And i thank you...

I'm not going to write long because i am tired and i don't want to cry. Ryan is gone. I just wanted to write a little bit about it.

One of the weirdest sensations for me is how different this sadness is. I'm so used to being sad about my life, feeling sorry for myself, having this utterly depressed feeling coming from within me. Now (and thank God for the timing) those feelings seem to be under control. There's a whole different sadness now. I've cried so much, and i'm not trying to trivialize all those tears, because I don't otherwise understand the point of this blog. But what i'm feeling right now makes those tears seem silly. And not because i'm sadder now than i was before--i know i'm not. That sadness was something systemic that i never, ever want to experience again.

I think that what this must be is my first experience of real sadness outside of my own pain. I don't want to feel sorry for myself; for once, i don't want to take what's happened and use it as an excuse to think how bad things are for me. Those days, i think, are gone.

This sadness is just...Ryan's gone. It's more, I hope, a tribute to Ryan's meaning to me than a giving-in to my own emotional weaknesses. It's the feeling of feeling bad because of something that's happened outside of you that you can't control--not of something bad happening because of you. I can't help but think this is healthy, albeit devastating.

The fact remains that Ryan is gone. I'm thrown into shock by the thoughts that I took him for granted all this time and that he is GONE. forever. What will Vance and I do now? I feel like a part of me is dead inside. Is that normal? It's just a friendship...I feel like people are baffled by how bad we feel. But I guess those who know Ryan as well as we do aren't, really. It's just going to take time.

I'm so fucking sad. Like i said today, the best part of my life is changed. The best part of my life was that i lived with my two best friends in the best home life anyone could ever ask for. Now a third of that is gone. How will we go on? Fuck. Ahhhh.

I'm going to bed. And when i wake up, it will be the first day post-Ryan. Better than the day that Ryan left, sans getting-to-see-Ryan. Vance and i are here and will have blasts, and we have a cool new roommate moving in. We got to live with Ryan for two/four years, and man was that great. I am reminded, mercilessly, of how lucky i am to have the friends i have. I am always going to be as lucky as i am sad. I love you all so, so much.

Goodbye, Ryan Darrenkamp. Thank you for all you've done for me, and that's even too much for me to write about here. I love you to death, and you've made my little life easier, and far better. I owe you a million dollars. Millions and millions of dollars for that.

I am just waiting for something to happen

Things continue on their steady path. Things are good, still. Part of me is starting to get a little scared at the thought of this going away. I'm not sure what that's about, but i'm hoping to be able to learn to control it. I'm hoping it's something i can just control, rather than a sign of a change on the horizon.

It's been a while now. I've noticed what seem like some systemic changes. I'm calmer, I'm, obviously, happier, and...well, the calmness is so much bigger than i'd expected. It's so good. The biggest deep change i've felt, though, is something i hadn't really expected. I used to sit around sad waiting for something to happen, something to change, something to get better for me. It was such a desperate, hopeless feeling...hopeless in that i knew it was never going to happen. I knew the getting better had to come from me, not from somewhere else. I thought it was never going to come.

Now, i'm so calm. I ride the subway, not looking sad, but feeling calmly happy and expectant--not that something's going to come along and fix me, or make me happy, or cure me of all that's wrong with me. The sense of expectation comes from the knowledge that I'm now ready to receive the world in a healthier way, that i'm working my way toward being able to take from the world the things other people have been able to take, and of which i've been so jealous...calmly expectant because i don't need for those things to happen at all in order to be happy. I'm going to be happy, first, and then those things, perhaps, will happen. If not, it's OK.

The way i see people is healthier. I don't love them or hate them all at once. I don't feel disgust or overwhelming joy or longing or any other completely inexplicable and ridiculous emotion when i see anonymous people on the train or in union square, like i have so often before. I see people, just like me, who deserve only the benefit of the doubt that they are just as good as me, and no better, and no worse. We're all in this together. But we're all on our own and have to make it through that way.

I know i used that feeling of waiting and wanting to get me through the hard times. I knew i was watching my life pass me by, living in fear of trying new things, waiting for something external to fix me before i dared try. That is going away. I want to go out and try. I want to make things happen for me, not wait for them. Because i know they won't necessarily ever come. And fuck that. I'm tired of waiting.

I ain't living no long lonesome nights...

...i'll stop callin' that woman my wife. Yeah, that's a song i wish i could make a lyric in my life, but, alas...

So! The point of this post is manifold! It's possible i'm still a little drunk, so that's interesting. Basically, here's the deal: i've been feeling utterly happy for the past almost week, and i'd hate to jinx anything, but i'm guessing it's thanks to lovely old Abilify, and i like it. As Alex would say, i'm totally Abilified right now.

i find that nothing in the world compares to happiness. There's no panic here, as with past happinesses...just, happy. it's strange how when you finally feel good, almost all the old pain is simply a memory, and that's it. If i weren't feeling so darn good, I guess i'd feel sort of cheated by the past or something...no, I know that I do, actually...I know that that pain was real, and for it to disappear this simply...jesus...

What a ripoff.

Just kidding! Like i said--too good a mood. Basically--and, again, like i said, this all seems too early to say, but i'll say it--i feel like once you get to a point of what you feel is happiness, or acceptance of things and your life and yourself, it's all over...all the past, all the pain. That's simplistic, sorry. It seems too good to be true, but nothing else...no resentment, just a feeling of being so lucky. I'm sure you'll be reading about more bad days and bad feelings, but this is the best i've felt in, i don't know, my whole life, maybe? So let's just go with it for now. I am going to make an appointment this morning to see a therapist, because obviously that's still extremely important, but, for now, let's just soak in the happiness.

Called therapists. Hopefully they call me back.

Also, this post is an apology to everyone i know. If you love me, you have probably been hurt by how sad i've been...not hurt by me, i know, but hurt by watching how unhappy i am and not being able to help me. I'm sorry for doing that to you. I'm trying to right things, the best way i can. I'm trying more than i've ever tried in the past, so that's something, at least. Thank you for being there for me, always.

Ready to stop living those long, lonesome nights. We're gonna be all right, all right...in those dark places.

I'm only lonely on the inside

Still recovering from today's anxiety attack. Not tired. What to do? Vance and i are sitting here on computers after watching things and having Agricola Tuesday and everything. But i'm honestly terrified to go downstairs to try to fall asleep. I am supposed to get up early tomorrow to do some things and i still want to do that...i just hope that, like today, i'll just be able to deprive myself of sleep and get the good stuff done for the sake of changin mah ways.

Today on a walk i made a comment about pizza and game night, and Richard said, "Your life is very regimented," which is true, and which represents a social life i think he sort of envies, i.e., easily getting along with people and having some social necessity taking up almost every day. JJ had actually said the same thing to me earlier, and i noticed while trying to date, before i gave that up for Lent, that my daily life is pretty much almost entirely accounted for. I've only got Sunday and Thursday nights really free, at this point. And I know i've got a lot of friends, and more truly good friends than most people ever get. I was never the popular girl, in my life, and i don't think that's so now either...i'm just super, SUPER lucky. i inherited a great big bunch of wonderful, wonderful friends from vance and ryan, and then i went out and got one job wherein i found the best group of co-workers who could ever enjoy my crazy little self, and then i stole all my cousin's wonderful Brooklyn friends, and that was the end of the formula. I'm so lucky.

I still sometimes feel so lonely, though. Maybe i'm just spoiled. But i think, always, that it's because there's something wrong with me, that i can't just be happy with the amazing gifts i have in my friends, that i can't connect on a normal level with others and therefore think i need so much more, or am too fucked up to get enough out of human interaction or can't do it right so that i ultimately feel completely alone...i think that because of this i am a bad person and deserve to feel so bad.

I know that i'm working through my problems and am getting help and am on meds and am doing this. And i'm talking about everything, finally. But what if it's just pointless? I don't really feel better yet, and what if i never do? Somedays i feel good, and then the next day i want to die. Can i expect one person to fix me? Why do i have to be fixed?? Why can't i just be happy too, and am i just imagining that i'm not happy, somehow? PANIC ATTACK. This is the No. 1 (in my least favorite of all AP styles) thing that goes through my head in those moments when i'm crying into a pillow and can't breathe (in reading past blog posts, i've realized how dramatic the way i talk about the crying sounds...but, man...): "WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME." Why am i like this, and is it my fault?? It must be, right?

I don't see why it's fair, is all.

I am the luckiest, most blessed-by-friends, most loved person to ever hate her life. What a fucking asshat. I'm trying so hard to find out why i'm like this, and what i can do to stop it. I want to be happy and stop whining. I'm sorry to everyone i know. I want to be happy, for me, and for you. I'm so, so tired of it too. I didn't mean for any of that to rhyme.

I'm wide awake, it's morning

Oh, hey. Here i am in a panic attack; thought i'd write.

It's past seven in the morning and i'm awake! !!!!! I have a tiny dog on my legs and he's sleeping, and i was just sleeping for the first time in the night a few hours ago. I should really be asleep. but i can't be.
I woke up to the thoughts: we need a new roommate! i did something stupid the other night and now i'm embarrassed and feeling even more rejected by men! something just ok happened last night and now i'm distracted and thinking too much about it and giving it too much credit! i'm so embarrassed all the time by who i am! i'm broken and wrong! oh my.

I can't figure out whether this is good or bad--should i wake up and do things? make a craigslist ad? read my stupid, horrible book? write in my blog? (whoa, META.) maybe i'll go running later! maybe i'll just stay up and further my goal of becoming a morning person. Maybe i'll fall back asleep and later bemoan these precious hours of lost sleep. Is this the too-early start of a horrible day? I can't help panicking about the rest of the day, and how tired i'll be and what a disaster emotionally. oh, what have i done.

Lately i've been feeling...ok. ? Have been back on the Cymbalta, and Dr. Packer put me on Abilify as well, though that just ran out. Tomorrow we meet again. Today I shall call and find a therapist. GOAL.

The way i've been feeling lately tells me absolutely that i need the therapy. I can't wait! I need to talk to someone qualified about this shit. The meds are doing all they can for me, and i thank them. Meds, i appreciate and celebrate you. But i really need to figure out my feelings, and i need to talk about them with someone who's trained to help me understand why i feel the way i do, why i keep making the same mistakes over and over again. I can't underestimate the importance of my recent dating issues, and that's something that's somehow only become clear to me recently--a fact, in itself, worthy of therapy, i'm sure.

I also need to learn how to manage my energy...in this new era of occasional good moods--which, i am hopeful to believe, are slowly coming more often--i'm sort of overly excited and happy sometimes (though it's very different from the unmedicated, painful, terrifying joy i've felt so often before, thank goodness), and i don't know what to do with that energy, and i've been channeling it to not the best places so far. I'm trying, but it's hard. Everything is hard. Is everything hard for everyone? Probably.

Hey, the early morning looks sort of pretty, today.

I'm having a panic attack. I wish someone could help me. Ah.

Let's talk about spaceships

I'm thinking I'm gonna get sick of talking about feelings. That might be the hardest part of this blogging biz...I'm constantly thinking about this stuff, almost always sad, frequently talking to certain people about the way I'm feeling; the idea of now writing about it in a forum that, ostensibly, will at some point be available to others makes me feel sort of sick to my stomach and self-indulgent and ashamed.

I just need to remember that the purpose of this blog is manifold, and while it's going to be hard for me to talk about these things, to think about someone else reading my writing (Joe Hafer can vouch for this hang-up better than anyone else), and, perhaps hardest of all, to think of other people reading this and knowing about the feelings I don't tell them about and laughing at me or thinking I'm overreacting or exaggerating my sadness by believing things are so bad for me when they're so much worse for others -- while all that is causing me to panic a little (A LOT), I need to remember that that's part of the exercise here, that I'm trying to get over those crippling fears. I wish there was a way to make this available only to people who've known what it's like to feel how I feel, so I'd feel safer sharing it, but I don't see how that's possible (perhaps if I understood technology at all, more options would present themselves), so I'm just going to have to try and to get over my anxieties about opening up.

And, God knows I open up enough; my roommates and co-workers and close friends all know all too well how much I need to talk about my depression. That's one of the most painful things for me -- the sudden realization at inopportune moments that maybe I'm talking about this stuff too much, that I'm turning myself into a joke or an annoyance. I know the people who love me want me to be happy and want to help me through this stuff, but I'm constantly afraid that I've reached a boy-who-cried-wolf stage of just talking too much about feelings, that people who don't feel this way couldn't possibly not be sick of hearing about it or thinking I'm being too emotional.

It's such a bad feeling to think that, on top of the suffering you're constantly feeling, maybe you're also wrong to feel that way, or just not tough enough, or too self-centered, and that you're alienating your friends because of it. Sometimes when I'm at my worst, when I'm overcome by thoughts of desperation, I hate myself even more for having been less discreet with my unhappiness and making it impossible for my friends to believe just how painful things can be sometimes, by making them seem that painful all the time. Because no one can be in that much pain all the time, right? Maybe things aren't even that bad, maybe I am overreacting, maybe I deserve to feel this lonely and fucked up because I am weaker than I should be and other people find me disgusting and annoying for my weakness -- these thoughts are so confusing and horrifying, on top of everything else, that I doubt everything I feel and am overcome by loneliness and self-loathing. These are the times when I give up hope of ever getting better, ever being "normal," ever loving myself.

Sometimes I wait around for the heat to come on so I can sneak into my room and cry without my roommates hearing over the sound of it. Yesterday I felt so bad I couldn't -- I just went down there in the middle of the day and sobbed as quietly as I could, choking into my pillow and fighting the desperate desire to hurt myself in some way just to release some of the self-hatred that makes it hard to breathe. Later, when the pain still hadn't gone, I took a shower so I could secret-cry there, so I could get past that most terrible feeling without having to talk about it, since I so often feel like I don't have the right to burden people with this anymore. It must seem insane and ridiculous and fake to someone who doesn't feel this way. For all I know they heard me anyway...it's not a sound that's new to them, and they know me well enough, I'm sure, to not be surprised and to know I just need to cry violently by myself sometimes. God, this all sounds stupid...

OK. That's the kind of thing I'm afraid to just lay out there...I don't see what would be appealing at all about reading something like this, and the absolute last thing I mean by this is some sort of cry for help, to casually tell people, "See how sad I am? Help me!" The people I need to know about my sad feelings know about them, and they do everything they can to help me. I need to find a way to use writing to let me release some of the pain that I just can't get out in conversation, to vent these issues in a way that gives my brain the time and space to sift through them, to work through them in writing and have this record to remind me of all the things I've felt. It will probably take some getting used to doing this, a period during which I'll spew out such sordid details of agony that I doubt anyone would want to read, or that I'd really want anyone to read, before I get to the real constructive business of writing about things in a way that both is helpful to me and provides some sort of ameliorative reading experience for others, whether through being entertaining or funny or (I hope, eventually,) well written, or through actually helping someone who might get something from this. While that's not my primary goal -- God knows there are better-suited vehicles for that, and my primary goal, as I've said, is honestly to help myself -- if there's someone like me, often lost, desperate and lonely, who reads this and relates in any way and feels less alone as a result, well, that's the best I could ask for.

But let's go out with some good news! Last night I was asleep within an hour after going to bed and got a good night's sleep (foster dog bed-take-over-ism aside); tonight I had a few drinks for game night and didn't feel the need to keep drinking and staying up until I felt drunk or tired enough to hope to fall asleep easily; I'm going to bed early so I can try to get up early and try to get more daylight hours and productivity in my week; I started the process today of organizing a co-ed softball team for this summer, which I hope will mean both a new social and athletic outlet and a reason not to be hungover on Sundays; and (best saved for last), I finally e-mailed my doctor about rescheduling the appointment I missed and getting back on the meds. Which I think I really, really need for the time being.

And, I'm writing here again! I really want to keep up with this and not just give up on it and the potential I think it has for helping me, as much as I might be tempted to, especially on the really bad days. Good thing I spent about 5 hours working on the blog design, as that'll at least make me less likely to quit. Anyway. Ideally I'll be ready to share this with someone besides Vance at some point soon...I just need to figure out a way to make this stuff an interesting read that I'd be more proud than mortified to share. It might take a little bit of pouring on the emo and getting the big-fat-tear-y stuff out of the way before I can write like a sane person and actually try to write, not just hemorrhage thoughts, as well as figuring out exactly what, besides feelings, I actually want to talk about here. But for now, writing is a start. And making it through today without sobbing hysterically. Let's see if I can keep that achievement intact until I reach the great victory of being asleep. G'night.