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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2181458-Are-You-Listening/month/8-1-2020
Rated: GC · Book · Emotional · #2181458
A journey of self-improvement - or not.
Sup? I'm Char.
You may know me from timeless classics such as
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#2030442 by Not Available.

and
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#1974611 by Not Available.


I blog for things like
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#2146101 by Not Available.

FORUM
30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS  (13+)
WDC's Longest Running Blog Competition - Hiatus
#1786069 by Fivesixer

FORUM
JAFBG  (XGC)
Because real life isn't always roses and sunshine...
#2094931 by Elisa the Bunny Stik



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Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya
Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya
They say jump and ya say "how high?"
Ya braindead, ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head


August 29, 2020 at 8:03pm
August 29, 2020 at 8:03pm
#991839
Artist: Sufjan Stevens
Song: Video Game
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"JAFBGPrompt: Which thing about 2020 is pissing you off the most?


Figured I'd update since it has been a minute, or a week, or whatever. I've had a couple people check in me, which I'm super grateful for given the fact that I haven't really been maintaining good contact with people. That's what I like to do on WDC though. I like to read blogs and comment and check in on people. Sucks to be on the other end and not be able to spend a lot of time doing that.

Anyway, I ended up having to get surgery again this week. For those who don't know, I had oral surgery over 3 months ago and it never properly healed so I've been in, at minimum, moderate pain since then. Went in for a checkup and they said it's just not healing at all at this point, so they had to basically redo a large portion of the surgery... cut back into it, clean out all the damaged tissue, sew it back up. So now I'm in stitches again, face all swollen, on pain meds.

Basically feels like I'm never going to get better and it's very intrusive because I need that part of my body to like talk, eat, and drink. The pain is significant enough that it really just eats away time and I can't even be distracted by other things.

It's just a lot to deal with on top of my dissociation episode and just everything that everyone must deal with in 2020. It's rough, truly.

But I want to get back to doing some 'normal' things, including WDC. I thought about signing up for the official round of "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS in September, but I don't think I want to commit myself to that given my current state.

Instead I think I'm going to try to get involved in a birthday event or two and then dig back into reading people's blogs, update "Invalid Item, and reviewing for "Invalid Item. Just some social things, I guess. That's the goal anyway.

I also need to start building up my GPs so I'll have enough to renew when that comes around next year. I used to get a lot more GPs from reviewing here, partially because I reviewed way more, but also partially because there were many more people crediting reviews on the public review page. I swear, I used to get 3,000-5,000 GPs per review between all the reviewing groups and just random review credits. *Shock*

I'm not complaining, it just means I need to get on it and try to average at least 2-3 reviews per day so I'm not scrambling at next renewal time. *Bigsmile*

Anyway, I'm here-ish. Struggling like hell to recover. But I think doing normal things like writing, reviewing, etc. will help at least on a social level. So, I dunno, see you in your blog or inbox soon? *Heart*

I don’t wanna put the devil on a pedestal
I don’t wanna put the saints in chains
August 23, 2020 at 11:42pm
August 23, 2020 at 11:42pm
#991449
Artist: Gregory Alan Isakov
Song: The Stable Song
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Today started out so good. I can’t even explain how well today started out compared to the past few weeks. I met up with the person I mentioned in my previous entry and we talked, did a session (or a scene as it’s called), and I was sooo clear-minded. For the first time in so long I was able to clearly articulate what I was feeling and hold focus through a linear conversation.

I was so excited because it was like, yes, I’ve finally broken through this wall and I’ve been able to connect to someone else. I was also feeling really good, like confident, maybe(?) Because I felt like I knew what I had needed and I was proud of myself for A) knowing what I needed, and B) getting it.

I was sincerely blissed out, like this weight had been lifted from my chest and I could breathe freely. We were kind of wrapping up our conversation over a cup of tea. By the way, acai blueberry tea is good. And, um, we. Well, so, he was.

Sorry. I should edit all of this out, but freewriting is pretty much all I can manage right now so bear with me. What I’m trying to say is that we were finishing our conversation so he was helping me gather my things up, making sure I didn’t leave anything behind and stuff.

So he hands me my work phone, which is the only phone I have right now. And it was like... 28 new text messages. I was like oh shit, thinking I’d missed something big happening at work. But all the messages actually were from my mom.

My parents are in the process of moving right now for like the 4th or 5th time in the past decade. She had sent a bunch of texts along with photos. And the photos were things from my childhood, which I didn’t even know they still had because the majority of it got thrown away.

It was just basic stuff like a picture of my youth group on some camping thing when I was 8 and she was like, “Do you want this?” So 28 messages of that. Something I made in art class, “Do you want this?” A science fair ribbon, “What about this?” A laminated poem that my school had entered in some scholastic competition during middle school, “What about this?” A 4th grade report card, “And this?”

I kind of I think was confused because I didn’t know what to say. I messaged her back and I just said I don’t really have room in my apartment you know to store stuff because I live in a small space. So she messaged back and was like, “Ok I’ll toss it.”

This really caught me off guard since I didn’t know the stuff existed at all, but also because I thought those childhood keepsakes things were kept by parents for themselves. I didn’t know that they were kept to give back to the kids as adults.

So I said that. I was just like I thought parents kept those things for themselves? Because I certainly didn’t keep my science fair ribbon or ask anyone to hold onto it. She just responded and said my brothers took some of their stuff.

I didn’t know how to respond and I’m not a parent so I don’t know the social background of those childhood keepsakes or whatever so I just told her she could throw anything of mine away that she comes across.

But I was still with this other person as this conversation was happening and he was like, “Are you okay? What’s going on?” I told him everything’s cool, like nothing’s going on. And he told me I just got really tense and my mood shifted. So I just thanked him for the tea and left.

Then my day started to unravel a lot all at once. It was like that cloud came back over me and I had that weight on top of me again. I wasn’t breathing freely anymore, my breaths were more like ragged and just not calm.

And I had no idea why. I wasn’t even upset about the stuff. I couldn’t even identify what emotions I was feeling or what was happening. My head was just spinning for some reason and I was sitting through traffic lights on the way home, just feeling myself drift apart again. I kept trying to reconnect and regain the feeling I’d had this morning but it wouldn’t come back to me.

I just slipped away. By the time I got home, I was completely detached again and couldn’t even remember the last bit of the drive home. I kind of just stumbled up the stairs and into bed. I felt so drained of energy. All I could do was sleep on and off for the rest of the day.

When I finally woke up in the evening, I felt super frustrated because I thought I’d had a breakthrough and I didn’t. It was so temporary. I really wanted it to last a little bit longer. I’m annoyed with myself because I don’t understand what happened. Who cares about the junk from my old schools and church and stuff? I don’t know get why that ruined my mood. Just stupid... Everything I had planned for the afternoon (mostly just WDC stuff) was gone.

But I still have slight hope that I can come out of this somehow because I did, however briefly. It makes me think I’m on the right track maybe.

Now I've been crazy couldn't you tell
I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell
August 21, 2020 at 11:01pm
August 21, 2020 at 11:01pm
#991323
Artist: The Velvet Underground
Song: Venus in Furs
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"JAFBG Prompt: Let's talk unpopular opinions. What petty hill are you willing to die on?


So, yeah... I still feel like shit. How did the stoicism not work?? *Rolling* Thought that was foolproof.

I have a hill to die on, but it’s not petty and I'm probably going to dance around it because it's not the most comfortable thing for me to talk about here. The good news is that I am coming back around. Slowly.

I've thought on it and I know what I need to do to center myself, to ground myself. To break the dissociation that I've been feeling for fucking weeks and weeks now. I have to do something that forces the dissociation so that I can "come out of it" naturally. I have to do that with someone I trust to guide me in and out of it.

I'm not sure if anyone who reads this will me well enough to know what I'm referring to, but "omg, charlie, no" comments to the right please. *Right*

I've meditated on it and it's just what I'm going to do. I've already set things into motion. Shockingly, Kira agreed to it. Or maybe not shockingly because she'd probably to just about anything to get me out of her hair with my constant dissociation panic attacks. If I'm going to jump in between dissociating and panicking all the time anyway, I might as well just go all the way there.

This is weird for me to write about because I haven't really written straightforward about my lifestyle or being in the bdsm scene. To be clear, I have written about it (see: "Invalid Item; "Invalid Item), but not really in my blog, I guess.

But usually when I do talk to someone about it they're like, "You can't be serious... with your history??" Or they're just like, "That should be illegal." "That's insane." "Why would someone do this?" et cetera...

The thing is, I'm probably into it because of my history, not in spite of it. It's comfortable for me to slip into because it's what I know. It's what I understand. So I can "shrug it on" easily (see:"Invalid Entry).

Admittedly, I've gone through a fair share of bullshit in the scene because not everyone has your best interests at heart. There are a lot of people who are just outright abusive and are hiding behind the scene because it allows them to do what they want to do to unsuspecting people who aren't sure what they need or want.

But I do have someone who's greatly experienced and knows me better than almost anyone. And, yeah, that's what I'm going to try to do. I mean, we're going to meet this weekend to talk through things. We'll see.

75% chance minja freaks if she reads this, so I won't tag her, but if it comes up later, I'll claim that I told everyone publicly. *Laugh* Love you though, Min. *Heart*

The potential of this has reinvigorated me. Gotten me through work, although I'm still not concentrating well at all. I'm worried about how little I've gotten done, like someone's just going to be like hey, what the fuck have you been doing for literally weeks??

I mean, I've been there to answer emails and send out reports and all that shit, but I haven't really done anything beyond that, so kind of just the bare minimum for a few weeks now.

I'm going to try to respond to emails and stuff here this weekend. My thoughts feel a little more collected now, so as long as I don't have a really bad weekend, I should be able to engage with people a little better now.

Dunno, debating posting this now. Like, it's not a huge deal and probably no one will read it anyway. It's just something that's easy to get judged kind of harshly on. But I'm okay with that I think. It's my body so it's my choice, and that's definitely a hill I'm willing to die on... for myself and others.

But if that comes to fruition, I might mention it in my blog here and there so it's fair to just get it out there now.

I really want to get out of my head and stop dissociating. It just feels so horrible. It's like complete emotional numbness and total disconnection between myself and every other person. Like a glass wall between us.

It’s hard because people have reached out to me and I desperately want to reach back to them... but I can’t. Every time someone checks in on me, I just want to reach for them.

I simply cannot do this anymore. I have to try something else and hope for the best. Even though I’m scared to, which explains why I felt the need to write about it. *Rolleyes*

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears
August 18, 2020 at 10:54pm
August 18, 2020 at 10:54pm
#991132
Artist: Bon Iver
Song: Flume
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I was so ready to write and say that I'm starting to snap out of this episode that I'm in. I’ve been trying incredibly hard to just swallow down the things that triggered it. Just going in and out of dissociation while trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Trying to essentially just hold conversations as best as I can when someone messages me. Although I’m clearly not coming across as myself because a few people I know in real life have mentioned that I’m very quiet and asked if I’m having migraines, which sounded like a good excuse to me, so I just said yeah.

In reality, I’m not doing anything as normal. Not eating as normal, not sleeping as normal. I’m having nightmares pretty much every time I fall asleep. I wake up panicked, gasping for air and regret sleeping in the first place. I’m not able to hold conversations like normal. I’ve even tried to respond to emails or comments here and my fingers just freeze over the keys. My mind slips away.

Somehow, the panic attacks and nightmares are a "good" sign, interlaced with the dissociation because it means I am starting to come back to what is my reality. Cycling between the two is a signal that I'm going to be back to my anxiety-riddled self in no time. Unfortunately, I still haven't gotten my medication situation figured out. Maybe my brain was trying to protect itself long enough for me to get it sorted. Failed you there, brain.

So anyway, yesterday, after another work day spent completely spaced out and falling even further behind, I decided that enough is enough. It’s absolutely necessary that I drop back into reality by whatever means necessary. Whether I have to medicate myself or drink my brain into submission or go find my toxic ex to straighten me out. Doesn’t matter. Gotta figure it out.

That was the only thing on my mind after work.

And then I got a message from my mother.

And unbeknownst to her, I got re-triggered and immediately started spiraling yet again. So all of that I’m gonna act normal for real this time “positive” self talk got obliterated. *Headbang*

I was lying in bed last night and all I could think was, like, god, how raw... Just how raw and how painful the emotions are surrounding this trauma.

I don’t want to feel that. I don’t ever want to feel that pain or think about those things. That repeated mantra of I don’t want to feel this, I don’t want to feel this, started giving me some kind of strength. Like, if I don’t want this feeling to hurt me, I don’t have to let it hurt me.

Which led me down the path of thinking about stoicism and how that has helped me in the past when I needed something to tell myself to help me feel okay enough to get me through when there was no other option.

You know, like Aurelius, Zeno, Epictetus, Seneca, etc... And I thought of this quote that I used to just roll around in my mind sometimes:

“If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled—have you no shame in that?”

Again, like old times, I just rolled this thought around in my mind, fully knowing that those who have left me disturbed are soundly sleeping. They never think of me. They’re not a hostage of their actions- I am. They don’t sit around thinking about the abuse they delivered- I do. And I thought, how unfair. How unfair that they get to go about living their lives as normal when I’m stuck in the past where they trapped me.

But at the same time, how unfair of me to allow myself to be held hostage by people who don’t even care. How unfair to give them power so long after they were done with me. It comes down to control and letting go of the things that you cannot control so that those things cannot control you.

I don’t know what I’m really getting at here, except that I need to break out of whatever loop I'm in right now. Just need to probably quite literally meditate on it and figure out my next move. I know I'm getting close to getting my mind in a place where I can at least feign normalcy. If I can get to that point, I can declare "victory" on this round.

Only love is all maroon
Lapping lakes like leery loons
Leaving rope burns, reddish rouge
August 16, 2020 at 12:05am
August 16, 2020 at 12:05am
#990911
Artist: Hozier
Song: Wasteland, Baby!
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I feel like television static.

I don't even understand how time is passing. It just is. It just does.

I'm finding it to be so difficult to connect to or talk to anyone. I'm trying, I think. But every time I try to talk to someone, I walk away from the conversation feeling worse than when I entered it. Either I feel annoying, like a downer, or I feel bad because there's this brick wall between me and the other person. In a conversation with more than one other person, I disappear completely. I might as well be a piece of furniture.

There's such immense pressure for me to act normal all the time. Kira is very much a "don't dwell" person, and I respect that about her. She makes the best of every situation, but that means she's also not okay with the people around her dwelling.

Most of our conversations right now are like...
"It's two in the afternoon, you're going to sleep? Did you just wake up? You're always tired. The pandemic sucks, but it is what it is. Just do one of your hobbies. Don't ruin the evening by being moody. Are you okay? There's no point in talking about this. There's no point in thinking about that."

She's very action-oriented. So the way she sees it is like, "Oh, Charlie's sleeping all the time and struggling. Hey, come have a couple drinks with me. Let's watch a movie. I'll make dinner."

And while I totally get it and appreciate it, it puts a lot of pressure on me. Because then it's like, okay, fuckface, get up. Eat something. Enjoy something. Don't talk about anything bad or negative. Act okay.

I feel so guilty for being in my current state when there are so many people who have lost their jobs or lost friends and family to the virus. A lot of people are stuck alone when they don't want to be. I fully believe that everyone is suffering to some degree.

But... I haven't thought about the pandemic in a while. I mean, other than the cabin fever from being inside. But people keep telling me that everyone is having a difficulty time with the pandemic and I'm like, shit. Because this is independent of the pandemic. The virus could disappear tomorrow and I'm still going to be this way. I'm stuck with myself forever.

Everyone copes with things differently. A lot of people cope by distracting themselves with something else and calling it a day, and I try to do the same. But the problem is that things build up and they get too big to quietly carry.

And to be quite frank, quietly carrying things is exactly what got me to where I am now. I'm at the point now where when someone tries to distract me, I feel like they're trying to silence me without telling me to be silent. They're disengaging from what I'm saying, knowing that I'll quietly slip back into myself.

That isn't what I want though. I don't want to be dismissed anymore. I don't want to be alone in my head. It's a scary place to be.

When I'm quickly brushed off, or someone changes the subject without acknowledging what I'm saying, it makes me dissociate more. It very much makes me feel like I'm not "real" like I don't exist. It makes me wonder if I died in an overdose 5 years ago and I'm just haunting my own life.

I say all of this with full knowledge that I'm a lot just generally speaking, in every way. You can't bring people a pile of broken pieces of yourself and be like, "Okay, assemble this. Make this make sense."

But it's the only thing I can do because, despite everything, I still don't understand what's happening to me. Regardless of any diagnoses I've gotten, on a daily basis, I don't understand what's happening when I'm having a mental health episode. Why doesn't anything feel real? Why don't I feel real? How can hours or days pass without you knowing it? Why is there this constant opaque film between me and everyone else?

I just want to make it make sense.

Be still, my indelible friend, you are unbreaking
Though quaking, though crazy
That's just wasteland, baby
August 12, 2020 at 9:54pm
August 12, 2020 at 9:54pm
#990632
Artist: twenty one pilots
Song: Fake You Out
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Mood: Agitated af.

I don’t remember what I wrote in my last entry whenever that was, but I’m very worked up right now so I thought I’d try to blow off some steam and see where that takes me. It might be a winding route to the end of the entry because my brain just isn’t cooperating with linear thought patterns right now.

But, so... Okay. Got a call from my brother last week and he brought up this horrible memory that I’d intentionally pushed wayyy down on to forget. After that though, I kept thinking about different shit and I had this brilliant idea to go read some of my journals from, I dunno, 15 years ago.

And I just. I’m so fucking infuriated. I’m infuriated with myself for ever thinking that would be a good fucking idea. But I’m also fucking furious because of the things I’ve read in these journals.

And before you start saying like, “Oh Charlie, let it go. Like, it’s the past” or whatever. I can’t. I can’t let it go. I’ve fucking tried. I blocked so much shit out and then I self-medicated for years and years specifically trying to not think about these things.

But that’s not the point. You can think whatever you want but the bottomline is that I was abused for my entire life and when I hit my mid-twenties and tried to get clean, all of that shit was still there and I don’t know how to cope with it. I don’t know how to be okay.

First of all, I can’t believe all of the things I’ve just straight up forgotten. I fairly quickly stopped reading, but what I did read... It’s like reading something written by someone else. I have zero memory of what I was writing about like 90% of the time. So that disturbs me and makes me dissociate, like, just disconnect with myself and reality.

Even worse though is that I’m so pissed off with my younger self. All of the excuses I made for people and all of the naivety is infuriating. I should have then, like right then, been like this shit isn’t okay, like wtf.

Obviously, you guys have no idea what I’m talking about because you didn't read the entry, but the first entry I read was just like a random page in the middle of my journal from when I was thirteen. I’m not going to dig it out again to write down verbatim what I wrote then, but the essential gist of it was like...

I was doing homework at the kitchen table and it was just my dad and I at home because my mom got home from work like 2 hours after I got home from school and he got home from work. So my dad comes into the kitchen and tells me to put my cup in the dishwasher if I’m finished with it because he wants to run it.

So I get up and bring my cup over to the sink to rinse it out, and when I did that, a few droplets from it splashed onto the window blinds of the window that was above the kitchen sink.

That’s the entire situation. Nothing else happened, but this angered my dad, so now we were in a situation where he was getting increasingly pissed off at me. Because I:

1. Started to use a paper towel to clean up the blinds and he said I should have used a dish towel and not wasted a paper towel.
2. So then I grabbed a dish towel and he got even more angry because now I’d already wasted a paper towel and I was trying to dirty a dish towel on top of that.

So the situation has now escalated to the point of furious. He’s going off on me, calling me names or whatever. And, according to my journal (since I don't remember this entire event), I put my hands up and said, “Ok, ok, let’s just settle down.”

Well, that was the wrong thing to say because he became fully enraged and essentially lunged at me and dragged me through our house and threw me into my bedroom. Just to give reference, my bedroom was through the kitchen, the carpeted dining room, the carpeted living room, and then down a hallway at the far end of the house.

So I read all of this and I wasn’t fazed by it at all. Even though I didn’t remember it, like, yeah, that kind of shit happened on a regular basis so obviously I’m going to forget things. It’s not a big deal. I pretty much just skimmed it like, “Haha, sounds about right.” But what I read next is what actually just fucking upset me so much.

That whole part of my entry took up maybe ¼ of a page. The next 1 ¾ pages were me absolutely agonizing over the fact that it was the dead of summer, when I typically just wore shorts and ran around outside a lot, and I had gotten rug burns from being dragged across the carpet on my back, my arms, and my legs. I wasn’t upset about the rug burns, I was upset because I was terrified that my mom or my grandparents or who lived next door or someone at church was going to see the rug burns and ask me what happened.

Seriously. 1 ¾ pages reserved for me coming up with some kind of excuse so that if an adult asked me what the fuck happened, I could have an answer ready for them that wouldn’t “rock the boat” by causing a fight between my parents or anyone else.

I explored every avenue of possible resolutions. Like, hey, maybe just wear long sleeves and jeans, but it’s like 90 degrees out so isn’t that going to look weird? Maybe just say I fell, but I don’t really know how you can slip across carpet far enough to cause that much rug burn. Oh, I know, I should go to my friend’s house now and then just say we were fucking around, like roughhousing on the carpet or something?

13-year-old me, hellllooo. What the fuck!? Why make it your problem to find an excuse for an adult dragging you around like a fucking ragdoll? Why do you give a fuck if he has to answer for it? More importantly, why do you even think anyone would care when there’s so obviously a long-standing pattern of abuse that literally no one gives a fuck about?

I can’t explain how frustrating it is. I want to go back in time and fucking slap myself. Because I should have rocked the boat more. I should have created more of a scene about things so that it wasn’t so easy to brush things under the rug. I made it waaaay too easy for my dad and way too easy for my extremely avoidant mother to just be like, “Oh, bumped into your locker? Oh, fell off your bike?” So that now she can be like, “I mean, obviously you were appropriately punished sometimes, but I don’t think that's unreasonable?”

Like, no, every single time some bullshit like that happened I should’ve been like, “Hey, motherfucker, welcome home, Ma. Dad dragged me across our entire fucking house because I accidentally made a tiny mess in the kitchen, wanna see my marks?” Just so that now she couldn’t hang out in that fucking grey area of like, wellllllll... everything is debatable. Two sides to every story. *Smile* You know, that fucking “I didn’t see anything” with a wink bullshit.


I know I’m just going off right now and I know most of you probably don’t like cussing so I’m sorry, but it’s just like, so many years of frustration built up and it just spills out at some point.

I actually have a positive point to make here if I can get myself to it. Reading my old journals made me come to this realization that I can’t do that shit anymore. It’s completely imperative that I stand up for myself and not back down when these situations arise now.

And what I mean by that is, like, for example, a while ago my parents absolutely dismissed me when I called them out on their abusive bullshit. The context to this is that I actually didn’t call them out first. They got into a fight with a different family member who essentially said, “Well, you guys have a history of being abusive, just look at Charlie.”

This made them furiously angry at me because they thought I had maybe been talking to this person about my childhood (which I’m not allowed to do), even though I most certainly hadn’t talked about it. This person was using me and my past experiences to basically go for the jugular on my parents. But, regardless, they confronted me and told me that I better not be talking about it to anyone and that it wasn’t that bad and I essentially need to shut the fuck up.

I was really caught off guard by the entire thing and pretty much just backed down immediately because I didn’t even know what was happening. I was just like, “Okay, I won’t talk about it.” Then they went on to inform me that it wasn’t that bad, I’m just overly sensitive and emotional. So I was like, “Okay, no problem.” Eventually, I did end up going off on them because they were continuously harassing me for weeks even though I was trying to back down from the beginning. But my ‘going off’ was like, “I don’t want to talk about this and I’m not going to talk to you anymore if you keep telling me to shut the fuck up when you’ve already silenced me.” Then we just didn’t talk to each other for months.

But reading my journal made me realize that I’m done protecting them. I’m done protecting them when other family members or family friends bring up my childhood. I know that I rant here about it, but this is the ONLY place I do that. In real life, when someone brings up my childhood like, “What happened with that whole thing where you left school and ran off?” I never respond by saying that my parents kicked me out so I didn’t really run away so much as I was pushed away. Instead I just tell them that I was pretty rebellious and wanted to be in the city instead of a rural area.

Why? Why do I do that? It makes me so angry to think about the fact that I essentially still just follow whatever the fuck excuse they gave to someone to make themselves look good. Like, “Yep, I was such a shitty kid that I just up and ran away! Yeah, I know I didn’t see my family for years because I’m such an utter trash bin.”

I’m not fucking doing it anymore. I was making excuses to make sure they looked okay then and I’m still doing it now. Even in my journal I’m like, “I know I can be really irritating.” Bitch, what the fuck are you talking about? You’re 13, you’re not being irritating to the level of needing to be manhandled because you accidentally spilled a few drops of a drink.

See, I’m getting worked up again. I’m sick of hiding from myself and hiding things on behalf of other people. I’m sick of being like, oh no, Charlie, do whatever you can to avoid the memories that are constantly popping up when you’re trying to sleep or work. Distract yourself, take some pills, have some drinks, go meet up with someone who can take your mind off things.

I’m sick of avoiding and dismissing myself because I think I just had a realization that avoiding and dismissing me is exactly what my parents did and continue to do. So instead of acknowledging a memory when it pops into my brain and being like, “Hey, yeah, that wasn’t right. It’s not okay that that happened. It was shitty behavior that you didn’t deserve.” Instead I’m like, “Oh, really still hung up on that, you fucking loser? Still planning to be ‘processing trauma’ when you turn thirty? You're so sensitive/emotional/dramatic/immature.”

And then instead of dealing with that memory, I just dismissed it and pushed it further down while berating myself for even thinking of it in the first place. Just to cycle back to the memory again 3 years later and be like, “Oh wow, look at the fucking crybaby still thinking about this incident.”


It almost feels like I’m treating myself how my parents did/do, and I have no idea why I’m doing that or how to make myself stop? It’s alarming.


I'm so afraid of what you have to say
'Cause I am quiet now and silence gives you space
August 9, 2020 at 10:26pm
August 9, 2020 at 10:26pm
#990389
Artist: twenty one pilots
Song: Migraine
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+]



Siiiiigh...

So, yeah, here's an update.

I've not figured out a single fucking thing because my brain just will.not.work. I did read everyone's comments on my last entry, and I appreciate people giving advice. Unfortunately, um, I haven't done anything.

In fact, this week I had a family member call me and bring up a bunch of traumatic shit from my past so I actually fell into a dissociative episode and completely just disconnected. I was having a lot of derealization and depersonalization. I lost like 3 days of time because I was completely detached. I don't even know what I did at work or anything. The time is just... gone.

I started to come out of it a little bit yesterday, but I've been pretty much disconnected again today. I don't know if it's evident or not, but I can barely even write. It has taken me forever to just get this far in my entry because nothing feels real. I don't feel like I'm "here" at all and just zone out entirely for a long time.

But I wanted to say something. Or follow up or something. And say that the whole neurologist/xanax thing is a little bit complicated. I actually haven't seen my neurologist in years. Initially, I saw him for my migraines, but once we found something that mostly works for it, I stopped seeing him. I started to get the migraine med script from my primary care doctor because he has an attached pharmacy with some common meds for cheaper. So my neurologist just put 5 refills on my xanax and twice a year a different pharmacy I went to would call him to reauthorize the prescription and he would do that.

So his staff doesn't even know me. I haven't been there for a long time. I just got my xanax from him authorizing it and we didn't even talk.

I also don't have my medical records together in any kind of way. I have 4 different pharmacies I go somewhat regularly. One by my old place, a new one by my new place, one by my ex-boyfriend's place, and then my primary care doctor's pharmacy. I also have had like 6 different therapists from different places in the past 4 years. It's really difficult for me to gather all of those records to be like, "See, here's everything."

I did talk to my general doctor and he said he would be willing to be the prescriber on behalf of a basic therapist if I went to one and they worked with him on prescribing something, but that would require going to therapy for probably several sessions before they'd make any kind of recommendation. Other than that, he said he would prescribe Paxil or something I haven't tried yet.

But I'm not in any kind of frame of mind to take care of myself right now or be motivated to work with anyone on much of anything. If I can get on my work computer in the morning and stare at a wall for 8 hours then that's a terrific day at this moment. I can't even begin to explain how foggy my brain is and how much it just isn't working.

My brain feels like those illusion pictures where you have to go cross-eyed to see the image. I feel like my brain is constantly slipping into that unfocused state. I can't stay with a train of thought and just nothing feels real or there's like a real life lag happening.

I can't stay awake. I think I've slept like 3 or 4 times today on top of sleeping last night. I'll be awake for maybe 2 or 3 hours at a time and I'm essentially just blankly staring during that time before I fall back asleep. Um, so I'm in that time frame now.

There was something else I wanted to say, but I can't remember. Oh, I was going to say that my membership here is expiring next weekend. I think I'll have like 4 weeks to open my port back up after it expires. I did a bad job of trying to review to get GPs. I forgot to post the reviews I did do in any of the forums so I didn't get credit for doing them.

And now I just absolutely don't have the concentration to do that or to review at all. It would take hours for me to get through reading and reviewing an item. But I've had these episodes before and I slip out of them as fast as I slip into them so I will probably be okay and review and open my port back up before 4 weeks. So if you see my stuff disappear next weekend it's okay, I'll renew it.

So yeah, I had a family member call me Tuesday morning and I was just trying to work. I was already really not feeling mentally well. But then he talked to me for like literally 3 hours about past stuff that I haven't thought about and try not to think about for a really long time. And then he was just like "ok bye" and I was just like very anxious. Then I just like slipped away. I don't know.

But anyway, I'm going to try to focus on getting something done at work tomorrow. Or try to figure out what I did, if anything, last week now that I've taken forever to write this.

Sometimes to stay alive you gotta kill your mind
August 3, 2020 at 8:15pm
August 3, 2020 at 8:15pm
#989820
Artist: Michl
Song: When You Loved Me Least
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+]


*Bulletb* "JAFBG Prompt: Tell us about something/someone that fucked you off this week.


Too long; didn't read version is just the title of this entry.

So today I contacted my neurologist's office who has prescribed my xanax for the past, um, 6 years(?) I sent a message just saying that I'd moved and need to change pharmacy locations for my script this month, which is my normal method of communication with them. They typically don't even respond; I just get a message from the pharmacy saying my meds are available for pickup.

Buuuut, not this time.

I get a call a few hours later from a medical assistant at the office and she's like, "Your doctor doesn't practice here anymore as of a couple weeks ago."

Of course, I'm like, "Uh okay, so... how do I get my medication?"

She says, "I mean... you can make an appointment with one of our other doctors and try to see if they'll prescribe Xanax, but I very highly doubt that they will. Do you want to try to set up an appointment?"

What.The.Fuck.

First of all, you fucking waited for me to contact you to tell me that I no longer have a neurologist. Secondly, you're basically saying that none of the other doctors are going to be willing to prescribe my meds, but I can go ahead and set up a $300 appointment during the middle of a pandemic to be told to go fuck myself? Cool.

I ask her if she can tell me where he's practicing now and she says she doesn't have that information or can't share that information or something like that. I'm like, okay, so I'm just shit outta luck basically? She told me I can't try somewhere else.

"Try somewhere else."

Try to get xanax somewhere else? Like... the southside? What do you mean try somewhere else?

Now, I know this medication is highly sought after by addicts. I get it. It's easy to abuse. But I haven't been abusing it at all. I just get my monthly script and I don't seek out any more than I'm given. I've been super obedient with taking only as much as I'm given to chill out my panic attacks so that I don't get myself into trouble.

And what I mean by that is that I don't have 'regular' panic attacks. My panic attacks will take over an entire building. They'll take over an entire city block. My panic attacks are so epic that I'm terrified someone will call the police and they'll hop on over and shoot me in the fucking head for not complying. They're so bad that I've been taken to the ER during a panic attack before and had two male nurses plus a male doctor literally on top of me trying to hold me down to inject me with a sedative.

These aren't 'normal' everyday panic attacks. When you hear stories of people inpatient at the psych ward strapped to a bed and sedated— that's me. Because my panic attacks are so incredibly out of control.

I messaged my general physician who has repeatedly refused to give me anything fast-acting for my anxiety because "they're addictive" and I should "be on a daily medication" instead. I was like please, please, please don't let me go without anxiety meds in the middle of an OCD spiral during a pandemic. Like, I don't have time to doc hop trying to find someone who will listen to me and understand.

He lectured the fuck out of me. He was like, "I told you not to be taking this stuff. Your mental health issues are severe. You should be on a daily medication to regulate yourself. I'll prescribe a very short term script and then you're going to have to make a decision on what you want to do, because you're not getting any more from me. You're not convincing me that you're not addicted by begging me" et cetera...

So he prescribed ten (10) pills total. Wtf is that supposed to do. Get me through 3 days??

It's so fucking frustrating because you can't get anyone to actually listen. You can't start up with a new doctor or psych and be like, "Hey, so my neuro was giving me this and he quit or got fired or something, can you prescribe it now?" They're just going to see you as an addict and label you that way forever. It's impossible to get this shit from a doctor, especially quickly. Like maybe if I shopped around enough and sat through 10 sessions with 15 different psychs I'd eventually find one who would be like, "Ok, your panic attacks are resistant to SNRIs, SSRIs, and all the other one-off bullshit on the market. Here's something that will help quickly for when you need it."

But you know how much fucking money and time that takes? More than I have. Because every fucking doctor is gonna be like, "K, let's try Lexapro? No good? Well, keep trying it a few more weeks. Still no? Ok, it takes a while to adjust, give it a few more weeks. Nope? Ok, let's try upping the dose. No good? Ok, well you're adjusting to the new dosage, give it 6 weeks. Still nothing? Maybe this one isn't for you. Ok, let's try Zoloft. No good? Well, keep trying it a few more weeks..." ad nauseum.

Maybe, maaaaybe, if you're super fucking lucky, after a year of being dragged through shit and having your brain chemicals all sorts of fucked with, if you manage to not get too suicidal to the point of hospitalization, they might agree that they could try something more fast-acting/potent. And that's if they don't just declare you "treatment resistant" and in that case they might just start combining shit you've already taken or, more likely, say it's "failure of patience adherence." AKA it's the patient's fault.

I've done this song and dance so many fucking times. I don't know if you can tell how exasperated I am with it, but... I am.so.fucking.sick. of doctors coming in and trying shit that I've already tried numerous times while completely failing to listen to me. I've been doing this since I was a young teen. I know what works and what doesn't work for me. The fact that I have to essentially completely restart treatment with every new therapist or doctor I see is such a fucking waste of time.

And I know how I sound. I sound like an addict who's flipping out because they want their fix, but that's not the case. I'm not addicted to it. I'm just addicted to not completely losing my fucking mind every time my anxiety decides to fuck me up.

There's no way, like, zero chance I'm going to make it through the fall and winter we're about to have in the US with this pandemic without proper meds for my anxiety. I just don't have a shot. I've already been sitting at home for 5 months slowly going stir crazy. I can't even imagine a foot of snow on the ground, nowhere to go because there's a fucking virus killing a bunch of people, and no medication that actually works for my panic attacks.

For real, you guys won't see me at fucking all because I'll either be dead or in a psych hospital. Bottom fucking line. I'm not going to make it through that.

Alternatively, I can get what I need. It's not like this is something that isn't commonly sold in various places, but that's an extremely slippery slope for someone with addiction issues. Because then it's not like "here, this is the amount you have for the month, so do with it what you will." It's more like, "how much money do you have because you can have as much as your money will buy." I have no idea how anyone thought that outright refusing these meds to legitimate patients would curb drug abuse, because um, I'm about to be Exhibit 1 of how that does not work.

It's so fucking annoying because I don't want my life to be like this. I don't want to have to take anything. Full stop. But I have to because my brain does not work with me the way a normal person's brain works. My brain actively works against me, like triple time, specifically to ensure that I don't ever get any relief. I don't want to have to try to figure out how to get my medication like this. I shouldn't have to. The professionals that I pay should be looking out for me, like, the tiniest bit to make sure that I'm being treated and not at risk for this exact type of thing.

I don't know how I manage to talk so much but it's like I say nothing at all.

But I'm in reverse now; Don't follow me
'Cause I loved you most when you loved me least
August 1, 2020 at 12:48am
August 1, 2020 at 12:48am
#989629
Artist: Motion City Soundtrack
Song: Stand Too Close
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+]


*Bulletb* "JAFBG Prompt: Which thing about 2020 is pissing you off the most?


There are a lot of external things to be pissed off about in 2020. *motions wildly at everything* But the real kicker is the internal things that we can't escape, even in the safety of our homes away from any potential virus or deranged people. The things that possess us against our will, hold us hostage.

I've wanted to sort my thoughts out a little bit on what it's actually like to live during a global pandemic while having obsessive compulsive disorder. I know I've mentioned it here and there in my blog, but I need this moment of organized ranting.

A little bit about OCD.
Just because I know a lot of people hear the term thrown around like... "my desk is messy it's making me so OCD haha" I figured I'd explain the disorder briefly. Essentially, all obsessive compulsive disorder is one disorder, but it manifests itself in different ways. Some people with OCD have to do repetitive checks in their home so that they'll feel safe, meaning that they might check to make sure the front door is locked and the stove is turned off literally hundreds of times before they can go to sleep at night. Some people might have a specific number of times they must do a compulsion in order to ease their anxiety.

Others with the same disorder might have it manifest through scrupulosity which is repetitive feelings of intrusive thoughts about death, guilt, and going to hell. So they might have to pray in a very specific way for hours at a time. If they get interrupted, they may need to restart entirely.

Others with OCD have it manifest in the way of contamination obsessions, so they might get compulsive handwashing behaviors to the point of destroying their hands or just taking up a ton of time. Or they might be afraid their food is expired or contaminated in some way which makes it difficult to eat.

Either way, OCD goes like this:
intrusive thought >> anxiety >> compulsive behavior >> temporary relief

The last 3 stages of the cycle are the same regardless of the intrusive thought you're having, and the manifestations of OCD can change throughout your life. There are so many different types of obsessions people have with this disorder.


Pre-pandemic.
I didn't realize it, but I've had OCD for pretty much as long as I can remember. I got formally diagnosed back in 2017 following what could only be described as a complete psychotic break. I can't even explain what my brain did to itself that year. But essentially, I had to drop out of all of my in-person classes because I couldn't be around other people and several hours of every day of my life was devoted to compulsions.

I didn't have the word "compulsion" in my vocabulary in that context yet though. I was seeing a neurologist for my migraines during that time and he actually asked me point blank if I'd been diagnosed with OCD. Of course, I was like, "Nope, I don't have OCD!"

He quietly wrote a referral to a psychologist and urged me to set up an appointment at my earliest convenience. I knew that even though I didn't have OCD, I did have something going on, so off I went to the psych. And yep, OCD it was.

Start here if you already know about my ocd experience:
I was actually doing pretty well leading into the pandemic. I can't express how proud I was in January when I started my new job and I was actually able to shake people's hands when introduced to them. In the US at least, that's a custom you're expected to follow. During the height of my OCD breakdowns, I couldn't shake people's hands, and if I did, that was a guaranteed panic attack if I didn't immediately jump into my ritualistic handwashing compulsions.

So that was a huge personal win for me.


The early days.
At the beginning of the outbreak in China, so end of December/early January, it wasn't a huge news story in the US yet... but I was still following. I remember Kira saying, "You're doing so well, Charlie. Don't do this to yourself. You just graduated and got this new job, everything's going well, don't sike yourself out."

But I did. In fact, my first journal entry of the year mentions the virus. Just kind of a throwaway line in between talking about work. Anyone with an anxiety disorder will attest to the fact that you get a lot of "bad" feelings, but I had an incredible level of dread related to this virus, and I mentioned it repeatedly for the first few weeks of January in my journal. I was so excited about my new job though that I was kind of throwing a line in here or there sandwiched in been all the exciting new things I was experiencing. I clearly was working to not get consumed by it.


Gaining traction.
By late January/early February, the US had its first cases of the virus and we saw the spread in some of those early European countries. I was clearly getting more agitated as time went on and I expressed a lot of disgust for things at work like buffet-style lunch conferences where a hundred people would walk through essentially a cafeteria lunch line and talk over the food, grab food with their hands, etc.

But I was still trying to make a good impression on my coworkers and I was worried about disrespecting the social norms of the office. On Friday February 7th, I took my lunch in my office and wrote in my journal:
I could have gone to the chili cook-off if I wanted to, but I already have food that I brought from home for lunch and I really think there are too many lunches and cook-offs and whatever here. I really don't want to be rude, but it's really getting on my nerves. At 10:30, Rachel stopped by my office to remind me about the chili cook-off at lunch and asked if I'd go to this one. I told her I already brought food from home for lunch and she said I could just save it for dinner tonight. Just before noon, Rachel stopped by again with 3 or 4 of our coworkers and said, "Come on, Charlie, let's go! It's time for the chili cook-off!" I got so annoyed because she already knew I didn't want to go. I told her again that I'd already brought my lunch for the day. She told our coworkers, "Charlie's being antisocial today" and they all laughed. When I say no, I wish people would listen.


I then go on to explain why it's gross to eat food that people you barely know made at their homes that you've never been to. I then bizarrely suggested that someone could have broken glass in their chili? No idea.

Which might not seem like a huge deal, but is a sign to me that I was breaking with reality just slightly. A more reasonable thing to say is that someone's house could be filthy, could have dog fur in their chili, something more rational than broken glass. *Laugh*


The big explosion.
Leading up to the big explosion of cases in March in the US, I'd already been in panic mode for a couple weeks. I was horrified by the idea of going to the office. I was taking my lunch outside in my car because I couldn't eat or drink anything in the building. I was having panic attacks regularly and taking Xanax to get through the workday in one piece.

During the last week of February, I was listing the daily case statistics at the top of my journal entries (I still do that). During the first week of March, I apparently considered quitting my job saying on Tuesday March 3rd:
The backslide isn't worth it.



The 'everyone is like me' time.
Soon after that, I went to my boss and told him I needed to work from home. My anxiety about the virus was too distracting to get anything done in the office. I was the first person at work to ask to work from home because of the virus. My boss hesitantly approved, which my coworkers didn't like because they didn't think it was fair. Luckily, all of them were working from home within two weeks. *Laugh*

From mid-March through May, I went through a different phase. I was relatively relaxed. I was working from home so I barely left the house, just twice a month for groceries then straight back home. From my journals, it sounds like I was feeling a bit validated, possibly. On Saturday April 4th I wrote:
It has been so wild seeing people act like... me. The panic, the fear, the anxiety. None of it is new to me. Hearing people say that their hands hurt from washing them so much or they're having nightmares about the virus, it's such a foreign feeling to them. But it's not for me. It's like I've been practicing for this.



June to now.
In June I was writing a lot about police brutality and the protests. I'm still writing about it now in my journal, but more as an afterthought. The reason for that is that I've started seeing the mental health effects of the virus. The effects of being inside for 5 months straight, not seeing anyone I don't live with, not going out at all, no friends, no family, just nothingness and more nothingness. On Wednesday July 22nd, I wrote in my journal on my lunch break:

I don't see a way out of this. I don't see any type of time frame in which I'm going to feel comfortable being around other people. I feel like I'm being gaslit because I see some people just going about their lives like normal, going to family reunions, restaurants, house parties, without masks, without any fear. Did I make the pandemic up in my head? Is it not that bad? Am I having an ocd episode and I'm being completely crazy? Should I be out enjoying my summer? Going to visit with all of my friends? I know I couldn't even if I wanted to. Even if there was no virus all along, would it even make a difference?


So I will understand if you don’t stay
They say I’m great at first, but then the magic fades



© Copyright 2023 Charlie ~ (UN: charlieabney at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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