of sins and virtues

     I woke up about an hour ago and could not fall back asleep. Ended up browsing the internet and stumbled upon this article about a woman who made a pledge to God when she was ten years old. It was an interesting read, and I am of course not judging Christianity because I know it is not black and white, but I was wondering what you thought of it, Wisp. We have never really spoken about this part of Christianity before and I am curious where you stand.

http://www.styleite.com/first-person/i-waited-until-my-wedding-night-to-lose-my-virginity-and-i-wish-i-hadnt/

anxiety anxiety

     I was thinking about going to bed early tonight but all I can think about right now is that I am leaving next Wednesday and will not see my mother for four months. I have gone two months without her in the past back when I was shipped to Seattle, but even that was incredibly hard on both of us, and at least then I was surrounded by people I knew and my biggest worry was whether I did my homework right versus keeping my grades up in college whilst maintaining an appropriate amount of sanity all on my own. I have felt the cold breath of a monster mimicking impending doom upon my back but I have kept it at bay for the duration of summer. Now he is creeping steadily closer and I cannot help but cringe. Anxiety is truly a beast. Granted, even without anxiety I am sure I would feel the same, as would anyone else being pushed out of their nest. And at the end of the day, all of this was my choice. I do not know why, but I feel like I have to do this. I have to. And I think a tremendous amount of this feeling came from my conversations with him; Joe. He made me feel that I cannot stay at home. I had eighteen years of protection and now I must face the real world, because staying stagnant will only dwindle any opportunities I have out there. I have to take advantage of this while I have the chance; while my parents are able and willing to support me, while I am young so that I can grab life by the horns before anyone else, and while I have not phased out of an academic mindset. Such a peculiar feeling for someone who is clinically depressed and crawling around the bottom of an emotional canyon, is it not? At least I can thank him for that.

pristiq

     Dear Creators of Pristiq,

          Thank you for creating the only anti-depressant that (apparently) works for me. You might just be my pill in shining armor.

     Yup, there it is, folks. The results of the DNA test I took which determines which alleles I received from each parent. From both parents I got either a) no pathway to process medication or b) a pathway which only partially processes medication. There are footnotes at the bottom of the page which explain what each number next to the different medications mean - essentially, the medications on the left work for me, the medications in the middle might, and the medications on the right will either not work or they will have detrimental effects, which explains why Prozac sent me in a downwards spiral.

     And there are the opioids (pain killers) that will work for me. Guess my 'rents won't have to worry about me getting high on morphine or Vicodin with all the other kids in college.

     Now I am just extremely worried about what this means for my other medications, which my mother and psychiatrist gave me funny looks for because I should be happy I now have this information (hello, anxiety?). Primarily, my birth control. A few months back I got the implant called Nexplanon which is supposed to prevent pregnancy for three years. It's basically a small straw surgically placed in my arm. But now that I know I cannot process the majority of medications I'm worried it is not 99% effective as it is supposed to be... which is really, really picking at me because I thought I had the next 3 years of my life covered and dealt with. I'm not active now, but I know I am headed for college, and maybe in a few years if something happened.. I just wanted to be prepared. And now I might not be.

     Plus, it might be the reason I'm bleeding for all but one week of the month. 

i heard the reverberating footsteps

     I was loafing around and feeling guilty because I have not replied to any of my friend's messages the past several days. In fact, I had not even looked at them. I do not know why I do this; avoid people for no reason despite knowing I will then feel guilty.. and then the thought occurred to me, I may be just like him.

edit: Wisp hasn't made a post in a few days now.. comeon, girl. You know I live for your blog. (Plus that kind of worries me.)

i built you a home in my heart

... with rotten wood made the cave from the start

- dcfc

     I am writing this before I switch over to my primary Google account because hopping back and forth is very tedious when you enable twenty million security features like I do. Thus, I am writing before reading any (possible) e-mails you have sent me, Wisp. I will look as soon as I can providing the real world quits interrupting (which it has a very profound talent of doing..).

     He called last night. I did not know until this morning because I left my phone in my folk's room since it is now pretty much useless and broken and I never talk to anyone on it. My mother was half asleep but she remembered being awoken by his first call. She said she missed it, but when she picked up my phone she noticed I had a text from him, and whilst reading it he called again. Of course my phone does this thing where if someone happens to call you at the same time you press a button it immediately hangs up on the person. Which is probably a good thing because my mother asserted if he had called again she would have ripped him.
     The texts?

     "Don't have to talk if you don't want. Just wanted to ask you something."

     When my mum accidentally hung up on him he then sent:

     "Right. My b. Take care."

     My best guess is he was drunk because he has never said anything like "my b" as he is quite erudite as a former English major. But I could always be looking too much into it. As for the question - and my mum agreed with me - I believe he wanted to know if I was still moving to Utah.
     And in case there is a lapse in memory here, his reasoning for us "taking a break" is because he could not cope with me wanting to move out there to be with him. Which I cannot deny.. to an extent. I knew I wanted to move to the west coast after living near Seattle for two months, I just didn't know exactly where. And I later happened to know a guy who I felt I was in love with who, coincidentally, was in that area. Who wouldn't go for it?

     ... And I don't know how to feel about last night. I saw it coming, when I think about it. But if I were to have picked up the phone last night, and had he asked me, I do not know what I would have said. His best friend asked me on Facebook if I was still moving out there, too. I didn't answer him either. I could not tell you why, but for some reason, I want to leave him guessing. I want him to think I stayed here in my state; that I was weak, and that he was the reason I was going to move out there in the first place, the entire reason, and that he was right. And in this fantasy, the day that he realizes he had been wrong this entire time, when he sees that I am in his state, and sees that I don not need him and never did, so clearly proven by having been strong on my own, I hope it hits home. Hard. I want him to regret leaving me again.

     I still love him, you know. 

     I think I have this warped idea that if all of that does indeed happen, he will realize I was never dependent on him and thus he will want me again. Or maybe one day he will realize how absolutely stupid he was for ending us based on a "feeling" when he had just told me he would not act on his commitment issues.
     And yeah, I think this is all because of his commitment issues. One, because this has happened before. Different problem, same situation. I proposed the thought of me moving in with him and he was totally on board with it. Said he'd take care of me and everything. Then the next day he freaked out and broke up with me. Granted, when he did it, he had different excuses for doing so. It wasn't until several weeks/months later that he came forth and explained how he really felt. And two, because his reasoning makes no sense.
     I hope I am right. I hope I don't get hurt again, too. He had some really shit timing, all things considered.

     On another completely unrelated note, I haven't really spoken too much about my medications, so before continuing my blog and possibly confusing myself or anyone else (not likely..) down the line, I digress. Currently I take 2mg of Ambilify in the morning which will be increased to 5mg in two days as I just started it less than a week ago. With the Ambilify I also have 300mg of Welbutrin. After three in the afternoon, although I am terribly not punctual, I take two 100mg pills of Zoloft. Some days I also take a vitamin d3 pill due to having a deficiency, but I'm really supposed to take every day. And now, as of a few days ago, I take two 5mg pills of Melatonin before I go to bed at night. In the past I have been prescribed Lexapro, Prozac, and Trazodone, none of which, unfortunately, have helped me.
     Reading that is hard, even for me proof-reading, so I'll just make a chart!

     Morning: Ambilify, Welbutrin, vitamin d3
     Afternoon: Zoloft
     Night: Melatonin

     Tomorrow I am going to see my - original - psychiatrist for my follow-up appointment. You know, the one she magically scheduled when her 'next appointment' would be for August 30th, AFTER I left? That one. The only reason I am seeing her is so that she'll write me a 'prescription' per se that will allow me to take Peanut to college with me. He can also sit with me on airplanes. Isn't that swell?

     After that Mum wants the two of us (and my baby sister) to go to the south side to look at phones since she's picky about where she takes her business. She also wants to go to the airport to exchange my voucher for tickets for me to come home for Christmas this year, and at some point we have to go get our military I.D's renewed. So I promise, Wisp, I am not purposely neglecting you. Depression is a full time job sometimes and it gets that much harder when others expect things from you when all you can manage is Depression Parkour.

     Let's take a moment to appreciate this picture, now.

     It is incredibly accurate.

     My biological father sent me more mail today - a note written on lined paper (with the frillies still connected) and folded middle-school style.

     "Hello, I sent you a card on 7-14 and wondered if you got it? I was very excited and was hoping to hear from you but never have. I really wanted us to try to talk things out and build a relationship. I fear that you have already labeled me as a loser since I don't have a good paying job. If you don't want to see or talk to me I wish you would just say no. I am not a bad person and your mom knows that. I do not drink and have never done any drugs "ever". I just live a simple life, I have tried many times to get a much better job, but I am terrible at math. I only understand basic only. I had to re-take the math test three times to get my GED and barely past. I'm good at everything else and got good scores. Anyway we all want to see you. You clearly saw how upset my mom and I was too. I just fought it till after you left, then it hit me hard. There's really nothing more I can say til if and when I see you or talk to you."

     At the bottom he put his phone number and said, "Call anytime. Even if it's 3am. I don't care." Signed, "Love you,"

     The note I copied word for word, grammar mistakes and all - not that it matters. What matters is how hard it is to hate someone whose words show love and regret ten years later, whilst during the ten years his actions had not. I start to wonder if he really does care about me. Then another part of me chimes in and reminds me that he always had an option to find me, because there is always a way. Nobody prevented him from getting my address or information from court, or finding my mother in a phone book, or even taking her back to court to see me. In court he insisted that he didn't have the money to get an attorney to do so, but he had one there to defend him against helping me pay for college? I guess I must still be a child because this situation is beyond me and I honestly don't know what to think.

     Nip out.

anger trumps depression?

     I very rarely get angry. Ever. And I just got angry. Not even over something big. I was watching Meadow for the past hour and she was crying her head off and kept spitting her binky out so there was no stopping her. When my mother came to retrieve her, she tripped over the power cord to my game... which promptly shut off. 2-3 hours of work on that stupid game baby-sitting a screaming child, now gone.

     And I don't even know WHY I'm mad, but oh am I furious right now. And then I want to cry at the same time. I make no sense. I thought I was past that part of being a teenager?

use the needle of your compass to sew up your broken heart

   Today, whilst waiting in the office of a new psychiatrist I planned to see due to my previous ones failing, my primary care doctor's nurse called me with the results of the sleepy study I had taken. She informed me that it took me an hour to fall asleep, and within the total 8 hours I was in bed, I slept a total of 3 hours, which I had personally read already and stated in my previous post. At one point during a 48-minute period I awoke 20 times. I stopped breathing 3 times that night for an average of 17 seconds. My sleep quality was 28%. And I have now been officially diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. Chances are, I'm going to have to now carry around a CPAP machine for the rest of my life.
     The fact that I have sleep apnea is a total surprise, and I feel so absolutely hurt. Hurt because for the past several years the people around me always convinced me that being so tired was my fault - that I wasn't going to bed on time or that I was not exercising enough or that I couldn't hold a sleep schedule and stick to it. I had been told by countless doctors and therapists that my fatigue and daytime sleepiness was due to my depression, and believing that sleeping encouraged my depression and was ultimately one of the causes, my mother religiously kept me awake by going so far as to purposely set off the fire alarm in my room in order to discourage me from accidentally falling asleep. When she sent me to live with my aunt after my depression reached rock bottom four years ago, she, too, refused to allow me rest, and refused to allow me to sleep until 9 at night or wake up later than 5 in the morning. My teachers hated when I slept during class, and so did I because I felt I was personally offending them, but they too believed it was my fault alone and that I was the typical teenager staying up so late. When I fell asleep after school I was met with disapproving looks from my step father who chastised me with little comments to make sure I knew. And I couldn't help it. I tried so hard to fix this about myself because it was so abnormal and wrong and I was so convinced that I just wasn't being strong enough. And I'm confused, because I know that now it was never my fault, and yet I still feel horribly saddened thinking about it. I felt so guilty for over seven years about something I couldn't control. And now I face the possibility of forever spending my nights hooked up to a CPAP, and all I can think about is how you never read love stories where the man wakes up in the morning expecting a beautiful day and a beautiful girl with cute bedhead and still sleeping, then turns and looks to see her wearing a giant mask around her face. I have never been a romantic or fantasizing girl when it comes to love, but knowing that never being able to fall asleep next to someone or just cuddle without being connected to a CPAP destroys me. The machine itself will forever be a reminder of how dysfunctional I truly am. At the end of the day, I am a freak. A literal freak. There are things about me that are, by definition, wrong. And people can sit there all day and preach that if people can't accept those quirks about me they aren't even worth my time. But if we're being honest, really honest, that's not true. Because I know that everyone has certain stigmas against people - not because they are a bad person, but because that's how they've been sculpted by either society or their parents. Even my mother does it when she sees an overweight person. Without knowing his or her circumstances, whether his or her weight is due to a genuine medical condition or not, she is immediately disgusted. Do I think she is a bad person? No. I think she's accustomed to how the majority of overweight people are at fault of their own and that, as humans, we immediately relate qualities, such as being fat, to past knowledge or experiences. Just like how when we touch fire and get burned, we know that when we see something that is similar, such as feeling the steam coming off of a hot plate, we associate it with the fire and choose not to touch it. It's our nature. And it's barbaric. But it's the truth. And now I will be a victim of it.