both were adamant about how he needed to get away from “that” ASAP.  I never told my co workers about my personal experience in dealing with BPD then, and I have no intention of doing so now that I only see them a couple times a month at Tim Hortons.

Another one of these people is my own mother.  I had a very weird and disturbing chat with her on the phone, and I’m not entirely sure she bought my Bronchitis story (I suspect she just thinks I’m being a lazy bitch).  She is so unsupportive that it defies belief.  She never once asked me how I was doing or anything remotely personal.  She was bitter, defencive and went out of her way to kill any of my efforts at normal conversation, even though she knows that we are having a hard time financially.  After our awful visit last weekend, I thought it might be nice to give her a call, but I wish I hadn’t.  I have always known that Biff and I are on our own, but right now I am really bummed out about that reality.  I told Biff that I feel like we are on The Truman Show; that everyone is watching every move we make, ready to critique as needed, but not one person will help us.

I am someone who has a rather unique personality.  I am not like the average person in any conceivable way, and I am used to being the outsider, the oddball, the weirdo, the freak.  The only way I can get along with “normal” people is by stifling my true self.  I have to pretend to be someone I’m not in order to be accepted, and as I get older I am less inclined to do that.  Yet I still feel the need to lie so that people don’t know about my mental illness, and I don’t know how to get past that.  It has been my experience that “normal” people have no concept whatsoever of what its like to live with something like BPD, and are very quick to offer their uninformed judgments.  I feel like a homosexual at a Fred Phelps revival every day of my life.

I’m not sure what to do about that.  Its not really any different when I’m having a bad time from when I’m doing okay – its only my perspective that changes.  The people I have to deal with are the same, its me who is so changeable.  Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier.  My current strategy is to outlive everyone I have any obligation to, so I suppose I need to come up with a better plan.  Maybe in the future I can grow some balls and just be truthful, let the cards fall where they may, and be strong enough to handle the aftermath.

That time isn’t now.