What is even happening inside of me?

I've always loved sleeping in. Sleep is delicious. Especially in the fall when things are chilly in the room, but it's warm under your blankets. OH! And then you move your feet and find a cool spot to put them...siiiigh.

Lately, though, I can't seem to stop sleeping. I'm on the right medications, and I should be feeling pretty good, but I'm tired down to my bones. I can usually only manage an hour, maybe two, awake before I have to lay back down again.

I mentioned to my doctor that, even though my blood is testing in the normal range, I am feeling really run down and probably worse than I felt before adding blood sugar/thyroid medications into the mix. I even have acanthosis nigricans under my arms, which I haven't had for years. He found it really curious, because the metformin and januvia I am on should be helping both my insulin and sugar levels. I'm not so worried about the thyroid situation. I can see changes happening that let me know it's working itself out.

It really doesn't make sense.

It's hindering my ability to do anything. I have been looking for work, but I can't imagine working when I'm feeling this way. I have projects I want to do, but my brain is so tired and foggy, I can't even just sit and think things out.

I feel bad for BeBe. She wants to play and go on walks, but it is hard enough to get up out of bed.

Body shaming and self love...

In a way, it's good that body shaming is a hot topic now. I know what it's like to grow up feeling like a sub-human, feeling like trash, feeling like dirt because I wasn't thin and delicate.

When I'm in my darker moments, it's still what I cry myself to sleep about. If only, if only, if only.

The thing is about it all is that you have to be able to see yourself as already beautiful and worthy. Worthy of love and respect. Worthy of living.

I stopped eating, once, despite having a very active job. I lived on alcohol, a cup of yogurt, and little sleep. People noticed and congratulated me on it, but I wasn't healthy. I was dying inside and my head was full of my demons. I dreamed about taking a knife and carving the fat away.

When I changed my way of thinking, even though I gained the weight back, my health changed. Despite side effects from medications I take, I am as healthy as I could want. I follow my health closely, because I love myself. I am worthy and beautiful. I deserve my own respect and the respect of my peers. I know that people might look at me and make judgements, but that is not their place and I don't have to prove myself to them.

So, don't judge someone just because they are fat. Don't assume that because they have pride in themselves as they are right now, that they follow a movement that promotes self love where you are at, that they aren't taking care of their health.

What am I doing?

I think most of my 20s was wasted by sadness. This, of course, makes me sad.

But I don't want my 30s to be the same. I want life to happen. I want the things that make up life to happen.

But what do I want my life to be? I feel that I missed the part of my life where I would have learned that. Now, I find myself thinking "I might like that" for quite a few things. The hard part is knowing the difference between what is likeable and what is something I would truly love.

I've always wanted to have children. But, as I've probably said before, it isn't going to be easy to have biological children. Adoption has always just been part of the plan. Even when I was a kid, I knew I would want to adopt some day. This is probably the one thing I am sure of.

What do I want to do for a job? Is having just any job alright, if it means providing for a family? Or do I have to have a job where I really feel fulfilment? I want to help people. I want to listen and help make sense of things. Can I be happy volunteering in some way? Or, will I find that I can do that as a parent and find contentment that way? If not, do I want to go back to school to get the credentials I need for a job I will love?

Can I continue to take care of my mother? Am I able, with my own issues, to take care of someone who chooses not to live? Her life consists of the Sims, eating out, and television. She doesn't want anything else and it is a miracle that we were able to get her to see a doctor after years and years of hiding from one. Can I take more years of the same and subject a child to an unhappy situation that even I can barely stand?

There are just so many questions I'm facing and I feel like I am no closer to answers than I was as a teenager first starting to look into the future.

Meds and more meds...

Meds are a funny thing. Sometimes funny-ha-ha. Sometimes funny-ugh.

The first time I went on meds it was a nutty little pill named Effexor. My father had died months earlier and a doctor finally thought that maybe I could benefit from some pharmaceutical assistance. Three days later, I was already feeling some benefits. I was lucky, because that is when my boyfriend decided to tell me that I had changed and he didn't love me anymore. Without the pills, I doubt I would have survived the blow.

For a time, I did well without meds at all. I worked. I went to school and stayed at the top of my class. Then, just before my final placement in college, anxiety and panic attacks came out of nowhere. I remember how confusing it was, since I had been feeling on top of the world. I will never know what triggered it, but it effected me on the daily.

So! Back on Effexor I went. At first it worked, with minimal side effects. Did you know that excessive yawning is a side effect? Neither did I, but I do now. Harmless, but as annoying as hiccups that won't go away.

Then...I just wasn't myself. I started doing things that I hid from everyone, except a very small group of people who encouraged my behaviour. There were many days I came into my placement still drunk or hungover. A few days I was wearing the same clothes as the day before. Nobody noticed. I would have a miscarriage during this time and the people I had surrounded myself with were not there for me. I dealt with it alone.

Then, one day, I started crying. I don't remember why, but I cried out all of the tears that had filled the emptiness inside. I could see my bottle of anti-anxiety pills across the room, but I knew if I picked up that bottle that I would take the whole thing. After many, MANY, many hours, a crisis worker on the phone talked me through the steps needed to walk across the room and take only one of the pills. I saw my doctor the next day and told him that if he said I had to live like this a day more, I would say I couldn't. I stopped Effexor that day.

It has been a long road since then, of trial and error. The medication I take now, Seroquel, has been a life saver and damaging all at the same time. My moods have been stable for well over a year, but it has physical side effects that I struggle to accept, such as hypothyroidism and type 2 diabetes. It is difficult having to choose between physical health and mental health, but if I didn't have my mental health, I wouldn't survive anyways.

It is a health crossroads at another kind of crossroads in my life. What am I doing? Where am I going? Health or sanity?

Snow.

I love snow. Really. I know a lot of people really hate this time of year because it gets cold and snowy, but I think it's really beautiful. Everything is crisp and clean looking.

There is something about it, though, that I don't like. I'm trapped in my own apartment. There is just so much of the white stuff on the ground that going out into it is a chore. Unless there is something I absolutely have to do, it generally isn't worth bundling up and going outside.

This creates a problem.

For anyone who has mental illness, you will probably agree with me that this time of year can be hard for a person's symptoms. Less sunlight and all. Isolation and lack of outdoor exercise only exacerbates the issues. This is where I am right now. I am feeling irritated by everything. The way I feel when I'm sitting, the way I feel when I'm laying down, the lack of places I can move to in the apartment, how much my dog wants to play (especially because there are few places for her to go as well). I can feel all of it closing in on me and, unless springtime magically falls from the sky tomorrow and melts the bridge-less moat that is wintertime, it is probably only going to continue this way for the next few months.

Sand

Why am I doing this?

Slow torture.

Lost in a desert

licking a moistened rock.

Sandpaper tongue.

Scrape

Scrape

Scrape

Thirsty for even a drop.

Standing Under the Stars.

I imagine myself, standing in a wide open field. The air is full of the scent of wild flowers, soft perfume in the night. Above me the sky is powdered with stars, watched over by the moon.

I open my arms to it all, staring with wonder at how beautiful the world can be, head bent back to the heavens.

Then I close my eyes and pray again.

I am grateful that all of my needs are met, except one. Though I should be content, my heartaches with the loneliness.

I pray that they are gentle. I pray that they are kind. I pray that their hands are warm adventurers and find me an ever fascinating world to explore. I pray that they are intelligent in different ways than I. I pray that they are giving. I pray that when they hold me, the world falls away, except for their heart beat and the scent of their skin. I pray that they find me exciting and beautiful. I pray that they want to wake to me every morning and fall asleep in my arms every night. I pray that they cannot imagine a world without me. I pray that they love me.

Most of all, I pray that they are brave enough to take the jump with me. To know that I would spend every day making them happy. To weather the bruises, for the rewards will be oh so sweet.

And there I wait. Under the stars. With the moon. In the night air. Praying.