Moving On!

Moving on sometimes involves literally moving somewhere…in my case, to my old home town.
I found a beautiful flat right in the town center. It’s not too big and not to small and it was important for me that it had two rooms, not just one….because I hate people sitting on my bed when they visit me, or everything smelling of food when I cook something.

I can not put into words how much this new beginning means to me. It’s exactly what all my therapist have been telling me to do for all these years. It was a huge step but now that it’s done, I also feel that it’s been a necessary one.
Although I haven’t been feeling my best lately and I’m quite sick and depressed most of the time, I do think that it’s nice not having to justify for the way you’re feeling. I can feel shitty as long as I want and I can stay in bed all day if I have to, without someone asking stupid questions….it’s strangely liberating 😉

For the last two weeks I have been so busy and even though the moving process was very hard and quite stressful, I felt really well. I hadn’t been feeling so good  in a long time. Although it lasted only for a couple of days, it really raised my spirits a bit. But unfortunately those days are the exception rather than the rule 😦

Besides, I’m scared to fail again. I’m not in good shape, neither physically nor mentally…how am I supposed to survive nursing school? My best friend told me to be more optimistic, but honestly…I just see myself failing over and over again…having mental breakdowns and screwing up my life forever. So far I have neither graduated nor finished my apprenticeship…and nursing school is not going to get any easier. No one will pay any attention to whether I feel good or not…if  you don’t work hard enough or are sick too often you just get fired…and that’s that. And then I will really have NOTHING.
I would be forced to go back to live with my parents without any completed training or education and as if that wasn’t enough, my parents would lose all the money they payed for my furniture and the flat.

Right now I’m just scared…I really want to live like a normal person and live a normal and happy life but I can’t…my body won’t let me. I really don’t know how to be healthy and normal. And most of all I think that I don’t even know how to be happy. I just lost my ability to feel anything even remotely happiness-related I think.

Wow…now that’s a thing to tell the psychiatrist that I have to go to next week for the first time. I don’t think that he can possibly help me but it’s worth a try….even though I already know that I can’t take any meds due to my cardiac afflictions and my risk for thrombosis.

xoxo

Following My Dreams – “I Don’t Want To Be A Failure Anymore!”

After spending the last couple of months in a consistent downward spiral of health problems, anxiety and depression I finally decided that I’ve had enough.
In my last post I said that I had come to the decision to take some time off, since I had the feeling that my body and mind continued to shut down, slowly but surely. I just couldn’t take it any longer and, for the first time, was taking decisions for myself and not for my family or friends. And it felt soooo good.
And it felt even better because everybody was supporting me….except for my parents (which didn’t surprise me at all)….and that gave me the strength to continue down the path I’d chosen for myself.

Recently I’ve more and more grown to hate my apprenticeship and school…like many young people I had to face the fact that I had obviously chosen the wrong job for myself. Yes, I would have loved to become a dietian….and only a dietian….and not some sort of underpaid, downgraded cook’s maid. It turned out to be, not the job I had wanted and worked my ass off for this entire time, but a job I wouldn’t be able to live by without asking for some extra money from the welfare agency.

Decisions…Anxiety, Depression, Meds, Time Off

The last couple of days have been extremely difficult for me…and I’m afraid that the rest of the week is not going to be any different.
Yesterday, while I was facing the seemlingly unbearable task to start my last (and 7 weeks long)  internship at a canteen kitchen, of which, the mere thought, had already been triggering a 48h panicky state in my nervous system somehow…I decided to finally make the decision to take some time off school.

I. JUST. CAN’T. PRETEND. I. AM. OK. ANYMORE.

To make sure that I wouldn’t back out of it again, I texted my friends to tell them about my decision. Many of them said that they were relieved to hear that I had finally listened to my body and my inner voice, that had already been SCREAMING at me for months, to finally stop it…just stop.
Over the last couple of months my immune system basically started to shut down (or as I put it: “My immune system is a full-time asshole who constantly gives me the finger!”) I’ve been feeling sick constantly…had a gastritis and for the last 4 weeks I’ve been suffering from a nasty herpes infection, plus a nice cold with loads of phlegm, pus, blood and basically every other fluid that could possibly come out of a human’s nose -.-*
My doctor told me that all this, is basically a result of the constant stress my body is under. Even the meds I take for my tachycardia can’t keep my pulse frequence low anymore…when I sat at my doctors office, without having any kind of stress, I had a resting pulse of about 100.
Well, welcome to my life, which basically is like running a marathon 24/7.

She gave me the address of a psychiatrist and some Opripramol that I’m now supposed to try out for the next couple of days. I don’t really know if I should take them. All these years I’ve always been proud of fighting my depression and anxiety without meds but this vicious circle I’m in right now basically forces me to take desperate measures so to say.

Depression’s Like A Black Hole…

…it sucks you in and you can’t do anything about it.
You struggle, you beg, you wriggle like an eel, trying to escape…but you can’t.
That’s exactly how I’m feeling right now.

I always thought I’d be stronger…strong enough to keep depression in check but apparently I’m not.
I’m now officially back into therapy, due to my panic attacks and the increasingly depressive state I’ve been in recently. So much has been going on lately, that I don’t have the strength to deal with…problems at school and at home but above all things, problems with my own darn mind.

I’d love to blog more and comment on everyone’s posts but depression is like this really heavy burden you’re carrying around on your shoulders and that’s the driving force behind your actions and thoughts, so that you’re not really deciding how you want to live your life anymore…depression just controls everything.

I really hope that therapy will have a positive effect on my condition rather quickly, because I have the final exams coming up in June and can’t afford to suffer a mental breakdown half way through it.
And although I’ve tried to keep my current condition to myself and to just “function”, especially at school, our supervisor must’ve noticed my mental health problems somehow, because a couple of weeks ago she came up to me and asked me what was wrong. She had noticed my drastic weight loss and that I kept isolating myself from the class. I started wailing like a 5-year-old as soon as I realized that their was no use trying to avoid the elephant in the room. That’s currently happening to me quite a lot, that can keep myself together as long as no one starts asking questions. I just want to be left alone. I want to be normal and not the “crazy, mentally deranged girl who always needs her special treatment”.

But being back in therapy is getting a special treatment and that’s enough for me to say that I failed…not only myself, but also my family and friends. I just want to lead a normal life someday…even it seems like an unreachable dream right now. But that’s what keeps me going. That, and D (“my person“).

Lost For Words #3 – Rules of Social Anxiety

1. Walk with eyes fixed on the ground
They are watching, laughing, judging
Walk normal
Don’t focus on it too much or you will stumble and be made a fool of

2. Look like you are writing and busy in class avoid being called on
you know the answer but what if you stutter or mumble?
What if they tell you “speak up I can’t hear you”?

3. Don’t make a noise hold in that cough that sneeze that breathe
people will hear you
do not draw attention to yourself like that

4. Spend time every night before you go to bed to think
Think about all the embarrassing things you have ever done
Everyone remembers, that’s all they remember

5. Never enter a room full of people
They all look
Why are you here?
Why are you alive?

6. Your friends all secretly hate you
you know why they didn’t reply to your text you know how they all dread seeing you
you are only put up with because of pity

7. Always be scared
Scared to sit next to a stranger
Scared to see someone you know
Scared eat in front of people
Scared to talk on the phone
Scared to go to social events
Scared order at a restaurant
Scared to talk
Scared to have a panic attack
Scared to be noticed
Always scared

but don’t worry, you don’t like people anyway, at least that’s what you say
you’re “antisocial”
You don’t even care what they think
people are annoying, that’s what you tell them.
You play it off as a joke but really you’re always scared.

-Anonymous

Therapy 2.0

“Mental illness is rarely about finding solutions; it’s more about managing expectations!”

And right now, I’m desperately trying to do exactly that – to manage my expectations. There are no solutions for me.I’m going to be back to therapy very soon. When I saw my therapist yesterday, she considered my “increasingly unstable”, “prone to stress” and “unable to cope properly”.

I feel like my sanity is hanging by a thread.

What The…?

Sometimes I just feel like I don’t have any control of my emotions.
I’m frequently flipping out. D. too drunk and sick to call = me flipping out. My mother constantly asking questions about school = me flipping out. My dog smelling like a dog and trying to lick my face = me flipping out.

And at the same time I just can’t be happy when things happen to go well for me. My therapist always told me that I was supposed to be happy about the “small things”…instead, I feel nothing.

It’s as if one good thing doesn’t count as long as the rest of my life looks like a heap of shit to me.

I’m Merely Existing

So here I am…sitting in the living room, watching a 4-hour documentation about Karl Lagerfeld and trying to plan 8 group therapy sessions for some obese patients, which I really can’t be bothered with right now, to be totally honest.

I can’t concentrate and my mind’s wandering all over the place. For the last 2 months I’ve been constantly feeling sick and sleepy….simply exhausted.
I don’t know if anyone else can relate, but I’ve been suffering from very low blood sugar levels. I constantly have to eat, otherwise I quickly get jittery and queasy.
I can’t work out anymore, because of that….I just feel to weak. And as if all this wasn’t enough I started having cardiac arrhythmias and tremors again.
Oh…and did I mention the anxiety attacks?

It’s just horrible. Most of the time, although I had a lot of anxiety attacks, I at least felt safe at home or when I was with people I really trust and love. But that’s not working anymore. Even at home I can feel this imminent feeling of anxiety creeping up inside of me and no matter where I go, it never eases.

It honestly breaks my heart that I can’t be with people the way I want to be….physically I’m there, but I’m weak and sick and mostly bad-tempered and mentally I’m so far away, that most of the time, I can’t remember more than the two last sentences of the conversation.
When I’m with D. I feel like a burden and a failure every tme…..I love being with him and spending time with him, but even in situations I used to feel safe with him, I now feel vulnerable and sick.
And I just can’t believe that he still wants to be with me, although I’m such a catastrophe. He so sympathetic towards me and supports me with his pure presence in a way, that no other person ever did.

How ironic, that I can’t really be with him the way I want to be….that I find the most consolation and safety in a person (again) who will never truly be mine. Apparently I tend to torture myself…and I seem to be loving it….unfortunately.
I don’t believe in true love anymore, I don’t believe in marriage and being with one person for the rest of my life…but the one thing I believe in is that people can support you in a lot of ways, and give you love (physically, emotionally…etc) right when you need it the most…and that can make them a part of your life forever…because they have a place in your heart and not in your bed or on your couch…or with a ring on their finger.

These people, not my family or my friends, were the ones who supported me the most and helped me to feel alive….especially in times when I felt I was merely existing.

He’s My Person! Part 1

Every since I met him a bit over a year ago, I’m constantly asking myself the same questions over and over again:

“Am I a bad person?”….”Is he a bad person?”….”Are we both indifferent to our own, and other people’s emotions and feelings?” And the only answer I can come up with is “Yes…we probably are!”.

I grew up in an intact family. I never saw my parents having a fight or any other issues in general. I know that every couple have their certain problems now and then, but they always stuck together and they gave me the feeling, that my family was a save haven…a place where morals were of a certain value, and they still are.

My entire childhood, I considered marriage and being together with the same person for the rest of your life an unalterable fact. Everyone would find their “person”…I would some day find a man who was good enough for me to marry, to have children and build a house with….to live happily ever after.

But then, everything changed, when I started to have feelings for a guy who should have been totally out of bounds for me. Because I had moralities….yes I did….and I would act accordingly. At least that was, what I kept desperately telling myself.

When I first found out that he was married and had two children, I hated my guts….I hated his guts…I hated everyone’s guts. I hated myself for being stupid enough and trying to believe that he, at the age of 33, would wondrously, still be single or at least….uhm….divorced…widowed….pretty please?. For God’s sake…one look at him and I knew that he wasn’t any of such things.

I hated his guts because he flirted with me, talked to me, brought me tea and coffee, touched me slightly every time he walked by….and looked at me with his fucking bedroom eyes. He was a dirtbag…he was just like all the other guys who thought so little of women and fancied themselves so much, that they thought they could play their stupid games with them, and then just move on to the next…while their wives stayed at home and took care of the children, unaware of their husbands’ extramarital activities.

I tried to hate him. I really did. And I kept avoiding him for half a year, thinking that he’d stop trying to be nice, like “these kind of guys” usually do and would move on to look for another girl. But he didn’t.

Instead, one day, when I was on my way to the women’s restroom, I accidentally ran into him, in a dimly lit hallway. After the door had closed behind me with a loud bang, I realized that I couldn’t avoid him any longer. The hallway was so narrow that he (stupid broad shoulders…and everything….damn) completely blocked my way.

Before I could say or do anything, he kissed me. That was half a year ago…and the beginning of our “relationship”. And now, he’s my person…not the person I will marry….but the person I’d call if I had to find someone help me drag a corpse across the living room floor. He’s my person.

Back To Zero

I never wanted to use this blog again. I wanted to close this chapter of my life and just be a normal person.
But for the last two months, I’ve been feeling worse than ever.
I’ll probably start therapy again.

….although I feel like a failure.