Dysphoria of sorts

All I want to be is DONE.

I didn’t know what to write about today. It’s taken me a long while to come up with something to write. I tried writing in my journal while I was at Starbucks but I just left a blank page. I have been feeling paranoid lately. I feel like everyone is watching me. There were a lot more people in the store today than there usually is so I guess it kind of prevented me writing. I was also really hot and wanted to just sit in the air conditioned room. I also wanted to enjoy my new iced coffee, Kati Kati. I got an email from Starbucks last night about it and so tried it today. It is a little stronger than my Isla Flores but it is ok. I loved it! It was the one joy on this dismal day.

I had therapy this afternoon. I really didn’t want to talk but then I got really suicidal. I had fantasies where I would hang myself off the back porch while my family would be at my cousin’s house for the 4th of July BBQ. We worked out a safety plan that didn’t include me downing a bottle of one of my medication. I am to write and go through my crisis response plan (to what that entails, check out this blog). If these things don’t work, I am to try and get in touch with my therapist, psychiatrist, or go to the hospital. I truly have crashed. I don’t have the energy to do anything. I have no motivation. I just want to crawl under a rock and die.

I knew this crash was coming. I just didn’t think it would come this fast. I think it just came at the beginning of this grief that I am feeling. I also am feeling trapped by living. I don’t want to live. I just want to die. Life to me is just worthless. Nothing gives me pleasure except that one coffee I have from Starbucks a day. And watching baseball games. Least I can get lost for a little while watching the games because each pitch keeps me entertained. I love when the batter keeps fouling pitches and the at-bat count gets about five. My sox are good at working the pitch count in their favor.

I texted my therapist about what to write. She told me to write about something but I forgot what that is. I think it was on feeling trapped but that has many definitions. I feel trapped because I am now forced to live this thing called life and I don’t want to. I feel trapped because I am in the wrong body. And that truly is what is depressing me. I know my hormones are still going whacky. I just think that this whole business of transitioning to another gender is too hard. I can’t even talk about it anymore. I am starting to feel like a freak. Sure I can dress in male clothes all I want but that doesn’t help my huge chest. I wish they were just man boobs (which I guess technically they are) but it distresses me. I can’t stand looking at myself in the mirror because I am ugly. I know that I have some form of body dysmorphic dysphoria. But if I already am dysphoric in general, does that mean that I have all the other dysphorias? I have gender identity disorder, how can I not. I want to kill myself because I am in the wrong body. I want to be a boy. And sadly, I don’t think that is ever going to happen because of my damn menstrual cycle. In order for me to get rid of my menses, I had to pretty much tell the doc that I get more than just the typical depression with my periods. I get down right suicidal. So pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder was tacked on to my list of diagnoses. Another female diagnosis. It is a good thing that I don’t have access to guns. I think I would have blown my brains out by now.

I appear too normal to be crazy

I talked with my psychiatrist yesterday about all that was going down. I didn’t give her specific details about what I was doing just on how I was feeling. She just wanted to make sure she knew that I knew that if something was up, I was to let her know. This was all via email and again today I tried to set up an appointment with her. Still no dice.

I have been thinking about what to write about next in my book and got nothing. A little bit about what I wrote in yesterday’s blog might make it’s way in. I don’t know. I am still mulling over writing the stupid constriction blog my therapist wants me to do only because it will give me something to do but the thing is, it has been so long since I talked about it, I have to research the terms so I am writing correctly. I would hate to have this piece and it just be an idea of what I think it is when in reality it has nothing to do with the actual definition. And other than defining what constriction is, I don’t know I can go beyond that. I might turn it into a psychache paper of sorts. But I don’t have the idea yet in my head. That is the toughest part about writing.

I started writing in my journal again. Since I have been blogging, I have gone away with the paper writing, except in my day journal when I bring it with me. I used to write in my night journal nearly every night and then it just got away from me. I figured my online blog would be sufficient. But there are some things that I don’t like to post online so I guess it is good that I still have the journal. I don’t know when exactly I started keeping two journals, one I carry around with me when I am out and the other at my bedside. I guess when I was sharing my journals with my therapist it started. But seeing as I rarely see my therapist anymore, I don’t share with her what I write. It’s tough just trying to get her to read one of my blogs that might be good for us. She says she just doesn’t have time, but I think it’s that she forgets. Then I have to read my blog entry to her to discuss it. It kind of sucks because I hate reading what I write. But it also is a good way of editing sometimes. I like to think that what I write makes sense when I type it but sometimes it doesn’t because I miss a word or combine two ideas in the same sentence.

It’s Friday and I have nothing planned today. I want to get some sun in my back yard and maybe fill the kiddie pool to soak my feet and splash around for a little bit. But it will be boring with no one else around. I can’t read outside as the glare just bothers my eyes. Speaking of reading, I am hating the Team of Rivals book that I am reading. The author is dragging out every minute detail of how Lincoln got elected, how he chose his cabinet, everything. No wonder this book is over 800 pages!! I get interested in it but after reading the back and forth of how Seward got to be the Secretary of State, I got pissed off and have not gone back to it. You already knew that he was the SOS so why draw it out?? Three pages of it!! If it wasn’t such a heavy book, I would have thrown it across the room.

On the same kind of note, my review for the pen pal book got a “helpful” rating. I am glad that it did. I never got one of those before. I hope it helps my friend out.

The voices were rampant last night. I couldn’t sleep despite taking my meds and I had to take the heavy guns to stop my thoughts from thinking. They just kept on wanting to talk or have conversations with them just to keep me up. I couldn’t stand it. Then soon as I would get nice and settled, a voice would start all over again. It’s a miracle I fell asleep last night. I really thought I would pull an all nighter. Then I had to keep my hands off my laptop for fear of writing another blog or just keep checking statuses on Facebook or play my games. I almost had to shut down the laptop so I wouldn’t go on as it was nearing 0200. But I finally fell asleep and didn’t wake up till 0830. I had some breakfast and then went back to sleep. So far the voices are settled but they can come back at any time. The worse part is that I have no one to talk to about this. It’s not like I can tell my sisters or even my mother about this as they don’t know I hear voices. I have kept it under wraps all my life. I made the mistake of telling a cousin about my voices and now she uses it as a punchline. I have not told anyone since. I appear too “normal” to be crazy. Sometimes I tell my cousin Joe but I don’t think he gets it sometimes. Hearing voices is difficult to explain to people. The best way to describe it is to say that the conversations that you hear in a lunchroom or at a Starbucks are in your head rather than out. Sometimes it’s just one conversation, sometimes it is just one voice that is above the others and they tell you what to do. Mostly I have three main voices and each one is different. All female, mostly but the mean ones are male. One will constantly criticize what I am doing. Why I am eating that, going this particular way, or just be annoying by asking me questions the whole time I am going some where. Then I have the voices that ask questions until I pass out. I have a full fledged conversation in my room or while I am walking. Over the years I have learned to tune them out so they are not distracting me. But sometimes when I am stressing out about something, they will come out and I will talk out loud to shut them up. Because I have just the three voices, usually, I can handle them. But when I get agitated, sometimes more voices will pop out, like they have the past few days. Usually medication keeps them at bay but sometimes they get commanding. And that is when I have to go to the hospital because I want to do what they say. This coupled with delusions that I am a messenger of god or something is bad. I once had Allah talking to me and he was telling me that I had to sacrifice myself so that the war in Afghan would end. I really believed him so was making plans to end my life so not to disappoint him. It was crazy thinking now but it wasn’t then.

Your Word

I think I should just give up sleep. I just can’t get sleepy tonight. I have my head racing a mile a minute and the voices won’t shut up so I am playing music because it is the only thing that calms me down. I had to go up on my meds to quiet them out. I love when I have three conversations going on in my head at once. It gets loud and noisy. Drives me crazy. Just picture a crowded lunch room with a bunch of people talking at once. That is what is going on in my head right now. Doesn’t help that I should not have had the sausage for dinner. My stomach is killing me. I just took some antacid. I wish I could fall asleep but it just isn’t happening. I am too wound up. The voices keep asking me questions. What am I doing? what am I writing? How am I feeling? What do you think of this? What do you think of that? UGH I just want to sleep and they just don’t get it. Least they aren’t telling me what to do. But I am scared the new voices, the ones that are having a big conversation might turn against me. Then I will have to go to the hospital. I would hate that.

I don’t know why I have been so angry lately, more annoyed, than I have been. Started with someone calling me a bullshitter. I am not. I can’t even if I tried and then you will know that it is. I did realize that if I don’t go through with my plans to end my life, I will be breaking a promise to myself and I don’t know if I can live with that because I have let myself down so many times. That is why I keep future dates. But this time I really mean it. I am not going to see 2014. I just can’t face another year of being in pain. I know I should learn to live with it but I just can’t. I can’t break a promise to myself that I will end the suffering. What started this all was reading today’s AAS (American Association of Suicidology) blog. I felt like I could go on if only I could live with the pain. But I can’t. It’s too unbearable. It might not be all the time. It might not be every day. But when it hits, I just want to curl up and die. But instead I am just popping pills. I am a pill popper. And I don’t like it. I am ashamed of it. But with out these pills, I am in horrific pain. And isn’t it better that I am not in pain while popping these pills? It’s a catch 22 and you can’t eat your cake too. Though I would have loved some cake tonight. I miss having desserts. I used to have pie all the time when I was at work but then the pies got sucky and I switched to cake. Some cakes were better than others. I wouldn’t eat the frosting, just the cake part because that is what I like, with a little bit of frosting not a glob. Though sometimes in my moods for chocolate, I will eat the frosting, if it isn’t too sweet. But I digress…

Right now my stomach and throat hurt. Not because of the same reasons. I knew I shouldn’t have had the greasy sausage so that is why my stomach is acting up. My throat is acting up because I still have whatever virus or bacteria I caught last week. I have the A/c going because it is quite warm in my room and humid. I cannot stand humidity. So now I am freezing in my winter pjs and have my comforter on. Oh well.

What does your word mean if you don’t keep it? I mean we all make promises to ourselves all the time. We promise to go on a diet, to go to the gym, etc. but what if you make a promise to kill yourself? How can you not keep that promise when it means so much to you? I am struggling with that question. I mean if you give your word to someone, you generally keep it, least I do. That is why I am still here. Because I have kept my word to her that I would not kill myself. But what about my word to myself? Don’t I get the same kind of respect? Am I disrespecting myself by not keeping my word to MYSELF? I don’t know. Maybe promises to yourself are meant to be broken and only those for others are to be kept. It just hurts that I have to live to please others when I am disrespecting myself knowing that I should be dead.

Also what has been ticking me off is that the prez of the AAS thinks he can stop suicide from ever happening. He is fooling himself. I half want to say to him, dude, if you can save me you can save the world but I don’t tell him my true feelings. How can I in 140 characters on twitter? Even the founder of the AAS has stated that he does not want to live in a world where suicide doesn’t exist. Suicide is and always will be an individual choice that no one else can make but you. So why am I still hanging on?

a little bit about my psychosis

My foot is burning. I just came from doing a little food shopping. Now all I want to do is sleep. I have not decided if I am going to eat today. I just have no inclination to do so as my stomach has not been the greatest the past few days. I don’t feel hungry. I just want to sleep. Maybe if I take a nap I will get hungry. I bought some Chinese food that I have not had in a while. I could make that or go to my go to, cereal.

I still have to refill my prescription for my antipsychotic. I really don’t want to as it’s thirty bucks and I am running low on cash. I have thought of not taking it but that could prove to be disastrous. I would end up back in the hospital most definitely. The voices have been held back and I am afraid that if I stop taking the meds I will regress.

I am not having a good day. I had a difficult session with my therapist. We were talking about my roots of suicidality and I didn’t like going back there. It stirred up things I rather not deal with but now I have to deal with. It doesn’t feel cathartic. It just feels horrible. Remembering what I went through as a kid. It just sucks. People thought that because I was a good kid, I didn’t have problems. They couldn’t have been more wrong. I was dying inside. I just wanted to die and yet I couldn’t let anyone know or my ass would get whooped. I tried to play it off as a happy kid as much as I could but at night it was just me and the voices. We’d talk for hours until I fell asleep. I had different voices growing up, mostly female and a few male. I had to keep them a secret too. I couldn’t talk to them openly like I could while I was in my room. This went on from the age of five to now. I still talk to the voices, especially when I am stressed out. Sometimes they are my sounding board. Sometimes they are mean to me by criticizing everything I do. They would always do it in school while I was taking a test but I could never talk back to them. They were the adults and I was the kid so I had to be quiet. I could only talk to them when I was in my room. And still do. I rarely talk to them when I am with another person. When I read they are the voice that narrates the words for me. We have a symbiotic relationship. I can’t survive without them and they cannot survive without me. I take meds to control the voices and sometimes they are too quiet and I cannot function. There has to be a murmur of voices for me to function. It has always been this way. When there isn’t, I just shut down. I can’t think. I can’t write. I can’t read. I can’t do anything.

The medication that I am controls the bad voices so they don’t interfere with the good voices. I just realized that I skipped the last few days. Shit. I hope that I don’t have negative consequences because of this. It will really suck to have to go back to the hospital. I just emailed my pdoc so hopefully she will give me an answer soon. I am not having bad voices now but that doesn’t mean that I won’t. I am just having some weird movement symptoms, like my arms and legs feel like they are elastic bands and I have to keep moving them so they don’t snap. That is one of the side effects of this medication. I don’t like it but Ativan keeps it in check.