Anger leads to hate, Hate leads to suffering

I feel like I am simmering with anger almost 24 hours a day. Anger at myself for being crippled by my social anxieties. Anger at Liam when he shows any hint of being like me because no one needs to be anything like me. Anger at Sara for being crazy enough to think I'm fine the way I am. Anger at my brothers for being only the most recent men to bail on my son. Anger at my now former therapist for saying that it is my fault for how I feel. Nevermind that I'm trying to deal with shit I've never dealt with before and emotions are bound to show up, but it is entirely my fault for those emotions for being there. I guess when you have been abused as a child, an adolescent and an adult, the smart thing to do is to just shrug it off and walk away. Guess I'm not smart.

It doesn't help matters that I decided to just stop my meds about 3 weeks ago. I was way overmedicated anyways, but that fact is only adding fuel to the fire of anger I'm trying to deal with. I am so angry and so upset and I don't want to talk to anyone about it. Professional or otherwise. I'm angry that people have pulled away from me like I'm a fucking leper. So instead, I'm isolating myself. Hiding from anyone that might be slightly interested in helping because no one in this world wants to be helping anyone. At least not without getting something in return. Even if all they receive is that wonderful feeling of self congratulations. And once again, someone profits from my misery.

The thing that has been bothering me the most though is how often suicide is coming up in conversation and the worst part of it is that I'm not the one bringing it up. It's usually part of a conversation that goes "did you know so and so died?" and then I find out that yet another of my friends has committed suicide. What's worst is that there is a part of me, albeit small, that is jealous. Jealous that they had the nerve to end it all and yet I'm stuck here waffling on the subject and trying to make sure no one knows about it because once anyone does find out, it immediately turns into a "I'm going to help you so that I feel better" situation and I'm not in the mood to make everyone else feel better. I'd rather figure out how to make myself feel better. *sigh*

Sometimes I admit how lost I really am

I think I made a poor choice in my major in college. I chose vocal performance, but was rejected because I didn't have the time to put into the major. So, instead, I went with general music. Did you know there is absolutely nothing you can do with a general music degree? I didn't. I was just happy to be getting the fuck out of undergrad in under a decade. Lately, I've been indulging in the land of "oh shit, I fucked up. Is it too late to fix it?" and I have no idea as to what to do. Should I swallow my pride and just keep going on to grad school for Music History? It's ultimately where I want to end up. Or, do I go back to undergrad and do the major I should have done in the first place - namely, Violin performance? I have no idea. All I know is that I really really miss being in an orchestra. I really enjoy the feeling I have with my violin in my hands and when I'm rocking out with my favorite baroque composers. Mainly the Italians. They know how to compose.

I've been struggling lately. Drifting. I need to start doing something just for me or I may just go out of my goddamn mind. I'm tired of feeling like I'm becoming dumber and dumber as each year passes. I need the structure of school and the ability to learn more. I want to get going instead of stagnating. The biggest problem I have is that I don't want to go back to my undergrad professors and beg for recommendations. I know I need to. I just don't want to. I know I could easily do the graduate degree and the school is like... an hour and a half away from here. I don't know if I could handle it as a commute, but I don't think they will let me tele-commute or even learn via internet. I really need to do something though. Unfortunately, the university here in town specializes in engineering and agriculture. I hate small town America. I've even been considering trying to go across the river to Iowa for school, but Dubuque has a whole crapload of nothing.

I don't know if I would recommend a music degree to anyone, if they asked. I understand the passion and the love, but in this country, you NEED a paycheck. Hanging out on public assistance is really frowned upon and your value as a citizen correlates directly with how much money you can make. I hate that we can't just up and move. I hate that. I understand that the boy-child needs stability and I'm trying to provide that for him. I just need to find a way to express myself. I really need that. I don't have the education or resources necessary to do a major research project on some kind of music topic. There is a part of me that wonders if it would be possible to help out at the high school, but I feel so badly shattering the dreams of the kids who really don't have what it takes to be professional performers. They could easily teach, but some of them... I'm kind of appalled at their teacher for encouraging them so much instead of guiding them.

But I digress. Eventually, I'm going to have to figure this out. I just really don't know if I want the answers.

Enough about you, let's talk about me

I learned about a new personality disorder this month. Not one that I have, but rather one that explains the whole of my existence. Ever have that one person who you constantly try to please over and over and get no where? Or if you succeed, they latch on to some other deficiency that you may or may not have? Yeah. That's what we call a narcissist. It's always about them and screw the rest of you assholes. Kind of like Julia Roberts.

I wasn't thrilled to realize that I'd been raised by one, but it was one of those moments where every thing just slipped right into place. I'm working through it, with the help of a therapist who was genuinely ecstatic when I told her I had figured it out. There's quite a large community of "survivors" out there. I don't really see myself as a survivor. I just see it as I had a kind of shitty childhood when it came to my emotional upbringing and I'm trying to figure it out. Sad thing is, I wonder if my mother had a mother just like her. It certainly would explain a lot.

I've been jumping between anger and sadness with this. I'm angry because of what happened and sad about what didn't happen. Or so it would seem thus far. Eventually, I will get through this grieving process and thankfully, one of my family members has been kind enough to let me adopt her as a kind of mom figure. I've needed it and the only problem I've had with it is worrying that I'm imposing or annoying her. But apparently, that's normal for daughters of narcissistic moms. Today, I'm neither sad nor angry. Today, I pity her. I try to make excuses for her, but it helps no one. Things were the way they were and now I have a mountain of emotions that I've supressed that desperately need to be dealt with. Today is just one day and I'm only one person. It will be okay and one day, this will be behind me. I just wonder what that will look like.

Depression Lies

I've done a lot of reading throughout my time as a sufferer of depression and no where have I found the immense amount of support that I have received online. I've discovered that some of my favorite people on the planet have issues very similar to mine and if ever they wanted to get together and have a drink, I would jump at the opportunity.

I often forget that depression tells horrible little lies that one by one deplete my defences and ability to stave off a severe bout of the illness. Little lies that at first are so ridiculous that I laugh at them initially, but slowly they start to make me take pause and consider them. Of course Liam and Sara are embarrassed and ashamed of me. Why wouldn't they be? Sara's family isn't really MY family. They only take pity on me. Etc etc etc. These are all lies that most of the time, I know are untrue. Right now though, I look at them and think, you know, I might not be too far off. I won't get in to all the gory details because, there's really no point and all it will do is perpetuate these lies that I'm trying like hell to ignore. Some days are so much easier than others. Some days I have to remember my many mantras that get me through these horrible moments.

You is kind.
You is smart.
You is important.

And when all else fails:
Just keep swimming.

what in the world could that be?

I’m a really awkward person. Not in the adorable Zooey Deschanel look how quirky I am kind of way, but in the more disturbing girl-in-the-back-of-the-classroom-who-eats-her-hair kind of way. Also, I totally went through a hair eating phase. Not like the frightening cases you hear about on tv where a teenaged girl has like 20lbs of hair removed from her stomach, just a general nervous habit. I get nervous in crowds really easily. My mother refuses to believe this because as a small child I would often walk up to complete strangers and start conversations. It’s a miracle I was never kidnapped and disemboweled. I just really don’t like large groups of people. Especially if I’m expected to socialize with them. Dear God help me if I have to socialize. That being said, I am dreading my upcoming wedding. I know I said in my last post that Sara and I are a dysfunctional married couple, but in truth, we’re not even married yet. We just fight, bicker and pick on each other like an 80 year old couple with varying levels of dementia. Our wedding is going to be small. I have had panic attacks worrying about how much of my insanely large extended family is going to be offended when they don’t get an invitation, but it’s not my fault my grandparents were fond of pro-creation. I think when you really think about it, I’m pretty sure most of us are really fond of the act of pro-creation. Besides, I can’t get too pissed about it because that negates my existence, which means that if you’re reading this, and I don’t exist, you’re hallucinating. And if you’re hallucinating, you’re either on really good drugs, or you have a brain tumor. I choose to believe it’s drugs.

Shit. I just forgot what I was talking about. Awkwardness. I guess I just subscribed to the belief that I was just a black sheep. And then I went to high school where everyone thought they were a black sheep. So then, I figured that if everyone’s a black sheep, I must be a white sheep. And that led to fears I was turning into a white supremacist. So then I decided I was a drunken unicorn and my identity issues were solved because at least a drunken unicorn is unique. I spent way too much of my adolescence trying to adopt a personality that would make others happy. In fact, I still do that shit. Kind of makes me wonder if I’ve ever been honest with anyone about who I am. Except for you guys. You guys are the people I trust. It’s the people I KNOW I don’t want to be honest with. Those people are assholes.

Honestly, it wasn’t until about a year ago, when I discovered the drunken ramblings of Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess for those of you paying attention, that I decided that if people couldn’t deal with my honesty, I didn’t need them around. Her struggles with anxiety and depression made me feel less alone as I struggled with depression and ADHD. For the record, I am not hyperactive in the sense that you’re thinking. I don’t run around smearing glue on shit and even if I did, I’d forget about it before I got to pour the glitter on. I’m just easily distracted. I don’t know if that’s obvious. It really should be if you know me. I’ve been known to get lost in shopping malls because I saw something pretty and decided I had to look at it only to discover that the people I was with didn’t even notice I was gone until they were on the next floor and I was almost in tears because I was positive they were going to leave me behind, thankful that they had finally ditched the weirdo who couldn’t even finish a thought before jumping onto the next topic. Seriously. I started blogging partly because I thought it would be a great exercise in trying to focus. Unfortunately, I have like a month’s worth of entries waiting to be posted because I just couldn’t stop thinking about random shit when I was typing. Shit. I’m off-topic again. Sonofabitch. Jenny! She has helped me to see that my awkwardness is something to be embraced. It is something wonderful and fantastic and what’s better than that, I am NOT alone. There are thousands of hair eaters like me who understand me. Not that they’ve found my blog yet, but at least I know they are THERE.

In which I nearly die from swine flu

In the fall of 2009 the entire world freaked out over the swine flu. We weren’t supposed to call it swine flu though because it was feared that people would stop eating pork due to the misconception that this strain of flu actually came from a goddamn pig. The P.C. term was H1N1. I still think someone fucked a pig and forgot to shower the pig beforehand or themselves afterwards. Either way, beastiality is generally frowned upon in our society. That Thanksgiving, as the American nation prepared to go shopping, my best friend, Sara, and I found ourselves victim to the cruel bitch that was swine flu. Miraculously, Liam did not catch this. I have no fucking idea how in the hell that happened, but perhaps whatever benevolent force in the universe that exists thought, for one shining glorious moment, swine flu was about all I could handle when coupled with Thanksgiving. Not that I had any major gatherings to attend to. That was never something I really enjoyed. I would invite whichever of my friends had no where else to go for the holiday to come to my and Sara’s shitty mold infested townhome in West Des Moines’ privileged poor sector. Unfortunately… or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it was just Sara and I that year. Once Liam was out the door on Wednesday evening, I went and started preparing dinner whilst feeling somewhat nauseous, warm and fighting a raging headache – all of which I just assumed was par the course for dealing with my asshole ex-husband. By the time Thanksgiving dawned, I had been throwing up most of the night and diarrhea had kept me wondering which end of me had earned the privilege of the toilet and which one was going to be dangling precariously over the side of the bathtub. Thanks to the frequent flushing of the toilet down the hall, I had an inkling, I wasn’t alone in my misery.

Being the stubborn WASP that I was raised to be, I still insisted that the Thanksgiving feast of Cornish game hens, sweet potato casserole, green bean bake and pumpkin pie needed to be cooked and that to admit defeat to something as stupid as the flu was not only weak, but damn near un-American. After getting the various foodstuffs into the oven, I collapsed in a heap on the living room floor, praying that I had the strength to make it through this holiday with my wasp-y smile still intact. Unfortunately, it is at about this point that the sweating began and I had to be grateful for the foresight I’d had to not only bring my heavy comforter downstairs with me that morning, but to also collapse close enough to the dvd player and the Netflix pile to be able to throw something in to pass the time. Just as I used up the last of my energy looking for the goddamn remote and pondered whether or not I should be concerned about replenishing liquids or just be grateful I hadn’t thrown up inside the hen carcasses, Sara came down fully dressed and really upset.

“I have to go to fucking work.”

“You’re fucking kidding”

“No, some asshole called in sick, so now I have to spend the next 2 hours trying not to throw up on people.”

I gave her a look of what I thought might be sympathy. I’m not really sure though, to be honest. In fact, a lot of this is a blur. Anyways, I think I was more pissed off than anything else. Here I was, DYING, and she was about to run off to work. I was trying to make thanksgiving nice for her, and she was leaving me in my goddamn hour of need to go tend to people she couldn’t even talk to me about thanks to HIPAA. Thankfully, the food still had about four hours left to cook, so, in theory, I could pass out and when I woke up, she’d be there. My dependency on her was a little disturbing and I should have figured out then that we were destined to become the dysfunctional married couple we are today, but I digress.

I woke up to the credits rolling on some movie I can’t for the life of me recall, Sara running up the stairs to throw up in the bathroom and a kitchen timer going off. Pretty decent timing. I heaved myself off of the floor and checked on various food. The hens were ready to go in the oven and lifting them off the counter to carry them the two steps to the oven was an act of endurance I knew I wasn’t equal to, but still somehow managed it. When Sara came downstairs, I was curled up in the fetal position on the couch with a mixing bowl cradled in my arms. She looked at me with sympathy and asked if I needed anything. I think I may have muttered something about the next movie, but I don’t recall. All I know is that the next two hours of my life were the most upsetting hours I have ever spent. EVER. The movie was called The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I have a thing for holocaust movies. Maybe it’s my affinity for Judiaica that has now become so strong I’m working on becoming one of the chosen people, but on that day, I wished to Christ I hadn’t ever started down this path of intrigue in the Holocaust. Most holocaust movies end on a sad, but hopeful note. This one did not. It involved two adorable boys befriending one another from across a barbed wire fence, until the one outside the fence decides it’s time to go over (well, actually, under) to play with his new best friend, who kindly gives him matching striped pajamas to blend in with. Did I mention that this newly attired boy’s father was an SS officer? I should have. I think it was important. The boys run off to take a shower with the rest of the society of striped clothing enthusiasts and I sat there saying, out loud (I swear I was only muttering this, but Sara swears I was screaming at the tv),oh dear God, they wouldn’t. They would never do this. No way. The dad is gonna burst in and save the kid at the last minute. SPOILER ALERT. He doesn’t. He finds out way to late and goes to the fence, finds his kid’s clothing in a heap, runs to the camp and the kid is already in a fire heap. Fin.

Yeah, that’s how they ended this movie. God. Damn. Happy Thanksgiving. I bet you forgot that this was a Thanksgiving story. Needless to say, I was traumatized. Here was a movie that actually succeeded in making Schindler’s List look like a Mel Brooks comedy by comparison. Then, the kitchen timer went off and I somehow managed to lift this 750lb pan of two Cornish game hens out of the oven along with all the aforementioned side dishes. By the time, the food was divvied up, I was exhausted and looking at a roasted carcass and various vegetables was making me feel sick again. I took two bites, looked at Sara and said, “I just. fucking. can’t.” and put my plate in the kitchen, climbed the twelve miles of stairs to my bedroom and collapsed on my bed. I awoke what felt like 4 days later, but in reality was more like a half hour, to find Sara lying next to me. When we both were finally conscious again, I asked her why she didn’t crash in her room, she simply said that she didn’t want me to choke on my vomit and die. In that moment, I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone and then I threw up on the carpet.

Somebody sweet to talk to

I have a lot of friends who are teachers. I even have a mother in law who is a teacher. That being said, I have an enormous amount of respect for these people because the idea of spending even an hour with a large band of small children, preteens or asshole high school students makes me sad that corporal punishment is not only not admissible in a school, but also illegal. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in hitting kids unless it's a last resort, but seeing as how most parents nowadays are more interested in being friends with their kids than actually parenting them, someone needs to show them that there are serious consequences for fucking with the wrong person. Namely, me. I don't suffer fools or assholes easily and my quick temper is only saved by the fact that I know that it is best controlled when situations can be avoided.

However, I do have my moments when I wish I had become a high school English teacher. I love books and watching people embrace the joy of reading. I love Shakespeare and research papers. However, the moment that the slacker asshole in the third row dared to ask the question "does spelling count?" because he hadn't bothered to read the syllabus, I would have to kiss my career good bye purely because I wouldn't be able to stop myself with just a simple yes. That misguided youth would spend the next week of his life trying to dislodge an edition of Shakespeare's plays out of his bleeding rectum and I would would be acquainting myself with the state's penal system. Bet he'd never ask the question again though.

How is it that we, as a society, have gotten so lazy that we can't be bothered to worry about spelling. I get grammar. That shit is hard, but man, spelling?! Really? Do you really care so little about how you present yourself to the world that you can't be bothered to know the difference between grate and great? This whole mentality of "close enough" is bullshit. Learn how to spell. Learn how to distinguish antonyms! This is important! Seriously! How is it that we let these kids skate through without educating them, or worse, not allowing their teachers to educate them properly because they're afraid they'll lose their jobs because Johnny and Cindy had to stay in second or tenth grade another year? They should be socially shamed because they didn't work hard or their parents used the teacher as a glorified babysitter. People are so fond of saying that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, but that certainly doesn't apply to teachers. It's their fault that the students aren't listening. Fuck that! My kid does his homework and I sit there with him until that shit is done. If he doesn't understand it, I try to help him. If he still doesn't get it, we try to find someone who can help, and if none of that works, it is HIS responsibility to get hell from his teacher. Stop blaming teachers because you can't be bothered to take an active role in your child's education or upbringing. I understand that there are indeed some awful teachers out there, but they are in the minority. Most teachers care about their students and don't deserve a pay cut or to be fired just because your dumbass kid can't unglue himself from AdventureTime long enough to actually learn something. I'd get in to the concept of teaching to the test, but bitch ain't got time for that.