A few things

I have spurts of energy where I can do things I want like take care of the house. There is something about a pretty and organized house that is so comforting to me. I've redecorated the living room, cleaned my craft room and simplified my nightstand (in a promise of better sleep that never arrived). I tried to make things easier, more inspiring, more artsy. I love this milk glass fruit bowl that I got from my mother-in-law for Christmas. I also love my new camera (which I will post a picture of soon). It's so fancy and takes the best pictures. I feel like I can really express myself with it.

I'm trying to stay hopeful/positive today despite my colluding doctors appointment which is coming at eleven this morning. I'm not going to wear makeup (no reason to wear something you are just going to cry off), I may not even do my hair, I may just wear sweatpants. My new thing is looking disheveled. I usually run errands in jeans and a hoodie before taking a shower with my hair a wreck, and my day old mascara smudged around my face. I figure I feel like a mess, why should I try to hide it? Maybe this is a bad omen as to how lax I've become, or maybe this is a more honest version of me.

The wrecking ball is swinging incredibly close to me these days. I am so afraid to go to sleep every night. I hate it. Each day is a step closer to death, each day is a step closer to the things I dread.

"To pray for what I thought were angels ended up being ambulances"

My hard time is back with avengence. I wake up in the night in terror and fear of being alone (even though Ronald is right next to me), I cry before bed and almost have a panic attack, I wake up exhausted.

Yesterday was hard. I went to sleep Saturday night horribly sad, and woke up with the same pining sadness. I wouldn't/couldn't smile, I stared off into space and thought those negative mix tape thoughts that always drone in the back of my mind. Can I do this? Can I get through the day? Can I live? Wouldn't hiding in bed be so much easier? Wouldn't it be easier to not exist? I crave it; crave non-existence, crave hiding under the covers in my self-created fort of a cave. But I got up, because I had to get up. Because he was there to remind me to get up.

I tried to get through the day and resolve to be positive. We went on a date, and I had to stay busy to keep the thoughts from taking over. We walked around, I felt indecisive, we saw a movie. I tried to stay awake, I tried to focus on the words and the pictures, it was hard.

We came home and I took a nap and didn't feel the pain just for an hour, I realize more and more that sleeping is the only tangible escape. I woke up and had the blues come back stronger, and the panic creepy creeping like a spider into my mouth and I can see it there and feel it there but no one else can. I know we are going to die, and soon. I feel like I can tell the future. All of this is just a mistake in thinking, just a strange synapse. I took a klonopin, it hardly helped. He rubbed my back and I tried to fall asleep. I finally did and had those dreams I can't talk about and now I'm awake and thinking "can I get through today?"

Hell bent

Some people are hell bent on ruining their lives or at least staying stagnant. I try to help, but it seems like I get nowhere with them. It's depressing. It's depressing hearing someone talk about how depressed they are when you are the one who is really depressed and they don't ask one question about how you are doing, don't recognize that you were crying in the car on the way to meet them and don't respond when you tell them you are having a bad day. I just got home from spending time with one of those people and now I'm drinking, an easy make-you-feel-better sort of habit.

My in-laws came over and helped Ronald with the house while I was gone. It's so clean and beautiful right now, I love it. Being sick, I only have the energy to do a little laundry, maybe make the bed and clean the kitchen. They were able to clean our wreck of a garage, set up a workout room for me, and put all the Christmas decorations away. I can't help but think that these are the parents I never had, and I'm so lucky to have them now.

C & H

We want to have a baby. A Cosette or a Henry. We are financially secure, have a cute little house with an extra bedroom, we both feel ready. The only thing standing in our way is my illness-- it stands like a brick wall in front of us and leaves us wondering...can we do this?

I would have to be off medication for nine months. This really is the part that scares me most. Then we would have the baby and I could get right back on these "magical" pills and feel somewhat stable. I think of postpartum depression, I'm sure I will struggle with this. I remember horror stories I've heard of a woman who wanted to microwave her baby.

I have dreams that I hurt our baby on accident. One that Henry is six years old and has night terrors because I have passed my illness on to him , the other that I am helping him walk when he is one and I somehow break his arm. I am so scared I am going to be like my parents: emotionally neglectful, overly dependent, overprotective.

At the same time I am incredibly excited, hopeful, expectant. Maybe I even feel ready at times. Most of the time though, I am scared to death and doubting that it is even possible. I am so cursed, how could I ever have a child and not curse it as well?

"Welcome back your dreams were your ticket out"

So I'm back and oh how I missed you. I've decided I can't let things (like my distant mother reading) keep me from doing something I love. So here I am.

Things have been hard and fine at the same time. I'm in a good place medication wise but in a bad place emotionally. I had one of my best therapy sessions in a long time this week. We talked and I cried about my parents and how losing them is like a death, not so much losing them, but losing the idea that I will ever have good parents.

Mother let me go months ago. She wrote it in an email--how perfectly distant. I don't know how any parent can let their very sick daughter go and just wish her luck. Father was silent as usual. Maybe writing this is a way for me to lash out, maybe writing this is a way for me to finally be honest about the big secret I have been keeping for a long time. I keep it a secret to protect them. I keep it a secret to protect them from the true Catherine wrath that I often think they deserve.

I want to be honest on here, in some ways I don't give a shit about what everyone thinks, in other ways I care so much I would just die if people thought negatively about me. But I'm sick of this, sick of this dance around who I really am.

I have this deep mourning sadness in my center. As soon as things are quiet it comes creeping into me like a ghost. "A ghost, a real ghost" as the poets say. I try to stay busy to keep the black-demon-three-headed-monster away. This doesn't serve me anymore.

signing off

I'm saying goodbye to blogland. There are certain reasons why that I won't get into right now. To my sweet little readers, I truly do love you and thank you for following. Just wanted to let you know that I am still here and hanging in.

I will resign myself to my leather desk journal.

Wish me luck.

Catherine

fist pump snap fold

The weekend went by too fast and I feel like shit. I'm so down and rotting from the inside out. I'm hopeless and blank and want to curl up and cry all day.

Good things:

movies
Ronald
Dexter
orange juice
doggies
we found good homes for the kitties
flowers waiting to be arranged in the kitchen
sleep
Christmas
Curb Your Enthusiasm
new CSI video game to play with Ronald
tea