Unwhole Grains

So, on Tuesday, I ate waffles made of white rice flour, and white rice with both dinner and lunch. (And, because I couldn't help it, I bought gluten-free ginger snaps with white rice flour in them. I didn't eat the whole bag, though.)
On Tuesday, I have some stuffy nose, but that's hard to gauge, really, as my nose is constantly clogged up ... well, almost constantly. I've started using a Neti pot and Breathe Right strips, and I get more clear nose more often than ... well, probably ever. Still, a thing to report.
Yesterday and today, my joint pain is more than it was before. My joint pain had decreased to an ignorable state (or very nearly), either due to the diet, or the drugs, or likely a combination of both. But now it increases. It's still manageable, but it hurts more, and that's harder.
Also, I had a bout of anxiety/depression/brokenness last night, which is not terribly unusual, given that it was a choir night, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

Tomorrow's a new day, and a new food choice. I think it'll be dairy.
Love you all, thanks for reading.

Chocolate

I ate chocolate on Saturday. I was very strict: no dairy, no gluten or unwhole grains, and I accepted sugar as a necessary evil--does anyone make chocolate without sugar? Mmm, agave nectar chocolate ...
No clue.

Anyway, I drank chocolate Silk (it was dutch process cocoa, unfortunately, but I'd been craving chocolate "milk" for so long), and I ate these really good gluten-free "brownie" cookies--they didn't really have the brownie texture, so I don't know why they claimed to be brownies, but they were yummy.
The rest of the day, I had a stuffy nose and a lingering headache (a headache that lingered from Friday?), and BS says that nose symptoms can happen within 15 minutes, so perhaps that was the chocolate.
Yesterday I was basically fine. A little lethargic/depressed, but hardly any headache at all, and my breathing was clear. Today I'm a little stuffed up again, and I have a tiny headache and a little more joint pain.

It occurs to me that I might have to run this test again, just to go through everything and make certain that I react the same way. I've had a little bit of nose-runniness today and yesterday, but nowhere near as bad as what I got after eating sugar. So, who knows what that means? The less sugar I have, the less symptoms I have? Or does chocolate mitigate the sugar factor?
Who knows.

Tomorrow's a new day, and I get to try a new thing. Not sure. I'm probably going to put off dairy a bit longer. Fried foods would be good to test (I miss my potato chips), but I think testing non-whole grains (basically white rice) would be better to try sooner. Turning down any food made of less than 100% whole grains is really hard, much harder than being gluten-free or accepting no sweeteners but agave nectar and honey and fruit juice ...

Sugar and Black Tea

So, I've fallen down on once-a-week posts. But that's okay; a lot of February was spent depressed or busy or both.
I have hopes for the citalopram, and especially for both my doctor and my CSW telling me to do things that are good for me: look, the doctor said so! Obviously, I *have* to (at least try to) set aside time every week to write. (No joke; my doctor told me to write. At least once per week.) And I think that'll help me do it, because I'm not just counting on myself. It's not just me I have to answer to.

Similarly, when he heard about my anti-inflammatory diet, he told me to keep up with it. So here's what I have to report:
The anti-inflammatory diet lists foods to avoid and foods to eat. I spent January sort of gearing up to it, finding out what foods I eat normally that I cannot eat due to the diet (did you know some pasta sauces have sugar in them? I didn't), etc. The last Sunday of January marked the point where it was serious: it was three weeks of strict adherence to the lists, after which, I would start adding food back in, one at a time, and monitoring their effects.
The diet (found in Healing Depression and Bipolar Disorder Without Drugs) suggests testing sensitivities to foods by abstaining from it for three weeks, and then enjoying it three times in one day, and then monitoring the effect for the next two days.
So, Sunday, I ate sugar. I put raw sugar in my cereal and drank juices with sugar in them and ate organic fruit snacks with evaporated cane juice in them. The next two days I had blinding headaches hovering around my right eye, and a constantly runny nose.
Wednesday, I drank black tea (and was so glad to have my tea again!) several times that day. I have had a couple of bad headaches, but I don't know if they're related: they didn't stay in one place like the sugar-headaches, and they were off and on. Really two headaches yesterday and today. (At least so far. There's a fair amount of day left today). But other than the headaches, I didn't notice anything: pain levels stayed about the same, no unusual sinus reactions, etc. So, I will continue monitoring the rest of the day.

I'll decide what I'm trying next before I go to bed tonight. It'll either be really good dark chocolate (no milk involved) or dairy. I also have to decide whether black tea will continue to be avoided at least for now. I think it might be smarter to continue to avoid the things on the "no" list, at least for now.
I'll keep you posted.

New Year

It's been two weeks of not-posting. I apologize. Granted, Christmas/New Year can be some of the busiest time of the year for--well, for most people, but still.
Anyway, here I am. What shall I talk about?
I finished the Changeling game. I created an adventure, ran it for some friends, and finished it, and people had fun. It has the feeling of something accomplished. I might do it again. However, I seem to need a year for my ideas to percolate and truly form, so I don't know if I'll get to do the next story at the coming Vernal Equinox, like I'd like to.

I survived Christmas. I got some lovely things, and was even surprised by some of the things I got, and presents I gave to other people were mostly well-received. There's still a tree in my living room, and I'm not sure when it's coming down.

DP and I saw Tangled, which was mostly lovely, aside from the continued idea that, in order to be truly happy, a man cannot be less powerful than his woman. (And specifically, that if he is, she must correct the balance ... ) Seems similar to Virgin Power, in that regard.

And, I went to a doctor! Talked about all the various things wrong with me, checked my height and height, got my blood drawn. I have a large bruise where the needle went in the second time, and I get to get more blood drawn tomorrow very early, fasting. Because the doctor likes to get a baseline cholesterol reading, apparently ...
And then later this month, I have an appointment to get the results of all the blood tests ...
One thing that surprised me a little: I was telling the doctor about all of my vitamins and supplements, which include Holy Basil for depression, Omega 3-6-9 which helps with depression, and I'm currently "trying out" St. John's Wort to see if that will help at all. So, he asked about that, and I had opportunity to mention the diagnoses of Major Depression and Anxiety NOS. The part that surprised me was when he mentioned antidepressants. It's a free clinic, after all, and while I was pretty sure they'd be able to help with my purely physical things, I had forgotten that doctors prescribe drugs, and could prescribe antidepressants. So I told him I'd think about it, and then we talked about blood tests.
My thoughts so far are: I believe in making the diet work first, doing as much as you can with your nutrition, and if that doesn't help, then move on to supplements and homeopathics, etc., and then if that doesn't help, then look into antidepressants. Plus, I'm about to start seeing a counselor thanks to Voc Rehab, and I'd like to see what she says about it, before agreeing to medications.
Still, this year seems to be made entirely of new, because I'm seeing doctors and counselors. It seems amazing.

Voc Rehab

I'm leaving for Voc Rehab in just a minute--so quickly, in fact, that I did not get to finish the preamble.

I'm waiting in the lobby now, because my friend BS is "talking about me behind my back", is what she said, but who knows. She may tell me when she's done.

We talked to my counselor's supervisor about what's been going on, specifically about my anxiety that seems to accompany authority figures (who are usually male--like my counselor), and about how slowly things have seemed to be going with him.

The supervisor seemed more concerned with how slowly things were going than with my anxiety--not that he wasn't concerned about the anxiety, he merely felt that the anxiety itself should be addressed, rather than skirting me around any dangerous territory. I'm basically okay with that. But he talked about setting specific, I don't know, benchmarks that, if we didn't find them happening within a timely manner, if we felt we weren't getting the service we needed, we were to talk to him about it. We didn't actually do it, so I don't know how that helps, but ...

(BS was asking about her position as my "advocate" and whether she was "helping" too much ... )

I also got them the name and number of a counselor/therapist/whatever (someday I'll learn the difference between the terms) who's been working with my family somewhat, and wanted to work with me. She was in their list of okay people, so that was good.

It's been a long day, and I'm tired. More later.

If I'm not fucked up, if I'm not using drugs, if I don't have an eating disorder, if I'm not on any medications, if I've never attempted suicide, how can I justify not being happy?

Moving On

So many different thoughts flying in my head at once. Voc Eval finished, and I almost wish they would keep everyone a full week, because that might be a decent test of how well a person can bear up under that schedule. BS says a lot of their clients can't. I thought it would be a cakewalk, but I think I was starting to show strain.

Tuesday was harder than Monday, with me employing my coping mechanisms more frequently (mostly homeopathic stress reliefs, but also one thing that could be termed "unhealthy", and thus will not go on the internet). Wednesday, while I was waiting, I laid my head down on my desk and fell asleep for a little while. Also, Wednesday saw me pull out my coping mechanisms very frequently.

And, fortunately for me, we were done yesterday, because I slept till 2:30pm today, which almost never happens. Granted, I did stay up till 2am, because I knew I didn't have to get up, but when I do that, I usually wake at 10am.

I was thinking earlier, before I sat down to do this, that it's a wonder I blog at all. I have this omnipresent belief that unless someone asks me a direct question, they're probably not interested in what I have to say.

And yet, here I am, sending information about myself into the ether, but I think it's because people wouldn't look at my blog unless they wanted to know what I have to say. If they weren't interested, they could just close the tab or window.

Whereas, in conversation with real humans, it may not be considered polite to tell someone you just don't care, will you please shut up. So I opt to shut up in the first place, and if you want to know something, you can ask.

Vocational Evaluation, Take 3

Good morning. Sitting in the Voc Eval place, waiting for my evaluator to finish with explaining the computer test to one of the other people. There's three people here today, but it's just after nine, so the fourth might be coming. Or he might be that guy sitting at a different table, working on something. I can't tell if he looks familiar or not. Probably not.

Anyway, once the evaluator is done, he'll pick either me, or the other guy waiting, and get us started. But for now, I'm just sitting.

Tests today included motor coordination, finger dexterity and manual dexterity. I feel like I did not do perfectly on any of them, but he marked me high on all of them, except the wiring one, because there wasn't any wiggle room: my score was how many tiny metal circles I got the "wire" through, out of twenty. I felt that was particularly low, but he said most of the people who do that test get lower scores.

I also did the Computer Operator Aptitude Battery, which involved three parts: logical thinking, pattern recognition, and one other that I cannot remember. The logical thinking one was the best: brain puzzles, basically, and it took me fourteen of the thirty minutes given me to do it.

If I remember what he said about my scores, I got between the 90th and 99th percentile on each of the tests, and unlike the other tests I took, I wasn't being compared against Random Population A, but against computer people. And I got the 99th percentile in something. (I don't remember which. I'm hoping I'll get all this information printed out and handed to me at one of my next Voc Rehab appointments, so I can take it home and frame it.)

And then he told me I was done, that the testing was done, and I had nothing else to do. So, this adventure with Voc Eval is at its end, which is good in a way: I was getting nothing done. Well, I did manage to write some during my breaks. But mostly I didn't have the energy after a session to do anything at all ...

Vocational Evaluation, Take 2

Today feels like a waste of time. My evaluator seems unable to handle more than one person at a time: yesterday there were four people, and he decided to split us into two today and two tomorrow. And even so, I'm not doing anything. I filled out more bubbles, but he gave me those forms last night, and due to preparing for my game, I didn't have time to fill those out at home. I thought it'd be okay: I'll fill these in in my spare moments, when he's dealing with other people.

Well, I've been here for two and half hours. I filled in the bubbles, and then, because I couldn't find him, I started transcribing my list of (actually nineteen) ideal careers onto a clean sheet of paper in legible writing, and with the "catalog numbers" listed with them.

Then he came by, and said he would give me something to do, and walked away to his office, so I pulled out my netbook and began writing. He interrupted me to have me do a computer test: the kind that tests interests (again), and then the fun kind that ask you to match patterns and solve problems and know what words mean in a short amount of time. The pattern matching (figuring out a shape from a pattern of a shape) was the only one I finished every question in, and with time to spare.

I got the 99th percentile on Spatial Aptitude and Clerical Perception--and until BS reminded me how percentiles work (that out of 100 people, 99 of them scored below me) I saw the 99 and said, "What? I only got 99% on Spatial Aptitude? I should have gotten 100%, bitches!" in my super-perfectionist way. I also got 97th on Form Perception, and only 94th on General Learning Ability. What I actually feel bad about is my 85th on Verbal Aptitude--I'm a freakin' writer, how did I not get at least the 90th on that?

I won't list everything here, because that would put me over my word count limit, but I scored 100% interest in Artistic, Plants/Animals, and Mechanical, and I'm walking away with two or three different lists of jobs that I am both interested in, and probably good at.

So, now I just put them all on a dart board and start throwing?

I am going in tomorrow, but probably not for the whole time--I get to test my manual dexterity, finger dexterity and motor coordination. My evaluator doesn't think it's necessary, because I'm not likely to want to lay bricks or distribute handbills, but I pointed out I might want to play a piano, and then said that I like to learn things, especially about myself, and he agreed, basically, to cater to my whim, which I did not expect.

Vocational Evaluation

Haven't written in a few days. This entry will probably take all day to write, but that's okay because I have no internet here.

I have two fifteen minute breaks, and an hour for lunch. I'm only here for six hours ... that's a schedule I can live with!

Doing Vocational Evaluation testing. So far just filling out forms about my work experience and why I have trouble getting and keeping jobs (anxiety issues rank high, here), and then one long fill-in-the-bubbles sort of form asking what I like or would like in activities, subjects to study and jobs. Never understood the purpose of those things: Don't worry about whether you would be good at it, or how well it pays ... I don't understand how that helps, but I guess I can trust in the system.

Anyway, finished my banana and egg, so, back to the table to fill out more forms--oh, yeah, he'd handed us some shiny magazines that talk about jobs ... sort of like a miniature OOH. So we get to look at those and write down "five to ten" jobs we'd like. Riiight ...

I wrote eighteen ideal jobs. Yay, me!

Also, they let me go early, so I didn't have a last break in which to write this. I'm writing now in the lobby, waiting for my friend BS, who dropped me off here. (This building is at about 1500 W, and I don't know if there are any buses in the world that go here ... )

So. I got to peek at my file, and I found that Voc Rehab's psych evaluation of me got me the diagnoses of Major Depression and Anxiety Disorder NOS (Not Otherwise Specified basically means the anxiety doesn't meet the criteria for any other disorder).

My "counselor"--I'm not actually sure what it's called--no, wait, my "evaluator" (that's fun) talked to me for a little bit at the end. He was impressed with my college degree, and commented that I must be quite intelligent.

He asked if I was feeling anxious about this evaluation, and to be honest, this is kind of a cakewalk--at least so far. It's all on paper, there's been very little personal interaction. While I was in his office (part of which time was spent waiting), I was more anxious, but I was forewarned, and brought all my coping mechanisms today.

He gave me some forms to fill out either tonight or tomorrow in the evaluation--more testing what I like and what I value.

I'm feeling slightly anxious now--it's a feeling of walking on eggshells, of, I guess, vulnerability. That's usually a sign to watch out for triggers, because whatever happens next will help influence which way my mood will fall: depression, anxiety, or mania ...

And now for something completely different ...

... that is, if I can manage it.
Let's talk about something other than my health, mental or otherwise, or lack thereof, I said to myself. But then, as I was waiting for everything to load (because my computer's reeeeeeally slow), I thought, what else can I talk about?
I have no real interest in talking about my job, or my pitiful attempts to find a different job, although I would be happy to talk about why my attempts have been pitiful, which verges on health or mental health, or lack thereof.
I have no interest in discussing in detail my romantic life (except when I'm manic), and while I could talk about how it's generally doing, an adequate coverage of that would require me to talk about my mental health, or lack thereof.
I could talk about my writing (and how I haven't done any yet today, which is because of physical health--see below), but I don't like to talk about it in detail before I make you read it, anyway. Or I could possibly talk about my other creative pursuits, which have mostly dried up lately--I don't know why.
I will mention the fact that yesterday I tripped on absolutely nothing (damn, there I go again, mentioning something that I believe points to mental health or lack thereof, although my friend Holly said it could be spiritually-based) and faceplanted (or palm planted?) in loose gravel, asphalt, dirt, some weeds. My right palm is ... well, not quite hamburger, but it's tore up a bit, and my left middle finger has a strip of skin missing from the cuticle to nearly my first knuckle. Today I poured hydrogen peroxide over the wounds to get the dirt out, and damn it works. It stings, but not nearly as bad as the epsom salts-goldenseal-hot water combination did yesterday (at least some of that was the hot water, as it wasn't nearly as bad--but still godawful--once the water cooled down). (Oh, also, I took some analgesics (painkillers, acetaminophen, to be precise), hoping that would help with the pain, which it didn't really, but I felt two waves of the pain-numbing that anagelsics always give me--it's kind of like being high.)
So, this morning, instead of going about my morning things, like I did yesterday like a good girl, I sat down in front of my computer and immediately turned on the internet to look up how to get rid of the dirt. So it's nearly 4pm, and this is the only writing I've done all day, plus I'm still in my pajamas. But that's more--damn. That's more the depression ... which is definitely about mental health, or lack thereof.
Anyway, the wounds are, as far as I can tell, dirt-and-foreign-objects-free, but still infected. It's difficult. The little wounds are so little, it's hard to properly get all the infection out, and the bigger one is still raw, and I'm worried about doing too much to it.

So, something not at all related to health is: I am currently listening to Cake Bake Betty, who is delightful (thanks again to Jim to introducing me to her, along with Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls, who have changed my life ... but in a mental health sort of way). I'm currently listening to The Charge (Knocturnul) kind of over and over, because it's amazing. At some point, I may change it so it's shuffling, but for now I love the part where she says, "Oh Lord, is, Oh Lord, is this my ship coming in? I'm not ready, I'm not ready for this" too much to want to listen to something else. It's amazing.

Also, back to mental health, I've been feeling really compelled (OCD) to organize. I want to change all the tags in my blog. I've got way too many, it's seriously unwieldy, and, really, how often do I talk about, say, Hallowe'en? Once a year? Packing and unpacking? Only when I move, I imagine. And do I really need both of those, and also moving? Likewise, do I really need both tiredness and exhaustion? Etc. So, I've been thinking about getting rid of some of these things, and combining other things, like say, collapsing addiction, brain, codependency, depression, forgetfulness, manic, manic-depression, mind, suicide, and possibly emotion and feeling into mental health.
Ooh, and I kinda want a web-cam/microphone, so I can do a spoken blog sometimes. (Completely random desire, probably will never be fulfilled, at least not until I get a better computer, and prompted only by Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog and Felicia Day's The Guild, and the way it sounded when I read the last bit aloud.)

Anyway, I really should go, so I can eat, write, finish reading and critiquing the chapter for my writing group tonight, and maybe even shower before writing group. The organizing project is probably not going to happen tonight.
Love you all.

P.S. I might actually talk about the things I merely mentioned earlier in this post, but not right now.

P.P.S. I did completely mean to talk about Holly's spiritually-based theory for why I tripped on absolutely nothing, so I'll do that before I go: I've been chanting a Kali mantra (twice a day for forty days). Kali is the Destroyer of Negative Ego, and this mantra is the Spiritual Evolution Mantra that is Quick, Powerful and Unyielding. Kali comes in with razor-sharp precision to cut away anything impeding your Spiritual Evolution, and Holly's suggestion was that She's rearranging my brain. And so I am applying that to everything that's been really bothering me within the last couple weeks, starting with my memory loss and my inability to find the words I want to my inability to think and my tripping over absolutely nothing. Holly suggested a Lakshmi mantra after the Kali cycle, to ask to be filled with the things I do need.

Still Manic.

Manic=cussing people out in my head while laughing at myself for doing so/cracking myself up for how cleverly I'm cussing people out in my head.
Manic=not pausing when I speak, bouncing around topics so fast we get conversational whiplash, and laughing a lot.
Manic+Sick=laying in bed staring at the ceiling because Sick is telling me I need to sleep and Manic won't shut up about EVERYTHING.

This was my day.

Also, all I had to eat until about 7:30 was two pieces of toast, a glass of juice, and gallons of feel-better tea. Plus some water. I think Manic gives me a decreased need to eat, as well as sleep.

In closing:

He wants to die in a lake in Geneva,
The mountains can cover the shape of his nose.
He wants to die where nobody can see him,
But the beauty of his death will carry on so
I don't believe him

He greets me with kisses when good days deceive him
And sometimes we're scorned and sometimes I believe him.
And sometimes I'm convinced my friends think I am crazy,
Get scared and call him but he's usually hazy

At one in the morning the day is not ended
By two he is scared that sleep is no friend.
And by four he will drink but he cannot feel it,
Sleep will not come because sleep does not will it
And I don't believe him
Morning is mocking me

I'll wander the streets avoiding them eats
Til' the ring on my finger slips to the ground
A gift to the gutter, a gift to the city
The veins of which have broken me down.
And I don't believe him,
Morning is mocking me

Oh the gods that he believes, never fail to amaze me
He believes in the love of his god of all things,
But I find him wrapped up in all manner of sins
The drugs that deceive him and the girls that believe him
I can't control you, I don't know you well
These are the reasons I think that you're ill.
I can't control you, I don't know you well
These are the reasons I think that you're ill.

And since last that we parted, since last that I saw him
Down by a river silent and hardened
Morning was mocking us, blood hit the sky.
I was just happy my manic and I
He couldn't see me the sun was in his eyes
And birds were singing to calm us down
And birds were singing to calm us down

And I'm sorry young man I cannot be your friend
I don't believe in a fairy tale end
I don't keep my head up all of the time
I find it dull when my heart meets my mind.
And I hardly know you, I think I can tell
These are the reasons I think that we're ill
I hardly know you, I think I can tell
These are the reasons I think that I'm ill
And the gods that he believes never fail to disappoint me
The gods that he believes never fail to disappoint me
My nihilist, my happy man, my manic and I
Have no plans to move on
The birds are singing to calm us down
And birds are singing to calm us down
--My Manic and I, Laura Marling

Update?

I don't really have anything to update with.
Life is being difficult, lately. I'm so gods-damned lonely, sometimes. I think at least part of that is that I'm so fucking isolated. I see people on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Occasionally I see my roommate.
This is why I could never live alone--and I'm not living alone.
But the Wednesday game might move to Tuesdays (which means I couldn't go to that CoDA meeting I haven't started attending, but ... ), which means I'll have Wednesdays, and if I can get off my ass/out of my fucking house, then I can go to that knitting night and the women-only class/night at the SLC Bicycle Collective on alternating Wednesdays. So that will be another--activity.
I need fucking friends. I need people that I see for purely social events. Preferably women friends. I don't have any of those (Britta, I miss you more than ever, right now--and I agree, a photoshoot with you would have kicked ASS! If one of us can get up to visiting the other, we'll have to plan something). (To be more accurate: I have three very good women friends that I see once per week, for an activity. Very little socializing.)
And Cecil, my other friend who I actually see and hang out with (and is male, but NOT interested in me, which makes him almost as good as a woman) is leaving soon. Which will be awesome for him, but ...

Blah.
I apologize. I think I'm depressed. I also haven't written a gods-damned thing yet today, which is bad.

Anyway.
I'm listening to Laura Marling; a gift from an old lover. I'd never listened to her before, but found the CD today and started listening. It's kind of amazing. I don't "feel" all of her songs, but there's a few that really speak to me.

Also, I'm making a role-playing game. So far it's called Splinter Worlds. It's mostly a White Wolf/d10 system, with some changes, and the world is my own (of course), which is heavily influenced by the World of Darkness, but with a Rifts/TORG twist to it. Or something.
Eventually, once all the rules are sorted out in my head and such, I'll make all my gaming friends play it--so if you play RPGs and are my friend, then you've been warned.

Also, I'm writing. I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, which means I have to write 50,000 by the end of this month. I'm over halfway by now, but like I said, today has not been a writing day.
But so far, I have a plot, I have several characters, I have a fascinating world (which is actually similar to my Splinter Worlds world, but much simpler--or rather, I haven't really defined in my book where the magic comes from, and I have in the game), and I have a lot of words, a lot of which are very bad, and some of which are very good.
Umm, it's a fantasy (shocking, I know . . . ), and there's magic and other creatures (vamps, 'shifters--which are basically werecreatures), and there's war. And a couple subplots are creeping in at the last second, so that's good.
The bad is that I'm a little over halfway through my words, and I'm coming up on the culminating event. I figure, though, once I hit the end of the story, if I don't have 50,000 words yet, I can go back and fill some stuff in, maybe flesh out my subplots so they exist earlier, something like that.

Anyway, I'm going to go, and maybe write. Or something.
I love you all.


And if you swear that you're alright,
I'm not gonna try and change your mind.
Cause the same night I dream that I lose you I'll fall in love
And oh honey don't let me walk away from this
If I'm trying to fuck up my own life,
Then until I figure out why,
I think it's best you keep your distance
Lest I fall in love.
Old Stone, Laura Marling

And I’m sorry young man, I cannot be your friend.
I don’t believe in a fairytale end
I don’t keep my head up all of the time
I find it dull when my heart meets my mind
My Manic and I, Laura Marling

If I feel God judging me,
Well I fell into the water, now I’m free.
My friends they don’t really get me,
think I’m the only one
Well I sold my soul to Jesus and since then I've had no fun
The Captain and the Hourglass, Laura Marling

Chicago?

So, my sister's here for Christmas, and it's been crazy-amazing. She and I have just been spending a lot of time talking, whenever we can, which usually tends to be around midnight. Last night we went into my room, I read the Tarot cards for her, and then we just talked about our fucked-up family, and life and religion/spirituality and art and music and relationships, and especially how our family has basically fucked us up in the relationship arena.

And we talked about Chicago, and I'm thinking seriously about moving to Chicago again. I've found that my biggest fear, in moving, is that I have this "out-of-sight-out-of-mind" problem with people I don't see that often. I can only feel connections with people when they're right there, when I'm in the midst of a connection. When I don't see people for a while, I tend to lose that connection, and also to forget we ever had a connection (I tend to forget we were ever friends).
It really sucks.

But my book, How I Stayed Alive, talks about that, and about ways to maintain connections with people you don't see that often. So I feel like that might be okay. You know?

Anyway. Just thoughts.

Thanks.

My favorite Pagan book of all time (Urban Primitive) gives a spell for letting go of people who have moved on (or anything you might want to get rid of). The spell involves writing down the name of the person or thing to be let go of on a piece of paper, going to a subway station, ripping the paper up, and letting the subway trains take the pieces of paper away as they pass. Something about the undergroundedness, the motion and darkness, makes subways energetically related to the Underworld and the Underworld Deities.
Anyway. The book recommends that you be careful about doing this spell, because if you're not really ready to let go of that person or thing, it can get ripped from you.

My ex-lover was related to something that I was letting go of for my Samhain ritual. I do have to wonder if he was ripped from me as an unintentional byproduct of the letting go of things ritual. Because I was not ready.


I do want to say thanks to everyone who had a kind word to say, or has been thinking good thoughts my way. The depression isn't completely gone (is it ever?), but I'm feeling better.
I got some books from the library. One each on codependency, addiction, depression and suicide, because the title was How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me. And the suicide one, surprisingly enough, has been the most helpful so far. I have had a couple episodes of suicidal thought in my entire life, and the last one was fucking weird, involving completely involuntary flashes of ways I could kill myself, followed by commentary on how it wouldn't work ("No, crashing the car into the car in front of me won't kill me, I'm not going fast enough. I would get injured and go to the hospital, and have to pay the hospital bills and car-wreaking bills without insurance, and Nick (my ex-fiance whose car it was) would be pissed at me!"). And that was several months ago.
Anyway, the suicide book has all sorts of exercises and "Tricks of the Trade" that can be used on depression as well as suicidal thoughts, so that's been helping.
The addiction one is called Perfect Daughters and is about daughters of alcoholics (I guess it's more about codependency, but ... ). While my dad's not an alcoholic (and I'm having trouble pinpointing exactly what kind of addict he is, except perhaps an Avoidance Addict), the principle's the same, and what I've read so far (not much) works for me.
I wonder sometimes if I should go to Al-Anon meetings. Nick thought I should, when he started going to AA meetings.

Anyway, it's late, and I'm fucking tired and hungry. I need to eat and go to bed.
Thanks again for the support. I appreciate it. It's good to know that I am being heard.