Last night another one of my cats passed away.. She was the sister to Big Girl and Stubby, who are already gone, and was two and a half months away from turning eighteen.. Meg will be sorely missed, but she was always dearly loved.. She’d been losing weight for months, but over the last few days it was obvious she was on her last legs.. It seems hard to lose her because she’d been a part of my life for more than half of it.. It doesn’t get any easier losing them, no matter the circumstances.. I’d been mourning her coming death the last few days and, though it didn’t come as a surprise, it was still incredibly hard and left me feeling empty.. I’ve got another girl kitty, Stinky, who’s somewhere around 17 years old and she’s also been losing weight over the last several months.. She’s been very unsettled since last night and seems to be taking it hard that Meg is gone, they were constant cuddle-buddies and I think Stinky will really miss Meg.. I believe it won’t be long before Stinky goes, too.. Though I’d very much like to be wrong about that.. And then I’ve got my boys, the brothers, Frodo and Sam.. They’re gonna be five in a few months and will hopefully have very long, healthy lives.. One thing I hope that all of my cats know (or knew) is that I love them with all that I am, they are my children since I will never have any human babies.. But from here on out I am not adopting any more cats! Nor will I after Frodo and Sam pass.. It wounds me too deeply to lose them.. I’m not strong enough to endure any loss voluntarily brought upon myself.. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to endure loss INvoluntarily brought on me.. I’ve been told before that I’m a strong person to have gone through the things I have and to have come out the other side.. I don’t feel strong.. And the saying that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is bullshit.. Whatever doesn’t kill you just doesn’t kill you – it leaves you exactly as strong, or as weak, as you were before.. I understand the sentiment, if you survived then by the very nature of the having persevered you’re a stronger person.. But if you survive a drowning by simply managing to keep your head above water until help arrives, that doesn’t necessarily make you stronger; you just survived, you didn’t grow or evolve.. So the idea that growth or development is inherent in the mere act of survival is ignorant and naive.. But what do I know? I’m ever the pessimist and am probably unenlightened, so take my words with a grain of salt.. I’m jaded and damaged goods, what wisdom could I bring to the table?
I’ve been ruminating on things about my childhood and my years of growing up, trying to untangle the twisted ball of screwed up mess that is my complicated life.. I realized that, at the age of seven, I was suicidal.. I had written ‘I wish I was dead’.. I had been bullied by my first grade teacher because I had an adopted sister who wasn’t white.. I was mistreated because she was racist and took her prejudicial hatred out on me.. I would be punished for things I didn’t do, getting in trouble in class in front of everyone.. I guess I was a silent sufferer even then because my parents didn’t know how badly my teacher treated me.. If they did I’m sure they would’ve done something.. I don’t fault them for not doing something about a problem they didn’t know existed..
I’m not gonna talk bad about growing up as the child of directors of a group home, but it wasn’t ever easy.. While there are some tough things I went through, I had a friend or two at different points along the way.. Those friendships faded, but I appreciated them very much at the time and even still today I appreciate the companionship they gave me at the time.. And I grew up in a small church with a sometimes non-existent youth group, except for me and Gen and the girls from our house.. So I didn’t have a whole lot of friends.. I was about 18 or 19 when I found a forum/ messageboard for fans of Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings (and his various other works).. It was right after the first movie came out, the Fellowship of the Ring.. I felt like I was embraced and like I’d found a place where I could belong.. I’d not been a lifelong Tolkien fan like most on there, but that didn’t matter.. I made friends, via the Internet, and was actively involved in the forum for ten plus years.. I had made some great friends.. I even met some of them in real life! It was great.. I’m not as close to them anymore, and the forum is pretty much defunct, but it was a source of happiness for many years and I had friends on there for years.. I’m so grateful for that time of my life.. I’ve had a friend or two come and go between then and now, but I’m so different from most people at such a core level that I can only connect so intimately or so deeply.. There seems to be a limit to my friendship capabilities and I don’t really understand why.. I feel like I can connect and engage for a while, but then it kind of fizzles out.. I’m not one to want to stay at a chit-chatty superficial level; I want a deep soul connection.. I long for that person I can connect to completely, not even necessarily on a romantic level.. I want to have a relationship where I can, 100% of the time, text or call whatever whenever, no matter what I’m thinking, no matter what time of day or night; I need a person I can depend on to be accessible to me at all times.. I’m sure that could be labeled as too needy or dependent or even unhealthy; I feel like, and this is not intended to be an insult to anyone, but I feel that I operate on a deeper plane of emotions than most.. I feel so intensely, to an extent that it’s debilitating and crippling.. I’m exploring options and possibilities beyond mental illness diagnosis, but I know I’m unlike anyone else I’ve ever met.. I know there are things I need that I just can’t ask of anyone in my life right now – they are things they either can’t give or that I wouldn’t ask of them.. I’m at a loss and I’ve been drowning, just barely keeping my head above water, for years.. I’m in 24/7 survival mode and can’t seem to find a way out.. I feel like I’ve exhausted every avenue of treatment and have gotten nowhere.. There is literally nothing left.. I’m afraid of the damage I can sense is being done to my body by all these psych meds.. It seems to be a vicious cycle – I have a symptom so I take a med, which in turn causes a symptom that I need an additional medication for, which causes a symptom I need an additional medication for, and round and round it goes! I’m so in tune with my body at this point that I know things are way off kilter and I don’t feel we’re any closer to the solution now than we were at the very beginning.. I’m on so many drugs that I know, I KNOW, I’m doing irreparable damage to my body by taking so many medications.. I wonder all the time how many of them I really need.. Am I at toxic levels of them? Are my ‘mental health’ symptoms just side effects of medications I’m taking to alleviate the symptoms? Are the ‘symptoms’ merely side effects of the meds and not actually caused by any illness originating in my body? But I’m told to take this med and this med and that med, so I do.. I’m trying to get off as many psych meds as possible, but the process isn’t fast enough for me.. I’m beginning to head into panic mode, I’m feeling like there’s an urgency to get off these drugs, but I don’t know what it is.. Perhaps it’s just that I’m sick and tired of taking handfuls of them both morning and night and a few pills in between, but I sense it’s something more.. I don’t know what, but I hope to find out before it’s too late..
I’m probably thought of as being overly dramatic and overly sensitive.. I don’t know about the overly dramatic part, I don’t feel like I play up the histrionics, but I will admit I’m a sensitive soul, though not in the way most people would mean when they use that phrase.. I’m sensitive to other people’s energies, positive or negative, and am affected by it.. I have high anxiety due to over stimulation because of sensory overload – loud noises, bright lights, pressure of touch, strong smells.. I like calm, dark, cool environments where I can ‘detox’, if you will.. I’m living in a high intensity household where it seems (to my perceptions) there’s a perpetual energy of chaos wafting through the air.. I can’t, and won’t, complain about my living arrangements, because I’ve got it good.. I’m lucky to have such a great set-up and I’m beyond grateful for it, it’s better than I deserve as a 34 yr old adult still living at home.. Not that I ever had much choice, but whatever.. It is what it is.. I should have no reason to complain..
Do you, whoever you are that is reading this, perceive me as someone who is constantly whining and complaining? I feel like you would, but I’m no mind reader.. I feel like I’m giving off negative vibes all the time because I’m suffering, mentally and physically.. I don’t want to be that one person who always brings the mood crashing down with my negativity.. Or that one person who stands out for being different, though I already know that I am that person, so I guess I need to learn to cope with constantly being the outsider.. My thought process is different, my emotional barometer is different, my physical sense of self is different.. I’ve always felt like that one person who doesn’t quite fit in, even in the best of times.. But there I go pissing and moaning again.. Do I ever DO anything about any of it? What can a person possibly do to fit in with people who were made from a different mold? Maybe that’s why I get along with cats so well – they’re fickle, I’m fickle.. I’m crawling along at a snail’s pace through life while everyone else is far ahead of me.. I don’t want to hold anyone back, but I’m afraid of being left behind.. I literally cannot survive on my own, as a singular unit; I physically need other people to accommodate my needs.. I’m selfish that way.. They say ‘if you love someone, let them go’.. Well, I should do that with my family; I should stop being a constant responsibility because I’m a grown-ass woman who can’t take care of herself on her own.. I feel like all I do is take.. I put my heart, soul, and energy into surviving my minute-to-minute existence and by the end of it I have nothing left to give.. I’m a leech, a parasite, offering nothing in return.. I feel incapable of offering anything in return.. Do I subconsciously withhold what I have to give because I fear rejection? I fear opening up to people who don’t seem to want me to fully open up, because you can’t unring that bell.. And people know that.. I think they’re just as afraid of what I hold within me as I am of what they’ll think of what I hold within me.. I’ve always got up some kind of facade, whether it be more light-hearted than I’m truly feeling or maybe a chatty Kathy, talking about casual things only, without getting into the grit of a conversation.. I really want to make deeper connections with the people around me, but I feel they’re either dismissive or afraid of me because of my issues or that there’s an awkwardness because I don’t know how to be me around them.. I’m emotional and fragile and I’m easily affected by other people’s moods and energies.. I physically can’t be around people very much right now because it’s too much for me to handle – the loudness, the constant movement, the changing moods – it makes me nauseated and anxious and I feel the need to be withdrawn.. I’ve holed up in my part of the upstairs and usually only come out when absolutely necessary, like for a Dr’s appt or if I feel the need to get out for a while and run errands with my mom.. I feel like solitude is a necessity right now, until certain things in my life can be sorted out.. I’m in a constant state of hyperactive senses, always listening for the slightest noise of disturbance downstairs (concerned that someone might be hurt), cringing at bright lights and loud sounds, trying to guard against any disquieted or negative energy (though I, admittedly, don’t really know how to do that effectively).. I’m always in a state of half-panic, fearing the chance I’ll somehow put someone out or make someone else’s life more difficult simply with my own.. I have needs that I can’t, myself, meet and I have to depend on other people to do these things for me and I hate that.. I used to be, many moons ago, so independent and free and able to care for myself like a normal and capable human being.. Now I’m not that person anymore and I hate myself for the burden I feel I am to other people.. They say they don’t mind, but their feelings of being inconvenienced isn’t hidden to me.. I’m very good at reading people, probably better than they realize because I don’t often comment on what I’m seeing them ever so slightly exhibit, but I read their body language, their tone of voice, that look behind their eyes, the micro-expressions on their faces, even the vibe they’re giving off – everything they’re not saying out loud – and I can determine how they really feel.. I know they’re good at reading people, too, but this is one thing I am good at and I feel like I can do it better.. Maybe that’s just stupid of me and I’m totally off my rocker, but for me to say I actually think I’m good (or even better!) at something is highly abnormal and you know I must feel very strongly about it.. But then again, I could be delusional, too.. Just add that to my many mental illness symptoms!
All day today I’ve felt a deep tightness and pain in my chest.. It’s probably the costochondritus I’ve recently been diagnosed with, but I think it’s also the emptiness of losing one of my bedfellows.. I’ve slept most of the day, not wanting to feel these intense emotions coursing through me.. I also feel like I want company, but I can’t leave my bedroom, I’ve got an anxiety about walking out my bedroom door.. How irrational! It’s a catch-22 – do I have enough mental strength and energic fortitude to leave my bedroom so I can be around people? Or do I stay in my safer, and less anxiety-inducing, bedroom? I rarely feel comfortable and at peace.. I don’t know how normal that is or how much that’s just me being dysfunctional, but I need to find a way to center myself with the noise and chaos of living in a household with six other people going on around me.. It’s beyond critical mass now and I need to find a solution and it needs to happen yesterday.. I understand that it won’t be a one and done fix, whatever the remedy it’ll, unfortunately, take time and it’ll be constant work for a very long time, probably forever.. I’m just afraid I won’t have the energy or capacity to endure the struggle.. I’m already down, I feel like Life is just kicking me around at this point.. I don’t know if I have the strength to get through any more hardships.. I’m weak and I’m afraid.. What happens if I fail? Will I become suicidal again? At this point I doubt I’d ever take my life because of the anguish it would put my family through.. I’d rather suffer on in terrible agony than inflict any intentional pain upon them.. So I try to suffer in silence, not wanting to drag anyone down with me when I go.. I don’t want to be the sadness that everyone immediately feels as soon as I walk in the room.. They’re better off without me around them.. You’re probably saying ‘just buck up and force yourself to be in a better mood, don’t allow yourself to be so down in the dumps!’ Try living in this shell of a person for just one minute and then tell me that again.. And you’re probably also saying that my experience or feelings aren’t unique to me, that everybody feels that way at some point or another.. Even if that were true, is it to the same degree? To the same debilitatingly intense extent that I feel?
I know I’m loved and I’ve been told I’m not a burden, but sometimes I just feel so alone; I’m so different from them, from everyone, and it’s difficult for me to connect with people.. Deep down I’m just so afraid, of so many things.. I’m crippled and I’m not living, I’m not thriving, I’m surviving, barely keeping my head above water.. I’m afraid of asking for things I want (or maybe even feel I need) because I don’t want to be selfish, and because I don’t want to be asking for anything that would be unfair to anyone else or would be taking something away from someone else.. I’d rather do without if it meant someone else did with..
Jeez, here I am with all this negativity and whining; all the things I say I don’t want to be or do, perpetuating the cycle.. When will I have the strength to make a finite change? It starts with me and ends with me, if I don’t stop complaining at some point and start making a change then I’ll never get out of this rut.. It’s my fault for falling in it, it’s my responsibility to get myself out..
And let me end with saying that I don’t think I give those around me enough credit.. Besides the fact that they’ve got their own tough crap to deal with (probably tougher crap than me), I know they don’t intentionally make me feel any sort of negativity, I think I’m probably just overreacting and reading into things.. That whole ‘I can read people better than anyone!’ was stupid of me to say.. I don’t do anything better than anyone else and it was foolish of me to think so, even for just a moment.. But that’s me!, believing I might be better at something than someone else and then realizing what is in actuality, which is I can’t.. That’s the reality I deal with every day – having moments of unwarranted pride and then coming to my senses.. That’s the self-talk I’ve got going on in my head feeding me lies.. I’m constantly trying to sift through and find the truth.. I’d like to think I’m pretty sane and pretty sensible, a rational individual; but I’m constantly doubting myself.. It’s a non-stop battle inside my head between truth and lies.. Half the time I feel like I can’t even think clearly, these meds have me so cloudy.. After years and years of dealing with being heavily medicated I’m just tired of it.. I’m weary, I often feel like just giving up.. I don’t know how much longer I can take this, I really don’t.. But I feel like I’m being looked at from the outside as though I should just stop wallowing, not by family members, but the outside world.. I feel scrutinized and criticized and judged, put under the microscope, and I feel I’m failing the examination.. Whatever it is I’m doing I feel like I’m failing.. But the real question is : do people even care at all? Do people even give me a second thought? I’m probably imagining the judgement, so why do I put myself through this? I doubt people will even read this, the whole thing, given that it’s so long.. And maybe that’s better, I’m a stupid mess and this will only solidify in people’s minds how crazy I am.. I’m unrelatable because I’m so different, these posts just emphasize that..
Anyways, I have to go, I literally can’t take any more.. I’ve been as raw and as open as I can be for one day.. I’m just one big open wound and every word is like pouring salt and rubbing it inside..
I apologize ahead of time for anything I wrote that might be hurtful or insulting to anyone, it was unintentional.. I’d never want to make anyone feel bad about something I said and I wouldn’t do it on purpose.. So I’m sorry, for just being..