OH, LYFE~

Man, screw my dreamwidth journal. I never update that one. I’m around livejournal a lot more, so seek me out there if you give a crap.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I updated here about what’s been going on in my life, so I figured I should write something up this morning.

I’ve been pretty busy. It’s nice, actually! I’m taking a math class at my college three days a week, and I’m doing really well. The last semester that I attended classes (last winter), I took a similar class with the same instructor and passed with a decent grade. I’ve been horrible at math and hated it forever, but the way these classes are structured works really well for me, and I’m finally understanding everything! Basically, each student works at his or her own pace using a computer program, although you’ve got to finish each lesson on time each week, so it’s self-paced but also … kind of not. Anyway, everyone works individually at a computer, and the professor is there to assist with questions. I think it’s working so well for me because, unlike lecture type classes, I’m allowed to figure problems out on my own, at my own pace, without the professor whizzing through it all on the board and losing me halfway through the formula. I actually kind of love math now, and it’s really helped me out to excel at something that I’ve failed at for so long, and to do it all mostly on my own!

I plan to take more courses in the fall; I just have to figure out which ones.

I met with my therapist yesterday, after about a month of delays in keeping our appointments, on both my end and hers, and things went really well. Over the weeks that I ended up not being able to meet with her, I forced myself to overcome my feelings of inadequecy and just DO stuff. I started to write down lists of things to do each day, and attempted to finish at least 70% each day. That system really worked for me, and I’ve somewhat slacked off on it lately, but haven’t given it up entirely. The way I tend to work is that every so often, I just have to mope around for a bit, until I get really sick of myself and find the motivation I need to get up and work towards changing things for the better.

My goals for this coming week, which I told my therapist, are to sort out some school business, and apply to at least five places for a job. There’s still a part of me that’s a bit freaked out at the prospect of handling school AND work (I’ve never done it before, and doing it post-crazy still concerns me a bit), but nevertheless, I’m mostly confident that I can handle it. I also have some side notes to all of that which I hope to accomplish as well (purchasing new “work” type clothes, searching for a good, used car to buy, updating my license, etc), but all those things shouldn’t be a problem at all.

Honestly, most of the time now, I barely think about my mental problems. I still tend to hallucinate mildly here and there, but it’s become so common that it doesn’t really register as being anything “wrong,” especially as I just ignore whatever I’m “seeing” and focus on what it is that I’m doing instead. I don’t feel uneasy about being out in public, driving, or generally doing anything “normal” anymore like I used to. I pretty much feel like I’m back to how I was prior to all this crap happening, only, I think, a bit happier and more confident.

I’ve mentioned this around to people here and there over the past week or so– I’ve noticed that when I think about my mental problems, I don’t personalize it like I would / have done with any emotional problems I’ve had / have. What I mean is, before my psychotic symptoms took over as what I mainly deal with, and everything was more focused on my emotions, I felt a lot shittier. It was easier to blame myself for a lot of things, especially since most of my problems were focused on self-destruction of some kind, and I kept wondering why I could never just snap out of it.

Since my breakdown last year, though, my issues have shifted to being more about psychotic symptoms and less about emotional ones, and I no longer place blame on myself for anything. It feels much more like a type of physical disorder to me, because, even if everything’s in my head, it still doesn’t feel like a part of me, if you understand. I mean, when someone intentionally harms themself in some way or feels depressed or whatever, it’s at a level where the person realizes he or she is doing it to him or herself and there’s that level of self-disgust about it all. When symptoms are less about you hurting yourself and more about them wanting to attack you, it’s no longer something you feel you can blame on yourself. Well, I realize some do, but that’s not what I do. I suppose I could easily allow myself to fall into thoughts like “I’m so fucked up,” but I just honestly don’t feel that way. I’m proving to myself that I can function fine and I’ve never felt ashamed about my diagnosis. Shit happens in life to everyone; you just gotta learn how to work around it.

Btw, apologies if I’ve not returned emails to some people. I haven’t forgotten, but I’ve just been so busy and sort of lost track of things. Always feel free to email me again if I don’t reply for a while, cos sometimes I do need a bit of a nudge. Also, I’ve changed my email address (see the “Contact Me” page) so that I can better keep track of emails coming from this blog. If you’ve got my old address, that’s fine to continue using, but it would be more helpful to me if the new address were used instead. Thanks!

In conclusion, here’s Hugh Laurie in a bumper car:

It’s a very, very mad world

While perusing deviantart the other week, I happened upon this piece by a Hungarian artist working under the username KA-113. I found the photograph so haunting and well done that I decided to check out the rest of her work.

When I came upon this piece, I immediately loved it. I kept the window open while I worked on something else, and kept returning to it, wanting to comment, but being unsure of what to say, exactly.

Then it finally hit me. I was drawn to it so much because the creature looked so much like the most dominant group of creatures I’d feared during my psychotic break (and at times outside of the break, but their presence was the most severe during that period).

I commented to the artist, not sure if she’d understand what I had to say, but needing to say it, anyway. I summarized my disorder and explained how I’d finally realized why I liked the piece so much and what it meant to me.

I received a reply comment the next day informing me that the artist herself was diagnosed with schizophrenia last year as well, and “these demons” had “hunted [her] year by year.”

I was taken by complete surprise at her comment because I hadn’t expected her to understand much of what I meant (regarding my disorder, not my English), let alone apparently share the same hallucinations as me! It was utterly bizarre, but also quite “nice” in a way. When it comes to hearing voices, having various delusions, and hallucinating, it’s very difficult to communicate what it’s like to anyone who doesn’t deal with the same thing, and even when one is able to find another who understands, everything rarely matches up exactly the same. There are similar stories of what people experience (delusions of being persecuted by the government / other people in general / the devil probably being amongst the top “popular” categories), but it’s rare to find someone who shares your experience completely. This woman is the only person I’ve come across so far who has apparently seen the same things I’ve seen, and it’s a “relief” in an odd way. I’d obviously prefer that nobody deal with anything like this, but it’s nice to stumble across someone who can understad more than others about what my world is made up of at times. I think the biggest frustration in this all is that it’s near impossible for other people to truly understand anything about my experiences, and it’s unsettling for me to realize that this whole other world only exists to me, so it’s nice to find someone else who can understand better than most about where I’m coming from.