Withdrawal

Ever have a dream so vivid that you have trouble separating it from reality when you wake up?

That's been the past week for me. I want to sleep, because awake I'm dizzy and otherwise miserable (I'll explain that later), but every time I fall asleep it's some epic journey through my subconscious that not only wakes me up instead of allowing me to solve the issue at hand, but leaves me exhausted and confused.

My ten hours in bed last night were interrupted several times (at least four or five). I will spare you the details, but at one point I was in a dystopian version of the already effed-up dream world I'd inhabited. All the houses had turned to colorless paper replicas of themselves, and I needed to save something on which my life hinged.

This afternoon, when I got tired of the dizziness and took a nap to escape, I got to attend a rave. Glowsticks and everything. I'd just begun wondering why the dance floor was so pathetically empty when I woke up yet again.

Let's backtrack: I take various medications because a doctor tells me to, and it's better than feeling suicidal. My prescriptions expired before my yearly appointment (if this sounds familiar, it is), and so I'm having withdrawal symptoms. Dizziness, nausea, "brain zaps" (that one's fun. Not.) and a long list of other unpleasantness are the center of my waking universe.

The pharmacy got me emergency refills on two of my medicines, which is why I'm able to sleep at all, but apparently that third one is pretty important. And apparently that's as much as I'm capable of writing without completely blanking out.

So one time, at the caterer I worked for, there weren't enough bow ties for all the employees, so the boss decided only the girls got to wear them, because the girls looked better in bow ties. He was right.

Bloody Mary

So, when I was twelve, my parents sent me to summer daycare. Perhaps they were a little overprotective, but details. The point of this blog is that although I was a good kid, I had a mischievous streak, and have always been a skeptic.

When the kids decided that Bloody Mary was living in the girls' restroom, I led a few investigations. There was nothing, of course. There was no blood on any mirror, there was no blue toilet water (because we tested Baby Boy Blue too, while we were at it), and no one came out of anywhere to attack anyone at all.

The whole "good kid" thing is important because I was trying to disprove a theory after little girls started wetting themselves rather than go to the bathroom, since they weren't allowed to use the adult bathroom.

I failed anyway. Kids wanted to believe, for the same reason people like a good ghost story. It's exciting.

There were some girls who claimed they had seen Bloody Mary, and who are you going to believe? A twelve year old, or a group of ten year olds? Well, neither probably, but on with the story.

A group of girls went into the bathroom with a few they were trying to scare, and I volunteered to hold the door open so they could escape when Bloody Mary arrived. So they did their chanting and turning around in circles and flicking water at the mirrors and flushing all the toilets, and when the first girl screamed that the trash can had moved, WHOOMP! The bathroom door sealed closed.

I can't get the door open! *it opens half an inch, then slams shut again* I'm pulling!

I even pretended to pull so the kids outside the bathroom could see that I was innocent. Somehow Bloody Mary had skipped the stabbings and gone straight for holding the door shut, which doesn't sound like much, except that group hysteria is a powerful thing.

During the struggle to open the door and free the girls, someone saw Bloody Mary in a flash on a mirror, someone saw a single drop of blood, someone saw her fly out of the mirror, then disappear, someone saw the trashcan jump, though within three retellings the trashcan had lifted a full foot off the ground and moved across the floor.

I did eventually let go of the door—I mean, I managed to pry it open, against a strong and mysterious force—and a wall of screaming girls fell out and scattered, still squealing, to the winds. Or to five feet away from the bathroom, to relive the terror.

Things kind of faded out after that. I like to think that everyone was so terrified they stopped talking about Bloody Mary, and since no one was talking about it, girls started going to the bathroom again.

That's the end, you can go now. Or go play on Snopes or something, that's always fun.

Some Things Never Change II

I was right.

I had just finished writing when my dad called my sister, who happened to be down the hall from me at the time. He knows she can talk to me better than he can, so he was attempting to recruit her help.

Long story short, he wanted me to move back to Grandma's Hoarders house in the middle of nowhere. For some reason or another, I am not interested. Luckily, my sister has brains in her head and a voice that my father somehow listens to, and she talked him down.

Funny point: My dad didn't want me to move back so I'd be closer. My cousin and her husband intend to move into Grandma's house for the free rent, and he doesn't want them going through Grandma's stuff and stealing/selling/burning it all. He thought if I moved back in, I'd "keep them honest."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp* Hahaha... Good one.

*wipes away tears of mirth*

That place is a mess. Again, Hoarders-esque. After I left, a cat died in that house, and no one ever found it. But that's a minor detail. I don't care if they clean it out. Grandma doesn't care if they claim things as theirs, and I don't care either. I would not accomplish the purpose my father wished me to. The only reason I didn't clean the place out myself was because I couldn't do it alone, and while several people offered to help me, they never actually did. Somehow, they were always busy.

Then there's the little technicality that my cousin and her husband are big drinkers, and highly social. I have an eleven year old daughter. There is no way they could modify their personalities to enjoy living with a child, and no way I could force them to behave in a way that would make them ideal role models.

So lunch with my father was originally an attempt to butter me up and make me an offer he knew I wouldn't like. I probably would have gotten the "I'm not going to live forever" speech again, since he tends to drag that out every time I resist something. He's in his early 50's, by the way. If he doesn't kill himself with cigarettes, sugar, and pretending he's still 20, he could conceivably live a while.

Our lunch ended up pretty nice. There wasn't much to talk about, since his goal was out of the way, but the food was good. He wants something else from me now, but it would only ruin one day instead of my precarious sanity.

Anyhow, results are in. If you bet I was right, you get brownie points. If you bet I was paranoid, you get a mushy, half-eaten bowl of cereal.

Some Things Never Change

My dad sounded a little too cheerful when he asked to take me out to lunch tomorrow. I am, as a result, filled with dread.

How can someone sound too cheerful? you may ask, and why does that frighten you to your very core?

It's rather simple, really. Whenever my parents had really horrible news, they would try to temper that news with a treat. They'd act a little too casual, and the treat would be completely out of nowhere, because usually it was something they'd been trying to hide. For example: My sister has never watched the movie Forrest Gump through to the end.

One fine spring day, our parents pushed the couch up in front of the tv to make things cozier, told us we were going to have a movie and ice cream sundaes later, then sat us down and announced that my mom was moving out. My sister had no clue until that moment, and she did not enjoy her sundae, nor did she watch the movie all the way through.

I loved my sundae, and I loved the movie. Of course, my bedroom was directly across the hall from my parents' and I was a bit older, so the announcement was wonderful for me. No more being unable to sleep until 3 am listening to them argue! And a sundae on top of it all!

Once in a while I'd wake up and find that my father had taken my sister out for the day, and that announcement was always met with dread. It meant that my mother wanted to tell me something truly horrible, perhaps break my spirit and remind me what a horrible person I was for having repeatedly done something wrong over the previous weeks or months. The problem was me, and she needed several hours in which to set me straight, while my sister went bowling or fishing or out to the park.

So any time I get an unexpected treat just for me, I'm thrown into anxiety. I asked my dad if my sister and brother-in-law were also invited to lunch, which is always the case, but no, it's something just for us. *shudder*

So, what am I so afraid of?

Well, number 1: homelessness. I've been living in someone else's house as a favor to me since December 2009. My then-best-friend kicked me out after three and a half months because I was still unemployed, and she and her boyfriend had decided that not only did I not actually want a job, or I'd have one already, but that I was never going to amount to anything, and I should give up and try to get on disability.

I then moved into my aunt's house. She didn't actually have room, but I had just been kicked out, and it was that or let me live in my car. I stayed with her for about two months before I managed to get into Grad School. Unfortunately, I flunked out after two semesters because I couldn't wrap my mind around Accounting, and my school did not offer any kind of Master's degree in any kind of art or design.

So it was on to grandma's house. I was there for several months before I was notified (by my father) that my grandmother wanted me to leave, because I wasn't the companionship she'd hoped for. I'm an introvert, you see, and sitting quietly in the same room with someone feels like good company. I don't like to fill the air with words unless I have something to say which I think is important.

My grandmother was terribly injured, went into surgery, and ended up staying with my father, because his house is wheelchair accessible and hers is not. This extended my stay at her house to nearly two years, because I took care of her pets and kept the house from being abandoned/broken into.

My sister kindly, generously, amazingly, asked me to come live with her for reasons such as the horrible heat wave, horror at my living situation, and hope that she could help me out. I've been here four months and I'm still unemployed, even with her tossing every job she hears about my way (yes, I apply for them all), and now it's into autumn, which means the Seasonal Affective Disorder is kicking in. I'm sleepy all the time, I'm no longer oozing the hope and enthusiasm I was when I first got here.

So, back around to lunch with my dad tomorrow. There's a chance he just wants to have lunch with only me, though we don't get along for more than the shortest amounts of time. There is also a chance that he wants to pass on a complaint from someone else because he thinks it's helpful.

I'm taking bets.

Depression is Depressing. III

You don't want to hear it, so I just won't say it.

That's why I'm so quiet.

Blank

I can't do it. I can't write for NaNoWriMo even though I was excited and feeling defiant last night after my rant on the subject.

I made a NaNoWriMo account, and things started out well. I'd decided on a fantasy, based on a short story I started years ago, but never finished. It was a fairy tale, and I went through it, getting vague ideas of how to expand, characters to introduce, and a direction I wanted it to go in.

I began writing. I got interrupted. By the time I returned to it, my mood had dropped and all I wanted to do was scrap the whole thing. I no longer want to write. I don't even want to blog, but I feel like I should tattle on myself to really drive home the lesson here; I can't see anything through, not even when no one's going to see it but me.

Loser.

You're not supposed to talk about yourself like that, it doesn't do any good and it's not healthy.

You're crying, loser. You're crying because you decided you don't want to write a story. A story no one even cares about. This is why you can't get a job. How do you expect anyone to want to hire someone who's sat on their ass for almost three years? You don't want a job, anyway. You want to spend all day on Facebook, playing with apps. You want to sleep sixteen hours a day so you can pretend you don't actually exist. Why don't you just f~ing kill yourself?

I don't want to kill myself. I just don't want to live.

No wonder. You're so lame, I don't even want to look at you. And now your face is all red and blotchy like a stupid blotchy-faced lame crying person.

That's a really stupid insult.

Pssht. You don't deserve better insults.

Cool.

No, not cool.

Dammit, blanked out. I hate losing my train of thought, though this time it appears to have stopped me from beating myself up.

Anyhow, the point is that *fights blanking out again* um... Oh yeah, the point *blank* I've been fighting *blank* Fighting depression and stuff for weeks, I think sometime in October, I don't remember when. Missing that job didn't help. I should do laundry. Maybe NaNoWriMo was a bad idea, if I can't handle the stress of writing a story. I don't know how I could *blank* Disability. I don't know how I could apply for disability. I managed to get through college. I think that being able to do something productive, something I could be proud of, would help, but I can't seem to get started.

Oh, I give up. My mind wants to be blank.