I have Darling Clementine stuck in my head. I love the fruit, but this happens EVERY SINGLE TIME I EAT ONE and it's really incredibly irritating.

Today I hit the ten hour mark on Wii Fit and my time piggybank turned bronze. I liked the old color! Oh well. I'm really put out by the fact that I didn't splurge over Thanksgiving really, I only had one small slice of my mother's delicious cheesecake and two small slices of pumpkin pie over the entire life span of those desserts, and I am still back up to 173.

I know that day to day fluctuations mean weighing yourself daily isn't a reasonable thing to do, but dammit, for two shining days I was 169 and it felt awesome.

This is silly and vain, but when I go back to Plattsburgh, I want people to tell me I look amazing. I know for damn sure I am not better off in Auburn, but I can at least look better.


In news that is better for my future and more positive all around, today Lisa told me that there's some program that helps people with mental illnesses pay for college-- so even though I won't be getting the Salvation Army scholarship any more, I could still get my bachelor's degree without taking out any more loans. This is awesome news. I would have to transfer, probably to a SUNY school, because I can't go any further at the community college. I could go back to Plattsburgh and do it right instead of fucking it all up like I did the first time. I'm never going to see the inside of the Honors center again, but who gives a damn about that? I could have Dr. Shuttleworth for a teacher!

Brief trip into the past: Spring 2004, I was so ridiculously depressed, I stopped going to classes, chopped off all my hair and dyed the rest black, had about eight different plans to kill myself, was in a really bad way in general. Finally I went to the health center and got set up to talk to a psychiatrist. That was Dr. Shuttleworth, and she was the best thing about the last month of that term. She kept me from flunking out entirely, set me up with a shrink outside of the college, and pretty much made my life bearable again.

The thought of being able to learn from her is like, the most academically exciting proposition I've had in years. I am more psyched about even the possibility of having her for a teacher than I am about getting my associate's.

I just... have to not fuck it up, basically. I know this is all really up in the air, but it's not just a daydream, I could make this happen for real.


Wow, this post really took a turn for the serious. And I still have that fucking song stuck in my head. Quick, someone tell me a joke!

the VIRTUAL {HUG} meme


Today in Abnormal Psych we were talking about treatments for depression, and how behavioral therapy isn't viewed in the best light but operant conditioning is actually pretty effective when used in tandem with other therapy, and.

I need someone to stick me in a Skinner box and program me to be happy, basically. If a pigeon can learn to stop doing something that results in misery, why am I not as smart as a pigeon? I WANT TO LEARN, OKAY. Really.

...I suppose actually seeing my therapist is one of those things I should really be doing, but talking to her just makes me feel like a liar for all the things I don't tell her. It's not helpful to say "oh, I have a total breakdown most nights around 11:30" if I seem fine when I'm telling her that. It would be better if she had constructive ideas for how I can feel less bad in the moment, instead of saying "hey, let's poke around your old traumas and see what you have unresolved?" Talking about my grandmother is not going to help me hate myself less tonight, thank you though.

I never thought I'd say this, but I need a therapist who is less of a hippie.


Twenty minutes until Fringe, and after that I'm calling it an early night, I think. If I go to bed before I hit the really down part of the night, I might even wake up feeling good tomorrow, and if I feel good then I can get things done. (and if I withhold the reward of Where the Wild Things Are until I do things, then I will get more things done. see? positive reinforcement.)

It's storming like a motherfucker outside.

I don't think I like my psychiatrist very much. She keeps wanting to increase my medication when I think my medication is giving me the problems I'm having these days.

I think I'm depressed again. At the very least, I don't feel good and I don't feel okay.

I don't even have the energy to bitch very much right now, which is probably for the best.

So I spent 45 minutes bawling in my psychiatrist's office and she put me on Lexapro, on a temporary basis. She says to wake up earlier and get some exercise every day. I'm going to start walking around Memorial Field or something, see how that goes. I don't know. Maybe when I get home there'll be enough clear space to try yoga again.

st_raoul, I finally went and got my hat from home. IT IS SOFT LIKE CLOUDS AND BABY BUNNIES. I put it on immediately out of the envelope and will never take it off again. ♥ Thank you.

As certain as my mother is that the Salvation Army is moving our family, my father is that certain that it isn't going to happen. I don't know what to think or who to trust. It's like that puzzle where one door lies and the other tells the truth and you have to figure out which to believe. Except they're my parents, not some abstract riddle, and this is serious.

I've been on literally five crying binges since I woke up at 1. That's one point three an hour, or something.

My brother's going to help me move totes home this afternoon. Now I just have to keep myself from crying in front of him and I won't have cried at/because of every member of my family today. Go me.

I'm going to go look up Lexapro now and see what I need not to do because of it. :D Whee.

eta: Whee. My cannot-afford-an-attorney attorney told me that I've been offered a plea down to two counts of disorderly conduct. So, something like 25 hours of community service and possibly up to $400 in fines, and nothing on my record. But it could possibly go more hours, less fines, because of my crappy work situation. I don't mind doing community service. The Salvation Army kind of inured me to that sort of thing. xD As long as I don't have to visit any nursing homes, I'll be fine.

railway, I got the necklaces today-- okay, they arrived a while ago but I only just got them from home today. They're gorgeous. I'm wearing Rock Floss right now. :D

I'm apparently getting a year's worth of Lamictal free from GlaxoSmithKline, since I'm low-income. Dr. Clark-Rubin was all, "You know I have to charge you for the appointment you missed, that's an hour of my time and an hour of your time" and I kind of laughed and said "No, that's a lot more than an hour of my time, the way I get paid." A lot more like ten hours for the cost of the missed, twenty for the one I actually got. Almost my whole goddamn paycheck. I think it would be cheaper to just call a phone sex line and make the lady on the other end "mmhm" sympathetically for an hour.

I'm going to finish the song titles drabbles later, and go sit down and read for a little while now, I think. My wrists ache, and I know exactly why: I'm being run absolutely ragged between Linus and Kellan and Alexei (and, to a lesser extent, Maeve). Just, nonstop. I had a dream for Alexei last night; that hasn't happened in a long time, dreaming for my characters. So I'm going to step away from the keyboard a little, get through a little more of Blue Blood, maybe watch a movie with Kristin, and then come back and indulge them a little more. xD

I am crazy.

Or, to be specific, I have bipolar disorder (depressive, rapid-cycling). The doctor was very nice and didn't care that I was talking through that stupid sniffly state. She gave me Lamictal to start on, said I should be feeling better with it in a couple of weeks, scheduled me for a return on April 3.

Afterwards my mom took me out to lunch. We had clam chowder and sundaes and talked about Harry Potter. I told her about the VFD tattoo, and she seemed amused. She actually told me to go to In Living Color because one of her friends is a tattoo artist there.

Right now, I think I want to sleep. After that, who knows.

I just had... a really scary ten minutes or so. Like, the most absolute certain I've ever been that I was having a panic attack or a mental breakdown or some sort of irrevocable disconnect from reality.

Kristin was showing me how to circular knit, because I fucked it up royally on my own; I could see what she was doing and how it worked, but I didn't get why it worked. And I don't get that a lot, but it just kind of built up all of a sudden watching her do it so easily-- I don't understand why things work at all. I don't understand how things fit together spatially, I don't understand why mechanical things do what they're meant to, it just doesn't click in my head no matter how much it's explained.

So I just sat here, half-laughing and mostly crying, freaking the hell out of my poor best friend because I'm having some kind of crazy episode and she doesn't know what started it or how to stop it. I told her to go catch her cab and just cried until I felt better.

I'm going to knit a goddamn hat now. I don't care if I understand why it works. Then I'm going to take a shower and take for granted that everything will work like it should.

And tomorrow, I need to find a shrink. Because that was fucking scary and I don't think I'd like to do it again.

This is sickening. I can tell when I'm slipping back into that panicky state; I can't turn off my brain when it starts feeding me horrible ideas. Like before I went to sleep my house was on fire. I could see the flames licking at the ceiling inches from my face, little burny bits dripping off in that liquid way fire has, and I closed my eyes and tried really hard to think happy thoughts but my house was on fire in my head.

Then I dreamed about zombie apocalypse. It sounds funny but it wasn't, we were just trying to find out what was happening and the news was all wrong while people were being torn apart and then there was no news, just blank screens, and it didn't matter if you tried to run from the city to the rural areas, there were zombies there too. We ransacked a supermarket and had to almost kill another lady to get a cab and then we never made it home to barricade ourselves in anyway. At the end it was me and my mom and furryhatsrock and olukemi screaming as the zombies pulled apart the car to get to us, and then my alarm went off.

Why can't my alarm ever go off when I need it to? Earlier for dreams like these, later for the good ones?

But. That panicked, half-hysterical, slightly shaky state I got so familiar with in high school and my second year of college? Back in force. And now I don't have a handy shrink to go talk me out of it.

I just have to tell myself.

Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.

Apparently it's that time of year when everyone starts going mad, and thus:

( Personality Disorder Test )

I guess this would be a good post to note that I'm now on the waiting list for the same shrink who's seeing Julia, and Julia got pills, so... maybe I will get pills. Huh.

So I called BHSN-- Behavioral Health Services North-- again. And explained my situation, again. The only thing that's changed is time, but this time the intake coordinator said she'd talk to someone about getting me admitted, at least for an evaluation.

I really, really just hope they can do something to actually help me, instead of just signing off on a piece of paper and pushing me back off to school when I'm still fucked in the head. Because right now, I don't know which sounds worse, staying here and writing people vouchers for the rest of my life, or going back to college and flunking out again. (because that's effectively what I did.)

Next week. Then the 17th. Then the 27th. I have things to look forward to, I just have to get to them.

(this is going to be the first Christmas I don't see my Grandma. Not looking forward to December.)

So apparently when I make a big everything post, no one reads it. Or I stand alone with no commentary needed. So, for anyone who missed it last time, I'm trimming down my flist a bit-- some people who never post, some people who post a lot and I feel stupid for just skimming all the time, some people who just bore me. (Okay, one person. Insert stuck-out tongue here.) You know how often I make locked posts (i.e. never), so it's not like I'm shutting anyone out, I just think it's retarded to have a huge flist and skim so much every day. (My goal is to get back down to 100 people, honestly. And maybe back to like 30 communities.) So, it's not you, it's me.

That said. I am so nauseous right now. I'm just entirely stressed out for no reason at all except these obsessive little fears eating my head. I'm so stressed i"m breaking out. That's pretty goddamn stressed, and it's making me sick. On the plus side, I have the number of a therapist and I'm going to call and try to set up an appointment tomorrow. (also the DVR thing. eep.) But right now, sick and feeling gross and strung out. Ugh.

Got a bunch of BPAL in today-- Dragon's Milk, which is cinnamony warm deliciousness, Dorian, which omg nosegasm so good, Persephone, which is beautifully tangy and rosey, and Venom which makes me want to gag and I bet I could sell on eBay for a decent amount. *nods* Because it's discontinued and I think it's disgusting. But people have to smell it first. So.

I've been working on a site for my characters, to kind of parallel _angsty's Character Collective, and I finished the imageside of the site today. :D Now I just have to do all the text. I'm almost totally done with one character's page, only 11 to go! :D :D :D

I have no initiative. I think I need to be put on amphetamines or something. :D :D :D Yay productivity through drug use! :D :D :D

....yeah. Gonna go stare at the ceiling now.

Oh, wait. Today there was a couple in my office from that town in Mississippi that got wiped off the map. Gulfport? Yeah, Gulfport. And they were just... so chill, incredibly nice and still able to smile and laugh and I don't know how they do it, but I hope if I'm ever in a situation like that I can still go on without just turning into a shell. because I think I would, but seeing them made me hope a little.

Now, I'll go.

The sun went away while I was at the bank, the bastard, and it hasn't come back out since then. At least I got that deposit made, so I can make a credit card payment tomorrow, and re-proceed to buy things. Mostly from my friends. Like olukemi's prints of the angels, and garbarella's adorable knit hat. omg. You should all buy things from them if you like art or knit things.

Spending money is better when you know who it's going to. xD

So I finished watching season one of Dead Like Me, at Julia's insistence, and really I don't see why Mason has such a hard time getting laid until I remember that's not how living people see him and then it makes sense. I wonder what Daisy looks like to the living? It's not fair if she gets to keep a pretty face when no one else does. Stupid Daisy. Hates her.

I got a call today from the student health center, I've been approved to see one of the doctors at the Behavioral Health Clinic North, which rocks. I just have to call them before work tomorrow to see about an appointment, since I couldn't call from work today and I forgot to afterwards. (Yay for my brain, when it actually functions...) So I could actually see a shrink! Yay. That would be really good. Not that I'm depressed, because I'm not, but I feel really vacant.

This space for rent. *snerk*

Tonight, I don't know. I got The Life Aquatic from Netflix, I might stay in and watch that. Or I might go out and hang with Derek for a while if he feels like hanging out. Or I might sit here in front of the computer and work on developing carpal tunnel a little more. :D I don't know.