I Hate to Bring This Up

I really do hate to bring up the awful combination of mental illness - illnesses, in my case - and a serious romantic relationship.
For the most part, my partner is understanding, supportive, helpful, just wonderful.
... But then, days like today happen.
Days where we end up in a fight because I can't do my share of things like household chores; my schoolwork suffers; my social life goes down the drain; my financial contributions are at an all time low... and that's just scratching the surface. Days where threats are thrown verbally because I can't function like a regular person. I can't function like a normal girlfriend. I can't be that.
I'm a little caught up with suicidal thoughts that bombard me, making it a feat to get out of bed, brush my teeth, take my meds, and look presentable. Let alone think about the groceries, or what needs to be cleaned, or the fact that the laundry is starting to pile up - again.
Usually my lovely partner can understand the 'whys' of all these things, but lately things haven't been easy on him, either. He has an injury that makes it very painful for him to walk, so going to work has become that much more stressful for him.. and more stress equals less patience. Which makes absolute sense... it just makes my life a little messier, because his tolerance for my limitations and affectations goes way down.
This is something I'm sure we (those of us 'blessed' with mental illness) all have to face at times, that is, if we're able to find a partner and hold down a relationship long enough to have those 'living together' disputes. I don't envy those of you going it alone - having someone to lean on is by far the superior option in my opinion, if possible -  but I feel like.. it must be nice, sometimes.. to not have to worry about what that other person expects of you.
I wouldn't trade my partner for anything, but I know how hard it is to try to be a Good and Normal Girlfriend when you're also Mentally Ill.

Forgive Me

... I forgot I ran this blog. So, please, my dears, forgive me. I'll do my best to re-cap.
The last post I made was in May... early May, so I'll start there. May was hard for me, really, brutally, teeth-grittingly hard for me. Flashbacks, all the lot of what you can get with PTSD. It sucked. I was a mess. .... Even more so than usual. However, my (awesome) individual therapist has been helping me with that, and she had me go to a CPT for PTSD information session near the end of the month. Trauma treatment is not a thing I'm excited about, but I know I just can't live like this forever. I can't. With that in mind, my therapist is trying to get me ready to start trauma treatment in (I think) late September. She thinks that if I do this treatment while I'm still in DBT for BPD, it'll be easier, because I'll be able to use and keep learning skills that can help me tolerate what this trauma treatment demands. I'm mostly just going along with whatever she thinks is best, or what she thinks I'm ready for. If I let myself completely be in charge of those decisions, I never would have gotten help to begin with. So that was May. Teary, tumultuous, just ... bad. Dark.
That's not to say I'm a ray of sunshine today, though.
June was better, I'll say that. I finished my philosophy course - which felt like a big achievement given all the 'vulnerability factors' - and started a new course, studies in literature. I can carry it into the summer, and even though the school is only open on Wednesday afternoons in the summer, I get to get - hopefully - another credit. My guidance counselor is hopeful that they'll be able to grant me about five or six 'freebie' credits based on life experience/etc. ... Which would mean that I only have to take between one and three courses in order to graduate. Which would allow me to graduate around January. Which would have me registering for college. I'm really happy about that.
Another development is my quickly-expanding friendship with a girl I've been 'kind of good-ish' friends with since late 2013. She and I have been spending a lot of time together - we have similar mental health issues; we both kind of.. have no one else*; we have a lot in common, we just get along. We just 'get' each other. I don't feel like I have to wear my daedric armor around her.. she's safe.
The anniversary of my being recovered from drug addiction was.. well, it was hard. I had intense cravings the night before and the day of. I resolved to celebrate only the 'big' anniversaries. This was six years.
Church/temple's been going really well, too. I'm getting to know a lot of people and I'm feeling really accepted. I've never had a community like this before, and it's just blowing me away at how positive it feels.
And now, to the now. Summer's out, so the boyfriend is working less. I'd really like it if we could go to the zoo or to a conservation area and go swimming. I'm - hopefully - starting violin lessons soon, I just need my boyfriend to get it all squared away - he's in charge of sign-ups. I'm trying to write more. I'm trying to enter into participation more. I'm trying to be more social. I'm trying to start doing nice things for myself.
Also, on a 'meds' tangent, I'm two weeks into taking Abilify and haven't noticed too much. Any experience or advice is welcomed.

--------------------------------------------------
*Story time: My 'best friend', the one I've known since kindergarten, has in the past year or so begun to prove herself as not the kind of friend I want in my life as an adult, increasingly so. I haven't trusted her in well over six years, and I'm afraid a falling out would mean a spilling of my secrets. She's a very narcissistic person but also plays the martyr.

Wear Purple

Tomorrow is May 1.
I didn't know it until today, but May is sexual assault awareness month, and there's this campaign. 'No One Asks For It!' encourages people to wear purple in a show of support, and it's all across Canada, which is pretty neat. It's a simple idea, and it'd be really cool if it caught on and the hashtag trended. It's listed as an event on Facebook, and I'm sure would be easy to find - I decided to keep the link out of the post.
I love that this is a thing, and I'll absolutely be wearing what little purple clothing I own. Though I do worry a little about how much I publicly involve myself, especially on social media. I don't think I can take any prying questions about my experiences. I think, though, that it's important to try.
I find it hard, sometimes, being in the positions of both activist and affected. I feel like it's important to be vocal about these issues, but it can get really uncomfortable when you, as a victim, inevitably feel some sensitivity. It makes it hard to lead a rally.
Tomorrow is May 1. Sexual assault awareness month begins. #NoOneAsksForIt.
I am an 'affected'. I am a victim. I am a survivor.
It's been years, and it's still harder than I would've imagined. I don't like to talk about my experience or really give any details, but I feel very connected to this campaign. I wish I could be stronger. I wish I didn't equate strength to being able to 'get over' a trauma. What I mean is that I wish I had my PTSD under control, and knew how to cope, and was able to advocate the campaign and talk about myself, rather than uncomfortably always speaking in the third person and making everything objective. .....But that isn't where I'm at yet, and that's okay. I'll get there. This is the year that I decided to eventually go into PTSD/trauma treatment. When I'm ready. When my therapist thinks I'm ready. For now, this is the best I can do. But it's real, and it's important.
Tomorrow is important. It's important that people are participating and paying attention. It's amazing, and the support is beautiful.

Illuminated by Forty-Nine Candles

It's been two days, going on three, so I feel like I can safely say - without 'jinxing' anything - that I'm feeling better than usual. I'm feeling better than I have in months. I'm feeling better than I have since 2014, probably earlier.

I haven't cried since Monday. I haven't felt so anxious or depressed that it was overwhelming since Monday. 

I feel productive. I feel good about school - I feel like I'm doing well and that there actually is some 'light at the end of the tunnel' that is my 'high school' career. I want to get up in the morning. I don't feel sleep-deprived. I have energy. I'm enjoying things. 

I feel like, at least for now, I'm out of 'crazy mode'. I feel like I can switch to 'girlfriend mode' and do all the things I want to do with my boyfriend. Or to 'student mode' and work harder at school. It's nice. I know that this spell of feeling better can't last - it never does -, but I feel so good. I don't even feel that good. I don't even feel happy.. but I'm actually experiencing positive emotions and I can't remember the last time I've felt.. normal. Above my baseline, at least.. low as it is. I don't know how to feel what I'm feeling, though. I feel like this, feeling good, doesn't belong to me. Like I don't deserve it. I feel guilty for feeling good. I feel bad for feeling good, because I just don't know how to handle that.

It doesn't matter, though. I'll take it. I know this won't last, so I'm just.. trying not to think about it. I'm trying to just live it, this period of feeling good, and allow myself a break from the stress of literally always being in a low mood, almost completely unable to feel anything positive for more than thirty seconds. It's nice. It feels.. smooth. Like ice, but comfortable. Warm. Like a water slide at a public pool, all warm and cleansing and bright and easy and happy.

I know I'm going to have to face up in May, but I'm trying my best to ignore that inevitability.*

I'm trying my best to feel the sun. I'm feeling good about so many things, without even trying. School. I've been making progress, and I'm finally almost at the end of the booklets for my philosophy course. Therapy. I feel like I'm learning about myself and accepting so much, and I feel really good about my individual therapist. My boyfriend. He's been just as stressed as I have - in completely different ways. I'm just feeling good about things, like I'm accepting things. I've been reading and playing video games, and I've been eating. I've been able to eat more normally than I think I have in a long time. I feel good about being awake. I want to be awake. Clearly, I'm still in a state of surprise about this.

With this Saturday being Beltane, I'm feeling like the way I'm feeling isn't coincidence. Well, it probably is... but with this being an auspicious time, religiously, I feel like the Goddess - and maybe the God, too - has something to do with it. Like somehow maybe this is a reward of sorts for beginning my foray into Wicca.

I'm just feeling good, and I'm trying just live it, not dissect it. I'm treading uncharted waters.

----------

*My diagnosis of PTSD is related to a trauma that happened in May.

I'm Still Alive

It's been a tumultuous couple of weeks.
My depression - that usually spans October/November - February - is continuing into April with a vengeance. It's gotten bad.
Last week, on Thursday, I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to do it. I was going to do it. I could barely stop to catch a thought, my mind was racing. I was hysterical, crying and incoherent. It was when I got home from my CBT group, and it was about 4PM, so my boyfriend was at work. I called him, because I didn't know what to do, and he's the first person I turn to in every situation. In retrospect, I feel incredibly guilty for putting him in that position. He couldn't leave work, and I made him worry he'd come home to me passed out, or a corpse.
So I called a local youth crisis hotline. I'd never called before. I'd always had my boyfriend call and speak for me, because I would get too anxious and I would be crying so hard I couldn't speak properly. Well, that was still the case this time. I don't know how I managed to make the call, but I'm kind of glad that I did. It was a woman who answered, and she was really helpful. We talked for about a half hour, and I felt much more calm, and a little in control by the end of it.
I was going to call a local shelter - more of a safe environment really - to see if I could just go there for a few hours until I felt safe, but I felt like I was okay enough to try to stay safe on my own.
I took a hot shower, used my favorite body wash - strong smells can be grounding - , put on comfortable clothes, made a tea, put a movie - Twilight - on, and got my 3DS and the stuffed Hello Kitty that my boyfriend gave me. I curled up in a blanket writing in my journal, and I tried to be okay. I made it through the night... obviously.
I've been more in control every day since, but every day I still have strong thoughts and urges to hurt and kill myself.
I don't know how to cope. I've been drinking more than I should but I don't care. I woke up for school this morning and went back to sleep for an hour and a half before I finally got up and half-assedly went to school.
I've been trying to write more, because I can turn my blood into ink. I've been listening to music.. a lot. I've been amping up my studies in Wicca, and just today I picked up some more incense for the coming full moon and invoking Hecate, and to dispel the negativity in my life; also picked up a leather bag just the right size for my raw clear quartz point on a string. I burned frankincense earlier today, and cleansed the crystal, and took the opportunity to attune with the Goddess. I'm finding things that.. not work, but help. Improve the moment.
I've been seeing my new therapist - in the DBT program - weekly, and I feel really positive about that. I feel like she can help me. When I saw her on Friday, we talked about Thursday night, and we talked about why I feel like CBT isn't helping me. She made a good point in asking me if exposures are really going to help me get better if I don't have trauma treatment. That my lack of improvement and progress in my attempted exposures is valid, because I have this impediment that the rest of the women in my CBT group don't have.
I get to start group DBT on the fourteenth, and I'm excited about that. It's going to be hard... really hard, but I need to do it. I can't live like this forever. I mean, I would, I absolutely would... but I want to be the kind of girl my boyfriend can love without stress, keep forever, not have to worry about. I know recovery should come from within, but I'm not quite there. I feel like I'm a little closer to being 'there' now than I was a year ago, so that's something. I don't care if I get better, to be honest. However, I care about my boyfriend - I love him more than I hate myself, most of the time - and I want to be better, healthy, recovering and eventually recovered for him. If nothing else, I want a life with him. I also have my goal of becoming a published poet.. so I have little motivators.
I get to - finally - see the psychiatrist on the ninth, which is a great thing, because my medications are in need of some serious tweaking. I know I need my Valium upped. I want to up my Wellbutrin, because now that my purging is almost completely under control I'm much less at risk for seizures, and my depression is at a point where I feel like I need .. more. I love Wellbutrin. I haven't gained at all on it, and I had virtually no side effects, and it just.. works. I just need a little more. .... And I feel like something needs to be done about my psychosis. I'm on Lithium and Saphris - antipsychotics - and I feel like something could be done with that. .... And now that I think of it, I'd like to up my Clonidine - sleep medication - too, because I'm on a very minimal dose, and it doesn't do as much as it could in terms of keeping trauma nightmares at bay.
I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I'm robotic, just going through the motions and every day is the same, occasionally needing to re-charge and being completely useless for a time.
So I'm still here. Alive. Safe.
I'm not okay, but I'm doing my best.

You'd Think by Now I'd Know How to Cope

Things started getting progressively worse yesterday.
It started off slow, and then hit me all at once. I was crying and incoherent and actively suicidal - though that part I did downplay for the sake of my boyfriend's sanity - and I was feeling. Feeling everything all at once and also not at all.
That carried into today. Once again, the day started off all right... well, less 'all right' than yesterday morning. This morning I started getting ready, putting on makeup, etc. and just found myself wandering back to bed. I sat on the bed beside where he was sleeping, covered him with an extra blanket, and tried to coax a sleepy agreement out of him. Even half-asleep, it didn't work, which is probably for the best. I managed to get myself to school by around 9:20, and got more work done than I'd expected of myself given my current state. As the afternoon rolled around I started feeling worse. At first, I felt like it was manageable. Just a little more depression than usual. No big deal.
By the time I was leaving to catch a bus, I was already a lot worse. I had to stop at a school water fountain to take a Valium - not exactly a confident moment. It took longer than usual to get home, because of the snowstorm we had,
When I did get home, or rather got off the (second) bus that stops on my block, I was already crying. I was completely numb but also hyper-sensitive. This is still the case. When I got in, my boyfriend was in a work call, so I peeled off my wet clothes and put on flannel pyjama pants and my 'sad sweater'.* He had to leave for work almost right after taking calls, so we talked for a few minutes, and he kissed me goodbye a few times, plus one of most comforting hugs known to humankind. (Probably just me, but hey.) I tried to convince him I was okay, but I know he didn't believe it. He's seen me at my worst, and knows what constitutes 'okay'.
When he left, I figured it would be a bad idea to sit around doing nothing, because all that would accomplish would be lingering and possibly worsening negativity. So I made some tea. Harmless. I thought a couple of pieces of shortbread (a comfort food... blame it on my ancestry) might be nice. They sat on the coffee table all of two minutes before my ED shouted "NO" and I had to put them away. That was a moment when things started to really get worse. I couldn't look at them. I felt disgusting just holding them. So, I resolved to simply drink my tea and work on my chords. I tried that, but my hands were so shaky that it took an abnormal amount of time to not get fret buzz or have ... finger issues, for lack of better phrase. I had an 8tracks playlist playing in the background. I don't know why, but I snapped. Every built up negative emotion I'd repressed all day came out. Accordingly, my depression spiraled. My depressive instincts quickly followed suit.
After getting a message on my Tumblr blog from a concerned follower, I decided to take their advice, and do something nice for myself - they suggested a hot bath, but with my ED and PTSD, lying naked in a tub of semi-clear water isn't exactly a good idea. I resolved to do some of the things that work.
Yesterday, I did my nails, and tried to focus on watching movies, but I couldn't shut it all out.
So I thought, amp it up a bit. I was already in my comfy clothes, and I always have my favorite blue blanket on the couch in case I need it (I'm always cold, and a lot of the time, having something soft and warm can be calming or grounding), and I had my tea and a box of tissues (I cry... a lot). I went to the bedroom, grabbed the stuffed Hello Kitty my boyfriend gave me - he also sprayed it with his cologne, which is remarkably comforting - and my kitty ears. The ears (probably seems odd, but as I've said before, I'm a submissive, so this can be comforting to me) pin to my hair and stay put. I went to the kitchen, as quickly as possible, to get a bottle of ice water. As a finishing, and distracting, touch, I decided Disney movies were in order, Horror movies are my favorite, but with my psychosis and paranoia, especially if I'm in a low mood can be a recipe for disaster. I remembered I've never seen any of the Toy Story movies. I found streaming links easily, and that's what I'll be doing upon finishing this post.
What's really prevalent in my mind right now are the very convincing and appealing thoughts, commands, demands, of attempting again.
I texted my boyfriend, who I know is at work, but I know that when I'm feeling this bad it's okay to let him know - and it also forces me to 'promise' to keep myself safe to the best of my ability.
I don't know what the 'message' or the 'take away' from this is, but it's probably close to yesterday's. I'm here. I'm alive because he stopped me more than once, and I've kept it that way because of him, and what I want with him, for us. My writing is a close second. Although I have actually asked close people to publish something I've written in the event that I die before I manage to be a published poet, that's something I want to accomplish. The big something.
So... yes. I'm feeling worse than I have in over a month, and I have 'plans' in mind, but I'm fighting them as hard as I can.


*The 'sad sweater' is a pink and blue Puma hoodie the boy bought from Costco. It's nothing special, but the first time I had to stay a while in emergency pysch at the hospital, I was wearing that sweater. For whatever reason, when I was feeling that badly, that sweater seemed like a good option. So it's oddly comforting.

The Promised 'About Me'

I'm never sure how to go about describing myself, so I'll just.. dive in.

My name is Jess, and this is my recovery blog.
I'm 21, and I'm a student - finishing up high school credits to get into journalism school.
I'm very passionate about social issues and politics. I'm a Marxist feminist, a white cis woman, and I identify as pansexual. I have a cis male partner whom I love dearly, we've been together a few years now. Our age difference is generally a topic of conversation at first - he's 20 years older than me. I'll get it out there right now that my relationship is non-traditional in that it's a BDSM relationship. I'm a submissive, and that feels like a big part of 'who I am' most of the time. (However, that isn't the focus of this blog, though I'm sure it'll pop up from time to time. I just didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable.)
I love literature, and I do write - mostly poetry, but I'd like to try my hand at a novella. I love music, and am currently focusing on guitar. My first instrument was trombone, and I was in my school's orchestra. I was first chair. My first and likely strongest love is horses. I've been in the saddle since I was about two years old, and I grew up lucky enough to have family with horses. I had a pony to ride through childhood, and now, the mare that I ride is a roughly 15hh Appaloosa. My second great love is travel. I love roadtrips, hopping a plane, train, or greyhound in the spur of the moment. It works wonders for my creative process.
I spend an inordinate amount of time on Tumblr. It's embarrassing, actually.
And, as you may well know, I have a handful of mental illnesses, and I'm also a recovered drug addict (five years!). I don't hide those things about myself, but I'm not one to share, either.
That's about all I've got at the moment, but feel free to ask away (though I'm not sure if Blogger has an inbox in the way that Tumblr does..)

Sending good vibes.

Preface

I'm new to proper blogging - I hail from the land of Tumblr, so I'll do the best I can.

I've had 'issues' for as long as I can recall. My teens were a figurative disaster area, and it's been a rollercoaster of sorts since. To really give the best preface possible, I should explain. I was a teenage drug addict. I lived an incredibly high-risk lifestyle, and I'm lucky I got out okay. I've been clean for five years now, six this coming June.
After I got clean, things got a little easier, but my mental health only improved in the addiction regard. Looking back, the warning signs were clear, in terms of mental illness.
It wasn't until about October of 2013 that my mental health started interfering with my life - rather, my ability to hold a part-time job. I was, however, already on anti-psychotics for a mental illness no doctor could put their finger on. Before that time, though, I was.. functioning. I got by.

It was around that time that my restricting got worse, I started self-harming again, and I made a few unsuccessful suicide attempts.
My memory of my first visit to the emergency psych ward at the hospital is a little fuzzy. I was dazed, and was at my worst point yet. It wasn't until my second time there that the doctor and nurses referred me to treatment. They referred me to a six week DBT program, because they speculated that I might have BPD (borderline personality disorder).
I got into the program quickly after being referred, and after being officially diagnosed with BPD, started both group and one-on-one therapy. It was at this time that my other diagnoses were.. examined. I had already been diagnosed with anorexia - purge subtype, as well as dysthymia. After a.. screening, for lack of better word, I was diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I was also diagnosed with social anxiety, though meeting the criteria didn't involve quite as many questions.
The psychiatrist assigned to me found a combination of medications that fit together, fit me, and also wouldn't be a trigger (my psychiatrist made sure that every medication she put me on was not what she called "a weight gainer"). The program was time-limited, so at the end of the six weeks I was referred to a much more intensive DBT program, which I was told could be at least a year long depending upon my progress. The waiting list for this program was approximately eighteen months. In the meantime, my therapist referred me to a short CBT program for social anxiety/phobias. I also started attending a self harm support group, and on January 19 of 2014, I stopped self-harming. I can proudly say that I haven't relapsed - though the temptation is always there.

It was a while before I got into the CBT program, and when it did, I didn't find it to be very helpful. Even so, I went every week, did all the homework, and just tried.
After that program ended, my depression was peaking again, so my CBT therapist found me another CBT program, for mood disorders (mostly anxiety and depression). I'm in that program now, and today was session five of twelve.

A little over a week ago, I got the call I'd been waiting for. The head of the DBT program had found me a (female) therapist, which meant that I'll be able to have my first appointment with her (March 13, the day before my birthday) and start one-on-one. From what I'm told, a few weeks into that, I'll be able to start group therapy, and I'll have a psychiatrist to manage my psych medications.

Now, at present, my mental health is on the decline again. I work really hard to eat every day, at least once, and ideally something small while I'm at school. My depression is spiking again, and I do have very self-destructive thoughts. Some of them are suicidal ideations. My psychosis is rearing its ugly head again - for the past three days, I've been in and out of dissociating, and constantly derealized. My anxiety, like my depression, is a constant, something I just.. live with.

All that said, I'm doing the best I can.
I'm trying to do things to feel.. not happy, but at least lessen the bad thoughts for a time. I've picked up playing guitar again, after over a year of not playing out of depression. I play games on my 3DS all the time. I'm writing my poetry again (it's not my best work, but at least I'm producing).
I may not be ready to 'recover' right now, but I'm taking baby steps.
This blog will be primarily about my treatment, but I'm sure some other personal things will slip in somehow.
I'll probably make a (much shorter) post as a kind of 'about me'.

Sending good vibes.