How am I still married?

I'm terrified that he is slowly getting tired of me. I'm afraid that every time he wants to go out and do something, and I can't, because of the state of my mental and/or physical health, that resentment is building in his heart, and that someday, he will realise the monster he bound himself to, and will leave me.

At the same time, I fear that he will never leave me, even though I am slowly destroying him. He is a giver. He's the ultimate "nice guy" with a white knight complex. But he can't fix me. Only I can fix me, and I'm doing a piss-poor job, and he is paying for it. He pretends he is okay with staying home on a Saturday to make me feel safe, but I know he would rather be doing something else. He feels obligated. I don't want to be an obligation. I want to be a source of joy and happiness for him. I want to be a good wife.

Today, I crossed the line. I was in a fog from some new medication, and he asked me if I wanted to go somewhere with him, later. My mind said "no, absolutely not, I just want to go back to sleep." But my mouth said "Sure." Half an hour later I backtracked, because I felt I needed to be honest with him. I told him I wasn't that interested in the activity that he invited me to.

It was a beer tour. He runs them, here and there, for extra money. This time, he had the opportunity to go as a guest, and there was room for me, too, because of cancellations. I made him look like an idiot because he had to call the guy back and cancel. I felt awful. I felt he must be very upset with me, and he was.

But he doesn't show it, when he's upset, because he doesn't want to be like his dad. He hardly ever raises his voice, and he didn't, this time, but in my mind, I felt like he should have been screaming at me. Hitting me. Telling me how useless I am, what a burden I am, how I just hold him back, cost him money, and keep him from doing things he wants to do.

But maybe all this was in my head. Maybe he wasn't really upset. I asked him if he was upset. I could hear the frustration in his voice. "I wish you would have told me 'no' to begin with," he said, and went into how he had to call the guy back and tell him I'd changed my mind.

BATTLEAXE. That's what the other guy must think, that Matt is married to a controlling, manipulative bitch. At that point, I blurted out what I was feeling. I was simultaneously thinking about how manipulative it was to tell him I was thinking of hurting myself, and that I needed him to stay with me so that I felt safe. I was turning the anger on myself. I told him of the image of the knife in my left hand, carving deep into my right arm, flooded my mind.

BATTLEAXE. MANIPULATIVE BITCH. JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER. ONLY DOING IT FOR ATTENTION.

I owe Matt everything. I owe him the roof over my head, the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the medical care I need. I owe him for all of it, and I have a duty as his wife to do things I don't particularly like, when I am not feeling particularly well, to repay all the times he has done that for me.

He says he doesn't feel that way. He says that he still wants to spend the rest of his life with me. He says there is nothing to forgive, that I'm not "in trouble," that everything is okay. Yeah, that's what they all said. And then, they left. Three fiance's and a husband. None of them could handle me. Matt says he can't stand to see me beat myself up. I do it because I feel I deserve punishment, for not doing enough to contribute to the household, for not finishing anything that I start, for not being a functional human being.

I almost wish he would hit me. I could accept that. I could deal with physical abuse if I knew it would even the playing field. I felt the same way in some of my earlier relationships. I would scream at them to just hit me, that I deserved it. I deserve to be hurt. When my first fiancé refused to hit me, I hit myself. I gave myself bruises, I bit myself. He tried to stop me, but I couldn't stand being touched. Eventually, he left me, because I was insane, and he was gay, or so he said. It was really much more complicated than that. His mother had died some months before. That's another story.

I am married to a selfless, wonderful, patient, adoring human being whom I do not deserve, and I feel like he deserves better than a thing like me. It's days like this that I think I should just disappear. Make arrangements to leave in the middle of the night, go back to the hell-hole that is my mother's house, because that's where I came from, and that's what I deserve.

And the most insane thing about writing this is that I feel very little. It is such an old, familiar script that I just rehearse it with a kind of dismal apathy. I know damn well how it was written, who collaborated on it and where the plot came from. I should have outgrown this by now. I have had more than enough time to eradicate this, more than enough evidence presented to me that shows my thinking is wrong. Yet, it's like trying to prove a creationist wrong by showing him clearly proven geological evidence that their theory is wrong. My douchebag brain won't let go of its faith in the idea that self-flagellation will somehow make up for my wrongs, and that, indeed, I have innumerable wrongs to atone for.

I know there are reasons for these thought processes. I know that, by and large, they're ridiculous reasons. Even so, I feel like writing this entry is just a big fat excuse for being a defective, conniving, worthless, soul-sucking asshole who deserves all of the physical and emotional pain I've endured.

When will he realise he married a monster?

"If only..."

So, lately, I've been like,

I think my brain chemistry has ironed itself out from the shock it received from the anesthesia drugs and the surgery itself. It occurs to me that one of my friends was quite right to suggest that general anesthesia doesn't actually keep you from feeling the trauma of surgery; it only keeps you from remembering it. At least, consciously. I think if your brain doesn't remember it, your body does. I actually scoured the Internet looking for studies about post-surgical trauma, and came up almost dry. Chalk this one up to one of those things I would have done a thesis on if I'd ever gotten that far. Ah, well. Consolation, today, is making progress in my veterinary assistant studies. At least I feel like I'm accomplishing something.

My new shrink finally asked me what my treatment goals are, yesterday. Here's one, and it's a big one: I want to be able to finish what I start. I know damn well I was milking being a student as a way to survive without actually having a real job. Had the money not run out, I would probably have continued forever. My fatal flaw was not being able to stick to one subject, and there are reasons within reasons for that.

Reason, the first: I'm a fatal perfectionist. If I messed up one test, got a low grade on one project, in any class, I would just give up. I wouldn't seek help from tutors, or talk to my teacher about difficulties I was having. I would just drop the class, and I would hate myself for it. This perfectionism problem goes all the way back to early childhood. I began to learn to play the piano when I was four years old. By the time I was six or seven, I was able to play most anything I heard, by ear. When I made a mistake, though, I would become enraged. I would slam the cover down on the piano, and bite my hand until it bled, all for one wrong note. This was likely because so many things came so naturally to me that, when I encountered something I could not do perfectly the first time, I assumed there was something wrong with me. I interalised this, and it remains a problem to this day.

Reason, the second: Physical disabilities and pain. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia when I was 14. I've lived almost all my life with chronic pain, and it's exhausting. Fibromyalgia, itself, comes with a host of other symptoms, including IBS, headaches, apparent allergic reactions that come and go, serious sleep disturbances, and, of course, constant fatigue. The degenerative disk disease began in my early twenties, as did arthritis in my knees. Even early on in my ill-fated college career, there were some days, some weeks, that I just could not get out of bed, or I missed class because of an IBS attack, or I couldn't concentrate because of "fibro fog," or a headache. All of these are invisible illnesses. I felt that even if I tried to explain it to my professors, they probably wouldn't believe me, and at the time, I did not have the resources to see a specialist.

Reason, the third, which should be abundantly evident by now: Mental illness and learning problems. I'm bipolar, and I also have ADD. The problem I have always had is that the medications used to treat ADD worsen my anxiety and manic or mixed episodes. The medications used to help my bipolar and PTSD worsen my ability to concentrate. It's an evil little catch-22. For most of the time I was in college and university, I muddled through with no medication or just an SSRI. It wasn't enough, but all I had at my disposal in terms of mental health care was a local sliding-fee clinic that was always packed. They mostly treated people in extreme poverty and dual-diagnosis cases. I was constantly asked if I was on illegal drugs or drank alcohol. I guess because I didn't, I was a low-priority case. When I finally got to see the psychiatrist, all she did was double my Lexapro. This worsened my anxiety to the point which caused me to drop down to part-time that semester, and, eventually, lose my financial aid entirely. My student loans were in default for years.

Reason, the fourth: I am literally interested in everything. The universe is an amazing and terrifying and beautiful place. Were it not for my weakness in math, I may well have gone into astrophysics, or molecular biology, or neuroscience, or meteorology, or any number of the "hard" sciences that require one not to have failed algebra three times in high school and managed to avoid maths altogether in college. ("I'll do it next semester...") I always scored high on science reasoning tests, and did well in biology, anatomy and physiology. Concepts, I could grasp easily, but calculations were another matter. The last thing I studied in college was journalism, because I felt that if I could not actually become a scientist, I could write about science, interview researchers, and let the world know about new discoveries. Did I care about Greek life at Kent State? Hells, no, but I'd write about it if it meant that my name got out there, and my writing recognized as good.

Looking back over what I wrote, it sounds, to me, like a bunch of lame excuses. If you could see the bruises from where I've beat myself up over all of this, I would look like I'd been in a fight with a pack of angry hyenas. There are a few physical scars, from where I used to cut, a faint ladder of whitish lines on my right arm. I say I don't want people to feel sorry for me, but at the same time, I crave understanding and validation, like any human being. I don't want to be exonerated from my sins. Philosophically, I don't even believe in the concept of sin. Yet, I can't forgive myself for wasting a good chunk of my life for no real-world gain. My mind keeps saying, "if only," and the clock keeps ticking. I don't know why, but I've always had this sense that I will not have a particularly long life. I've probably lived at least half of it already.

What are my goals in terms of treatment? I don't want to waste the second half of my life.

The Great Escape

Quick thought of the day:

I am going to attempt to consciously stop using a colloquialism that annoys me. When someone tells me that something bad happened, I will no longer say, "I'm sorry." I didn't cause the thing to happen, and saying "I'm sorry" all the time programs me to feel guilt. Instead, I will say, "My condolences," or, "I empathize," or, simply, "That sucks." I will also stop saying "It's not your fault" to people who say "I'm sorry" to me for something they had no part in. I will just say, "Thank you for caring."

Song of the day:

I'll use a lock that has no key
Aren't you in chains
That no one else can see?

Let the water creep over your face
I'll send it in waves
Just to watch you perform the great escape

How long can you hold your breath?
While you hold mine again and wait
Just to watch you perform the great escape

I'll pull your arms tight behind you back
Use myself as weight
And wonder while you fade

How long can you hold your breath?
While you hold mine again and wait
Just to watch you perform the great escape

Moby - "The Great Escape"

Not hard to see the metaphor, here. This is depression. I don't know if the author of the lyrics meant for it to be about depression, but it really sums up nicely what it feels like for me.

Today, though, I am free of my chains. I have had an exceptionally good week so far. I think I have truly recovered from the psychosis caused by the anesthetics, and I am more grateful than you could imagine. I feel like myself again. I admit, I have been slightly manic, but I remain self-aware, and thus far I have been able to ride the wave without crashing. I have been dressed and out of bed every day. I have spent much of the last two days out of the house doing both productive and enjoyable things. If I feel like I'm getting too high, I take a moment to breathe, and, if I can, go somewhere quiet and dark, to collect myself. It's been working. I do not feel insane. My girlfriend told me that it's been really good to see me up and about, laughing, having fun, leaving the house. I'm also taking personal responsibility for my health, and calling doctors and such, instead of Matt having to do it for me, or constantly remind me. My head is clear and free of static, and I know that it's having a positive effect on everyone in the household.

That doesn't mean I think I have been magically cured of mental illness. I know that the depression and anxiety still exist inside me. They just aren't active at this moment. What a precious moment. I hail my gods, but I give myself credit, too. Keeping those monsters at bay isn't for the faint of heart.

I hope, I pray, that I can stay strong. With few exceptions, it's been over a year since I've felt like me. In that year, I have battled chronic pain, opiate addiction, multiple unsuccessful medical procedures, major surgery, and completely unexpected and terrifying side-effects from anesthesia. Through all of it, my husband and my closest friends, whom I refer to as my Chosen Family, have been unselfishly supportive, kind, and patient. I am incredibly fortunate to have them in my life. I have lived much of my life without a real network of support, and many times, I forget that I'm not alone.

That's all I've got for today, really. Kind of afraid that if I over-analyze my current positive state of mind, I will lose it.

Crazy, Insane, and Accomplisment: the relationship between them

I'm afraid my shrink will think I'm crazy, and try to eradicate that part of me.

I don't want to lose my crazy. I do want to lose my insane. There's a difference, and it all has to do with being functional and accomplishing things.

Crazy is where my creativity and my spirituality live. Crazy is going out and dancing in a thunderstorm and getting completely soaked and hailing Thor. Crazy is waking up in the middle of the night and deciding to walk to the 24-hour coffee house. Crazy is reaching down deep and expressing the unexpressible. Crazy is standing in the middle of a forest or a city and looking around you, feeling the connectedness of everything, and laughing out loud because it is so absurd. Crazy is meditating on a candle flame and seeing the whole universe. Crazy is weeping at the beauty of something as trivial as the shape of a cloud or the perfection of a work of art. Crazy is intimate. Crazy is synchronicity. Crazy is love. Crazy is doing the most godlike thing that we, as humans, can do: create something from nothing. Crazy is the thrumming undercurrent of the primordial drive to survive and create and love and be remembered. Crazy is god. Crazy is really feeling deep down that we are all made of stars. Crazy is beautiful.

Am I one of those people who believe manic episodes can be spiritual? Absolutely. Do I understand the danger? Absolutely. I've lived with this all my life. Every moment of every day. I know how it can so easily tip over into a mixed episode and leave me incapacitated for days. But don't want to lose my crazy. Ever. I pity those who have never experienced it. Crazy makes me want to live.

Insane, however, is another matter. Insane is staying in bed all day because I believe my body is paralyzed (and genuine episodes of sleep paralysis do not help.) Insane is being so afraid to leave my dorm room that I pissed in cups in my room rather than open my door and go down the hall to the bathroom (That was a long time ago, when I was withdrawing from Paxil cold-turkey and had no idea what was wrong with me.) Insane is hearing the music when I take my headphones off and feeling like I can't rid myself of it. Insane is the sudden, unwanted, intrusive thoughts that bring me visions of gruesome acts perpetrated by me, and feeling as if I am barely keeping a lid on it. Insane is having coffee with a friend, when suddenly, her face melts off her skull, and when I blink, the vision is gone. Insane is feeling as if I am falling, falling, falling, faster and faster, into a void, the edges of my vision darkening and blurring. Insane is violence against myself, physically and mentally. Insane is what the pills are supposed to treat, but have, over the years, made worse. Insane makes me want to die.

Not to sound emo or anything, but insane is also the baggage I drag around with me, like Jacob fucking Marley with his mantle of chains. Insane is the veneer of emotions from situations long past intruding on my daily life because one little thing triggers a memory I may not even be able to consciously access until later reflection. Insane is the nightmares about being raped by my father and my grandfather that I am not sure are real memories or not. Insane is paranoia that people in my life don't really love me, and are only putting up with me, and soon it will be time to move on, again. Again...

Insane is also a fear of being found out.

Hi. I am thirty-seven years old. I have mental illness. I am also, apparently, a genius. I was a card-carrying member of MENSA in grade school. Everyone expected that I would do well in everything. I coasted through high school, ending with a 3.5 without having put in much effort. If it hadn't been for math, I would have had a 4.0. I went to college early. Since then, I have been to nine different post-secondary schools. I have enough credits for a Masters, if only those credits were all from the same discipline. I've studied anthropology, sociology, journalism, business, psychology, art, opticianry, ophthalmic medical tech, graphic design, and now, veterinary assisting. I remain just as deeply interested in all of these subjects as I once was, but I never had the discipline to finish what I started. I would do incredibly well for a semester or two, and then, insanity would creep in, and I would stop going to classes. Stop leaving my room. Just stop. Borderline personality disorder, anyone? I think that's what my mother has.

Aside from school, I have never been able to hold down a job for more than a few months. Again, I start out doing incredibly well, garnering compliments like, "You're the best temp we've ever had!" and "I can't believe you picked that up so fast," and "I can't believe you're exceeding your sales goals already!" But then, something always happens. I feel the mask of sanity begin to crack. I start to feel like an outsider. Eventually, I quit before they can fire me. Were they going to fire me? Probably, in a couple of situations, but not in all of them. My bosses, though, couldn't see the emotional and physical pain I was in. It's hard for me to put on a different personality in order to do a job. It wears on me. No, I don't give a shit what happened on "Dancing with the Stars" last night. No, I don't want to go to a bar with my co-workers. I find that stuff boring, and I treasure the time I have off work so that I don't have to put so much effort into pretending. My back hurts, my head is swimming, and I want to go home.

So, I have spent most of my adult life stumbling on the first few rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy, never quite making it to the point of being a fully-functioning human being. I constantly compare myself to other people my age and younger, and I am constantly depressed and frustrated because, dammit, I could have done that. I could have painted that picture. I could have gotten that degree. I could have written that book. Accomplishment. Recognition. Respect. I crave these things more than you could imagine. Insanity has taken them from me. Lack of discipline on my part, and perhaps some undiagnosed developmental abnormality, have kept me from achieving any of the goals I set for myself.

And now, my daily goals include taking a shower and getting dressed. I am infantile in my actual ability to function. It is very hard for me to feel any sort of pride in these so-called accomplishments. I should be a teacher by now, with tenure. I should be an artist, with my work shown in galleries around Columbus. I should be a Master Optician, working in an optometrist's office. I should be well into my externship in my Veterinary Assistant program. I should be, but I'm not, because I am not sane. And I am not sane, in part, because of all my past failings.

Help me, doc. My ears are open. You're the first real psychologist I've seen in ten years. Help me fix myself. I'm not suicidal. I am desperate to live.

Twenty minutes.

I got a new shrink, today. Like, a real one, with a PhD and everything. No offense to my former shrink, but I think this fellow is far more qualified. It went pretty much how any first appointment with a new shrink goes. Hi, how are you, nice weather we're having, what meds are you on, are you a danger to yourself or others? Well, not exactly like that, but you know what I mean. He told me I should start journaling again. Essentially, he told me to free-write. So, my next few entries will probably be short and sweet, or not. He doesn't know me, how my mind bleeds all over the page. For that reason, I am going to limit myself to twenty minutes this first time. Okay, and... go.

I'm a little concerned that if he did read some of my past entries, I'd finally get the dreaded "schizophrenic" diagnosis I've always feared, though why I fear it is up for debate. Perhaps it's because you don't hear about many functioning schizophrenics making it in the world, doing normal stuff like having jobs and going to the mall and being allowed near children and animals. And that would really suck for me, because, when I get better, if I ever do, I mean, which is up to me, of course, I would very much like to work in a veterinary office, at least as a volunteer. So I guess you could say the point of this rambling paragraph is that, finally faced with a real psychologist, and not a glorified baby-sitter (sorry, former shrink), I might acquire a diagnosis that hinders rather than helps me.

Do I, personally, care if I'm schizophrenic or not? No, not really. It's like any other label. Take it, leave it, write it on a name tag. It's just a descriptive word applied to, in this case, the state of my mental health. I fear what others might think of the diagnosis. I fear it will further limit what I am able to do with my life, not that I'm doing much with it now. And this is why I think I might be schizophrenic: because I "hear" my gods. And I am not sure whether the way I hear them counts as some sort of auditory hallucination, or whether it's more like a writer of fiction listening to the voice of their muse, but it's something that grounds me, either way. If I can't hear them, I feel lost. I don't fear they've abandoned me, or anything like that. I don't worry I've angered them and made them go away or that I'm being punished. It's just that my definition of "hell" (the Christian idea of the place, not the Norse goddess of the dead) is not to be able to hear or feel the divine in some way. It's to be so wrapped up in my own pain and worry that I lose access to the spiritual.

I was surprised that I was not asked the usual question that I have seen on every intake form from my shrink to my pain management doctor: "What are your goals regarding your care?" GOALS! That's what I'd like! Goals! Goals beyond "Get up. Take a shower. Get dressed. Eat food. Occupy self." Lather, rinse, repeat. The doc asked me today if I was an artist. Well, I'd like to think so. At least I used to be. Where did it all go? I want it back, and better than I've had it before. I want it back on a regular basis, not in spurts between varying states of unwellness. And then? And then I want respect. Recognition for something I've done, beyond, "Good job, you've made it almost to middle age without killing someone, and given your history, well..."

It's really kind of funny, it's really kind of sad...

My therapist likes to stress the importance of thinking about what I am grateful for to help climb out of a depressive episode. Of course I am aware of how fortunate I am to not be living as a spinster in my mother's house, with no friends and little contact with the outside world. Of course I'm grateful. Every breath is a blessing for someone who has planned their own death many times.

So, making lists of what I am grateful for seems like a good idea, right? Let's post those suckers on Facebook and share the love! But what my therapist does not understand is that "grateful" can backfire. Horribly. I will explain it in a single sentence:

"I have a wonderful life and people love me, but I'm still depressed, so there must be something terribly wrong with me."

Or, even worse- "I have a wonderful life and people who love me, but I'm still depressed, so I must not deserve to be happy."

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: My mother told me, when I was a small child, that there was no such thing as happiness, and that all we could ever hope for in this life is to be less unhappy.

So this bullshit is hard-wired deep in my brain. On okay-to-good days, I can circumvent that thinking, but on bad days, I just can't. What I am starting to learn is that my goal should not be to be happy all the time, but rather, just to have fewer bad days.

But there are days when nothing is going to work. Nothing is going to bring back my friend Valerie, who died of cancer this week on the anniversary of my grandmother's death. Valerie was only 29. I have already lived in this world eight more years than she got to. We never got to be super-close friends, but we were at each other's weddings, which were only a few months apart. She had just graduated with her Master's. When Matt told me she had died, I felt physically ill.

It wasn't just because she died that my stomach lurched. It was because the asshole part of my brain started telling me that life is precious and I could die tomorrow and I have accomplished exactly nothing despite accumulating enough random college credits to add up to a degree, if they had been focused on a single subject. I can't even say, "Oh, well, she didn't have the medical issues you do, blah blah blah." She did all of this with fucking cancer, and she made art and published a children's book, through all her treatments and everything that goes with it, and she knew she was dying.

I have no excuse for having done so little with the mind I was gifted with. Yet, I hide under the covers instead of trying harder.
It would have made more sense for me to have died, instead of her. But that's just the way it is.

So what am I most grateful for? All of the things I think I haven't earned.

This post has been eaten by my phone three times.

Maybe this time it will stick?

I'm typing with my thumbs, so I will make this succinct.
I quit smoking six days ago, and I feel like shit.

The reason I quit then as opposed to tapering off until the required 3 weeks before my surgery was a terrifying visitation in a dream by a deity from a religion I knew next to nothing about. I will elaborate later.

Even so, I am sitting here in the lobby watching for people to go out the back to see if they can spare a smoke. No luck. Probably just as well.

I am having trouble reconciling my feelings of worthlessness to the blessings I've been given. Matt got a promotion, both Kate and Paul are working, and I sit at home, at a loss as to what to do with myself. I feel I do not deserve the roof over my head.

There is a lot of noise in my head, as if I am aware of every minute process in my brain. It often paralyzes me in the middle of trying to do something, like getting dressed. I will sit there, half-dressed, staring at the wall, while my brain buzzes away. My train of thought is less a train and more like a hundred boxcars all going in different directions on separate, whirling tracks. This isn't new, just more pronounced, now.

I am still feeling a deep loss of identity. I have been unable to motivate myself to make Matt's room "our room." I am overwhelmed by things like laundry. We don't even have separate piles anymore. I used to do all my own laundry and hang them up right away. I don't have a door to close when I want to be alone. This reminds me of my couch-surfing/homeless days and triggers me.

Meanwhile, Kate and Paul wasted no time in making themselves comfortable in what was once my space. Irrationally, I feel stolen from, even though I had all but abandoned my room for months before, due to severe anxiety and fear of sleeping alone.

Kate and I rarely see each other, because of her work schedule, and she and Paul have the same issue.

Everyone is busy and productive. I can't even muster the ability to take a shower. I am in pain all the time, and I can't take anything for it. I feel like I am just leeching off others for support. I feel like cutting myself, but I would rather have a cigarette.

I have realized that cigarettes have become part of my identity, too, and it's just another aspect of myself that I have lost. (Also, I associate them with Loki. We'd often share.)

But when a Voodoo god of death tells you to "quit smokin' or he'll start diggin'", you kinda think twice.

Shut the fuck up.

Things I should be grateful for:

My "polycule" moving in with us
My breast reduction surgery has a set date (August 17.)
I did great at Marcon.
I had a lovely time with Matt on our "courtiversary" (we went to the zoo.)
I have a built-in support network here at home now, and I don't even have to leave the house.

But I'm not happy. I feel completely burnt out. I'm still on antibiotics for the mysterious vertigo illness, and I think maybe the doxycycline is interfering with my antidepressant. Or maybe it's not, and I'm just sad for no reason. I haven't showered in three days, and I don't care. Eating is hard. All I want to do is sleep. I tell myself that maybe if I put on some meditative music and relax and take a nap, I'll wake up and feel better. That worked last night, actually, but definitely not this morning. I have, in general, been plagued with bizarre nightmares that defy any kind of explanation. Just blurs of colors and shapes, the presence of people in my past, emotions of desperation and frustration and fear.

The one thing that sticks out from the dreams is Bartholomew. In my dreams, he's my imaginary friend. He's a tiny blue and black spider with a cartoonish expression. He is so small that most people would need a microscope to see him, but for some reason I can see him really clearly. In the dream, I feel sad because I want to get rid of him (he's pinching me and doesn't understand that it hurts), but I don't know how to cut the cord of spider silk that connects us. The cord is black and is attached to my hand with a tiny barb in my skin. I try pulling on it and cutting it, but nothing works. And he's really, really sad that I'm trying to get rid of him, because most people don't even see him, much less try to be friends. But I know I have to get rid of him somehow.

It sounds so stupid, like a dream a little kid would have. Well, I have been feeling very small. There are now three breadwinners in this house, and I contribute absolutely nothing financially. All I can think of is the other times when I have lived with other couples and been in the same position. I always got kicked out, or if I didn't, there was drama, and they all talked about me behind my back, and made promises to me that they either never intended to keep. Or, maybe they just didn't understand the gravity of those promises when they were made. I am a difficult person to live with. I have mental illness and physical disabilities, and they aren't going to disappear. I feel like I need to carry around disclaimers for people to sign if they really want to be my friend. I lost not one, not two, but three potential life partners because they decided they couldn't handle my depression. So, despite their assertions to the contrary, I find it hard to believe that Kate and Paul won't tire of me and my issues, and that eventually, Matt will see me for the broken, lazy, ungrateful piece of shit the others saw me as. I've still got abandonment issues, and no amount of reassurance helps beyond the moment, because I've heard it all before from people who have cast me aside.

I'm afraid I'm like Bartholomew the tiny spider, and there will come a time when people will see that I am toxic to them, and that they need to cut me out of their lives.

The fact that Kate and Paul work opposite shifts also does not help. I don't actually see them that often. When I do, it's nice, but in some ways, I feel more alone than ever. I shouldn't feel that way, because Paul has really opened up to me, and Kate says he barely ever opens up to anyone the way he has with me. He has shown me trust. I'm afraid to strain that trust or break it because of my illnesses.

I'm just afraid. The sadness is thick and viscous and gumming up my gears. I can't concentrate on anything (this blog entry is a small miracle.) I had to take half a Xanax just to be able to write it. I've said it before- I can deal with melancholy, with sadness and grief that has an actual cause. This sad-for-no-reason shit pisses me off. So does the insecurity. Intellectually, I know better. I know they aren't all secretly plotting to get rid of me, or that they talk about me disparagingly. I know these people are my chosen family, and they care for me and want me to get better. But tell the other part of my brain that. The part that keeps me in a constant state of fear.

I don't know what to do. I'm stuck. I want to feel like I did at Marcon all the time. I had a purpose. I made new friends, and reconnected with old ones. I felt like me. That was only two weeks ago, and I've backpedaled so much since then, and hit the wall behind me so hard, that my resolve feels broken. I look to my gods, and all they can do is remind me that my strength is there, even if I can't feel it, and it's my responsibility to do something about it. Right now, though, I don't have the strength. I just want to go back home and go to bed.

Oh, and I miss my room a lot more than I thought I would, too. I think that's contributing to my feeling of disconnection with the rest of the house. What was mine is mine no longer, given to those who better deserve it. That may not actually be the truth, but it's how I feel. The voice that tells me I am worthless and don't deserve anything nice is very loud right now, and I just want it to shut the fuck up.

Nothing to fear.

MARCon was wonderful. I felt like me the entire weekend. I didn't dress to impress or wear a lick of makeup. Hello, world. This is me. I'm back.

I worked in Ops, which is sort of like "dispatch" for the convention, all the hours I was supposed to work. I saw many old friends and made a few new ones. I renewed one friendship, and began to heal another. I hung out with Pokemon and Darth Vader and Loki (double meaning there, wink wink.) I shared a room and many thoughts with one of my best friends, whom I am so glad is local. It was the best con ever.

Yes, I was in a lot of physical pain for most of the time, and I had no chemical crutch to lean on. The pain slowed me down a bit, but did not stop me (praise the gods.) I got to a point at which I just decided to own the pain and get on with things. That said, I slept nearly the entire day yesterday. I was so tired I fell asleep sitting up between the time Matt asked me what sounded good for dinner and when dinner was ready. I felt a little depressed, because I always do after conventions. Going from being surrounded by a flurry of crazy creative energy to the sudden quiet of being home is always jarring. I think I handled it fairly well, though. I feel back on top of things today, enjoying the beautiful weather. (I was awake just long enough to witness a massive thunderstorm yesterday afternoon.)

I am not going to process and dissect all the things that happened over the weekend. I am going to cherish it as a few of the best days I've had in years and refer back to it when I question my ability to get up and do. I am so grateful for my friends. I am so glad that things came together just the way they did. And really, that's it.

Feeling the love.

Can I please catch a break?

I was in the hospital again this weekend because of extreme vertigo. I was diagnosed with an inner ear infection and, coincidentally, a UTI. Lots of rest and fluids ordered, obviously. I missed a party I really wanted to go to, to prove to myself that I can still go to parties and have fun with people.

I am weary of being ill. There's always something. My back, my fibro, my kidneys. What a mess. And here I am, still trying to be happy, still trying to get out and do things. It isn't easy. I've gone back to smoking, which isn't good, but I do intend to quit when and if my breast reduction is approved.

This weekend is Marcon, the convention I go to every year. I always look forward to it and dread it at the same time. Lots of people, noise, over-stimulation. But it's also the only time I get to see some of my friends, to "get my geek on" and be with "my people." It's important that I go. I have to shove all of my "what ifs" aside. I deserve to have a good time.

It used to be that I went there "on the prowl" for some naughty fun. I have no shortage of willing lovers who have been asking after me. But I just don't feel sexy. I haven't shaved my legs since last year, which doesn't bother me or Matt, but in situations like Marcon, I feel like presentation matters. I wish I lived in a world that didn't expect women to shave everything below their necks. (Ironically, the only thing I shave regularly is my facial hair.) So, I don't know. I suppose I will take one outfit to go to room parties either Friday or Saturday night, but I am not intending to end up naked. It's just too much work. I'm too old for this shit. Wish I wasn't, but it appears I am.

Next weekend after, Kate and Paul are coming to live with us. The house is messy and I don't know what it will be like fitting all of their stuff in the apartment. I am glad I will have some more companionship. I hope to deepen my relationship with Kate. I am just worried because of past experiences living with other couples that started out great and ended up disasters. Again, it's another thing I am both looking forward to and dreading.

I am still feeling a loss of self. Not having my own space is a huge part of that, and that isn't going to improve any time soon. I envy people who don't seem to mind not having their own space. Matt's fine as long as he has a computer, but I need more than that to feel completely at home anywhere. I don't know how to work that out. I guess it was the only way I was really spoiled growing up as an only child. I even had private dorms at college.

Still been sleeping a lot during the day, but some of that is, obviously, because of illness. It's sleep and pills and pills and pills. I feel like my life is slipping away from me, and I don't have the guts to get up and live it anyway. I am just feeling generally weak.

I want to be me again. Or maybe, for the first time. I remind myself that I am one of Loki's. Loki is not a gentle god (usually), and his deal is breaking shit and then putting it back together better than it was before. I am somewhat comforted by the idea that I am merely in the midst of some kind of transformation. Time will tell.

Bad dreams.

Yesterday, I went for my breast reduction consult. Again, assuming my insurance will pay for it, I will be getting the surgery within the next few months. If, and it's a big if... I can quit smoking. So, I downloaded an app that basically makes it a game to see how long you can go without a cigarette. I have about half a pack left, and then I'm done. I can't use any patches or gum because my surgeon wants me to be nicotine-free for three months before I go under the knife. As I've said before, this comes down to how much I hate my breasts vs. how much I love smoking. I love smoking a lot, but I hate my breasts more. I need to get my physical therapy records over to the surgeon ASAP to get the ball rolling with insurance, and I'm hoping for the best. I still haven't heard back from them about TMS for my depression, and it's getting really frustrating, because we've sent the paperwork twice.

This has been a tough week, pain-wise. I think it's the weather, combined with recovering from an Epstein-Barr flare-up. Oh, and I got my period again, and it's only been two weeks since my last one stopped. I guess my body is making up for all the ones it missed from September to February. I've been sleeping a lot, but yesterday, after I went for my consult, I told myself that I was going to stay dressed at least until 5 p.m., which I did, and then some. MY body is so sensitive that it's painful for me to wear a bra, and uncomfortable for me to wear clothes.

I've been sleeping fitfully for the last two nights, experiencing very strange nightmares. I woke up yesterday with a gravelly voice singing, "Hush my darling, don't fear, my darling, the lion FEASTS tonight!" It sounded like it was right in my ear, and it woke me up. Creepy. Then, last night, I dreamt that I fell unconscious, and when I woke up, I had beautiful tattoos all over my body, that moved as if they were living things. Only, they weren't finished, and I had to go to sleep again for them to be done, and everything in the world was trying to prevent me from going back to sleep, including being raped by a stranger who looked like my father one moment and and ex-boyfriend of mine another. I have some ideas as to what the dream means, but I haven't totally unpacked it yet. I guess that's what therapy is for.

Well, this is going to be a short entry, because I have to get my ass moving to my therapy session. I'll write more about the dreams later.

Same shit, different day.

I have to start this with "grateful" because I need to re-focus my mind on the positive stuff before I get into the shitty stuff.

I am grateful to have a patient, care-taking husband who doesn't bat an eye when I need help on bad pain days.
I am grateful to have amazing friends like Laurel, who inspire me to do my best and to not get down on myself when I have a bad day.
I am grateful for the roof over my head, the food in my pantry, my four adoring fur-children, wifi and cable, and all the other things I might take for granted if I hadn't been a couch-surfing drifter for most of my 20s.
I am grateful for the opportunity to get the healthcare I need, and the ability to try different methods and different doctors if things don't feel right.
I am grateful for the days I am not feeling too sick to go out, even if I pay for it later.
I am grateful that none of my illnesses are immediately life-threatening, unlike the illnesses suffered by many of my friends and acquaintances, one of whom died of brain cancer recently.
I am grateful for the ability to speak my mind online, and share my journey with others who care, whether they are my friends, or someone who stumble across this blog and find something they can relate to.
I am grateful for thunderstorms, because they make me happy.

And now, I shall commence bitching.

I went to the doctor on Monday to check that my blood pressure medication was working, but I was feeling pretty ill, with a sore throat and tender lymph nodes. I told my doctor it felt like the beginning stages of mono, which I had about 10 years ago. He said that it was probably an Epstein-Barr flare. Great! Just what I need on top of my fibromyalgia flares and my other pain conditions. Of course, there's nothing you can really do about an EBV flare except to "Go home and rest as much as possible." So, that's what I've been doing. Yet, even though I basically have a doctor's permission to sleep all day (EBV does that), I still feel guilty for wasting the days.

The funny thing about depression is that it steals your energy, makes you more prone to health problems, and takes away opportunities for fun and enriching experiences. It turns you into a hermit, and then gives you a guilt trip about it. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's been said before, by many people with chronic illness - "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." It's spring! The weather has warmed, I can smell the earth and the rain, and it makes me want to go out and dance in a thunderstorm or, when it's not raining, take a walk in the woods. I want to get out and do Yelp events with Matt, and maybe even meet some new friends. I talk about doing these things in bed with Matt before he and I go to sleep.

Thanks to Xanax, I no longer lie awake, tossing and turning for hours. It's pretty much lights-out about an hour after I take the pill, so I time it that way. The problem is waking up. The problem has always been waking up. The prospect of getting out of bed, taking a shower, and getting dressed seem like monumental undertakings, especially now, when most of my clothes are in trash bags because we had to bag all our stuff for the pest treatment. I just haven't had the energy to go through everything. I used to take pride in the fact that I had my own space, which, before my latest bout of major depression hit just before the holidays last year, was the tidiest room in the house. I did my own laundry, and I put it away, you know, like an adult. Now I have all but abandoned my room. I have to "move out" soon anyway, so that Kate and Paul can have the space.

That's a whole other kettle of fish. We still need to talk about Kate and Paul in regards to the nitty-gritty details of our housing arrangement. My fear is that Paul will not be able to find a job for a long time, and we will end up running into problems that will strain our relationships. I just don't want to end up in the same kind of clusterfucks I've experienced in the past, and Matt has never been in a similar situation.

I feel like I need a vacation from my own life.

So many things.

Let me start out by saying how grateful I am for having found an anti-anxiety drug that works for me. The absence of crippling anxiety that made me afraid to move is a huge relief. Unfortunately, if you peel back the anxiety, the depression is still there, and, while not as sickening as anxiety, it still slows me down and prevents me from doing things I want to do. I have been depressed for so long, at this point, that I don't really even know what it is I want to do. Every ounce of energy is spent just trying not to stay in bed all day. I have no means of relief from my physical pain except muscle relaxers, which knock me out cold. My TENS unit is useful only when I am actually wearing it, and the diclofenac I got at my last (and final) visit to my pain clinic is utterly useless.

I am living a largely sedentary existence, and it isn't because I want to. There are times that I don't eat, because it hurts too much to bend over to rifle through the contents of the refrigerator. There has got to be some other way to get around this pain and lead a more productive life. I made an appointment with a chiropractor. I am hoping that maybe he can help me out. I am hoping our insurance will pay for it. I'm also going to find out if my insurance would cover acupuncture.

I'm going to bitch about pain clinics, now, and explain why I've decided to go a different direction. I've been to three of these clinics, and it seems that they all operate the same way. They double- and triple-book appointment times, so that the waiting room is always jam-packed, and it is usually an hour or so after my appointment time that I am actually seen. They do three things: hand out prescriptions for opiates, perform injections, and refer patients for surgery if neither of those work.

When I finally get into an exam room, I get about five minutes with the doctor to tell him what's wrong. In the case of my last appointment, the doctor I saw wasn't even one I'd seen before, and he hadn't even looked at my MRIs. I told him upfront that I can't do steroid injections because of my mood disorder and high blood pressure, but he still tried to recommend a steroid injection. Then, he suggested an immediate injection of Toradol, which I know works, because I have gotten it in the ER for severe pain. "Thank the gods!" I thought. "They're going to actually do something!" Ten minutes later, the nurse practitioner came in and said, "Sorry, we're out of Toradol, here's a prescription for diclofenac. The doctor wants to schedule your injections for next week." And that was it.

I obviously did not schedule any injections. I think I have ample evidence that they simply do not work for me; I've tried them twice with no effect except to feel worse for two days following the procedure. I have a case manager through my insurance company. She called and asked if there was anything she could do. I told her I needed to find a pain doctor, so she mailed me a list of in-network pain clinics. But you know what? I've had it with pain clinics. I don't want to get hooked on opiates again, I don't want intervertebral injections, and, apparently, I don't qualify for surgery, and that is pretty much the extent of what pain clinics do. I'm done.

Next subject: breast reduction surgery. I went ahead and made an appointment for a consultation in April. On the paperwork I filled out, I had to tell them I am a smoker. They recommend three months being nicotine-free before they will do any surgery. That means no cigarettes, no vaping (unless it's nicotine-free), no patches, no gum, no nothing. Well, shit. I guess I need to figure out how badly I want this. I don't smoke nearly as much as I used to. I don't chain-smoke anymore, and a pack usually lasts me about three days. I need help with this, so I called my health insurance's quit smoking line. Well, that was fifteen minutes of my life I'll never get back. I got put on hold immediately. Then I was told that their quit-smoking program "doesn't have a contract with Ohio." I asked if it made any difference that my husband worked from home but that his employer was in Minnesota. She didn't seem to know. She put me on hold again. Then she came back and asked me a couple of more questions. Silence. I finally said, "Look, I've been on the phone 10 minutes with you and you haven't even asked me my name," and I hung up. So, next time I go to CVS to pick up one of my other scripts, I'm going to ask about their smoking cessation program and see how that goes.

As to the surgery, itself, it does scare me a little. Same as when I was facing back surgery, it would be my first surgery, and it would be a major one. Sucking enough tissue out of my saggy-ass H-cups to make them perky C-cups is a major undertaking. I kinda wonder what will happen to my tattoo. I'm grossed out by the fact that I'll have to have plastic drains put in. I'm worried about getting hooked on opiates again, because recovery from breast reduction is very painful.

But if it will help me in the long run, then it's worth it. If it reduces my back pain, makes me feel more comfortable in my own skin, and helps me find clothes that actually fit the right way, it'll be a big boost in confidence. Do I like smoking more than I hate my body? It's a tougher question than you'd think, and I'm still thinking on it. My consultation isn't until April 15, so I have some time.

Subject the Third: Fucking cancer, and the death of a Facebook friend. I only met her once in real life, briefly, at a science fiction convention. She and her husband really seemed like the kind of people I wanted to hang out with. I always enjoyed CJ's posts. She made a paper crane every day and posted a picture of it on her page. Seeing them made me happy. I wish I had made more of an effort to reach out and talk to her and talk with her online, but, you know, you never expect these things to happen. (I should know better, but I don't.) She died peacefully of an extremely aggressive form of brain cancer. They removed one tumor, and things were looking up for a bit, but then they found two more, which were inoperable. In a matter of weeks, she was gone. I've reached out to her husband, of course, checking on how he is through Facebook messages. I am one of just many voices.

Fucking cancer. There are so many people in Matt's and my circle of friends who have had to deal with it, or lost someone to it way too soon, that it seems like a statistical anomaly. How can I possibly know so many people who have, or have had, some form of cancer? Matt and I had lunch with another friend last week who has lung cancer (never smoked a day in her life). She doesn't talk about it. She lives an incredibly busy life and does all sorts of amazing things like drawing comic strips and self-publishing children's books and working on a Master's thesis. She made it clear that she doesn't want anyone to treat her any differently, and so, we don't. But the elephant is still in the room. Another close friend of mine is in remission right now, after going through hell traveling to Illinois every weekend for several months for a special, targeted radiation treatment only available there. And, of course, there was Matt's dad's cancer scare, and Matt's own cancer scare. My grandmother died of asbestos-related lung cancer, my grandfather and great-uncle died of prostate cancer. What the fuck?

It's made me very melancholy, thinking about mortality. Thinking about how it doesn't seem to matter how healthy and active a person is --death can strike at any moment. I am scared to die. I am more scared of losing loved ones. What if that lump in Matt's jaw hadn't been benign? What if Matt's dad ends up with a malignancy? Even my beloved cat died of cancer, and I miss him every day.

Subject Number Four: Cat-tastrophe. Around Yule time, we took in one of the neighbor's cats, because they didn't want him anymore. Apparently they didn't understand that kittens grow into cats, and cats need to be neutered or else males will spray and females will go into heat, and both those things rank among the most annoying things in the world ever. They kept leaving the cat outside all day with no food or water. We finally got sick of the poor thing mewing piteously at our door, so we took him inside one day. We asked if they wanted him back, and they said, "no." Well, all right then. Our Robin has recovered completely from the flea infestation and upper respiratory infection he had when we got him, and has become a part of the family, but I always worried about his sister.

Well, his sister ended up being neglected just as badly as Robin had been. Skinny, flea-bitten, bad upper respiratory infection. She came to our porch and meowed to be let in. Well, shit. What were we gonna do? We couldn't have five cats. We already have four, and that's two more than we're supposed to have in this apartment. It just so happened that some friends of ours had recently lost a furry member of their family, and were more than happy to take her in. So they came, and they and cat-burgled Robin's sister (now known as Ginger), and took her straight to the vet, and then to her new home.

Just like with Robin, right? Except we, uh, didn't exactly tell them we were taking her. I saw "Trish," the female half of the couple, while I was outside, a little while after the deed had been done. She hadn't even realized the cat was gone. Then she decided to open up to me about her troubles, about how she was on methadone because of a painkiller addiction, which hit really close to home. She'd had cancer, she said, and she showed me her scars. She asked how the other cat was doing. I told her he was doing great. Trish suggested we have "play dates" with the sibling cats. "Sure, that sounds fun," I said. Oh, gods, what have I done?

The next day, I saw Trish again, and she was completely distraught because she couldn't find her cat anywhere. I suggested she might have jumped to the ledge next to the balcony and gone around to the steps on the other side. I told her I'd look for her. She hugged me, and said "Thank you." But she will never find her cat.

I was torn up inside with guilt, not for stealing the cat, but for what I knew Trish was going to go through. Blaming herself for not paying attention. Wondering if her cat was okay, or if she had died somewhere. I wish I could give her closure. I wish I could tell her, "We did the right thing for the cat. We took her to a place where the people can give her proper care." But I couldn't say any of those things. Instead, I explained that when a cat goes into heat, she will try anything to get out of the house, and find the nearest tom. She seemed to accept that explanation. I just hope she doesn't run out and get another cat, because I'm not doing this again.

Loki tells me that sometimes, the sneaky, two-faced, underhanded thing is the best thing to do. It's how I feel, too. I just can't help but empathize with Trish, because I can tell the reason she couldn't take care of the cats is because she can't even take care of herself. The only reason I feel remorse is because of my empathy for Trish and her situation. There was a time when I had a cat, but I didn't have a stable place to live, myself, and I had to give her up. It broke my heart. Then again, I don't think everyone thinks of animals as true family members the way I do. Hello, repressed maternal instinct...

So, that's about it. I'll close by saying that I learned a lot about myself these past few days, and that I have a lot to think about for the near future.

I love you, Xanax.

For the last four days, I have been taking regular doses of Xanax. Gone are the heart palpitations that made me feel like I was going to drop dead at any moment. Gone is the constant fog of fear clouding my life and making it almost impossible to do the simplest things. Gone is the constant need to reassure myself that "I am safe, I am going to be okay." I haven't felt this normal since before I went off Percocet.

My psychiatrist prescribed 2 mg twice a day, which is a pretty high dose. I found that the full 2 mg zonked me out pretty rapidly, so I only take the whole pill (which is scored in four sections) before I go to bed. This has helped me sleep better, and, even more significantly, seems to have stopped me waking up every morning in a panic. I take 1 mg when I get up, and divide the other 1 mg up during the day, as needed.

The news isn't all good, however. Today, I saw my GP, and though my blood pressure was better than last time, it wasn't where he wanted it. So, he is putting me on Norvasc, a calcium channel blocker, in an effort to lower my blood pressure to an acceptable level. I'm worried, because the last time I tried a blood pressure medication that was not a diuretic, I had a paradoxical reaction and ended up with tachycardia and severe panic after just one pill. I am hoping this doesn't happen again. It works on a different set of chemicals than Propanolol did, so, hopefully, I'm safe.

Anyway, here I am, a 37-year-old woman, now ingesting a cocktail of 7 different medications every day. It doesn't make me feel good, and while Xanax has improved my anxiety, my depression is still there, dragging me down. I feel broken. Getting a lecture about how I probably have high blood pressure because I'm fat didn't help. Hello? I've lost 33 pounds since January 5, when I stopped taking Percocet, and my blood pressure has gone up, not down! Fat shaming aside, I don't think my GP is really seeing the big picture, no matter how clearly I try to paint it for him. So, do I take this new drug, or do I try other methods to lower my blood pressure, like meditation and exercise?  (For the record, pre-Xanax blood pressure was 157/108, and today it was 136/94.)

I'm just so sick of doctors and medications and fat shaming and health insurance. Blue Cross still haven't approved my TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) therapy, and given their track record, I'm bracing myself for a rejection.

So what do I do? I guess it's up to me and my gods. As I recover from the trauma that was withdrawal and the subsequent PTSD shit from staying at my mother's, as I begin to feel normal again, I need to take steps to heal on my own. I'm not going all crunchy-granola and stopping my meds, but I would like to start doing things I used to do, like going out on my own, and meditating, and becoming more active spiritually. But I have to take baby steps.

Meat suit.

This was originally a really long Facebook post. I decided to share it here, and edit/add a little more to it. This is what happens when the constant fight-or-flight shit goes away: I get thoughtful. I get existential. I get melancholy.

I often feel as though my spirit is separate from my body. That I am just piloting this broken-down meat suit through life, a suit I didn't choose, a suit that is cumbersome and doesn't fit who I really am. At least some of my depression and anxiety come from this singular perception. I don't feel whole. I feel like I am missing some vital component that would fix the disconnection between body and spirit, and I've been looking for it my whole life.

I woke up from a nightmare in which I was screaming at my mother that I wanted to transition. I guess the body dysmorphism crap is still an issue in my subconscious. In my dream, my mother was wearing a strange mask painted blue and white, so I couldn't see her face. Her eyes were covered, so she couldn't see me, either. Maybe it symbolizes that she will never see me as I truly am.

For those who don't know me as well, I have struggled with my gender identity for a long time. I don't fit into the gender-presenting stereotypes because I still like to wear pretty girl clothes, but only sometimes. I'm most comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt. I experimented several years ago when I was dating Joyce. I found that presenting as male, to the exclusion of anything feminine, was just as restrictive being trapped in a very feminine body (I have large hips and H-cup breasts.)

Deep down, I feel like a boy who just likes to cross-dress a lot. But, if I want to present as male, it takes a lot more effort than just wearing boy clothes and foregoing makeup. It's just the way my body is shaped. There are times when I enjoy my curves. I just wish I wasn't stuck with them. Just like I wish I wasn't stuck with painful joints, headaches, depression, and anxiety. Somehow, they all seem part of the same thing.

I have made progress since I first started to feel like this. I changed my name to Morgan about a decade ago because it is androgynous. I felt it fit more with who I really am. I still wish I had been born male. I'd still cross-dress. I'd be a fabulous boy who could pull off drag really well, and that would suit me fine. Gender expression and gender identity are different things. Sexual preference is independent of those things, too, and it's too easy to dismiss my gender dysphoria as some kind of manifestation of my bisexuality. It's too easy to try to fit me into some neat little category of "lipstick lesbian" or "butch lesbian". Those categories exist to make other people feel comfortable, but they don't do anything for me.

So let's get down to the potentially TMI nitty-gritty. I only like my breasts when they are giving my lovers pleasure. I don't like how they look. I have always had disproportionately large breasts, and on top of exacerbating my gender dysphoria, they hurt my back. I have often thought about a reduction, if not a total mastectomy. On "girl days" I could wear falsies, and that would be acceptable to me. As for my lower bits, I find it impossible to have an orgasm without imagining I have a penis. Yes, you read that right, and it's not something new. I've felt this way for most of my adult life, and even in my early teens, long before I had any concept of what "Trans" was.

So what has stopped me from transitioning? Back when I was presenting as a boy for a few months. I went to a psychologist. She gave me this ridiculous, antiquated test that was supposed to tell if I was trans. It asked shallow, stereotypical questions, like, "Would you rather be a car mechanic or a nurse?" I kid you not. This particular shrink dismissed my gender dysphoria as part of borderline personality disorder. (I'm bipolar, but she's the only shrink who ever diagnosed me as borderline.) I felt defeated, and not heard. So I gave up. I decided I would be okay with just being a really convincing "secret drag queen" for the rest of my life.

I think I thought that getting married to a straight man would somehow make the gender dysphoria go away. It hasn't. It's just curled up in a little ball, at the back of my mind. Sometimes it comes out in the form of a nightmare, or even a good dream in which my body looks- and works- the way I want it to.

I know I just mentioned this, but it's important to explain that gender identity and gender expression are two entirely different things. There are plenty of drag queens who still identify as men. Cross-dressing does not equal trans. Lack of cross-dressing does not equal not trans. Trans just means that you feel that you are a different gender than the one that was assigned to you at birth, and this definition describes me.

I'm probably going to continue doing exactly nothing about this. Science hasn't yet come up with a cost-effective way to give me truly functional penis and testicles. (Yes, I said testicles.) Nor do I want to flood my body with hormones that will probably turn me into She-Hulk.
I also wouldn't want to put Matt and his family through my transition. I don't want to have "the talk." I don't want to have to feel like I'm hiding when I visit his parents and grandparents. (But isn't that what I'm already doing?) Besides, fully transitioning to male wouldn't give me what I want. I'd just be stuck with another set of stereotypes. It's inescapable. And Matt loves me no matter what, and we've talked about this, but the fact is, he's straight. I don't know how that would work in the longrun, and I'm not willing to risk our relationship.

I've used the terms "genderqueer" and "bi-gender" and "gender-fluid" to describe myself. It feels mostly like my innate gender is masculine, but I enjoy presenting as female sometimes. (I'm sorry, but women get better clothes.) I am planning to buy a wig. That way, I can keep my hair short and androgynous and do fun things with it, like spike it up and color it crazy colors, but I can still have long, feminine locks on days when I feel like it. The wig/hair thing is about the only thing I can do to "transition" right now. Maybe, someday, I'll take other steps. One thing is for certain: this isn't going away. I can only ignore it for so long before it eats me up inside.

So, that's my rant for today

Getting old.

Up, washed, and dressed. Ate breakfast. Didn't go back to bed. These are accomplishments, I remind myself. It wasn't long ago that I was considering soiling myself rather than getting out of bed. No, really, it was that bad. So, I guess I'm making some progress, but it's hard to tell, from moment to moment. I have to look back to see how far I've come. Looking back is hard, even if I'm just looking back a couple of weeks. I may be free of my mother's house, but it still feels as if spending time there infected me, somehow, with its miasma, and I am still working it out of my system. I was only there for six days, but it feels as if all of my past there were concentrated into those days and nights in the deepest cold of winter.

I keep dreaming of her house, of my grandmother's house (which has long-since been sold), of a reality in which I have never met my husband. I keep finding myself back there, trapped, with no way out and nothing to occupy myself. It doesn't matter that my mother is kind to me, now. I remember the screaming and yelling. I remember slamming the door in her face when she wouldn't leave me alone. All I ever wanted was to be left alone, and she never could. If she just would have backed off for a few moments and let me calm down, I wouldn't have broken that mirror. I wouldn't have screamed "I HATE YOU!" with tears streaming, through a futilely locked door that my father had the key for. I wouldn't have gotten spanked. I wouldn't have been terrified of my parents. All they would have had to do is leave me alone when I begged and pleaded.

I don't even remember what I did wrong, in most cases. I remember my father calling me a "smart mouth" for voicing my opinion or dissenting in any way, and that usually led to some kind of punishment. I hated standing in a corner. I was claustrophobic, and paranoid, and I remember I didn't like not being able to see what was happening behind me. Maybe it isn't the worst punishment ever, but to me, it felt like abuse. And if I don't even remember what I did wrong, it didn't teach me anything, did it?

My mother listened in on my phone calls. She rifled through my school stuff and read my diary. She would pull out things I had written and twist my words to make them fit her own paranoid fantasies. I was plotting against her, I was belittling her, I was spreading lies about her. Then, she would tell my father, and he would discipline me. This normally consisted of bare-assed spankings all the way up until my early teens, which I am now sure constitutes sexual abuse.

And then, there were the arguments they had with each other. They would argue loudly until the wee hours of the morning, when I had school the next day. I did my best to cover my ears, but there was also a strange sense of excitement involved. When they fought, it was like watching a violent storm come in. I would listen, sometimes, hoping to hear something that would change everything. Maybe they would finally get divorced. At the time, I mostly sided with my father, because he didn't hurt me as much as my mother did. At least, that's what I thought at the time. We were "buddies." But I knew I would end up staying with my mother if they split up. I didn't care, because as long as they weren't together in the same house, there would be some peace. I didn't care, because I would find somewhere else to go.

When I was ten or eleven, my mother took me to a psychologist. It had nothing to do with helping me, and everything to do with blaming my father for everything. She basically coached me on what to tell the psychologist to make it sound like my father was the sole abuser in the household. Of course, I went off-script. I told him how scared I was of both my parents, especially my mother. In the end, the psychologist asked to see my mother, and recommended that she go on medication. That didn't go over well. She stormed out of the office and threatened to call a lawyer. Her plan had failed. I don't remember what my punishment was for that incident, but it must have been pretty bad.

I used to go to my grandmother's house every Friday evening after school, and spend the night. My parents would pick me up the following Saturday morning. I have a lot of good memories of those Fridays with my grandparents. We would go to Metroparks and walk in the woods, get ice cream, and sometimes even go to the toy store. It was a reprieve from my parents' fighting. As fucked-up as my relationship with my grandmother was, I always trusted her far more than I ever trusted my mother. I told her things I would never tell my mother, to this day. My grandmother didn't judge me or threaten me. She treated me the way she should have treated my mother when she was young, but didn't. Yes, my mother got it from somewhere, and that somewhere was my grandparents. I know she was shamed and beaten and afforded no privacy. I feel for her, now, but I couldn't understand, then. (Oddly, my mother says she always trusted my great-grandmother more than she trusted my grandmother, so perhaps it's generational.)

Flash forward, now, to me staying with my mother as an adult. It was always between things- relationships, attempts at college, or jobs. Every time I would fail at something, I would end up back at my mother's. It was safe there, in terms of food and shelter, but it was anything but safe emotionally. Ah, but at least then, I had some friends in the area, and I could escape to the familiarity of the community college during the day. I never graduated, but that community college became my home. Going to classes gave me purpose. I had some money from financial aid that was mine alone, untouchable by my mother. I had some freedoms. It wasn't so bad, because I knew I had a way out. I always figured out a way to escape. With that in mind, I was able to let the memories, and whatever weird shit my mother pulled while I was there, roll off me. I was, in some ways, stronger for having to deal with her every day. I was also in my 20s and early 30s, still, and hadn't really started to feel "old" yet.

All of these memories are bubbling up like a badly-digested meal. Even if I'm not actually thinking about the specifics of past events, my brain can't seem to buffer the feelings surrounding them with the healing comfort of time. I do feel old, now, and it is terrifying to realize that if something happened to Matt, I would probably be back at my mother's again. If something happened to Matt, I would, in all likelihood, lose the will to live. That scares me, because my life should be more than one person. My life should be my own, and not contingent upon another's. It's not romantic. It's not cute. It's horrifying.

I have suffered, over the last few months, a slow loss of identity. I have gradually stopped doing things that I enjoy because of pain, both emotional and physical. It started before I began my withdrawal from Percocet. The period of withdrawal, followed by a traumatic week steeped in sickly memories, have deepened my depression to the point of suicidal ideation. As I've said before in this journal, I do follow a kind of protocol with those thoughts. I just accept that they're there, and that they can't hurt me, because they are just thoughts. I remind myself of things that are good and stable that I have to live for, and of all the people I would hurt if I took my own life.

But I am so goddamned tired. I've developed high blood pressure, which I believe is mostly a result of emotional stress. (It sure doesn't make a lot of sense that I would lose weight and raise my blood pressure.) Benzos aren't helping. I'm now taking a diuretic, but it doesn't seem to be helping. On top of that, I still have at least one kidney stone, which could just sit there, or start moving at any time. I'm on potassium to try to break it up. My back pain isn't getting any better, despite the injections. I feel like all I do is go to the doctor. I definitely feel older than my years, beginning and ending each day with a handful of pills.

How did I go from being a child to being an old woman in such a short time?

Choices.

It's Monday. I'm home, Matt's home, no one else is here. Everything is "normal." I think I'm starting to feel better, but I'm afraid to even say that, lest I backslide again. I have had a few moments today in which I felt panicky, but mostly, I've been calmer. I've had a chance to process some of the stuff that happened over the six days I stayed with my mother.

It was definitely a step in the wrong direction. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea in the first place. Perhaps it was some misplaced want of familiarity, a hope that going "back to my roots" would re-awaken the old me. My stay there did none of that. Before I went to my mother's, I had been slowly starting to feel better. I'd gotten some of my appetite back, and I was pushing myself to go out and do things. I was still fighting severe anxiety most of the time, but I felt like I was making some progress.

At my mother's, I was traumatized the entire week. I felt traumatized throughout the weekend after, despite the presence of my girlfriend and her husband. I still feel traumatized today. I close my eyes, and I see my room at my mother's. I hear that damn clock chiming in the living room, the clock that she's had since I before I was born. (My first word was "clock," or rather, "gock," when I pointed to it as a baby.) I hate that clock.

My room was not as I had left it. My mother, a life-long hoarder, had moved in all sorts of clutter. My desk was covered with so many knick-knacks that I couldn't even put my computer on it. I tried not to look at the "shrine" my mother had created on my dresser, with pictures of me in elaborate frames surrounded by figurines and tchochkes I thought I'd gotten rid of years ago. (My mother always went through my trash before I had a chance to put it out.) I found myself unable to leave my bed for anything except food and the toilet, and even that took an enormous amount of effort. My mother, as I said, was kind to me throughout my stay, treating me as if I were sick with the flu or something like that. She would bring me food and water. We would talk, some. We didn't fight at all. She was being a decent human being. It didn't matter.

I couldn't shake the memories. I couldn't stop the feeling that I was going to be trapped there indefinitely, and with two feet of snow falling during my stay, it seemed I was imprisoned in a snowy fortress. I had a shirt that Matt had worn before he left, and I clung to it as if it were the last thing I had to remember him by. Even when he called me, it felt like I was talking to a ghost.

I almost never shut the TV off the entire week. It was the only reminder that there was actually a world outside my mother's house. Sometimes, this soothed me, but other times, it made me cry, because it seemed like I would never be part of that world again. I knew it was irrational. I knew that my fears had no basis in reality, at least my current reality. It didn't matter. At times, I was afraid to move, as if the mere action of sitting up in bed was going to throw me into a state of pure panic. I did a lot of lying in bed, staring at nothing.

I am not sure that having Kate and Paul stay with us for the weekend immediately following my incarceration was good timing. On one hand, they were both there for me. On the other hand, it was stressful, because there were now four people in the apartment instead of just two, and at that point, I really just wanted to spend time with Matt. But, they understood. Kate and Paul were both very patient with me, and didn't pressure me to go out and do anything. They just spent time with me and did things like remind me to eat. I think it took some of the pressure off Matt, which was good.

Yesterday, it was time for them to leave. They had assumed I would not be up to coming with them for the trip back to Stow. Just before they left, though, something yanked me out of bed, and I found the strength to come to the top of the stairs and say, "Hey, wait up." I pulled on some clothes, not really caring what I looked like. A five-hour road trip (2.5 down and 2.5 back) is a difficult proposition for me on the best of days, and this was not my best day, but I went anyway. I wanted a few more hours with my friends, even if it meant fighting the panic and depression and being physically uncomfortable in the car. It wasn't easy. The anxiety followed me throughout the entire trip. I'm still glad I went. I did not feel good during the trip. In fact, I felt like shit. I still felt better that I'd gone than if I'd stayed home alone, floundering in bed for five hours.

So here's the stark, naked truth: I have drug-resistant mental illness. I can't control my brain chemicals, and I have decided to accept that I can't control the anxiety, panic, or depression. What I can control are my choices. If I choose to face the monsters and do things anyway- things that are scary, things that might trigger me- then maybe, little by little, I can learn to live again. It is hard to make those choices. There is always something that seems easier. Staying in bed instead of getting up. Sitting on the couch playing with my phone all day instead of getting on my computer and writing. Knocking myself out with Benadryl instead of facing the day. Taking glucose tablets instead of eating when my sugar is low. Staying home instead of going food shopping. Taking a nap instead of helping Matt with the dishes. The easier choice is almost always the worse choice, and I am not always going to be successful in going with the harder, but better choice. More difficult, still, is not berating myself for taking the easy way out when I can't manage the better choice. If I do that, I will sap my own strength. I will sabotage myself.

So, next steps. I'm going to the doctor about my high blood pressure and my IBS, both of which have become a problem since I went off Percocet. Both are related to my increased anxiety and depression. I also have more analgesic injections scheduled for my back and my neck. Maybe if I can get treatment for some of my physical symptoms, I will feel stronger. Eventually, I want to find a place to take Tai Chi lessons. I think any sort of martial art discipline would do me a lot of good, physically and spiritually. Maybe I can get back into my vet assistant studies if my back feels better. Maybe I can start to go places on my own again, without Matt. You know, be a somewhat-functional human again. I sure hope so.

I thank the gods that I've found the strength just to make these tiny steps. I am surrounded by love, even if I can't feel it sometimes. I want for nothing. There is no material comfort I could wish for that I do not have. My life is good. All I want is to be able to enjoy it.

A week in Purgatory

I've often referred to time living with my mother as being in Purgatory. It's not quite Hell, but it certainly isn't heaven. Every time I have stayed with her for more than a day, in the past, had been because I failed at something- school, a relationship, a job, or life in general. My mother's house is filled with terrible memories of my childhood traumas, and of my failures as an adult. I had hoped this time would feel different. My relationship with my mother had improved over the past year or so. I wanted this time here to be a healing time, a time to reconnect with her and some of the few positive memories of my past. I knew I would have no responsibilities, and that she would take care of me. Unfortunately, it did not turn out like I hoped it would, and it wasn't my mother's fault. In fact, she has been nothing but kind to me for my entire stay.

But my brain could not wrap itself around the fact that it was temporary, that I was not going to be stuck here indefinitely, and that Matt was going to pick me up at the end of the week. And it sank in that most of my friends in the area had scattered to the wind, and those I had reached out to didn't care to visit because of the weather. Since I've been here, I haven't bathed or even changed clothes until this morning. Almost two feet of snow has fallen over the week. In this semi-rural area, it feels like I am isolated from everything. It will only be a matter of hours, now, before Matt comes to take me home, but it feels like days.

I would love to believe that once I get out of here, I will feel better, but I know better by now. This anxiety and depression follow me everywhere I go. Yes, it will be a comfort to be home with Matt and my kitties, but I know the illness will still be there, just as it's been for the last month. Even my anti-anxiety meds don't help. I don't know what to do anymore. I am desperate to feel better. I don't want to die, but I feel like I'm dying inside anyway.
Gods, please help me. It's not fair to me or anyone around me that I should be like this. I know Matt misses me, but I am sure a week away from my illness did him good. He's bringing Kate and Paul. I will be glad to see them, but I don't know how I am going to get through the weekend if they want to go out. There is always something around the corner to dread, isn't there? I want to stop thinking and feeling like this more than anything in the world. I am tired of writing about it. I am tired of living it. I am just tired.

Days and nights

Sunday was an extremely bad day. The weight of the depression and anxiety were so great that I could barely move. I struggled to eat (as it turns out, I've lost thirteen pounds in the last six weeks), and I was petrified of leaving the house. We missed the NHL All-Star Game. Luckily, Matt was able to sell the tickets. We ended up watching the game from home with a friend and some pizza. The bad day did get better, but I still feel angry that my mental health issues cheated me and Matt out of a once-in-a-lifetime hockey experience.

The days are much harder than the nights. My mood almost always lifts when the sun goes down, but the instant I open my eyes in the morning, the anxiety and sadness return. Why is this? The simple answer is that my eyes are very sensitive to sunlight, and bright light can trigger headaches. But, I think there is a more complex answer. I think that part of it is a feeling that I should be doing something- going to work or school, for example- and I am not. Maybe somewhere deep in my subconscious, I still feel like I am late for something. When the sun goes down, well, it's normal to be at home and relaxing. I spend time with Matt, whose work day is done, and I feel better up until I go to bed.

Words cannot express how tired I am of this cycle. It leads me to take long naps during the afternoon, hoping that when I wake, it will be evening and I will be "safe." I still can't seem to sleep enough, despite using my CPAP and taking anti-anxiety meds.

Speaking of meds, the new anti-anxiety medicine, Serax, seems to work for a little longer than Klonopin did, but I am still dealing with debilitating anxiety for much of the day. The slightest thing will make me cry. As for the new antidepressant, I had to discontinue it because it made my heart race. My blood pressure was already sky-high when it was checked at my psychiatrist's office last week, so he took me off Fetzima. Now, I am back on Lexapro, and back to square one.

There is a ray of hope. My new psychiatrist uses TMS therapy. Basically, he wants to zap the under-active parts of my brain with magnetic pulses similar to that of an MRI machine. I'm excited about this non-pharmaceutical  option, but I don't know yet if my insurance will pay for it.

I saw a new pain management doctor this week as well. He looked at my MRIs, examined me, and suggested I re-try the anesthetic facet joint injections. He thought they may not have been done correctly by my former doctor, which does not really surprise me, since that clinic was run like an assembly line. This place seems much more personable, and it's smaller, so we'll see. If the injections work, the next step would be nerve ablation, in which pain-producing nerve endings are actually cauterized. Not looking forward to that, but it's better than fusion surgery. The injections are scheduled for two days in February, one week apart, first for my lower back and then for my neck.

I have things in motion to help improve my physical and mental health, but I feel lost. I don't even feel like I know who I am anymore. There are brief moments of clarity when I remember, "Oh! I liked that. I was into that, and it once made me happy." Yet, I can't quite cross over into being enthusiastic about my interests. I start to question whether I even like whatever it is anymore. Maybe I am different, now. Maybe this whole thing has changed me so fundamentally that I will never be the same "me" again. I look at pictures of me from a year ago, two years ago, and I don't even know who that person is, or where she went. Matt says she is still here, but I am not so sure.

I am grateful for Matt, and for my friends, who have been patient with me these last few weeks. The next challenge is Matt's business trip, during which I will be staying with my mother, far from my friends in Columbus. When I am feeling better, in the evenings, I think of it as a welcome rest. My old room, the quiet of the semi-rural town I grew up in, and maybe even visits from friends I haven't seen in years. When I am feeling like I am right now, I think of it as being trapped in my past for a week, and irrational fears that something will happen to Matt and I will be stuck there forever.

One thing is for sure. Something has got to change. Something has got to give. I don't want to live like this anymore.

From the depths

I know I am not alone. I have plenty of people telling me that, plenty of people who have faced down this demon before and survived. "Depression lies," I keep telling myself. "It will get better," I keep telling myself, but days like this, weeks like this, months like this, it's hard to believe.

There are three things that keep me from going down the road of suicidal ideation. The first is my own spiritual belief that if I kill myself, I will have an equally miserable afterlife. There will be no relief from pain. My spirit would continue to suffer. Even if I am wrong, and there is no afterlife, nothingness doesn't suit me much either. It's a waste. Feeling nothing, doing nothing, being nothing is not acceptable. In fact, that is exactly what depression seeks.

The second thing keeping me alive is the idea that I want to feel better. I want to find peace. I want to find me again. I can't do that if I'm dead. I am terrified enough of the narrowing of possibilities that aging comes with. Therefore, it makes no logical sense to end my life early.

The third thing preventing my suicide are the people I love. I know that if I hurt myself or take my own life that they will hurt, too, and that thought is more than I can bear. Not to sound conceited, but I know I would leave a bigger hole than I think I would when I am depressed.

All of that being said, I am struggling to remember a time when I felt this bad for this long. Maybe after my divorce, when I was forced to leave England and move back in with my mother when I was 25, or maybe when I suffered serotonin syndrome after cold-turkeying off Paxil when I was 22. At any rate, these events are not within recent memory, and knowing I survived them does surprisingly little to help.

At least I know what I want. I want to feel good again. I want to look forward to events instead of dreading them. I want a neat, organized room and a rejuvenated altar. I want the energy to give all of these things to myself. I want the strength to repay those who have helped me through this time. All seem out of reach right now.

Today, I am afraid. I fear that because I was on those gods-forsaken painkillers for so long, my brain chemistry will never recover. I am afraid that I will never feel good again. I am afraid that I will continue to be an emotional strain on Matt and the others who care about me.

What is today? Nothing looks or feels right. My body feels strange, and I don't feel present in the moment. The sadness is viscous like tar wrapping up my thoughts. For just a minute, I think I want to die, but then I go through all of my reasons not to again. It doesn't make me feel happy, but it keeps me breathing.

I did go to the convention, for one day. I did manage to suppress the despair long enough to have a little fun. There were several people there who "got it" well enough that I didn't break down. The next day, my friend Mandy came to visit, and she kept me talking long enough that I almost forgot I was sick- but, like a nightmarish jack-in-the-box, the crippling anxiety and anguish sprung back with even more force the next day.

I've been crying and sleeping most of the time, only remembering to eat when Matt brings me something. And, of course, I am in physical pain. Just taking a shower and getting dressed costs an enormous amount of energy.

I want to look back at this entry later and say, "See? You got through it!" I want that "later" to be tomorrow or next week. It might not be, and that is scary, too. How much longer will this last? When will I feel happiness again? When will I get to stop settling for brief moments of "maybe it's not so bad" and actually be able to be joyful?

Something else that sucks: Taking care of me is a full-time job for both me and Matt. Doctor after doctor, test after test, expensive medications, physical therapy, mental therapy, and all for what? I don't feel any better than I did a year ago. I feel worse. So not only is this a full-time job, it's one that costs more than it pays.

Okay, I'm done now. I think that's about it. All this whining that I share with the world. I share it in hopes of gaining support, but also in hopes that someone who is deep in the same shithole might read it and know they aren't alone.

Winter. (Trigger warning: description of opiate withdrawal)

Over the past week, I have learned that the agony of withdrawal from opiate drugs runs deep into every crevice of a person's being. Let me tell you about that.

When you are in withdrawal, it is the very darkest night of your soul. Nothing is safe, nothing is right, and everything hurts. Lights are too loud, sounds are too bright, and yet, everything is black. You can't remember the last time you felt good, and you worry that you will never feel good again. You're sick to your stomach, your bowels revolt against you and you break into tears for no reason at all. It depletes every part of you. It's like the worst hangover you ever had combined with the worst fear you've ever felt, and it is unrelenting. No matter how many blankets you wrap yourself in, the chills come, and no matter how you claw at yourself to be free of your clothing, the fever burns. It doesn't matter what you tell yourself about how things will be okay again, that your body is just reacting to the absence of something it had grown accustomed to, it doesn't help. You're just terrified. Of everything. Your heart pounds as if to break free from your chest. Then, the depression hits. Nothing anyone says helps. Even pure love seems to bounce right off the barrier it builds between you and everything that matters. And even if you know that right there, within your reach, is a beautiful world glittering with possibilities, you can't touch it. You can't feel it. It is separate from you, somehow, and you are separate from it, and that distance is horrifyingly intimate, sickly sinking beneath your resolve. It seeks to break you. It does break you. You can't come out of this without being broken. It's spiritual and biological terrorism setting off a bomb in your soul.

Most people feel cravings for the drug. Strangely, I didn't felt much in the way of drug cravings, and I am thankful for that. I think it is because I put the painkillers in the category of a poison that isn't needed. Sure, I know that if I had a Percocet in my hand right now and could take it, it would make me feel better for a little while, but it's not worth it.

You know, since I've been on those damn things, all I've been doing is sitting around feeling... okay. And "okay" is just what it is. It's not good, it's not bad, it's not inspiring, it's not glad or sad. It's just okay. I became content with "okay," because I feared the pain, because I was sick of feeling twice my age because of the pain in my spine and shoulder. I didn't do anything with that "okay" feeling. Didn't draw, didn't write, didn't go out on my own for a whole year, I realize now. But part of me knew the whole time that this wasn't a normal "okay." Like I was just barely keeping a lid on something disgusting that threatened to crawl out if I forgot to pop my pill at the right time.

There were some days that I wanted to feel better than "okay," and those days, I took more than I should have. You see, opiates do a wonderful job of killing anxiety, and anxiety is something I have suffered from my whole life. On days when I couldn't be arsed to deal with the anxiety on top of the pain, I took more. There were a lot of those days in December. "Oh, the holidays are here. Can't risk feeling shitty for this or that event. Better fortify myself." And before I knew it, my pills were dwindling fast.

Then came the kidney stone. Here I am, faced with this new, even worse pain, caught with my pants down and low on my pills. I go to the hospital. They load me up with Dilaudid and Toradol, and because of my tolerance, it only takes the edge off. The first time I go in, they don't give me a prescription for anything for the pain, since my chart says I'm already on painkillers. I have a pain contract with my doctor that states I can't get prescription opiates from any other source. The next day, back in the ER with even worse pain and blood in my urine, they finally gave me the prescription.

Mercifully, the stone passed quickly, but there were consequences. As soon as my pain doctor caught wind of my ER visit, he had his receptionist call me and tell me he would not be prescribing any more opiates for me. I was left with fifteen, half-the-usual-strength Percocet to try to wean myself off. I took the last dose on Monday, January 5. Then I plunged into the excruciating process of withdrawal, as described previously.

I was lucky. I had my husband near the entire time, squeezing my hand and holding me close even if it felt, to me, like he was miles away. I had friends' support, online and in real life. One particular friend was extraordinary. She had gone through opiate withdrawal herself, and she gave me advice about how to deal with it, and talked me down from the terror, and made me laugh when otherwise I would have been collapsed in a heap of bitter tears.

I would be remiss if I did not mention my dear Loki, who was right behind me through it all. He asked for an offering. At the time, I told him that all I had left to give were my tears. "Then give me those, child," he said, and so I did.

As of this writing I have made it six days. 96 hours is the magic number for opiates to get out of your system, so I am past the worst part, but I cried for a long time this morning. I still don't feel like myself. In fact, I'm not even sure how to feel like myself again. Writing this has helped. Listening to music I used to listen to all the time before I was on the meds is starting to bring me around and remember who Morgan is. She's pretty awesome, really, but she's been in hiding. I can't hold it against her. Me. I can't blame myself or shame myself for this. I was never meant to be on the poison for as long as I was. I was supposed to have surgery. I was supposed to get help stepping down from the drugs. The system failed me. It's time to find some other way to deal with the pain. It's time to call the chiropractor, the holistic practitioner, the acupuncturist, the witch doctor, or whoever can help me manage my pain without those gods-forsaken drugs. It isn't worth it, losing so much of myself, for so long.

I am writing about this all as if it is in the past-tense, when, in reality, I will still probably feel the effects of withdrawal for some time. I don't like to think about that. At this moment, I am feeling as good as I can feel, given the circumstances. I remind myself that I have been through worse, and with far fewer resources in terms of friends and support. Lying here in bed, typing on my laptop, I can imagine myself going out to the coffee house again, writing stories, drawing, playing games, roleplaying... all the stuff I used to enjoy. It may be cold as balls outside, but I can imagine the spring. I can imagine putting myself back together again, and imagination is the mother of invention. I will invent myself again, and be stronger for it.