Silly Little Girl

My exact thought process. Beware.

I need to write on my blog. Why do I keep a blog if I'm not going to write anything worthwhile?

I should just write the things I'm thinking. Christ, wouldn't that be scary. Those people do not need to know how fucked up I am.

How bad would it be if I admitted I was totally scared that I'm making the wrong choice? Is it too late to change my mind? I only want to change my mind because my colleagues were nice to me today.

I wish I didn't always change my mind.

Writing exactly what I'm thinking is hard. My mind is trained to automatically self edit and that doesn't seem honest.

I hope I like teaching. I hope it likes me. I wish I could still go to the gym down here, but what if I ran into Andy?

I feel really bad about what I'm doing to Andy. Doesn't matter, he's leaving anyway.

This cough medicine is making me stupid. I need more.

Remember the days when it took way more than half a bottle of guafinesin and condeine to fuck me up? Weren't those stupid days.

I wish I was hungry, then I'd have something to do.

I was so wrong about Tiffany.

Which brings me to my fully self-edited, not so real-time thinking process that whoa dudes! I was so wrong about the girl at my work that I hated. No, not that one! Not the other one that I was totally wrong about! The loud-breathing one!

How stupid am I? You'd think by now I'd learn to give people a chance. I had to, in good conscience, confess my leave to Tiffany this week so she wouldn't be totally smacked in the face with it. In doing so, I totally made a friend, and today she took me out to lunch as a "good-bye meal" type of thing. How nice is that? GODDAMNIT, SELF, STOP BEING SUCH A JUDGMENTAL ASSHOLE. Maybe I'd have more friends here if I'd stop judging people. And then maybe I woulnd't want to leave.

Whoa. Epiphany.

Do not let a 14 year old emo girl have a livejournal...

...because this is what she'll write...

The air was heavier inside. I could tell by the half lit cigarette that someone was there, but the room held a dark, forbidden weight. Everything looked normal, nothing out of place, but the music set a strange aura.

"The wreck of the Edmund Fiztgerald" was blaring from somewhere upstairs. With trepidation weakening my knees, I tool small steps towards the stairs. With every forward movement I felt more frightened. Ignoring my insticts, I climbed the steps.

The music grew louder, yet more tinny to my ears, its haunting melody further increasing my anxiety. Each door along the hall was closed...except my own. A red glow filtered into the hall, casting an eerie visage over my face.

I walked towards my own bedroom door, now soaked in a cold, fearful sweat. The door creaked open, seemingly of it's own volition, until I realized that it was my own hand propelling it.

The music became deafening, and the soft red light from the candlelabras served as a contradiction to the roar. Once again, the haunting chimes and pipes of "the Edmund Fitzgerald" overpowered me, knocking me momenarily senseless as a wave of nostalgia for I don't know what came over me. I was blinded for a moment to the reality of the room.

My room, aside from the eerie red glow, was normal...except for my bed. Lying face up on my bed, was the still, glassy eyed form of my brother.

My brother...who'd been dead for two years. Pain and grief punched me in my abdomen, sending me reeling back against the walls. I wrenched my eyes closed against a wave of nausea, trying at the same time to block the memories that were battling my brain. When the agony began to ebate, I slowly opened my eyes...

...And prompty slammed them closed again.

My brother now stood at the door, my own body on the bed. I was staring at myself from one end of the room; my dead brother at the other.

Chris spoke my name. I breathed his.

"Why?" he asked me, grief etched in his face.

Why what? I wondered. Blissful ignorance prevailed for a few more seconds, then the harsh reality shook me like an earthquake beneath my feet.

The pain. The grief. The xanax to wash it all away.

It all came rushing back to me in an icy wave of regret. I'd done what I said I'd never do. I'd given up.
I looked pleadingly towards my brother as if were a God, a God who could reverse the irreversible.

"Is it too late?" I asked, implying every regret and "I wish" from my entire, short life.

He only nodded. I stared a moment longer, then joined him at the door. I felt etherally numb. He ushered me outside the door, and faced me. In his eyes I saw every laugh, every heartbreak of my life. I reached for the knob and, filled with regret and remorse so strong I felt like I could bleed for the pain, slowly closed the door on my world, my existence, my life.

* fade to black *

Oh, decisions

Two in one day. Lord, how lucky you are.

Because my doctor is apparently above returning phone calls to insurance companies, I am temporarily without my anti-depressant. I have the other meds, but that one is one that my insurance company won't even dispense without pre-authorization. Bureaucratic bullshit.

At any rate, he warned me last week that, if for any reason I went off it, I would notice the effects immediately.

I got my feelings hurt tonight. It was no big deal, and probably not important at all, but it hurt my feelings all the same. When I got so upset that my eyes welled, I tried to remind myself that it was mostly the lack of medication at work. It was then that I realized that - yes, the lack of medication was the reason I was feeling sad. But, was it the reason I was feeling anything at all?

What I mean is that, over the past few weeks, I haven't felt depressed, suicidal, sad or disappointed much. But really, I haven't felt anything much at all. I've had flashes of annoyance, but no real happiness or excitement or anything else, either. Tonight I realized that the medication wasn't just "treating" me, it was "dulling" me, too.

I saw a number of other positive and negative effects of being off it today. These include..

POSITIVE:

No tremors. I can type! And write! WITH A PEN!
I can keep a thought in my head long enough to write something vaguely coherent.
Less jittery.
More motivated to do things other than work.
More desire to connect with people

NEGATIVE:

More emotional, less rational
Less motivated to do real work
More tired

Each of these is equally important to me. I don't want to feel/not feel any of these, and I can't pick which ones are more important. Also not helping things is the fact that when I'm on the anti-depressant, I don't care that I have no real relations anymore. I don't interact with anyone, really. My friends and I don't talk or connect much, and my boyfriend and I barely acknowledge each other half the time. I don't like this, and I know it's partially caused by the medicine, but at least I don't care then. When I'm off it, I feel painfully lonely, but I don't become magically equipped with the knowledge to fix it either. Besides, half the reasons for these rifts are partially out of my control.

So what do I do? Stay off, or go back on when my doc eventually gets around to returning phone calls? What would you do?

Overwhelmed

You guys. Wow. Just...wow.

For the first time in so fucking long, the tears leaking out of my big stupid eyes are not ones of despair or desperation...they're ones of gratitude. Big, fat, sloppy tears of gratitude to a plethora of women who have never met, heard, or spoken to me...women who came here on the direction of one other amazing woman, and just oooooozed support.

How fucking awesome is that?

For the, like, two people who didn't come here from the Smackdown , here's what happened.

I wrote the "Asking for Help" post. After a brief internal debate, I decided to send it to this woman to put in the aforementioned advice column. That woman there, Miss Amy, got back to me right before the Friday Smackdown. And dude, can I tell you, for just one second, how totally fucking starstruck I was? DUDE. AMY STORCH. FROM AMALAH. WAS EMAILING ME. WTF. Seriously, I was a lil flustered. Um...anyway. Pretend I'm still cool.

Amy responded and told me she'd be posting the smackdown along with her answer in a little bit. An hour later, I refreshed my google reader. The Smackdown was up, complete with a link to this site. I logged into Typepad, headed to the control panel like I always do, and my fucking jaw dropped. 300 some hits. In less than 10 minutes. And comments. Dude! Comments! I NEVER get comments from people that aren't related to me! And it was all sweet, and supportive, and oh my god you people are awesome.

I had the intake appointment this afternoon.

To clarify: This isn't full inpatient. Starting Tuesday, I will be in therapy from 9AM-3PM during the week, for up to two weeks. They call it "Acute Partial Hospitalization."

I hate initial appointments. I hate that it's little more than listing all the things that are wrong for me for the better part of two hours. It's just draining.

The facility is the one where I usually go for my medication checks. It's extremely reputable, and while I've run into a few snafus and personnel with which I was less than thrilled, overall I'm happy with the place. It's "day area" is not unlike any of the other half dozen that I've attended, and that kind of depresses me a bit. A part of me feels like I've come full circle - back to the same old shit I was doing when I was 15, you know? But the other part of me felt hopeful.

The last two days have been full of support and encouragement. My fiance, my mother, my friends, my job, and now you ladies. While there remains a part of me that has never felt so scared and alone, there's also this part, a newer part, that feels like I've got a whole cheerleading squad behind me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. To Amy, to AlphaMom, to all of you who came here and read my story and screamed and cheered your support. You are all beautiful and sexy and have nice hair (of course you do! You read Smackdown!) and I am phenomenally grateful to you all.

Like rippin' off a bandaid

I told them. And it turned out NOT to be the catastrophe and tear-fest that I expected it to be. Lo, and how I fear the dumbest shit.

It went down a lil something like this:

My boss, Andy, called me into his office this morning. Because of my absences as of late, he gave me this schpiel about how the other two assts. in this dept don't know what the fuck they're doing (duh) and I'm the "glue that holds the dept. together" and it's really "difficult when [I'm] not here." So, of course, I felt all the more horrible for what I had to tell him.

Let me make something clear. I don't hate my job. It's not my calling, sure, and maybe I'm not making such a profound difference in the world by writing commercial property insurance policies, but it's still a good job. It pays well and my teammates, while astronomically different from me and my kind, are decent people. I LOVE my direct supervisor, Andy. I think he's funny, reliable, handsome (confidential to Nik - no I don't!) (Confidential to everyone else - Yes I do!), level-headed and trustworthy. These are qualities in a manager that are important to me.  He's shown me understanding where others wouldn't, stood up for me even when it could have damaged him, because he knew it was right. Were I not an anti-social freak, and actually attending some of my company and dept social outings, he and I would probably be friends. As it is, we have mutual close friends and there have been a number of times that I've spent hours in his office just bullshitting with him.

What I'm getting at is, I like working for him, and I HATE letting him down.

So when I had to look him in the face and say "I have a mental illness. I need to leave work for a couple weeks." I was all at once ashamed, afraid, and sad.

But he came through like the kind of man with all those qualities could be expected to. He was understanding, non-judgemental, and kind. He asked some curious questions, the kind you would ask a friend upon learning of their sickness, and then he asked some technical questions - the kind you would ask your employee. I spoke with him for about 20 minutes, giving honest details where they were necessary but keeping it brief enough to limit the discomfort. He dismissed me while we waited for the HR vice president, Caroline. When she arrived, she cornered me before entering the office and simply said "You are not required to tell Andy or Peter anything you don't want to. You have rights, you should know and understand them, and please know that you will be protected." From there we discussed the necessary paperwork and all the logistics of the thing.

Within a few minutes afterward, Andy and I headed to a previously scheduled meeting with a vendor courting our business. Andy let me dominate the meeting. He let me ask all the questions I needed to ask, steer the woman where I wanted to steer her, and he helped me shine by letting me handle the things I do best. Maybe this was for the benefit of HIS direct supervisor, Peter, whose affection toward me has been steadily declining over the past few months. (A whole other story entirely.) Maybe it was because he sensed my fear of being discluded or treated differently now. Maybe, possibly, it was business as usual, and I was just having one of those rare moments where I actually allow myself to shine and allow myself to understand that other people can see my light, too.

All in all, it went well, and though I'm afraid I'll eat my words later, I am currently profoundly grateful that I work for a man, department, company that will help me do my best, because they know my best is pretty goddamn good.

Asking for help

...

Sigh.

Asking the internet for help, I know, is one of the biggest double-edged swords of this here, new-fangled and technologically advanced world of ours.

On one hand, I've seen some really intelligent and compassionate people come forward for others with advice on how to cope with everything from job problems, marital stress, mental illness and infertility. I've seen (read) bloggers weep sloppy tears of (e)joy over the outpouring of empathetic support they've received from their readers.

On the other hand, 'tis a world full of assvice out there. And even if most assvicers are well-meaning, there's a host of people behind them waiting to tear the questioning blogger in question a new asshole. These days, over a keyboard and through a monitor especially, it's easy to forget that - though the words appear on the screen with no face or voice behind them - they were typed, and thought, by a REAL, LIVE, PERSON. One who hurts, and bruises and does, occassionally, care about the things (mean or nice) that people say about her.

Be that as it may, I still find myself looking hopefully, albeit hesitantly also, toward the scary cyber-space out there in search of advice.

I love the people in my life. My "knitting circle," as it were, is small. I speak to 3 people on a regular basis, and all of them I love more than cheese. However, because of their proximity, emotionally and otherwise, to my life, they aren't the most objective bunch.

There is no more neutrality in my world. There is no one to whom I can speak to, reach to, to find guidance for issues that are consuming my life. To everyone involved, however peripherally, there is too much at stake to gain what I think would be an honest opinion.

I have the option to check myself into partial inpatient care next week. This would entail of two weeks of intense therapy and medication monitoring from 9AM to 3PM. I would use up my vacation time at work so a paycheck would still come. It would mean that I can finally enter the therapy that I know I so desperately need and have otherwise denied or been denied, and it would give the good doctors the ability to start more intensive rounds of medication, and actually be present to monitor the effects. A big, hopeful part of me believes that this could be the beginning of the end of feeling like this. I'm real, real tired of feeling like this.

I would like - nay! - I would LOVE to attribute my problems to the environment around me. My job can be stressful. My finances are tight, my family is struggling. My future goals and current needs are almost constantly at war with each other. These things are enough to stress anyone out, right? But for a few weeks, maybe months, I've had to begin to acknowledge that even these problems twice-over shouldn't make me feel the way I feel. Small. Broken. Lonely. Paranoid, alone, scared, and hopeless. Your regular Zoloft commercial.

Except, in the Zoloft commercial, the sad little ball rolling around is just that - sad. He's not suicidal. He's not hateful. He doesn't think his friends are colluding behind his back. He doesn't leave work for the specific intention of catching his boyfriend at home cheating on him. (I'm sorry, Nik.) He's just sad. You know, I think right now, I could deal with "just sad." It's the other things that scare me. At times, frequent times lately, I feel bursts of hatred for everyone around me, including the people I love. Outside of these moments, I know it's my illness. I know that paranoia and fear grip me and make me think things that I, Kate, the Real Kate, would never think. But inside those dark moments, I hate my family. I hate my friends. I blame them for my sickness. I feel an anger and fear so profound that I can't figure out what is directed towards myself, and what's directed towards the people around me. In the seconds of lucidity (if you can call it that) I have, if I have them, I am terrified that my mind and soul is breaking in half.

It used to be that I would have weeks of stability, and then a few bad days. During those days, thoughts of suicide would flit in and out of my conciousness, never solid, never tangible. Then, when winter set in and the days became shorter, so did those weeks. I could still count on at least a week between episodes, though. As December passed, along with the holidays, the "in between" times, the "good" time stopped altogether. Now, the "in between" times are not the presence of stability, they're just the absence of rage. The "in between" times are spent in fear of when the next breakdown will be. The "in between" times are just dark and colorless, as opposed to the violent, bright reds of the "episodes." Suicide is no longer as a passing thought. At best, at moments like these, it's a fear. At worst, it's an option.

Since early December, I have tried to rally my psyche, give it pep talks. "It's the winter, dude! Dark days make a dark girl! Seriously, just get to spring, and see where you are then."

And I was ok with this. Logic, and a desperate need for everything to work out without intervention, divine or otherwise, made me wonder and hope if sunnier days and cheerier air wouldn't pull me through again. Now, I wonder several times a day if I will make it until spring.

And so here we are. On eve of a major life choice. Don't get me wrong. I'm not afraid of psychiatric help. (Much.) Entering intensive treatment wouldn't be so difficult for me save for one little snag. My job.

If I enter this program, I have no choice but to face my boss tomorrow morning and tell him what is happening. My job doesn't know that I have a mental illness. I think I've done a relatively decent job thus far, considering the circumstances, of hiding it.

I know that under the provisions of the ADA and the FMLA, etc. etc. etc. that I can't be discriminated against because of a 'disability.' But discrimination, as I'm sure you know, comes in all forms. I've been granted leniency for some things in this job because I'm considered a valuable employee. What if, because of my illness, I'm no longer valuable? What if they use things such as late arrivals or internet use, things usually forgiven, as an excuse to boot my crazy ass out of the company? What then? I'm scared for my family.

Unfortunately, though, the situation has reached a level of severity that makes the question not "Can I compromise my family's well-being?" but "Which will compromise my family's well-being MORE?"

Because if I tell my company, and they find a reason to let me go - I compromise my family's financial security, precarious though it already is.

If I don't tell my company, and I don't get help, I am afraid I'm running the risk of compromising not only the well-being, but the safety of my family and myself.

I feel so wishy-washy. At times today my resolve has felt like steel. I am sick, I need help. Nothing and no one will get better until I get help. At others, I weaken under the scrutiny that I imagine is coming from others. Why can't I just do it myself? Why can't I just take the medicine and shut my mouth and get through it? Why am I so goddamn selfish? For what am I jeopardizing my family's income?

At what cost will either decision come? Is there a right choice? A wrong one? Is there any way to tell?

War of the Worlds

Like most people, my existence consists of a number of little worlds - planets that, together, make up the universe that is my life.

There's Planet Work, Planet Home, Planet Friends, Planets Id, Ego, Superego..etc, etc, what have you. The planets have little competitions here and there - Planet Work always wants to be the forefront even though Planet Home is clearly more important. I figure this is normal. I figure most people have little conflicts in their universe now and then, but for the most part, everyone coexists relatively peacefully.

Then, you know, there are people like me. And people like me, well, we like to be different. We like to stand out from the crowd. We're show-offy like that. So our universes go to war. Our planets wage full-scale nuclear assaults on each other.

Planet Id says "Fuck you all, I'm pissed off and angry and I want what I want now. Except I'm not entirely sure what it is I want, so all you fuckers better figure it out and get it done, or I am peacing-the-hell-out of this bitch."

Planet Ego says "Pull your shit together. Everything is fine, everything is ok. This is just a test, you can get past it. It'll only make you stronger and then at the end you'll be rewarded for it."

Planet Supergo says "Shut the fuck up, Ego. You suck. You're fucking all this up and making everything worse. Why can't you just straighten your shit out and get it together? You're totally fucking useless."

Planet Work thinks all the other planets are totally insignificant, and can't understand why somebody doesn't just blow them all up and make It the center of the universe, already, God. 

Planet Friends thinks all the other planets are nuts. Planet Friends is backing away reaaaallll slowly, now.

Planet Home is sitting quietly, watching the war and wishing it wasn't so. Wishing it could be the haven it used to be, that it could make things better. Planet Home is slowly melting and burning from the inside out, watching the destruction around it, knowing that, eventually, it too will fall apart with the others. Planet Home really just wants things to be ok. Planet Home is the pacifist of the group. But Planet Home suffers the most, because - like most small and meak territories, Planet Home is where the war is being waged. While the other worlds duke it out, it's Planet Home that absorbs the damage, and it's Planet Home that will be destroyed first. And, oddly, Planet Home is really the only one worth saving.   

Open letter to self

You foolish girl, why did you go and write a post painting yourself as the poster child for wellbutrin or zoloft or xanax or cyanide or whateverthefuck you're eating these days a mere FORTY EIGHT HOURS after you'd started it? Did it ever occur to you that perhaps, just perhaps, it would be a bit more prudent to wait a week or so, maybe even two, to see how this shit was actually going to work? Of course it didn't. Because you are a silly little girl.

Guess what, Self? You're not better. You're still tired. You're still pretty angry, and pretty hopeless. If you had a brain in your stupid little head, you'd realize that the whole "so much energy! feel so good! so happy!" thing wasn't the medicine kicking in...in your world, this is what they call "rapid cycle mania." Duh. Dumb shit.

Stop being stupid, Self. Stop being an asshole to people you love. Stop scaring your friends. Buck the fuck up, and deal with it, cuz no one's got time for your melodrama right now. You've got more important shit to deal with, so grin and bare it and be happy that you have people who love you to be an asshole TO. Or...something. Without the asshole part. Whatever.

Love,

The Part of Your Brain That Hasn't Been Eaten Yet

AHEM. Thank for your patience. Moving on to things that aren't eating my brain, but no less sickening, can we discuss the search strings that bring people here? Let's review:

"little girl fucking with boyfriend"

"dad fucking little girl"

"pictures of little girls sucking"

And there was one so disgustingly twisted that I dare not write it here for fear that similar strings will lead even more sickos here.

I'm...sensing a theme here, people. And, um, suffice it to say that it's one that I never really intended. There are a lot of themes in this blog - "Stupid and Pointless," "Selfish and Narcissistic," & "Whiny and Melodramatic" are a few that come to mind - but the whole kiddie porn angle was never one I actively strove toward.

P.S. UPDATED TO SAY: DUDE! While I was writing this, someone got here with "little girl fucking"

P.P.S. KNOCK IT OFF

P.P.P.S. Perhaps I'd see less of this if I stopped repeating the search strings. Quick! Another search string! PICTURES OF KITTENS FLUFFY KITTENS SILLY PUPPIES CUTE KITTIES KITTENS ARE SO NICE FLUFFY SNUGGLE BUNNY PUPPY POOP.

-----random and pointless topic change with no transitional elements whatsoever-----

There is a dive bar down the street from my house that I've always been slightly afraid of. For one thing, the parking lot has a really fucked up configuration. It looks difficult, and me and difficult parking lots usually don't work out. For another, it's situated on some railroad tracks. And there's a carved native American head on the door. Aren't bars with native americans on railroad tracks where washed up cowboys and motorcycle gang members hang out? I'm not sure where I learned this, but I'm going to assume that it is perfectly and completely true, and not something I made up in my head just now.

Anyway, Lauren and I are going to enter this bar tonight. I chose it because it's close, and I doubt there'll be any over abundance of slutty girls and greased up frat boys in there, and you can get an acceptable vodka redbull at any bar, no matter how many gang members are in there, and that is basically all I require. Lauren is dragging me out to talk about my feelings. She wants me to let it all out. I, for my part, am just going for the free booze. I can't have any hooch in my house anymore, so I figure it's ok to occassionally take advantage of my best friend for a little alcoholic relief. Such is the life of a true rockstar, folks, you are in the presence of greatness.

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”

I am so goddamn frustrated. I am furious with myself...for being furious. For allowing anger and spite to let me believe that estrangement from my family was ok. Justified, righteous, even. I feel like my grief and grudges have finally turned-tail and smacked me right in the face.

I turned my back on my family in the wake of what were then grievous mistakes. I ostracized my aunts and uncles and cousins, even my own mother, from my life. Now someone is dead, others are sick, and the damage might be so deep that it's too late. How easily it all could have been solved if one person, just one was willing to bend at the right second. Was willing to flex to accomodate someone else, just that one time. How much could have been prevented if someone, me, anyone, had just said "I'm sorry"?

I feel horribly alone. My heart aches because I want to be with my family. Until my apologies are heard, though, and maybe not even then, that's not possible. I feel small and sad and scared, all over again. The fact that this heartache is 50% grief and 50% guilt is all the worse, because I can only turn it inward. I am sorry, so, so, so, so fucking sorry.

Almost a nice girl

Up until March of this year, I lived with my mother and my cousin. The atmosphere of that house was that of a battlefield. I mentioned in my old blog that life there was a constant scurry through a minefield, where a misstep could cost you your sanity for a few days. Each of us lived under a constant state of pressure and aggravation. Aside from the daily financial issues, there was also the minor issue that none of us could stand each other. So it was no surprise when, about a year and a half ago, I started feeling pretty down on a regular basis. Who could blame me for frequent and vicious mood swings? Why should I be surprised that all I want to do is sleep and binge eat when my surroundings were so unstable and unhappy.

Then, in March, I achieved one of my biggest goals since I turned 16. I moved out of my house, away from my family, into my own apartment. Nik and I settled in together, and I know that somewhere in the back of my mind, I expected all the unhappiness I felt to just...go away. All the major problems were gone, so I would get better, right? Except that, as you can imagine, I didn't. I got worse.

I felt like I'd never been happy, and I never could be happy. Everything that mattered to me felt worthless. Just like that sad little blob in the commercial.

I picked fights with Nik, I told him I didn't love him. I withdrew from my friends. I became distant and unaffectionate toward my son. I sank so far inside myself that at the best of times, getting to work felt like a major achievement. I felt bullied and unappreciated, and I had the constant impression that I was being plotted against. I assumed that laughter at work was generated by snide remarks about me. Though I never did more than make vicious asides about his untrustworthiness, there was a time where I genuinely suspected that Nik was colluding behind my back to put me away. For a few weeks I entertained fantasies that in my mind were realities - fantasies in which Nik and my mother spoke and met in secret to plan to take my child from me, fantasies in which Nik enjoyed a secret life with a girlfriend who was better, saner. There was a side of me that knew I was losing my mind, that wanted to get better and fix things, but as the weeks progressed the part of me that felt justified, even righteous in its rage, started to take over. I considered suicide. Not even so much to escape whatever it was that was taking over my life, but more to punish the people that I felt wronged me. Like a child breaking a friend's toy in revenge, I thought "This will show them."

I forget where along the line I made a concious decision to call a doctor. I know that an appointment was made, and I ran through a series of evaluations. The first two appointments infuriated me. Again, I felt ganged up on. I told myself that they didn't care, they just wanted to medicate me, numb me, kill my spirit, blah blah blah. But I kept going through with the evaluations, I think because part of me knew that if I stopped, I would lose the things that were most important to me. "Let me run through the motions," I thought. "I can play their game." They came up with their diagnosis and its severe and dire terms, and they prescribed accordingly.

I took the medicine. A big part of me believed it wouldn't work. A smaller part of me prayed it would, and that part started slowly getting bigger, and louder.

Fast forward a few weeks, over physical illness and various side effects, increase in dosage, etc., etc. I was better. My moods evened out, and suddenly I didn't hate the world. Moreover, I was pretty sure that the world didn't hate me. It was like I'd been watching a black and white and silent film, and somewhere along the way, without my even noticing, it had subtly changed and rolled and now it was technicolor, and dolby digital surround sound. After two years, I remembered that there used to be this whole other side of me, a side that I liked.

Things progressed rather nicely from there on out. This is about July, by now. I still had moments, days and weeks where my illness got the best of me. The medicine had some vaguely unpleasant side effects, not the least of which was a constant, crippling exhaustion.

The summer rolled out, and winter rolled in. I never fared too well in the winter. The lack of vibrant sunlight gets to me after a while. This year was worse because between my schedule and the length of my commute, there was three consecutive days every week that I never saw sunlight. The exhaustion got worse, and a weighted sadness just kind of fell like a veil over everything I did. I felt lonely and isolated. I still held tight onto the control of my paranoid rage, but I couldn't rein in the sadness. Sad seems like a paltry word, it seems like the meanest version of depression, but that's what it was. I was just tired and sad.

At my next visit to the doctor, I spoke about the seasons changing and bringing with them a heaviness that sat on me. I asked for an antidepressant. We ran through the list and finally settled on one that was almost specifically for seasonal depression. So again, another round of vomiting, stabbing headaches, dizziness and bizarre dreams later, here I am. Heavily medicated, maybe, but still me. And even more so than last time, the difference is absolutely astounding.

I'm not tired anymore. I can't believe that I forgot what it felt like to not be tired. I can't express acurately enough how amazing this is to me, how even as I type this my eyes kind of well with tears because I'm so overwhelmed by the fact that I'm. Just. Not. Tired. I can accomplish things! I can actually do my job, and be good at it! I LIKE existing! I don't think the daily grind is pointless and goddamnit, I'M NOT TIRED ANYMORE. I think I didn't realize how crippling this exhaustion was to my life, I think I didn't know that there were people who weren't tired, who didn't always just want to be in bed. Christ, I can't get over it.

And now, I'm like, a vaguely pleasant person and shit. Sure, I bitch way more than is proper or ladylike, and sometimes I still judge people based on their shoes or eyebrows, but I'm better. I'm really, honest-to-goodness better, and it only gets easier to stay that way every day. I'm not cured - I don't think I'll ever be cured, but better is enough. Better lets me see that there's a point to everything, there are things worth working for, that the world IS technicolor and surround sound, and even if it sucks sometimes, it's worth living. And that knowledge makes me a much more pleasant person.

So much more pleasant, in fact, that when my boss comes around to take pictures for the company directory, he tolerates it when I do this: