Of Strength, Luck and Crashing Down

I'll add illustrations to this and some passages to thin it out and make it... not as heavy.  For now, it's two AM and I just wanted to get this out there.
EDIT: Hey look!  Illustrations. 

While reading this, you will see that some things are in italics.  These were added later.  It may make for a discussion with myself, or even an argument.  You may actually read my sanity arguing with what I've become.

An appropriate quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is, "Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next."

I am not as strong as people think.

I don't really know what gave anyone this impression.

The fact is that when a person gets a lot of shit handed to him or her, everyone naturally assumes that person must be very brave.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The bravest person in the world could die from a bee sting or complications after a fever.  It doesn't make him or her less brave just because that person didn't survive…

So the fact that I just… kept going… shouldn't really indicate any bravery.

I didn't fight, I didn't argue, I didn't really do much except panic, hide, cry a lot, not understand and be frustrated when no one could understand me, feel alone, and pretty much hate everything, yet never ask for help above a whisper…

To never ask for help and then complain when no one assists is just plain rude.  It is no one's fault but my own.  
Yes, I did ask a few times, at random, to the wrong people.  I blindly trusted the wrong people as well, and blamed only my own judgement later on, rather than blaming the fact that I didn't try again with someone else.  I should have kept going... And now as an adult, when I ask for help, I do feel guilty.  I feel like I'm wasting everyone's time or that they must think me very stupid.  I understand in a logical sense that none of this is so terrible.  

In fact, it's not even as bad as I've already been through...  But it's affecting me and hurting me.  I'm hurting myself, and I want someone to stop me.  That isn't fair.  It's no one's job to stop me from hurting myself but my own.  
And you know what?  I am strong enough to do that.  I'm just afraid and I hate myself for being afraid of nothing.  Why would I help someone I hate?  Someone who does such stupid things...  
I'm embarrassed, and that embarrassment is crippling.  

And then I would forget and be really happy for a while. 

I wasn't brave.

I was just in denial and didn't always have much else to compare it to.

Stunned maybe.  

I survived.

This doesn't mean that I had an undying will to survive or that I pushed myself beyond the odds…

Perhaps I didn't need such a will to survive.  I didn't need to push and push and push.  Maybe a lot of people would have needed that, and I just happened to survive without it.  

It means that in all the bad luck, there were moments of good luck or at least moments of calm that were long enough to pull me through.

It means that I plain forgot to care when I reached a point where nothing mattered anymore. This isn't bravery, so much as it's a kind of depression.

And sometimes... Not always, but sometimes...  Things were not so terrible.  Sometimes things were actually quite wonderful and helped the bad not matter so very much.  Still, always the neurotic child destined to be the neurotic and shaky adult, I always had a nagging fear in the back of my mind.  

The trick was acknowledging it and then letting it sit there without it taking over everything else.  
That was the trick only because I had no idea how to let it go. 

I gave up, and then life let up a little.

I called uncle, so my situation laughed and let me go.

"Just kidding Rowyn!  Go on, off with you.  Go try to be normal now that you're shaking.  Hope no one notices."

That isn't bravery.  It isn't being strong.

My father, and many others vehemently disagree.  They say strength is just the opposite of what I feel it is.  It's having the ability to just take it all and survive.  Still, the idea that I never fought back is troubling.  The idea that I am still not fighting back, and I'm allowing myself to disintegrate into a puddle of mush resembling something I do not want is even more troubling still.

Damn it, I'm better than this!   

That being said, I was never so completely hopeless.  I just didn't have the space to think about hope one way or another.  I just dragged myself along, scraping the bottom with my toes but not quite touching my feet down to the darkest depths.   I wouldn't let myself.

I don't call this a strong will so much as being stubborn.

Which in my life, may have actually been the same thing. 

I skirted along until I washed up on shore.  I didn't search for it or find it… I accidentally tripped onto land.

And why can't I be thankful for such luck?  Do I not feel I deserve it?  

And once I was there, I had no fucking clue what to do with myself.

I had wadded for so long that my legs had atrophied, but in an attempt not to bother the people around me, I just kind of held it in.

I bottled it up and pretended I was strong and had let things go.

Again, this may be it's own kind of strength, but in the end it isn't healthy.  If I could bottle it for a while and then empty it out, sure... but I don't.  I keep it.  I keep bottles and bottles of all this terror and I keep them safe and sound in some hateful wine cellar.  I'm afraid of what I am if any bottle is emptied.  I'm afraid of what my friends would say if they saw the contents without my explanations. 

So I collect the bottles as though they are important.  I make myself believe that I need them and that they make up who I am. 

Well, they fucking do now.  But I know I'm more than this.  

…I'm not a good liar.  I never have been.

I don't let anything go.

Ever.

Everything just builds and attaches itself to other things and becomes this giant conglomerate of hate and pain and sorrow magnified a thousand times until it overshadows all that blissful denial filled joy I had once enjoyed before.

I know that the joy is there somewhere. 

Enveloped in my own stupidity and stubborn nature.

Even now in the swing of this strange semi-functional depression, I am still capable of being happy.  Every now and then, by body gets confused and fuzzes the difference between elation and terror, which is unfortunate.  Still, once I get it straightened out again, I'm very content at times.  The trick seems to then be not letting myself sink back into "This will all come crashing down again" and instead hold onto the idea that I can, in fact, be happy once in a while.  

To be content should not immediately turn to assuming I now have something great to lose, and more than that, it should not MEAN that I WILL absolutely lose that wonderful new happiness.   Provided I don't suddenly chuck the damn thing out a window for no reason, there is nothing saying that chance and fate and all that won't finally let me hold onto it.  

...So why do I throw it out, assuming I'll just lose it all anyway?  It's that stupid logic that I've argued against in relationships, so why not my own life on a day to day basis?

I am not strong.  I am a stubborn ass.

And eventually, that stubborn nature will absolutely kill me if I don't make a change soon. 

I don't have the will to fight my fears every single day.  No one does.  No one should have to.  I barely have it on good days, but I still HAVE those good days, and that means something. 

I cannot do this alone, and I know I don't have to.

I have many friends who have not only put up with my shit, but have seemed happy to do so.

Many of them have even gone through similar times.  They understand and accept me.  

So why do I feel lonely?

I'll tell you why.

Because I'm a stubborn ass.

I've decided that my life is over and that there is nothing I can do and no one can assist me.  I've decided that because I feel guilty when someone does want to help me.  I feel like I'm wasting everyone's time and that I'm not worth saving.

Stubborn and stupid, but I know better. 

And then when I DO feel better, that brings it's own guilt.  "How miserable will I make my friends and family, who are currently so happy with me, when I have a bad day again?"

Has this become a fear of success on some level?  How very sad.  I would love to be successful in many ways.  It would be a shame to sabotage myself to prove a non-existent point to no one but my own negative voice in my head.  

That being said, obviously, I'm still standing.  I haven't done anything, nor will I.  At least, I assume I won't, since I haven't yet.

I've already been through enough that could have led to such an end.

It didn't.

Out of another fear, or for someone else...?  Either way, in this case it is a good thing.

There are plenty of people who have been through more on a daily basis than I have ever gone through.

What we live through specifically doesn't matter so much as how we respond to whatever it is we have been through. 

I have not responded terribly well, and no, this is not a new thing.  I'm just not the kind of person who handles stress well... but I handle it very inwardly.

On the other hand, I went a good 26 or so years without a complete meltdown.  That's a pretty good record.  It's not like I had one big trauma that stuck out and shook me.  I've had many things happen over the years.  Each one on it's own was both terrible and something others could have just forgotten.  It depends on the person, I suppose.  

I never had time to get over each one before something else would happen.  I never let myself just sit and work through what I needed to.  Just letting go won't work.  I've tried it.  It just makes me feel like nothing mattered and nothing meant anything... When clearly it did.  

I know now that it all mattered.  Even if no one else knew that.  It still mattered.  

It's all smooshed together and therefore harder to look at clearly.  Perhaps picking each piece apart and going through them one by one would help?  

I tuck it away.

I have my moments to be sure, but how easily I give up even the things that matter most to me should matter in the "I'm not a strong person" argument here. 

I come to a wall, and I don't climb it. 

I just walk away.

I don't walk around it…

I walk away from it and continue to look back as though I couldn't have taken another route.

I'm stubborn and I'm kind of an idiot.

While I've done this in many respects, the one that really gets me still is what happened at my first college.  I never moved on.  
Art school represented my entire life to me.  I went to live my dream and be away from what was hurting me emotionally.  I had real hope.  
I got one opinion on my arm and forced myself to prove the doctor wrong.  That doctor didn't even keep me in his record.  I hurt myself for nothing, and then got kicked out.  I could have fought it.  I could have easily stayed and gotten help.  Instead, I finished my degree in a school that was not an art school and never forgave myself.  

What do I need in order to feel accomplished in this area?  What would validate my time spent there and the fact that I AM an artist, regardless of what I tell myself when I am depressed?    

I don't feel like I really exist anymore.  I'm aware that when I'm not around, there are people who miss me, so I don't mean in that sense.

Thank God.

I mean that my past is so muddled and forgotten by everyone around me…
You know...  I forget things that don't matter to me, so it makes me question how much it really mattered if everyone but me forgot.

If everyone can forget, and this means my shitty little life hasn't really been that bad… I'm just reacting incredibly poorly.

And without a past, how do I know who I am today?  What have I learned?  What HAVE I overcome?  I'm a "strong person" who has no past anyone will talk about.

But it wasn't their past.  It was mine.  It was mine to remember, respond to, interpret and grow from.  Even if it's wrong or right, it doesn't matter in that literal of a sense.  What matters is what I'm doing now with all of it and all of the meaning behind it.  

By this logic, my PTSD, my anxiety, my current health, my nightmares?  All just me responding in a stupid way and I'm not strong enough to stop it through will alone, nor am I smart enough to figure out this puzzle, nor am I brave enough to just medicate myself until I feel nothing at all anymore.

Bullshit.  Yes I am.  I'm just afraid to acknowledge that, lest I try and fail.   Failure is much easier.  I'm lazy.

I, myself, often confuse that last bit with bravery.

Ah, but if I don't want medication, even if it might help in theory, I'll just find a way to use the fact that I'm on something against myself.  I'll teeter back and forth between feeling brave for it and feeling weak.  So, lets stop that line of thinking now. 

It's just stubbornness at it's purest. 

I'm determined to get through this on my own,
to get back to how I was…
Which wasn't really all that different and may be a complete muddle of facts anyway.

It was just quieter and less in anyone else's face.  I bothered less people with it.

This is good to remember.  Once I'm back to how I was, as miserable as that often was, THEN I'll be able to move forward in a different way.  I'll conquer new fears.  I'll move forward and be stronger than ever.  But, I need to understand what it is I'm really going back to first.  That way, I won't be so disappointed in myself and get too hung up on it all.  

I'm determined to get through this on my own…
but I can't.

Some days, I really want to. 
I want a normal life.  I want the life I've never relaxed long enough to have…

And some days, it just isn't worth the struggle to me.  I get mad at myself because it shouldn't NEED to be a struggle.  It's easy for other people.  I get frustrated and then stop moving forward all together, when I should be using those moments to propel myself forward.

Yes.

What happened to the determination I ever had?  I had it for stupid things, like winning boyfriends, but it was there.  Stalker level... but determination none the less that could be utilized now if I had any idea how to conjure and harvest it.

Exactly.  So how?  Just remembering won't work if I don't trust my own memory.  How do I picture the real Rowyn Golde?  Who is she?  Maybe I can pretend to be her until it sticks.  If I'm so easily led, perhaps I can trick myself into a better life.  

I want to blame someone other than myself.

I want to think I had no choice so that I can move on without just hating myself for doing this to me.  Punch out whoever did this to me and walk away. 

I want to put my goals and my emotional stability on someone else.  I want to get better FOR someone else, because I don't think I'm worthwhile enough to bother doing so just for myself.  Myself and I have an awful, rocky, love/hate thing going on.  Real soap opera crap.  I'm just not supportive enough of me to be my own therapist, let alone friend or goal.

Imaginary friends are probably unhealthy too, as is projecting and effectively using a friend as a therapy tool. 

My denial is broken.  It doesn't work anymore.  The reality is so strange and twisted and ugly to me that I just don't want to look.  It's not that I can't.  It's that I don't want to.  I want to wake up and just not care…  But I want to care.  I want to care and love everything.  …But I don't want to push myself.

I need to remember the cup.  There is a large blue cup in my parent's house that warped in the dishwasher.  When turned a certain way, it looks like it's smiling.  
It's ugly, for a cup, but cute for an art piece showing a facsimile of a human facial expression.  

The cup is deformed, but still functions.  I have an odd love for this cup because I look at it as though it is a mirror.  It doesn't match the other ones and other people would throw it out, but it still holds liquid.  It still does the job... and when looked upon from the right angle, it doesn't look deformed at all.    
It's still good enough, and I still like it.  
Even if I feel ugly, maybe I'm just different. 

My main issue as of late: I don't want to choke or have an allergic reaction to nothing at all.

Okay.

Well, it's strange science.  No one really knows anything.  Anyone can suddenly develop an allergy at any given moment to any damn thing.  That's the problem…

I have no control over my own body and I therefore have no control over whether I live or die.

Technically, no one does, but I'm having trouble finding comfort in that. 

It used to be that taking a chance wasn't a huge deal, because anyone can die any day from pretty much anything.  ...And sometimes, I was afraid, but I sat still and dealt with it with a smile on my face for the sake of those I cared about.

I have a hard time doing anything for myself when it isn't secretly for someone else.

This could be good in a sense.  If I smarten up and prove to myself that I can be okay for a few hours when with someone, even if it is FOR that someone, I can then remember that I had gotten that far and repeat accordingly.  

I knew in my heart that this (severe allergies) was common enough, and certainly nothing compared to EVERYTHING else in my life.  ...Everything else being other situations where I felt I had no control over my body, felt I couldn't cry out for help, felt no one would try to hear me anyway...
Much like suffocating inside yourself due to eating a macadamia nut.

It's a different kind of trauma, but for me it's just yet another trauma.  Nothing more and nothing less.  The difference really is that you can SEE if someone is going to hit you.  You can HEAR a car smash into another car.

You can't actually have any idea if someone freaking touched a nut and then touched something you are about to eat.

Tiny particles of instant death are scary, and even though I have lived just fine thus far, (lived JUST FINE thus far!!) they have become the end all be all of scary shit I can't really control.  The fact that I've HAD these reactions is the problem.

I've had these reactions, this is a real thing... and then I had throat damage that caused an amazing amount of pain from... something.  Environmental allergies?  Smoke damage?  Who knows??  Could have been anything. 

I had no control.  It just happened without my knowledge.

There is something kind of... rape-like about it all.  Beyond that, I've developed a desperate need for a plan, but I haven't yet developed the "umph" needed to demand a plan.  This is silly because a lot of my friends wouldn't mind one from time to time.  I still fear being an overbearing burden.  Crap.  

...So I don't eat or only eat in very specific circumstances in order have a sense of control. 

This is inherently wrong.

Especially considering that I want to eat.  I WANT to eat.  I've been avoiding even my favorite foods from my favorite places, just in case of... something?  Something like what??  Tree nuts and chickpeas on everything!! 

I'm going to die, but I'll die by my own rules?  …But I don't want to ever commit suicide.

Right. 

…Poses a bit of a problem, doesn't it?

Circular, illogical logic that I've been grabbing onto just so I can hold onto SOMETHING that I feel won't leave me of it's own accord.

Huh.  Abandonment issues to an odd extreme, yet I avoid social gatherings with my best friends.  Kay.

How very sad.

And how very silly.

...And I know that.



I'm not the only person in the world to have a crippling bout of depression, nor am I the only one to flip shit and turn into something I don't like.  The art of other people has helped me a lot in feeling less alone.
Penanggalan's Depression on deviantart and  Adventures in Depression on Hyperbole and a Half are great examples. 

Of Foodstuffs and Other Terrors

I'm going to finally respond to “Wrote a Blog-Like Thing” and tell you what led to my recent eating issues, by telling you a little bit of my history with food.

We've never gotten along terribly well.

From age one there was an issue.
There is a chance that I was reacting poorly to soy in the formula, since I do have an intolerance to soy which was at one point a full blown allergy. However, soy wasn't quite as common in EVERY GODDAMN THING when I was an infant.
 

~~Before anyone chimes in with “all your problems are because your mom didn't breastfeed you” I'm going to go ahead and say A. No. and B. she actually tried to breastfeed and just couldn't. 

It's like telling someone who has no feet that by not running, they are purposefully trying to get fat.
By telling my mother that she did something wrong by not doing something she really physically couldn't do, you are a bad, hateful person.

...Quite frankly, it's right up there with people explaining to me that I'm unhealthy because I don't eat the things I'm seriously allergic to.  It's backwards, stupid logic. 

So, moving on.~~~

I was diagnosed with a “failure to thrive” and often this is an emotional thing. Babies sometimes get this when they just don't have a will to live, as well as possible physical reasons. So, it could have been a lot of different things.  "Failure to Thrive" is kind of a catch all in this respect.  

Regardless of the reason, the doctors didn't have much faith that I would survive, because food and I were already on bad terms.

 

It was like getting in the middle of a gang war. What doctor wants to do that?

Luckily, interns are used to being thrown into the middle of gang wars, so an intern put some cereal in milk, which I guess flavored it or something? I'm not really sure what went down, actually. One way or another though, this guy got me to eat.

My thought, as depressing as it may be, is that with all my other medical ailments putting me in incubators and making it most likely pretty uncomfortable to do anything, even as an infant... Having someone just be with me and spend that time with me may have done a lot.

My parents absolutely tried and they are wonderful people. However, when you've got one daughter who is loudly mentally unstable and then a much younger one who is physically funky, something has to give. I could never cry as loud as my older sister could. That is a simple fact.

By four years old, I had the rest of my hearing back.

Lemme explain that one. 

I had been mostly deaf due to a common fluid problem, but it took two surgeries to fix instead of one because my inner ear, like the rest of me, is kind of wonky looking. This made it so my speech was also funky. I spoke the way I had always heard things, which was reeeeaaaalllly quiet and kinda mumbled. I still speak this way if I get nervous.

Anyhoo, I had my hearing but I couldn't really communicate well. I could understand everyone around me, but only my sister (of all freaking people) could ever understand what the Hell I was saying.

Around this time, I fell down.

Hard.

In my memory, there was a push involved and a traumatic moment attached, but we seem to have chosen to pretend it didn't happen.

...Kay.

So, my parents took me to the doctor and because we were having a bit of a disagreement as to how it happened, and any verbal argument from me wasn't entirely audible, it was decided that my S shape of a septum was just yet another deformity.

The problem here is that having a deformity from birth isn't something so easily fixed when you are a little kid, as it could just grow back as you age.

...So I didn't get my nose fixed. He took out my adenoids instead. 

It didn't help.

Not being able to breathe meant I couldn't really taste anything either.

More than that, I had to breathe out of my mouth. This meant that I couldn't scarf food and I had to be extra particular about drinking, because I wouldn't be able to breathe.

Beyond that, I had come in contact with a number of things over the years that had made me itchy. We understood that I had food allergies, but we had no idea what that meant other than a lot of food seemed to make me really uncomfortable.

We didn't even really look into what the foods were, besides nuts. This made for a vague sense of ALL food being potentially unpleasant.

This was made much worse when I was thirteen.

We went to Israel.

As a Jew-type person, this should have been a wonderful experience.

It was not.

The main reason?

Turns out, I'm allergic to chickpeas. Hummus is kinda big there.  Kind of a big freaking deal.  

At the time, we had no idea that anything, even nuts could do what this thing did.

I blew up like a balloon, broke out in hives all over my body, my eyes swelled shut and blinded me...

And still, I was the calmest person in the whole damn room.

My parents were in a frenzy, unsure of what to do “What the fuck is an epi-pen??”

There were doctors on the phone telling them I may need something injected into my heart...

But, no one said to take me to a hospital either.  The phone-doctor just said to watch me.  ...Having no epi-pen, what would have happened if I had keeled over?

But I didn't.

I threw up. Waited for it all to get worse or better, and then calmly stated that I should eat something I know I'm not allergic to, like pizza.

This is hilarious in retrospect, because it turned out at the time that I was also allergic to wheat and tomato, but to a more mild degree. I've since grown out of them for the most part. Somewhat experimental allergy drops have helped.

By the way, ordering pizza on the Sabbath in Israel?  Amazing freaking feat.

Either way, after all that...

It left me, every now and then, like this:

I was pretty good for many years at hiding this. People could eat things I was allergic to, and I'd just quietly panic and tell them it was fine. I'd only seriously panic if a boyfriend ate these things, because then kissing him could be potentially dangerous.

I felt like a giant asshole.

“How dare I expect a man who loves me to not eat something that could kill me? I'm ruining his life!”

Talking to anyone else, I'd think they were being unreasonable. They can't help what could hurt them. But me? No no. Ever accommodating I am. Even if it actually does, in the end, kill me.

This is part of what led to the Fishbone incident.

Part one and two are here:

How a Fishbone is Slowly Driving Me Mad

Okay, So It Wasn't the Fishbone

At fifteen, we went to a crackpot quack of a surgeon to fix my nose. He was purely a cosmetic doctor, which was upsetting. He wanted to shave my jaw down because I looked too “masculine” and give me my sister's nose. He wanted to make me look like a different person.

Being a fifteen year old girl with a speech impediment, a slouch from boobs that were too big, gnarly hair... My self esteem was already garbage.

I did not need that shit.

So I just cried a lot and for some reason they let him cut me open anyway, in hopes that he'd find my damaged Happy gland.

He sort of fixed one side a little.

I still couldn't really breathe, which led to another doctor giving me a nasal inhaler that I couldn't use. 

 It was not a lung issue, you freak.

Also, throughout my childhood, I would stand at the table or eat elsewhere. This was because of two things:

A. Pressure. The pressure to eat like a normal person made me feel like it was something I could fail at, and so I pretty much made myself fail.

When I'm upset, I don't eat, and my childhood wasn't exactly fantastic. This was not my parent's fault at all, by the way.

I want to make that clear.

B. I felt silly and too small. I had to sit on phone books in order to reach the table.

So, fine.

Back to the nose thing.

After a very unpleasant healing process, I could wheeze through my nose with a lot of struggle, but at least I looked the same. I guess he was afraid to even straighten the damn thing with the “fuss” I had made about him wanting to rearrange my face.

Not enough space to breathe, smell or taste, but there was just enough space to shoot food out of my nose by accident.

I can not express how incredibly painful and embarrassing this was.

Powered cheese product on macaroni should never exit through nostrils.

Five years after that, a reconstructive surgeon fixed my nose for real. I was very happy.

He also went out of his way to try to prevent me getting anything else done, realizing that I was also asking for things I didn't need. He worried that I had Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and... maybe? I may have had some variation of it. I figure I was just oogly and now I've accepted that I'm... a “unique” kind of pretty.

I felt so bad for my mother here. Her immediate instinct was to jump on “OH! Don't worry, you don't have BDD!” The problem with that was that if I didn't have it, that meant I was ACTUALLY as hideous as I thought I was, and that it wasn't just in my head.

It seems to have been a phase though, rather than the actual mental illness. It pops up every now and then when I'm already depressed. My brain goes to “you are deformed” and just kinda sits on that.

...

Back to food.

With all this nonsense, it isn't really that remarkable that I've spent most of my life underweight.

I don't really look like that. But, it is how I feel sometimes. I liked the year or so when I was a bit more filled out. I looked the same, just healthier.

After the Fishbone incident/Everything that was where I was living for ten or so months, I wound up like this:

So eating was just... Not something I ever associated with causing happiness.

And now, you know.

I Wrote a Blog-Like Thing!

Soon, I'll have a real post for (all 7 of) you.
I'm in the process of moving EVERYTHING I ever owned back to my homeland...  I'm sure that'll be a post too.  Hopefully a happy one.


...For now, here are some examples of how well I've been handling myself since my not so triumphant return.  Please click on any images that you feel should be blown up larger.  Clearly, my art here has such amazing amounts of detail that you'll want to see every pen stroke. :-D  Shh.

First of all, I've lost my grasp on the English language.  I say things that make sense on some level, but not enough levels:

Also, my mom and I totally just had two different conversations with ourselves... at each other...  as though we were talking to each other.  Soooo crazy is a family trait.  Good to know.


This mega crazy factor has been hard on my friendships.  Well, that isn't true.  It SHOULD have been hard on them, but thankfully my closest friends are endlessly patient.  I've even met some new people who very quickly showed just how wonderful they are.

Still, I feel like this is what is happening:

I've also developed an odd relationship with food.
Now, even as a kid, I've always had that to a certain extent for a number of reasons, (and I'll write a blog post about that next I think) but this is just ridiculous.  The paranoia is amazing:

I lost a good ten to fifteen pounds in two weeks before moving back.  This is particularly awful because I was only about 100 pounds to begin with at my heaviest.

So:

I know I'm already starting to look better as my confidence slowly returns, but for now, I still feel like I look like crap.  


Lastly, my sense of heat seems off.  Everything is either too warm or too cold, and I blame the fact that I'm underweight again.

This is what I look like while trying to turn off the air conditioning unit in my parent's bedroom:

I'll explain myself better next time.
In the meantime, I wrote a thing!

Lookit:
Dating Horror Stories: The Mistake

Also, a silly poem:
Summertime Questions

...and a book review:
Snake Skin


With that, I leave you with a sexy Alice and a happy pumpkin. 

Okay, So It Wasn't The Fishbone

Okay. I'm going to go ahead and finish that “Fishbone Slowly Driving Me Mad” story.

Apparently, while the fishbone DID freaking hurt, the reason it was stuck snugly for a week and induced this horrible state for a month, was because of previous damage in my throat that I had been ignoring.

Shithead ER doctor who didn't even look at me before going “It's seasonal allergies” was actually kind of right. Sort of. It was a lucky guess.

Meanwhile, after waiting two weeks to see the real Ear, Nose and Throat doctor... which made it a month since I swallowed the bone... He ALSO didn't use a scope or anything. He decided I had acid reflux, though I had no other symptoms. He told me to lift the head of my bed with boards or bricks. Pillows wouldn't cut it, because they'd just force my head forward and wind up hurting my neck. Kay.

I'm tiny, so I had to enlist my housemates/at-the-time-boyfriend to assist. This took forever, as I had to be in tears before anyone would help me do such a thing that seemed so trivial. I should have just hired someone.

At some point during all this, we helped a friend do a video where I was pretending to break up with le at-the-time-boyfriend. Since I felt like he had been avoiding me (Well, lets face it, since we started dating), this induced the worst panic attack of my entire life. A good friend who also gets these sat with me and knew just what to do to get me to stop flipping out.

This was all after I had been forgotten about at the other doctor and walked home.
This would have been fine if I had had sunblock.
Or water.
I had neither. I came back brown and dehydrated.

The next day, I took a pill for acid reflux. It got stuck on whatever was wrong with my throat. I choked for a moment, then had another attack.

Sometime after that, I fell down in a Target from lack of food and being over heated/dehydrated. Housemate carried me to the car. I remember thinking “my hero!” and feeling really bad about it.
In retrospect, it's not like he took me to the hospital or even straight home. We did errands, picked up Other Housemate, found a puppy on the side of the road...

The puppy was adorable, but trying to find the owner became the important thing of that day, so I kind of got forgotten about.  ...again.

For two weeks, I attempted to eat one thing a day, and mostly failed. I went into a deep depression and it was during that time that Boyfriend broke up with me.
The final straw seemed to be when I explained that conditional love is not real love and it was driving me nuts.  I was afraid to tell him if I was upset or injured or needed help in some way, knowing he'd just stop "loving" me.
He agreed that it wasn't right.
Really, the kindest, most loving thing he ever did was let me the fuck go.

Immediately after breaking up with me, he took me to a movie.
Okay. So... All I needed to do was break up with him... and then he'd be a boyfriend? Kay.

It's been difficult since to not let his weirdness screw things up with any new potential romances.

"Do you really have a personality of your own or are you like the Pokemon Ditto?"

My new criteria for a boyfriend seems to be "Would actually stay for a while after taking me to the ER" and there is something very sad about that.

Somewhere before then had been an incident in a restaurant of someone swearing up and down there were no nuts in a product that was chock full of walnuts.

EDIT: Okay, so I had been to this place a few times before.  Awesome pulled pork and bagels.  I was waiting for my carpool to show up so we could go on a field trip.  Since I don't drive, it's actually rare that I'm anywhere alone, and I generally like that aspect of not driving.  
I wanted an apple turnover.  I asked if there were any nuts involved.  I was told "No" and I still asked again with an, "Are you sure?  Cause, I'm seriously allergic."  I was told "No, but one half is apple and the other half is peach."  Well, I like peaches and you couldn't tell what half was which anyway, so sure.  I got through the apple half with a smile on my face, and when I hit the peach half, it didn't even occur to me that he could have meant "So, the apple half is nut free, but the peach half is chock full of walnuts"... because that would be the stupidest thing in the world. 
But that is exactly what he fucking meant.  I had eaten one and realized while the second was in my mouth what was going on.  No rash or anything, but still a tree nut.  So, I ran to the bathroom and tried in vain to vomit.  Right.  Throat damage.  Kay.  A nice old lady handed me a glass of water.  I felt like a giant asshole.  
I sat back down and took too many Benadryl, and when my companions came, I told them what happened.  They were fine with the whole idea and I continued taking drugs for the rest of the day just in case.  Still went on that field trip though.

And then we started consistently living with another thing I was deathly allergic to... Which made me not want to even open the refrigerator anymore.
My sense of safety and my trust in others who "cared about me" was severely shaken.  Laughing it off didn't help.  It just let those who actually DID care think I was still okay.

In any case, I had reached the point where I really did not care if I lived or died, because it didn't feel like most other people particularly cared if I lived or died either.

I packed with a friend as much as I could, while contemplating doing the worst, “knowing” that Housemate and Ex were planning on driving down to my homeland, so they would take my packed crap. It would be fair, since I had packed Housemate's crap and my parents drove it to him right along with mine ten months prior.

Housemate didn't agree that he owed me anything, so that idea went away pretty quickly. However, I didn't know that it would no longer be a valid option until a week after I had already gotten home. I sent money repeatedly to Other Housemate to make sure it was all set, and got to work desperately trying to get a driver to move my crap.

Getting on the plane was interesting. Having a quiet panic attack for hours while people talk behind you about the very foods that can hurt you is really an odd sensation for a neurotic mess with serious food allergies while on a plane.

Anyway, I made it home. It's been weird... and everything I own is still on the other side of the country.
My clothing, my computer, my artwork, my books... If I had realized it would be this long, I would have shipped everything to myself in chunks. It doesn't really matter though.

I'd just like it out of the way of my former housemates.

In terms of having it here with me, so long as I'm back with my family, it can wait. My sanity, however, couldn't wait. I needed to leave in order to save my life.

So, yes. I failed, but it wasn't due to anything anyone assumed.

In fact, when I got back, I saw an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor I actually trust. He used a scope and everything.
 No, I don't have acid reflux.
I had three GIANT stripes of PAIN in the back of my throat from post nasal drip.
It was from environmental allergies.

I wasn't homeless, I was out there for more reasons than just Ex, and while I didn't get any closer to living my dream... I actually got a lot closer after moving back. I find that interesting.

Anyway, I had moved out there for a number of reasons.

A: My health. My allergies here are pretty bad, and I knew they wouldn't be the same out there. To a certain extent, I was right.

B: To live with someone I trusted who I thought cared about me like a sister.

C: To go to school and finish my degree.

D: To live in an art community.
E: To at least try to be with a man who seemed to really want to give it a shot.
...Unfortunately, he was only in it for the chase, and I don't play games.
Gee, sorry I'm not a conniving Hell-bitch?  What the fuck do you want from me?
If I learned any girl tricks during this time, I can honestly say that I'm sorry to whoever comes next, and that I hate him a little for turning me into exactly the kind of woman men complain about.
I wasn't that way to begin with.

My health is the one that really upsets me. I remember coughing, people saying happily “Yeah, that's seasonal allergies! Haw haw!” and I would shrug it off, pretending it wasn't happening.
I had moved across the country. I couldn't have this problem now.

The school part was only upsetting because it's a two year school. I was coming in with a year of work done. They told me that because those credits were randomly spread out within the program and everything had to be taken in a certain order and at a certain time, I would be part time forever... making me stay there for two and a half years.
No.

As for the art community:

It can go ahead and fuck itself.

A Fishbone is Slowly Driving Me Mad

Okay, so, as most of you know by now, whenever I say "Wow, this has been the most awesome day ever!" something horrible happens.

This was particularly evident on my birthday: (see Birthday Bashing)

Here are some pictures I drew that may help describe what I've been feeling:

You know, like a chest burster from Alien, but in my throat.

So, here's what happened.  Ready?
The day was awesome.  I had gone out with a friend and her mother thrift-shopping.  Then, we wandered around town a bit and looked at some artwork, including some awesome outside sculpture.
Then, there was dinner.  They had made reservations and included me!  YAY!  People think of me! 

This is where happy set in.

This was a terrible mistake.

I got a salad, wary that I often don't think I'm going to be having an allergic reaction to something, and then something goes terribly wrong.  I had this weird "Something bad is about to happen to me" feeling, so I figured a salad would be safe.

Technically speaking, it was.

(EDIT: Okay, as it turns out, the reason bad things often happen when I have a bad feeling is because it's really just a panic attack waiting to happen.  Otherwise, I probably would have been...well, not "fine" but less bad?  I guess?)

On this salad was an anchovy.  Three of them, actually.  They mocked me.  Since they had been sliced open and had all their innards removed, I popped one into my mouth. 

The whole thing. 

Even the head.

I'm an idiot.

I felt that there was a bone, but there wasn't really any pain.
Instead, I got this sudden warm sensation followed by a serious sense of light-headedness. 

This is generally the first sign that I've eaten something I'm deadly allergic to, so I assumed I was going to die unless I took the necessary steps. 

I calmly excused myself, saying that I thought I might be having an allergic reaction, and went to the bathroom to desperately try to vomit up the offending food item.

I couldn't puke.

This is a terrifying thing, knowing that all I had on me was a couple benadryl and an expired epi-pen.

Again, I'm none too smart.

EDIT:  I couldn't vomit because of an amazing amount of throat damage that I was unaware of even having.  But shh... I didn't know that when I wrote this entry. 

So, I sat my ass back down and drank some water, noting that the flashing warmth and panic seemed to be going in and out, which is admittedly odd for an allergic reaction.  I took the benadryl and requested that I go home.

I felt like garbage, and my housemate took care of me.

By "took care of me", I mean that he was polite enough to ask if it was okay that he was going to have a girl over and have sex and not really pay attention to me.  If I had looked worse, I'm sure he would have rushed to my aid, (Probably.  ...Hopefully) but over all I was just confused and miserable and I assume he was well aware of that.

A week went by and I was fine.  I forgot about it entirely.

Then, the fishbone moved.

This is where some may say, "Bullshit.  If it was a bone, you would have noticed the discomfort for that whole week."

Clearly, these are people who do not have chronic discomfort.
I do.
My throat is always a little wonky.  My glands are always kinda puffy.  I'm always a little physically miserable.  So, no.  I didn't notice a difference.

Every time I swallowed anything, even water, that warm sensation and head spinning flared up. 

I called Boyfriend and he and Housemate came to pick me up to take me to the ER.  They had errands to run and people to meet up with, so Boyfriend wasn't going to stay with me there.  He looked very sad about this.  He held my hand, kissed me on the head, and DID stay with me at least until I was all checked in.

(EDIT: This is the part that makes my father want to punch everything in the world.  While I am endlessly forgiving to a fault when I'm in a relationship, this doesn't change the fact that he left his panic attack ridden girlfriend at the ER.)

I was fine, obviously not dying, but very much worried and panicking. 

What I didn't know was that I was surrounded by quacks.

After waiting a thousand trillion bazillion years, I was ushered into a cubicle.  Not an examining room... A cubicle.  I waited for the doctor there.  I could hear everyone else's ailments.  I watched as a girl in the stall next to me got up and walked around a few times, explaining that she was claustrophobic.

Then, I felt myself swallow the bone. 

The doctor came in.  He was nice enough, but he looked down my throat for all of a second with a flashlight and no scope, and then proclaimed that it must not be a bone and must be seasonal allergies. 

As someone with a shit ton of allergies, I can tell you, no. 

No.

Just no.

(EDIT: Turns out, he wasn't entirely wrong.  Check out Okay, So it Wasn't the Fishbone.)

Then, I was moved to another not-examining-room to sit in a circle of chairs with a bunch of other people where were sitting by their loved ones.

Oh, look.  Some people have loved ones.

A nurse man came in and handed me a little bottle.  I thought about keeping the bottle because it reminded me of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but filled with a numbing drug, rather than something else.

I was told to chug it.

Then he ran away.

Okay, yes, I was in the ER so if I had keeled over, someone would have (hopefully) noticed and done something, but I'm used to a doctor or nurse sticking around when I'm taking a new medication to see if there is any bad reaction.

Nervous, I drank it down.  It numbed up my throat, but since I wasn't really in any direct pain to begin with, making my throat numb and making it warm and even more difficult to use for swallowing just made me panic even more.

Thankfully, it wore off quick.

The nurse came back and asked if it helped.  When I said no and why it didn't help, he let me leave.

...Then a nurse looked at my chart, back at me, back at the chart and said, "Oh, this is totally a fishbone.  This doesn't make sense as allergies.  It'll pass."

Thank you nurse lady.

So, a week after that, I'm fine, until it flares up again.  It wasn't as bad that time, but still jarring and a bit fucked up in the grand scheme of things.  I called the ear, nose and throat doctor to make an appointment and this happened:

So, okay.  Two weeks isn't bad.  I had already gone that amount of time with this bone reeking havoc on my life, so fine.

...


And then it got worse. 

No more warm sensation, or spinning... But my throat was healing whatever had been scratched up, and so, still, it's difficult to swallow and sometimes to breathe.

I noticed that tilting my head felt better, and found myself doing it all the time.  Even when talking to people.

After a while, I stopped eating, afraid of what it would feel like.

Even with barely any food in my stomach, I started getting nauseous.

I became weak, walking around on the floor on all fours, because when I stood up, I'd just fall over.

And then finally:

Which somehow led to me questioning my entire position in life and what the Hell I'm doing at 26 instead of following my dreams.

It was like the stages of grief, but with more stabbing pains in my stomach from trying to digest a freaking bone and nothing else.

I've gotten a system of eating everything very slowly and trying to take benadryl on occasion to reduce swelling.  I see the doctor in three or so days.

(EDIT: As it turns out, what I did during this time turned into what some do on purpose as the "Apple Juice Detox Diet" and I would not recommend it.  I did lose fifteen pounds but to begin with, I was only about a hundred.)

Really, I just want to know if it's itchy and extra puffy now because it's healing, or if I'm just infected.  We'll find out soon.  Woo.

(EDIT: Again, check out Okay, So it Wasn't the Fishbone for more.)