gl0ry_gl0ry

I'm always dreaming whether I'm awake or asleep. I'm exactly the kind of person who will check out of reality in the middle of a conversation. When I was younger, I used to run away to hang out with Anne of Green Gables. These days my favorite fantasy involves a husband, a house, and a baby.

Now I don't know if I want a husband, a house, and a baby. I'm almost certain that I don't. But that's what other people want, it's such a nice and normal fantasy that I can't help but indulge it every once in a while. What I really want seems so complicated compared to that. And what I really want is something that I rarely express, not even to myself, because my desires are so huge and there are so many obstacles in my way.

Some days, like today, I wake up and my whole body hurts with unexpressed desire. I can only think that I need something, and sometimes I know what that something is, but sometimes I don't have a clue.

Ah, well. What I really wanted to say is that I'm fine. I had a really bad night, but I talked it out (a couple of times) and I am steady again. I'm kindof in a place where I feel the stress grinding down on me, and I expect to react in the ways I have in the past. I'm waiting for an episode that doesn't come.

I've been handling it. I've been talking--a lot--and making schedules, taking my meds. It's been working. That's the good news. The bad news is I haven't been eating enough. It was an accident really. I didn't really realize that I was doing it. I don't really want to talk about it. Not the "a person needs to eat" part because that's fairly obvious. I will handle that too.

I don't want to talk about it anymore. I don't want to talk about any of it anymore. I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay.

I'll talk to you later.
Jo

There is a future worth fighting for. I believe that. Okay, maybe I don't believe it right at this moment when it's the wee hours of the morning and I can't sleep, when I'm listening to music that makes me cry, when my life seems out of control and I don't know how to fix it, but, God, maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I'll believe it. I just have to get to tomorrow.

Tonight I feel like I'm drowning. I'm literally gasping for air. And I have to be honest: I would do almost anything not to be here, in this brain, in this body, in this life. How did I get to this point--again--so quickly? I'm angry with myself, and I'm scared, but mostly I'm so sad. So sad that my crazy brain is being crazy, so sad for everyone I'm going to lean on, so sad for everyone I'm going to disappoint. Because, really, if I sit here much longer, I'm going to have to call someone for help. And I hate myself for that.

I'm sorry for this somewhat cryptic, slightly disturbing post. Especially since I haven't posted in so long. Look, you guys, it's Spring. Those blossom thingys are all over, and if I wake up tomorrow, I get to see them. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. My heart is not breaking over this. I feel it whole, beating in my chest.

But just in case, let's say a quick prayer, okay?

Please God give me the strength to push through to tomorrow. Because the future is worth fighting for. Help me to believe it.

Amen


I think it'll be okay. It always is. Thanks for listening.

Good night.
Jo

but it's alright, it's for a worthy cause.

I'm getting my juice back. I was feeling fuzzy and out of it, but today is a good day. I feel like talking. I feel like writing--though I haven't done any of that. I think I'll get back to writing soon. I just need my brain to fully clear up.

I did something inadvisable and stopped one of my medications without consulting with my doctor first. This was entirely the right thing to do. It was really effecting me in a negative way. He wanted to add more medications on, and I wanted to stop. I think I made the right decision. So long, prolixin!

That's all the news that I have for today. Tomorrow I see my pdoc and the battle begins. Wish me luck!

Love,
Jo

I've been feeling pretty low.  I don't know what happened, but sometime in the hospital my mood turned around on me.  I went in there pretty high, and now I have a hard time facing the future without flinching. Everything seems difficult, especially writing.  The thought of it makes me break out into a cold sweat. This won't do.

I need to get my drive back and I don't know how and that scares me. The truth is that I don't feel anything BUT fear. I'm just going through the motions. I hope this ends soon. I know, not a good journal entry, but that's all I've got.

I've never been beautiful, but this stint in the hospital has turned me positively ugly. I'm fat from eating all of that hospital food, my hair and eyebrows are a mess; I don't even know what to do with myself. I'm embarrassed to leave my apartment. When I think of seeing my friends, I want to cry. Forget about seeing my family. I can't even go there. I just need some time to lose some weight and then I can go about in society again. I'm so ashamed.

I've been gone for a while. I've been wiling away my days on Meyer 4 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. I spent three weeks there and I can tell you I never want to go back. That means making smarter life choices. I don't really want to talk about it anymore. I did my time and now I'm out except for this pesky day program that I have to attend.

I guess what I want to do is look forward. My brain feels a little foggy still, but I am already looking towards a place where I am healthy again, completely healthy. I want to be happy.

One of the things that is stopping me from being completely happy is a consuming loneliness that nothing seems to be able to satisfy. I want to be with someone all the time. I feel lost and afraid when I'm by myself--as I am now. My chest hurts, my hands shake.

I don't want to talk about this anymore either. It seems I don't want to talk about anything. I have things to do like clean the tub, but I don't have any cleaning products, so that is going to have to wait. I have to clean my room, but what I am really going to do is lie around and watch tv.

It feels good to be writing something again even though I haven't said anything. I'll be back.

Love,
Jo

It's been raining here in Baltimore so I haven't been out and about with my camera.  So, for my first picture I've searched back to Thanksgiving.  Here is Jakey looking like a big boy.  He got a haircut.  Apparently no one in NC understands anything but the shorn look for little boys and they chopped all of his glossy locks :(  I guess they'll grow back.

I'm not the pretty one. My sisters are petite, pretty things with long dark hair and good fashion sense. I tend to hang out in jeans and tshirts. Mostly hand-me-downs. My hair is short and unruly, my eyebrows, if left to themselves, run all over my face, I have a honker of a nose, I have terrible skin complete with freckles and more moles than a human girl should have to deal with, I'm tall, big-breasted, and--in my opinion anyway--fat. I have tattoos. I have scars. My entire body is covered in peach-fuzzy hair. I have short, stubby fingers and toes. My sisters have faces that are classic ovals. Mine is round. No, I'm not the pretty one. I've hardly ever felt beautiful in my life.

I had a dream last night. And in my dream I was beautiful. The details of the dream don't really matter. All that matters is that I was like the ugly duckling all grown up. I expected to be pecked to death, but instead I was welcomed and accepted because I was the pretty one. At last.

It made me think because I didn't want to wake up. For the first time in many nights I didn't fight my way out of a dream. I am thinking, not about the way I look--there's a kind of comfort in being me after all--but about dreams.

I've been dreaming. Lately I've been observing, learning. But I never fully participate in life, not in the way I should. I don't mean that I don't do things or interact with people. I do, in my way. But I live mostly in my head. I am wondering who I will be when I fully emerge. Will I be accepted or pecked to death? Do I have a choice in the matter? Is that something I can control?

It's not about looks, but about who I want to be. Who I think I should be. When I was 16 all I wanted to be was a good person. But, I find, that's too simple a goal. I could swear of swearing and say my prayers every night. But would it be enough to sustain me when I no longer have my dream world to retreat to?

I push. And I'm learning to push hard. Against myself, against my work, against the world. I'm learning to embrace that. I'm not who I thought I was, but I'm not sure who I am.

I guess I'll find out.

By the way, that ugly duckling story is a crock of shit. There is no way I am going to let to world define me. That was his problem all along.

I'll be back later.

Love,
Jo

When I was growing up, I was the girl who was always eating. I go a little bit older and became the girl who never ate. Now I have weird disordered eating and a negative self-image. People think because I don't weigh 100 pounds anymore that my brain doesn't act and react like an anorexic's brain. That's the opposite of true. So it doesn't help at all for other people to tell me that I'm not fat. At best I think they are lying. At most, I feed on that in an unhealthy way. There is no good way to respond to someone with an eating disorder who tells you that they are fat.

That being said, I've been really down on myself lately. I see myself inflating like a balloon. I watch the saggy bit under my chin wobble in the mirror, I pinch my stomach, I compare the size of my thighs to other people on the bus. I know--KNOW--that I haven't gained that much weight. (Just for fun I put on the dress I wore to my cousin's wedding a year and a half ago and it still fits. All of my clothes fit exactly the same.) I just...I just can't believe that I am not to big for elevators and doorways. It's pretty bad.

In addition to this, I've been acting out. That's the only way I know how to describe it. I feel the feelings of an episode, but I am pretty sure that I'm not actually having one. That's pretty unclear and confusing, but I'm not sure how to elaborate. It's kindof like I throw a temper tantrum every time I want a cookie, and I've started to throw the tantrum but then realized that a cookie is not what I want at all. Okay, that's a bad metaphor.

To be perfectly honest, I've felt empty and hollow and when I look to the future I see emptiness and death. Usually that screams episode, but in this case I think it has more to do with me not knowing what to do about my writing or what I want to do after grad school, and even what I want to do for Christmas break. My knee-jerk reaction is "kill self" but I don't actually want to.

To bring it back around to eating, I have to say my brain is a pretty tricky and complicated place. While I sometimes have trouble planning what to do on a day to day basis, it is quick to formulate "kill self" plans which usually begin with simple starvation. It's like my favorite thing to do because you are dying every minute even when you're walking around breathing.

So "kill self" triggers "you're fat" which triggers "hate self" which triggers "kill self" in an unending spiral that leads to the hospital.

There are other things in there as well like "you're stupid" and "you're ugly." Everything feeds into "kill self."

Which brings me back to the point that I'm not in the least bit suicidal at the moment, but I, in my wisdom, have triggered the cycle.

I'm going to tell you a secret. I don't want to die. I want, in fact, to live forever. Man, doing Fame in high school changed my life. No joke. I want to be successful. Very very successful. I want my own wikipedia page. I want to be remembered. If I do end up offing myself, I want to be like Sylvia Plath when I go.

And there are several problems with this (I don't exactly mean that it's improbable. Who care about probability? I was probably going to die before I turned 20. Here I am, 32.) No, the first problem is that I'm bad at setting goals. Well, I set them okay, but I don't follow through. It's not because I am lazy and dislike change, not completely, it's because I don't know how to meet goals, not really. I have to learn to baby step my way through them.

Next is the guilt knot. I've got, what's it called? A hell of a lot of grief and guilt going over the death of my sister and sometimes I don't feel like I deserve anything. Not even life.

I don't really want to go into it here.

But, most damning, is the fact that I'm a hand holder. I don't like to do things on my own. And I know that pretty soon I'm going to be on my own. No one is going to be there leading the way, guiding. I hate the very thought.

Hey, did you know my senior song in high school was "Here I Go Agan On My Own"? I voted for it. I think someone put it on the ballot as a joke, but it won anyway. There were a lot of jokesters in my graduating class.

Anyway, that's why I think the "kill self" got triggered. Because I was thinking hard about the future, not just about fame and fortune, but about what kind of writer I want to be, what kind of person I want to be. Complicated things like that. Plus, I'm going through a rough patch financially. I'm worried about it.

Sorry for the ramble. I needed to talk it through. Thanks, you guys.

Love,
Jo