The First Fight

Because something this dark had to be documented….

You know how it’s been.  With me, on the meds.  How many times have I said I’m a different person?  How many instances have I pointed out of The Mormon trying to get me to talk to him, and I couldn’t say anything because nothing came to mind except death?  That isn’t me.

For that reason, I refuse to consider anything that happens before I am off the medication and back to normal a fight.  I don’t want to be unfair, but I really do want to see just how long we can go without having one, and if I am not me, then somebody else is fighting with my fiance about things and in ways that the real me never would have.  Make sense?  It makes sense to me, and I’m the only one who matters in this case; I don’t care what anyone else says.

But based on what happened the other day, I have a feeling that fighting with us will be rare, and it will be dirty and epic and frightening when it does occur.

I was in one of those moods.  In particular, besides the usual, there was also the fact that I would be having a bit of skin cut off the following day and would have to stop working out for a while, and that someone had honked at me on my way home.  (It wasn’t my fault; I was waiting for another car to go by before I turned into traffic.  The car behind me was just being a dick.  So I responded by flicking them off, yelling, and revving my engine frighteningly as I sped off angrily.)  But I was still angry about that when I got on the phone with The Mormon, and I was sulking about medication and the surgery, and I stopped talking like so many other times, and then I told him exactly what was on my mind, and he got really frustrated and saw that he wasn’t making a dent on my stupor, and finally he said, “I’ll call you later” and hung up on me!

At first I wasn’t even hurt by it.  I was actually satisfied that I had pissed someone else off about as much as I was.  But then when I knew his class was over, and had been for about 45 minutes, I got concerned that he wasn’t calling me back.  I wondered how long to wait before maybe calling him back.  I finally decided I was too proud to call him back when he had hung up on me in the first place.  But I knew I had to leave my mark.

So I left him the most evil text message–in fact, one of the most evil things I’ve ever said ever.  My poor love.  I felt horrible afterward.

I texted, “That’s a great way to leave your mentally ill fiance.  You could have at least said you loved me before hanging up on me.”  Because in a way, yeah, it had angered me and upset me.

The phone rang immediately thereafter.  I gave it a couple rings as I tried to decide whether to answer it or not.  And finally I picked it up and said, “What?”

He was very quiet and serious, and I calmed down after a minute because he had called me back, and I apologized, but he did not.  He was sorry for hanging up on me, but not for being so frustrated with me, because as he explained, I need to do something to handle all of this.  If that’s talking to a counselor, or going off the medication altogether, or just dealing with it until it was over–something.  It’s my responsibility to deal with it.

We ran out of time and I went to work, unsatisfied and still incredibly sorry for what I’d said to him.  He had said he would probably come to see me at my dinner break, and I was waiting impatiently for that moment so I could go and apologize to him and hold him and whatnot.  And at 7:30, he appeared, and I did just that, and I teared up a bit, but I don’t remember if he noticed that or not.  He got dinner and went to sit and wait for me.  I thought things were better.

But when I went to sit down with him, he wasn’t sitting with the group like usual–he was at a two-seat table.  This led me to believe that something was still wrong.  And it was.  Dinner was awkward.  I kept looking at him funny because I wasn’t sure how to look.  How can you apologize for saying something like that?

When we both finished eating, I moved my chair around so I could speak to him quietly, and again I apologized for the horrible thing I had said.

He was frightening.  I’d never seen him so solemn and quiet and frigid, and had certainly never expected to see him react to me that way.  And then he gave me a speech.  I sat and listened to it silently until the end.  He said things like, “This is not a relationship” and “I felt like I was sitting across from a stranger just now–I really didn’t even want to come out here tonight” and “I don’t know who you are these days–you’re not the same girl I proposed to or asked out to begin with” and “If this keeps up, I’m going to leave–I’ll get out now because this is not a relationship.”

These were some of the most frightening things that had ever been said to me, ever.  Most of them were repeated a number of times.  He had obviously been thinking about this all day.  All day while I was feeling miserable and wanting to apologize to him.  But I don’t blame him for any of it.  I know I’m not the same person, and have even wondered a few times how he could stand to be in a relationship with me when I’m not the person he asked out.

Hearing it from him was totally different.  There was a brief silence after he finished speaking, and then I started sobbing.  Loudly.  And hyperventilating, and grasping his arms and clutching him around the waist and trying to get closer and closer and closer to him so he couldn’t get away from me, and I was panicking.  It was a revolting display.  He kept telling me to breathe and to calm down, that I wasn’t going to lose him, he wasn’t going anywhere.  And I’d calm down briefly and immediately start up again with the bawling and trying to hold him closer and closer to me.  I thought I was going to die.  Losing the only light in my life would be death.

Finally, finally, after we’d sat there about twenty minutes, I calmed down to a degree that I thought would enable me to finish cleaning up for the night and leave.  I didn’t totally lose control anymore that night, but I did keep crying.  I didn’t even say good-bye to anyone, that last night before spring break and my surgery.  No–I said good-bye to Tyler.  I’d told him what had happened that afternoon and how much I wanted to see him that night, and Tyler saw me looking miserable and asked me if things had gotten better or worse, and I told him I wasn’t sure and cried some more and he hugged me and wished things well, and I went outside to meet The Mormon.

By this point I was a little irritated at what he’d just put me through, although I still don’t blame him for it.  For a few minutes I did.  But he had offered to come to my house with me and just lie down on my bed and rub my back or something, so he did.  He read to me a bit from the book he was reading, a Terry Pratchett novel.  And after a few minutes of not being able to concentrate, I kissed him a bit and just held him tightly and asked if he would leave me if I didn’t see a counselor.  He kissed my forehead and told me he would never put that ultimatum to me, that he loved me and had been frustrated and needed to say those things so I knew what he was experiencing.  And I understand; I totally do.

For the next few days I felt slightly awkward around him.  And one day, I think Tuesday, I told him that, and he kissed me again and told me we were just fine.  I think that may have been the day we had sex that week.  Maybe the next day.  Either way, everything has been normal since then.  He’s been quite wonderful, in fact, coming to the hospital and helping me in so many ways.  I told him I’m going to love being married to him so very much.

Just Another Day

I’m not doing well.  I’m just not.  Emotionally I’m a wreck and I don’t care about anything except my goddamn cycle.  Wouldn’t you be if you had to be on your cycle ten days and counting when you weren’t supposed to even be on it for another two weeks?  And you knew that the reason for it was the fucking medication you didn’t want to be on in the first place?  Would you be able to focus on anything else?

I can’t.  And I’ve got months of this left.  Months. Plural.  Period.  Nothing feels normal to me.  I don’t want to do anything.  I don’t like seeing people.  Work, which I used to enjoy because I got to see people, makes me anxious to leave so I don’t have to see or talk to anyone.  I don’t want to be around friends.  I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday at all this year, and I tried to make sure not a lot of people knew about it.  I just don’t want attention.  I don’t want to be around anyone.  Except The Mormon.  He’s always okay.

But I have trouble talking to him sometimes.  Anytime the subject of my health comes up, I get quiet because it makes me think all these depressing thoughts, and like usual, I can’t focus on anything else at all.  But then he worries because I’m not speaking, and he begs me to say something to him, and I know I have nothing at all good to say because I can’t think of anything good, and he asks me to tell him what I’m thinking, and what am I supposed to tell him, that I want to die?  That never goes over well.  It hurts him and I don’t want to do that.  Or he gets frustrated because he can’t do anything to change it, and his words come out all irritated and rushed as he tries to frantically talk me out of my stupor, and I don’t say anything more at all because after I’ve said the one thing that’s on my mind, it isn’t really necessary to say anything else.

It isn’t that I’m going to harm myself.  I’m not.  A month or so ago–I don’t know, I have no conception of time these days–I promised myself not to, just for him.  But when I’m sitting on the couch staring into nothingness and I can’t interest myself with anything that used to interest me or anything at all–at all–and I’m just existing because that’s what everybody thinks I should do…I can’t think of any way to escape from it.  I feel panicked because there’s no direction to turn then, when nothing is interesting, and all I can think about is dying because that’s the only way I know of to get away from everything.  What would you do if nothing was interesting?  Nothing? I don’t like writing.  I don’t even like writing in this thing; this feels like a chore to me, but I do it because I think I should.  I can’t read because the words just go in front of my face and then a few pages later I’ll realize I haven’t read anything.

I can’t sleep.  In fact, at the end of the night when I know it’s bedtime and I have to go to sleep so I don’t have more seizures, I get panicked at the idea of going to bed.  I used to like going to sleep just to see what weird dreams my head would conjure.  But I don’t care if I dream or not now; I just don’t like going to sleep.  It worries me.  I am afraid to sleep. That isn’t even logical.  It makes me feel like I’m wasting time or something.  It makes me feel incredibly alone because everybody else is sleeping too, and then it’s just me, alone with my own darkness and not able to lose consciousness.

In rather pleasanter news that at one time would have made me way more excited than I am, I ran into L’Owen on the way to see The Mormon at work yesterday.  He asked me how everything is going; I gave him a brief summary.  I wasn’t certain exactly which parts The Mormon had told him, and when he asked whether my family is helping, I laughed and said, “Well…I guess they’re trying to.”  I told him about my brother, and then that my brother’s 14.  His shock was evident.  I explained that my sister is psychotic and that my dad’s pretty much the same way.

He said, “Well, you’ve got your mom, and Dean’s a really good guy.”  Then he told me if I ever needed anybody outside the usual circle of people I talk to, to contact him.  “You know I’m very fond of you.”  I thanked him of course, said good-bye, and went up to see The Mormon, to whom the first thing I said was, “L’Owen says he’s very fond of me,” with a grin.

“I’m going to have to keep an eye on that guy,” he said.

Bottles of Fury

Bottling up one’s emotions is quite a different matter than getting angry without shouting about it.

My dad sees no difference between the two.  The way he sees it, the rest of us (his family) are in the wrong–in fact, we are inferior and phony (his word)–because we do not know how to get angry, and there is no alternative to living with us but to be angry at all times.

My dad has anger issues.  He yells or laughs scornfully at the idea of anger management quite frequently these days, because he knows we all think he needs it.  But it isn’t even so much the fact that he’s angry all the time.  Even if he legitimately had cause to always be angry (it’s questionable, but I’ll at least give him that to show how generous I am being), he doesn’t handle it in a manner that is healthy for anyone, and that is the problem.  He yells.  He yells a lot and very loudly, and he slings insults and belittles the rest of us, and he brings up things that happened fifty years ago (and you think I’m exaggerating) because in his mind, everything is related, and if he’s angry about one thing then he is angry about everything.

Most of these things that he yells about–there are certain things that will always come up, but of course there are always new things, as well–are not relevant.  Not at all.  There is no reason in any of it.  And as it is impossible to argue rationally with someone who does not or cannot see reason, all we can do is stand there and take it.  He also steps on your words if you try to argue back, so really, there’s just no point.

One of his favorite things to yell about is how the rest of us–or at the very least, my mom and all her sisters–bottle up their emotions.  This, as he said the other night, is phony.  (The real, or at least initial, issue at hand was whether someone had broken into our house, or if one of Brother’s friends had started stealing from us.)

“Well, I guess I’m a phony, then,” my mom said the other night.

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess so.”

But it isn’t a matter of bottling up our emotions.  My mom was angry the other night, too, as she tried numerous times to point out to him.  But she wasn’t yelling and screaming at the rest of us about whether or not her younger sister was illegitimate.  She was trying to think and talk about the matter at hand, rationally, without verbally abusing the rest of us.

It led me to think about how, for most of my life, I’ve bottled up my emotions.  Yeah, I’m a phony.  Guilty as charged.  I don’t like to push my shit on everybody else, so if I feel like crying or complaining to someone, generally I’ll just keep it inside.  And I keep more and more of it inside and it builds until finally, I can’t keep it down anymore and I just explode.  Maybe I have a nervous breakdown, or maybe I have a seizure.  But one way or another, my body and my brain can’t contain that much stress for that long.  Serenity now, insanity later.

That’s one thing the poison has done for me, at least some of the time, when I’m trying to be stronger than it and control my own emotions as much as possible.  It makes it so I can’t hold them in, or so that I don’t care.  I retaliated that night Bob tried to boss me around, and he hasn’t done it since.  The other night, one of the side effects of my medication made me really furious and I wrote a lot of scary shit on every page of the calendar that hangs in my bedroom.  Last night, while talking to my mom about all of this stuff (except that she hasn’t yet seen my Calendar of Doom), I punched the wall a few times and am now dealing with a swollen knuckle.  I cry to anyone and everyone, and none of it makes me feel the least bit guilty.  It really feels like there are two of me.

There have been times in the past when my bottle exploded in front of others, and then I’d yell and scream, and if this was in front of my dad, he’d laugh at me, because I had just proven him right.  Or I’d be angry or upset, and I wouldn’t do anything so as not to burden anyone else, and I’d feel even worse when my dad would say that I obviously felt nothing because I wasn’t angry like he was.

What he does is wrong!  It’s so wrong and it fucking pisses me off!  But am I yelling at you?  No.  Am I telling you that your family obviously doesn’t want you around and even wants you to go to Hell?  No.  Am I telling you that you’re a woman so you can fucking deal with it yourself and see if I care?  No, I’m not doing any of that.  I’m simply angry, and I’m angry for a reason, and I think my reason is pretty clear.

A Psychobrat Tale

Anyone for a Psychobrat story?

It happened when I was in the shower yesterday.  I had just gotten in and was in the process of shaving my legs, when, in the general direction of the front door, I heard some pounding and then a crash as it was thrown open.  Brother shouted, “Geez!” with genuine alarm in his voice.

My first thought was that one of Brother’s friends had broken in with a weapon.  Seriously, that’s what I thought.

Then I heard Psychobrat’s door thrown open, and a moment later, she was banging on the bathroom door and demanding, in screeching tones, that I get out of the shower immediately.  She had fifteen minutes to shower, get dressed, and dry her hair.

I kept shaving my legs and didn’t reply.

Psychobrat started kicking the door, attempting (I’m not assuming here–she really would have if pushed that far) to kick it down.  She also kept screaming about her emergency.

In a calm and rational tone, I said, “Shut the hell up.”

“NNNNOOOO!!!!!!!” she Exorcisted.  “I NEED TO GET IN THERE NOW!!!!!”

As she was still attempting to kick in the door, and I know that our house does, in fact, belong to this screechy 19-year-old, I sighed and did as she commanded.  I did it slowly, however, to cause her maximum irritation.

You might wonder why I put up with this.  There are a few reasons.  As Psychobrat must always be right and always have the last word, you cannot win with her.  Even if she deserves it, you can’t just punch her in the face and expect to not receive some form of retribution.  I would pay in dire ways.  And as I was in the shower, she had access to my bedroom, and thus everything that I own.  Everything, including the laptop on which I now complain.  Remember that scene in Little Women when Amy tears up Jo’s journal, and Jo loses all her valuable work?  Yeah, it’s exactly like that.  (In fact, I believe that exact thing happened to me quite a few years ago.  Or else I just always knew that it could happen to me, so I’m remembering it that way.)

There were numerous periods in the past, back when she (for reasons which never made much sense–something about her only owning one pair of jeans, which has never been true) did her laundry every single night, in which I would choose one day of the week (Saturday night–and I still do it the same way) to do my own laundry.  I would rearrange my entire Saturday schedule to avoid doing laundry at a time when she needed the washer, and yet somehow, as soon as my clothes were wet and soapy, it would suddenly be her time to use it, and I would be ordered to remove my clothes from the washer.  As I would never comply with this command, she would then remove them herself, drop them on the floor, and step all over them.  Fortunately, she no longer does laundry every single day, so I can actually do that with very little stress.

There have been many times when she would order me to get off the computer because she needed it, and when I would refuse (it didn’t matter if I was conversing with an old friend or writing an important essay), she would destroy something in my room or merely unplug the computer from the wall (which likely accounts for half of its problems today).

So no, it isn’t merely screaming that you have to put up with for not giving Psychobrat her way.  She’s destructive, and you pay for it.  Had she kicked in the door yesterday (and because she wasn’t getting her way, that is what it would have led to), that would have been my fault, for not instantly complying with the one who apparently had an emergency, when I didn’t have to be at work for another three hours.  Trust me–there’s no reason in this household.

Hence her nickname.

Anyway, so I stood there in my towel at the doorway, waiting for her to get out, and when I finally showered and got out myself, and got dressed, and headed back to the bathroom to put up my hair for work, I heard her through her bedroom door, talking to somebody on her cell phone.  (She said something about, “What kind of decent person would do something like that?” which I found a bit ironic.)

An hour later, she hadn’t left yet.  So yes, it could have all been avoided, but that doesn’t matter–the important thing is that the beast was satisfied, and peace could return to Canterville.

My dad asked me tonight how much it might cost for The Mormon and me to build an apartment at the back of our house.  I shall let the absurdity of that idea sink into your minds and not say another word about the matter.

Yesterday I was thinking about some of this stuff, and I started to feel sick to my stomach.  I’ve put up with this and much, much more for my entire life, usually quietly, because there’s really nothing I can do, which is why I keep all of my stress inside, which is probably why my brain started exploding randomly over Christmas break.  And now that I know that my family is literally giving me serious health issues, I am incensed.  They can take what they want away from me–sanity, quiet, freedom, what the hell ever–but now that they’ve fucked up my health…I can’t express how disgusted and infuriated I am.  The only thing left to do is get out, which we will do as quickly as possible.  The time has certainly come.

On a lighter note, here’s something I learned from last week’s crossword.  To “lave” means to bathe.  I had never heard the term before and had to look it up in the dictionary, but as soon as I saw it, it made complete sense.  “Lavish”–to lavish someone with praise, for example, means to bathe them in praise.  “Lavatory” (or “lav,” for short)–the British term for washroom.  It all comes from the same root word, “lav,” which I believe Oxford said was old French.

On a further suspicion, I looked up “laundry” and discovered that it comes from the same root.  I was so excited, and damn it, I really need to learn Latin!  I would thrive in that language.

I’ve obviously been reading a lot lately, with little else to do (although I have some things I intend to write and ought to get those underway).  I read some graphic novels:  Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, for one.  I was surprised by the fact that this book actually made me almost sympathetic towards Joker.  I was really nervous at the end as he attempting to tell the killing joke, because he seemed to be stuttering, and I thought he might mess it up, and that would have been devastating for him, and I would have felt bad for the freaking Joker.  I was also amused by Batman’s reaction to it, and I was amused by the joke itself.  I laughed.

I read Arkham Asylum, by Grant Morrison, and it was this book that made me stop and consider for the first time ever how seriously creepy the Batman villains are.

Mark Millar’s Red Sun, in which Superman lands in Russia and is raised by Stalin as a Communist, was really insightful.  I love those Elseworld stories, when well-known characters are placed in totally different situations to see what they do.  They really make you think.  I was slightly annoyed by the ending, because there were two things that could have happened on that last page, and I would have done the other thing–but it was very good nonetheless.

And lastly I read Alan Moore’s Watchmen, which made me aware for the first time of just how much goes into writing comics; I couldn’t do it.  I mean, you’ve got to make sure that every panel matches up with the words, that it all balances out evenly.  In panels with multiple characters and lines of dialogue, you’ve got to ensure that the expressions on these characters’ faces match up with all of the dialogue.  And Alan Moore has the strongest grasp on parallelism–it’s incredible.

Now I’m reading C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, and I’m really into it.  It’s very descriptive and lovely, and it seems to me that every thought Ransom has is something I had thought, and he wonders and observes the same things I feel I would wonder and observe were I in his situation.

I also just got through reading Animal Farm to Brother, because I knew he would enjoy it, and he really did.  He was satisfyingly creeped out by it, and when it was over I gave him a brief explanation of what it meant and was based on, and related it to V for Vendetta, which I know he has watched.  I also informed him of the existence of 1984, to hopefully instill an interest.  I do what I can.  He’s a smart kid; I just hope he realizes it one day.

Jousting and Unicorns

Renaissance Festivals are fun, and in many ways the actors/craftsmen/etc. try to make them as authentic as possible, but I think it is that missing element of complete authenticity that drives me crazy (and this goes for Highland Games, too).  Don’t get me wrong, I like going to them, but the whole time I’m walking around, I am aware that something is bothering me, and today I realized that that’s it.  I went to the one in Gainesville this morning with The Mormon, Michelle, and Jenna.  We did have fun, and I was very glad it was not hot, but I think all of my blood stopped flowing.  I should have worn layers.  But anyway, The Mormon and I kept joking about all the anachronisms (I heart that word) we could spot–most often in the costumes of spectators.

Things like jousting and human chess were interesting, and ultimately satisfying, but at the same time, you know it’s all planned out, and it would have been far more satisfying had it been legitimate.  It’s just like…the more they try to make it feel authentic, the more aware you become that it isn’t.  So it’s fun, but it makes you wish you had a time machine and could see it for real.  (But I, of course, always wish I had a time machine, so that’s nothing new.)

You know how, when you play a game like Tetris for a few hours, you close your eyes and you can see falling blocks?  Or at least, I do.  Well at the moment, when I close my eyes, I see things like pewter dragons and wizards and unicorns, and other things like stars and faerie wings and…maybe giant turkey legs.  I like this.  The Mormon got one of those giant turkey legs this afternoon, and he smelled like it for the rest of the day.  (And maybe I smelled of it too, because unless it’s my imagination, I think I can still smell it now….)

I became aware yesterday that there is a part of my mind that, knowing my pill is no longer working, is convinced I’m just going to be pregnant and that is all there is to it.  This does not make me happy.  The way I finally realized I can word this is that pregnancy–of my own, not for other people–is a phobia for me.  It isn’t just a matter of its being inconvenient now; I’m terrified of it and never want to experience it.  It creeps me out.  So this…no pill thing…just isn’t good for me at all.  I’m really freaking out–and this, I’m fairly sure, is legitimately me thinking this, not the poison.  I was talking to The Mormon about this earlier, and he was telling me that the poison is okay, that it’s helping, and I know it’s helping in one sense, but at this time I am unable to accept that it is overall a positive addition to my life.  I don’t like it.  I hate it, in fact.  Even as I’m writing this, my head feels like it’s floating because that’s what happens half an hour after I take the poison.  I can’t stop calling it that.  I think I’ve given a thing a nickname.  I guess it’s happened before–there was The Cult.  But I also can’t dissociate it from Jekyll and Hyde in my head, and the literary reference is slightly comforting.

Somebody I spoke to the other day gave me a specific example of someone who is going through something far worse than I am.  (I think others have tried to give me such examples in recent weeks, but this is the first time I really listened, because it involved someone I was at least partially acquainted with.)  I’ve thought about this person off and on since then, and I try to remember her when I start feeling upset or like I need to dwell on things.  Tonight, in fact, I was crying into The Mormon’s arms, and he said…something…I don’t really remember…but I know I thought of this other person and abruptly stopped sobbing.  It doesn’t feel right to concentrate on myself so much when there are others so much worse off than I am.

My conscience knows how to do its job.  I feel guilt easily–usually because I feel I have been selfish about something or other.  When I dwell on my own problems, I feel selfish.   And I do it all the time these days, and I am certain I will do it a lot more in days to come.  It’s just like…who am I to be so concerned about myself?  I don’t even know if that sounds ridiculous or not.  And then it adds to the stress.  God damn…it seems to me that nearly all of my problems are in my head, like they aren’t even real.  Then again, what is real, anyway?

I don’t remember what I was talking about, or if I even had a point.

Why I Hate the Poison

I’m going to try to explain something that has been bothering me since my trip to the ER.  A lot of this will be copy/pasted from a conversation I had with The Mormon on Messenger the other night, because I phrased most of it there the best that I think I possibly can.  My apologies, for I’m about to be incredibly depressing again.

I’ve said a number of times how much I hate taking medication.  But that isn’t really a strong statement, I’ve realized, because most people do.  Who really likes taking medication?  What I should say is that, for as long as it has been my choice to do so, I have almost completely avoided taking it.  Even when a doctor prescribes something to me, often I won’t go and pick it up, and I’ll lie down and suffer through it until whatever it is is gone.  I’m really squeamish about putting things in my body that are supposed to make me better when there is the likely chance that I will get well on my own.  I can’t stand the idea of something else–that may have side effects–having to do it for me.  I don’t like putting unfamiliar substances into myself.  I won’t take Tylenol if I can just go to bed and wake up the next day without a headache because I’ve slept.  To my mentality, the suffering is better.

But this isn’t the sort of thing I can just suffer through.  Granted, we don’t yet know what it is–there has been no epilepsy diagnosis, as I discovered much later, after leaving the hospital.  We won’t know anything until the 19th of February.  But as far as anybody knows, it won’t just go away on its own.  And I’m not going to be all melodramatic and say that taking the medication upsets me more than anything else–I think I’m equally upset by the loss of my freedom, by the loss of my birth control, and by the dependency on the poison, as I prefer to call it.  Sure, there are lots of people that are much worse off than I am, I understand that.  But if you were here right now, where I am, you wouldn’t enjoy it either.  So here is some perspective, the best way that I can explain it.

The night of the conversation with The Mormon, my emotions had been triggered by a list of side effects of the types of medication I will have to take for what could very likely be the rest of my life.  He and I were discussing it.

“I’m most likely going to have to keep taking this shit for the rest of my life,” I said.  “If it isn’t this one, it’s another one.”

“Maybe….”

“There’s no point in hoping for any better.  Then I just get let down if they tell me I have to keep taking it forever.  Or for 18 years or 30 years or however long it takes.  Long enough.  I feel so helpless with this stuff in my system that I have to keep taking every day or horrible things will happen.  This stuff that just fucks me up in one way or another.”

“Only as much as it helps.”

“This one fucks with my dreams and my birth control, another would fuck with my metabolism, another would fuck with my emotions, another would fuck with my skin–there’s nothing I can do about it at all.  Do you have any idea how damning it feels having to take them twice a day, knowing what I’m putting in myself and knowing I have no fucking choice?  God damn it.  I hate taking pills.”

“No, I don’t, and that can only hurt me more, knowing that this is what you must do and knowing how much you mean to me.  In spite of this, I know that this necessary unpleasantness helps.”

“I do, too, and I think that makes it worse.  I know why I’m doing it but I hate every minute of it.  I feel so weak and helpless that I have to depend on this shit that fucks me up in countless ways and that I might be depending on it FOREVER.  I know it’s helping.  That’s the only reason I keep taking it.  I HATE it!  And there’s NO CHOICE.”

“No, but there is the hope that you will get well.”

“Yeah.  Nicole’s dad had a few seizures, and he only had to take medication for 18 years.
That’s almost my entire lifetime up to now.”

Outside of this conversation, that’s what people have been telling me over and over–that I might only have to take it for 10 years, as if this is supposed to make me feel better.  It might only be 10 years that my mind and body are completely fucked.  I might only be 32 before I can attempt to regain some sense of who I used to be.  Because I honestly don’t know who I am now.  Back to the conversation.

“But he was able to quit it eventually, right?” The Mormon said.

“He was able to quit it after 18 years.  [I skipped some here.  I’ve been skipping little bits every so often because they are irrelevant to the topic.]”

The Mormon replied with a mere question mark, which in hindsight I find infuriating.  Why could he not understand how losing so much of my life to medicine might be beyond devastating?

“It feels like I’m stuck in a tiny closet and I can’t breathe, and I WANT to breathe, but I can’t because I can’t get out of the closet.”

“But you will.”

“You don’t know that.  It’s more likely that I won’t ever.  Or not for 18 years or half my life or some ridiculous time period like that.”

“But I will always hope.  Always.”

Skipping some here, too.

“It’s just that there’s no escape at all.  You can’t go anywhere when the problem is inside you.  That’s why it’s so bad and I keep freaking out so much.  Wherever I go, I can’t get away from the cause of my problems.”

“True enough, but we all are burdened such as this.”

“That’s why I have so much time when I can’t think what I want to do and I don’t really care, anyway, and I don’t even want to do anything, and I don’t want to do nothing, either, because there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do that makes it stop.  It’s IN me and I can’t just punch somebody or yell at somebody and make it stop.  Just keep swallowing the fucking pills twice a day.  That’s IT.  That’s all I can do.  And that’s exactly where the problems come from.”

“But at least you have these pills and a hope of being well.  You could not have even that, complications or no.”

“I don’t have a hope of being well.  I don’t have it at all.  I don’t believe that.  The odds are against it.  And being well in 18 years doesn’t really matter to me when it means losing my youth to this.”

“Well, however you come to feel about this, no matter what happens, I will stay with you.”

“I need you to.  I love you.”

“Hopeful, even if it begins to grate on your patience.  I will always be hopeful and loving.”  I was silent for a very long time because I didn’t know what to say to his ridiculous messages of false hope, though his words were kind.  “How are you feeling?”

I am about to explain this.  I realize how ridiculous it sounds.  But I told you my mind is fucked.

“I really hate that question nowadays.  It seems so rhetorical, like it shouldn’t even matter, and I don’t want to lie, but I never feel good.  I have no idea what to say when people ask me that.  And I get asked it like a hundred times a day (literally [because of my job]).”

As far as I can tell, the real answer (and the one I gave him just then) is “weak and helpless and scared and generally shitty.”

I went on, “I really hate the fact that, at only 21, I can honestly say that my mind isn’t what it used to be.  And all I’ve done to myself is just what the doctor ordered.  It doesn’t bother you at all that my mind isn’t as sharp as it was?  Because it bothers me a LOT.”

“I know that there are times when you have difficulty, but Ir also know that you still retain you capacities such as they were when we met.  They are just muddled by this medicine.”

“But that doesn’t really matter if I can never stop taking the medicine.”

“Maybe, or maybe the effects will lessen with time, or you will learn to accommodate their effects on your mind.”

“They haven’t lessened yet.  Everything else has gone away, but my mind is still…whatever the fuck you would call it.”  I paused.  “I need to stop talking.  The more I talk, the more I find that’s bothering me.  I’m afraid to go to sleep and wake up and go through a whole day again.  I’m afraid to go to the doctor and listen to him tell me that I have to take pills for 18 years or the rest of my life and that I can’t drive for 6 months and I think he’ll be happy about it, too.  I want it to be over with, but I also don’t want it to come because at least until then I can allow myself to think that maybe there’s a better drug than the one I’m on.  But they all sound pretty hellish.”

“There is a better drug and over will only mean that the time we have spent not knowing what will happen is over.”

“Oh believe me, I’m aware of that.  I really can’t express what I’m feeling about any of this.  That bothers me, too.  I have to stop talking.  I don’t want to do ANYTHING.  I’m so lost.”

“Then don’t.  Will stop talking about this now-ly.  I will always find you.  Always.”

“You can try, but I’m lost in this stupid drug.”

“I will.  I love you, babe.”

“I love you, too.”

That’s the explanation as clear as I can make it.  I’m sorry for wasting your time.

More Epilepsy Poison

TRIGGER WARNINGS:  Self-harm, suicide.

Okay, so an update on my situation.  I had that neurologist appointment on Thursday in which I wrongfully assumed I would have an MRI and an EEG and be diagnosed with a specific type of epilepsy.  (Please ignore any weird typos as they are caused by a malfunctioning keyboard.)  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  Apparently the only reason for that appointment was to be given another one who-knows-how-long-from-now in which they will (hopefully) do those things.  The bottom line is, there’s really no telling what’s going on.

I’m on another medication now in addition to the Keppra.  I don’t know what this one is called.  It improves nothing about my mood.  My primary emotions seem to be suicidal on a bad day and feeling nothing on a good day.  I shout at everybody, mostly my parents and The Mormon.  I also shouted at the neurologist the other day.  About what, I don’t know; I also don’t remember much.  It seems that the new medication makes me a little…loopy, I suppose.  For example:  I’ve been watching a lot of Friends lately (which I don’t even like), and yesterday, about half an hour after taking my poison, I walked into the mall, where there’s this booth where you can buy portraits of television characters, usually mobsters, but others, too.  There was a painted envisioning of the Friends characters, and the first thing I thought when looking at it was, When did they get their portrait done here, and why didn’t they call me?  I haven’t seen them in a long time. Weird things like that.

Last night I walked into the house and Mom told me I was pale.  Then at work tonight, during my break, I was sitting with Mooch, who told me he could tell I wasn’t myself because I was pale.  He said I normally have a little glow in my cheeks, and that he misses me telling him stories.  I explained to Mom tonight that the reason my glow is gone is because my soul is gone.  I’m not myself anymore, and no matter what poison I go on, there will also be some sort of side-effect.  I don’t know myself anymore.

For the past few days, since I went on the new poison (I am also still on the old one–they’re trying to wean me onto something new), I have just been pretending that I am in a good mood when I am not.  I’m flat-out lying about it so people will stop asking me what I’m thinking when I start crying or I get all quiet.  When I cry, I’m often told that I am just pitying myself, and when I tell people I’m contemplating killing myself, I don’t think they believe me.  I doubt I would really do it, but the fact that I’m having those thoughts at all seems…problematic?  Cause for alarm?

Dean came through my line the other night–the night of the neurologist appointment.  I wasn’t expecting him; my parents were supposed to pick me up that night.  That was a bad night.  The whole time I was working, all that I could think about was how much I wanted to escape from my situation.  I was feeling really violent all that day, starting with the appointment, and it was the end of the night and I’d already cried several times and even taken several short breaks to go out back and cry in private so as not to frighten customers and co-workers, and I was just contemplating calling my parents to come and pick me up early, and then I thought about digging into my arms with knives, and I lifted my head heavenward and just took in how good and relieving this would feel–as I lifted my head, I spotted The Mormon standing in front of me.  I was so shocked and horrified to see him there–I hadn’t been expecting him at all–and at first I thought he wasn’t even real.  I kind of stumbled back, and I know he was a little confused.  He explained, when I went out to see him, that he’d known I was feeling crummy and had gotten off work a bit early to come and see me and try to cheer me up.

By the way, all the doctor did was to make me change into one of those stupid gown things just to walk back and forth in imitation of a drunk-driving test.  I really loved *NOTE SARCASM* sitting in the waiting room for so long with all the seniors, and then having to go and do that.  I sat there and cried on the little table and was just peachy for the doctor (who, by the way, had never met me, so great first impression) and then started digging my nails into my arms so I would have a way to relieve some tension.  Mom and Dean made me stop, so then all I could think about was hitting or killing something.  You know, I didn’t feel it.  I just had to squeeze something, or hit something, or maybe stab something, so I could get rid of the pressure in my body.  But apparently the general public frowns on this.  I told Dean (and I wasn’t even joking at this point–I was pointing it out as a legitimate point), “Serenity now; insanity later.”  He said we could deal with the insanity, but I don’t think so.

I shall just make a note here to write about Bob telling me to change the lightbulb and how that went, because that is a good example of how my poison makes me not me.  I miss myself.

I shall also make a note to talk about my dreams and what appears to be happening to them as a result of the poison (they seem to be going away, which is one of the worst things that has ever happened to me).

I’m tired of writing now so I’m ending the post here.

Fighting a Losing Battle with Epilepsy Meds

Trigger Warnings:  Self-harm, suicide.

So I haven’t updated this thing in a while.  Here’s what’s been happening in my life lately.  I just got done dropping all my classes and returning one of my books.  After lots of tears and shouting and thoughts of self-harm, I finally decided the best thing for me to do right now is to take the semester off and get acclimated to my medicine.

I’m one of those people who just doesn’t like taking medication.  At all.  I prefer not to take Tylenol if I can just suffer through a headache and have it go away on its own.  I don’t like allowing my body to become dependent on foreign scary substances with additional side effects.  So the fact that I have to take extremely powerful drugs twice a day every day for the rest of my life does not make me happy.  Plus, there’s a good possibility that I’ll have to go on another drug besides so that I won’t want to kill myself all the time, since that’s one of the side effects of these particular drugs.

A few nights ago I came home and had my first huge breakdown.  I wept for about five hours straight.  I had thoughts of suicide for the first time since the endless bullying in middle school.  I was thinking about how I’m not allowed to drive for at least six months (I haven’t spoken to the neurologist yet, but the time limit might end up being more like two years), and how this really irritates me because I like driving, although I don’t want to right now because I realize that I’m a danger to myself and others.  But then I thought about how I’m only a danger because I might start having seizures at just random moments (so far they have all taken place in my sleep).  And then I thought about how frightening that is, because seizures are scary in themselves and if I can just have them at any time, I can never be comfortable.

I know that it’s the medication talking.  This isn’t me.  But that’s how powerful my medication is.  It makes me have thoughts–horrible, dark, hopeless thoughts–that would never normally have come out of me.  I’ve only been on it a little over a week now, but there have been so many instances in that time period that I have felt like lying down and giving up everything.  I randomly burst into tears with no warning.  Constantly.  I really feel that I just can’t take this.

Last night I made the decision to take a break this semester, and immediately I felt better–not completely, but more like myself–and stopped shouting at The Mormon.  And there’s another thing.  I have been a complete bitch to the people I care the most about, and that isn’t me, either.  He and I have never had a fight.  But my pills are making me shout at him.  I’ve noticed how sarcastic they make me when I’m speaking to my mother.  I hear what I’m saying and I know it isn’t me that’s talking, but it’s like there’s nothing else in my mind, so it’s got to come out.  And my mind isn’t good right now.  I can’t tell stories without getting lost.  Yesterday I noticed that when I’m writing, if I look up briefly, I completely forget what I’m writing about.  I lose my place while reading far more frequently than I used to.  These are things I have always thrived at, and right now I feel like I just can’t do them.  Last night I was sitting with my mom, reading my homework to her, because I thought I might keep my place better if I did so.  I kept getting lost and fighting tears, and it was painful.  For both of us, I think.

I don’t seem to be dreaming anymore, either, although that might just be incidental.  There have been a couple of mornings that I have woken up with the vague memory of a dream, but nothing like how it used to be.  That depresses me more than I can express.

The worst thing of all, though, is how I’ve been treating the people I care about–especially Dean.  He has been so good through all of this, and I am so very grateful for him.  He sits there and lets me yell at him that I don’t even understand why he loves me anymore, and he keeps his voice low and calm and reminds me that this is the medication talking.  He uses the word “please” a lot, in reference to my wanting to give up–I don’t know, work, school, life.  He means more to me than anything in the world, and I’ve been telling him so in all my rare moments of clarity.  A couple of weeks ago, when he proposed to me, I was happier than I have ever been in my life.  I had no idea what horrible things were waiting right around the corner.  Last night at work, Michelle told me to try and think happy thoughts, so for the next three hours I stood there and tried and tried and realized that I couldn’t think a single happy thought.  Instead of looking at my ring and being cheered, I looked down at it and thought miserably about how I am going to ruin his life.

I know (mostly) that these things aren’t true.  I know that it’s all the medication.  But it is very powerful, and I don’t quite know how to fight it yet.  At some point, I am sure I will get through this, but if my posts are mopey-sounding for a while, I apologize.  Now you know why.  I won’t listen to reason because it really isn’t me, and I apologize in advance for what a fucking whiny bitch I am going to be for a while.  I know when I come out of it, I will be extremely grateful for what friends I have left, but please know until then, if you plan to stick around for the ride, that this really isn’t me, and I’m hoping that one day I will come back.

I do have a plan now.  As I said (I think I said), I felt instantly better when I made the decision to take time off.  I’m going to speak to Dann at work about possibly working more hours.  That will allow me to put more money away so that, hopefully, I will be able to move in with Dean sooner.  I met with one of my former professors this morning before dropping classes, and I loved her, by the way, and she was so understanding and offered to speak to anybody I need.  Her best friend, apparently, works in the Disability Office on campus; she also said that the Spinnaker, who just accepted me onto their staff as a contributing writer, will still allow me to write for them even if I am not taking classes this semester.  I will hang onto the books I was going to use for this class and read every bit and do every exercise in my idle time, so that I will be ahead of everybody when I do take it in the Fall and definitely get an A.  I will have more time to read through the stack of books in my room.  Maybe I will even write creatively for a while; who knows?  But there will be plenty to keep me occupied, and besides, I love school, so being behind one more semester isn’t really going to bother me.  Dean’s behind me, so it isn’t like I’m going to slow him down in any way.  This will also give me more time to look into getting off loans and into grants and scholarships.

The Professor also said this morning that she was on anti-depressants for ten years, and she understood about powerful medication.  She said it could make you have all kinds of thoughts that weren’t you, and that it could be very tricky sorting out which thoughts were from you and which were from the pills.  I told her it was exactly like that.

If you’re wondering, by the way, whether or not it is okay to make jokes about my situation, it is.  I don’t think I will be offended, although it is a bit difficult to predict how I will react to anything these days.  I told Tyler and Andrew last night that I thought it would make me feel better.

The Further Misadventures of Brother (and a Tiny Bit of Cheer)

As I write this, Brother is in jail.  His list of stupid activities just keeps growing.  So far–just this week!–he took a fireplace lighter to school (yes, one of those long ones), got caught peeing on the wall in the boys’ bathroom “I LOVE DRUGS,” and tonight….

Tonight, Brother and four of his “friends” went to the park next to our house (it’s called the POLICE ATHLETIC LEAGUE) and broke into the concession stand.  They didn’t know that there were cops standing by watching them as they did so; then, however, when they emerged from their hiding spot, Brother ran.  None of his friends did.  Just Brother.

I had a really splendid day until I got home from work–I’ll tell you about that in a bit.  When I pulled into my neighbourhood, there were three cop cars sitting right at the entrance.  I arrived at my house, and my mom was coming out the door, talking on her cell phone.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I’m going to talk to the cops,” she said.

“Why?”  I had known as soon as I’d seen them that it had to have something to do with my formerly intelligent thirteen-year-old brother.

“Because they’re about to arrest your brother,” she said.

I looked up and saw Psychobrat standing in the doorway crying, so I went in to talk to her.  My mom wasn’t being very forthcoming with her answers, as she was rather preoccupied.  So here’s the rest of the story, according to Psychobrat.

Two cops came to the door and she answered, as she was the only one home at the time.

“Who are you?” they said, quite rudely.

She gave them her name; they asked where Brother was.

“I don’t know,” she said, “not here.”

“Well someone’s been hanging up the phone for the last three hours,” they said.

She told them he wasn’t here and that they could search the house if they wanted.

“We will,” they said, “and when we find him, we’re going to arrest you, too.”  Apparently they thought she was lying.

So they searched our entire house, including under my bed (my sheets were all twisted over when I came home) and of course did not find him.

I got the story from Psychobrat and returned to the front door just in time to see Brother being placed in handcuffs and into the back of the car.  Yeah, that’s what I wanted to see.  Then I started shaking and crying a bit, but I think I was kind of in shock, and I went into my room and called The Mormon.  I ended up going to meet him at the outdoor mall.

And now we’re all just sitting around the living room, waiting for Brother to come home (they said he would be home tonight).

When I was in my bedroom, it occurred to me that the first thing the cops must have seen was my life-size Austin Powers by the door.  Austin Powers also has a Scream mask and a Mad Hatter’s hat on him, so as to appear more three-dimensional.  I came out of my room and said, “Were they at least frightened by my Austin Powers when they went into my room?”  Everybody laughed.

I did have an otherwise great day, on a lighter note.  I went by the Spinnaker office (that’s the UNF paper) to talk to the guy who was in my creative writing class and happens to be Managing Editor.  I picked up an application and he gave me his card and told me to give him a call or an email sometime within the next couple of weeks or next semester, whenever I chose, and come in for an interview.  He told me they’re looking for good, reliable writers, and that there aren’t a lot of those right now, so I’m basically a shoo-in.  That’s exciting.  I’m only going to be a contributing writer at first, but I’m giving some thought to getting in more on a part-time basis, in which case I would quit the cafe.  I’m a little afraid to do that, because the cafe is another home to me, but how grand would it be to have the Spinnaker as a second home?  I told Dennis that I really wanted to be that nerd who was always hanging around the newsroom.

I hung with Dennis for several hours today, because we really hadn’t hung out all semester.  That was fun; I was at his dorm for a few hours, which it occurred to me today I hadn’t seen before.  When it was time for me to go to work, we both left his room, and I hesitated and said, “Um….”

“Do you know your way back?” he said.

“Uh…no,” I said.

“Come with me,” he said, and rounded a corner.  He pointed.  “From that blue light, you just follow that path to the left.  Just stay on the path and you’ll be fine.”

It totally reminded me of when Lucy leaves Tumnus’ house, and I had this strong feeling that, were I only to step off the path for a moment, I would suddenly be in Narnia.  I was sorely tempted, too, except that I had to be at work, and I really didn’t want to go live a lifetime in another world without The Mormon.  If he had been with me I wouldn’t have thought twice, but he’s got to be there.  That’s how much I love him–I would sacrifice Faerie for him.  He was so sweet to me tonight, too.  I really, really love him.

I was on my way to the Town Centre (or the North Pole, as Cortney and I call it) to meet The Mormon a little while ago, and I was talking to Nicole on the phone to tell her the news, and she said, “I would have expected this sort of thing from your sister before your brother.”  She was asking me why Brother had done what he did, and I said, “Because he’s a f–he’s an idiot.”

There was a pause.

“I was going to say something else there,” I said.

“I caught that,” Nicole said.

Cortney and I do try not to swear in front of Nicole.

Being Selfish

I am so losing my drive.

I was doing so well with my homework, every single night, I’d come home, do it, and go to sleep.  That’s how every day went—wake up, get ready to go, go to class, go to work, do my homework, go to bed, start over.  I’m still doing that, but I screw around with my homework more and more now.  I keep thinking, Oh, I can just do that tomorrow, and then do.

Last week I couldn’t even concentrate in class.  I just sat through all my classes, for all those hours and fifteen minutes, staring off into space, thinking about goodness knows what.

Tomorrow I have to know what I’m going to be writing my five-page essay on for my Makings of Memory class.  I’ve had a week to figure this out.  I still have no clue.

I’d been kind of working on a rewards system—I kill myself every day of every week and then the weekend comes and everything is wonderful for two days, and now I just found out that I will only have one weekend with The Mormon for this entire month.  (And let me reiterate–weekends are the only times that I see him at all.)  So now I’m doing all of this work and there is nothing at all to get me through it or console me.  Just the promise of a weekend where I’m stuck at home with my angry father and with nothing to do.  I am so depressed.  Why does being so busy make me depressed?  It’s always like this.  Nobody else gets like this.  Other people are just like, yeah, I’m busy, whatever, life goes on.  It doesn’t work that way for me.

I’m being so selfish.  I’m always so selfish.  Why am I so selfish?  Fuck.