Ok, so I had this really weird dream last night. I used to have a blog specifically for my dreams but when all that shit went down with Mara, I let it fall by the wayside and started this one. I may have actually deleted it, which is sad to think about, because it means all that writing is gone, even if they were just dreams. Anyway, what happened last night…

I was in this store with a strange woman and a girl I went to grade school with (literally, I went through K-12 with the same people, and she was one of them). The woman was jogging along this river (sort of like in Venice) and a voice inside my head told me that I could go swimming. Well Grade School Girl got the same idea and as she dove in, so did the strange woman. They started swimming side by side, but the strange woman was polluting the water with this black ink. As Grade School Girl swam and got covered in ink, she became more and more fish-like. She was like the mermaids in Harry Potter. Not the pretty kind that sit on a rock and sing to you, but the siren kind, that are basically fish people. I dove into the water after that and the same thing started to happen to me. The effects wore off as we got back out of the water. Then the woman led us to some store where we could do all the shopping we wanted. Everything fit and looked amazing on us but in the back of my mind, something wasn’t right. I asked the woman directly what was going on and she was like, “oh, you didn’t know? You’re in Hell.”

This particular version of Hell wasn’t the fire pit of doom from Supernatural or the layered fortress of Dante. It was a sunny, seaside town with pastel colors, great fashion and the bluest water you could dream of. It was basically the opposite of anyone’s version of Hell. While Grade School Girl was trying on a new outfit, I was talking with the woman. She proceeded to explain to me that I had to enter Heaven and recruit everyone there for some reason (I don’t remember if she even told me why). Grade School Girl and I dove back into that weird river and in a Pirates of the Caribbean move, were upside down for a moment before surfacing in Heaven. She was just as confused as I was but we were determined not to fail in our task.

This particular version of Heaven was pretty much what you’d expect. It was white marble buildings and columns, same town-ish vibe as Hell but the whole atmosphere was chipper and pleasant. In Hell, it sort of felt like you were getting away with something you shouldn’t be doing (like the shopping) but that didn’t stop anyone from doing it. Heaven felt like Chuck E. Cheese. You were allowed to do whatever you wanted because you deserved it! Grade School Girl and I walked into some building that was very reminiscent of 1930s architecture. We climbed up this triple-wide, spiraled, marbled staircase looking for the souls we were supposed to recruit. And we found them.

Everyone I knew was there. Mara, Thomas, everyone. And they were armed. Grade School Girl and I thought this would be the easiest way to get everyone to fall from grace. Violence. But alas, their weapons were bouncy balls and guns that fired a red flag labeled “bang!”. Why we thought it would be any different in the hallowed halls of Heaven, I’m not really sure. But after chasing the blessed souls of all these people into the basement of the marbled building, we came up with a different plan.

I was upset that Mara was there. Grade School Girl, while ditzy and a bit preoccupied with something only she knew about, had never done anything in the time that I’d known her to deserve to be in Hell. But Mara? We all know how those emotions run deep in me, and especially rear themselves in my subconscious mind. And so I unleashed on her. I yelled at her and told her all the horrible things she’d done, not only to me, but to everyone she knew. I watched the grace that had dyed her eyes a lighter shade of their natural hue, drain from her irises. Her eyes darkened with hatred and, as if waking up from a dream, she wanted to know where she was and what was going on. Aha! I’d found the key to recruiting these souls in Heaven. Help them remember the ugly hatred they’d once felt on Earth. Grade School Girl and I proceeded to shout at everyone in our paths. We told them all the evil they’d done on Earth and made them remember all the ugly feelings they’d felt as human beings. Eventually, we’d recruited enough souls that the river opened back up. Grade School Girl and I led this new army through the river, back into Hell.

Once there, everyone was slightly shaken but overall, seemed to know the point of our recruitment. I found the strange woman and asked her what our next task was. She explained that we were now to recruit the souls in Hell, by any means necessary. And that’s when I started to remember why I was there. In my human life, I’d committed murder. It was justified on Earth and I was exonerated, but my soul had remained tarnished. When Grade School Girl and I were in Hell, it was just us and the woman. But now, as we walked around with the new, Heavenly, recruits, I saw more people. Innocent people that didn’t deserve to be there. But I did. And the shame and ugliness I always seem to feel in my dreams seeped back into me. I walked around until I found the victim of my Earthly crime. She was enjoying herself, doing whatever it was that gave her the feeling of getting away with something she wasn’t supposed to be, and I knew how to recruit the souls in Hell. I had to make them feel love, the same way I’d made the Heavenly recruits feel hatred. But this task was much harder. Hating someone is easy. It takes a lot of energy, but it’s energy easily expelled. Loving someone, forgiving someone, that was going to be nearly impossible.

I remember how I murdered her in the dream, I remember how good it felt to be in Hell and I remember how pissed I was at the souls in Heaven. And I remember how good it felt to infect them with the same hatred I had. To watch the heavenly grace leave their eyes. How sick is that? I woke up, trembling and my heart is still fluttering in my chest. I can’t catch my breath. I’m trying not to let this affect me, as my dad would tell me, it was just a dream but whoa. This is harder than usual.

 

*The original quote for the title is “Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.”

Alright, let’s break this shit down really quick. I’ve been trying to pump out a blog entry for the past 2 weeks and have been unsuccessful (obviously) every single time. Therefore, I’m going to sit here and do this. Problems of the past 2 weeks that may be worth mentioning…hmm, might have to think of a way to narrow that one down. I guess we’ll start with…

Medications: I’m supposed to be on lithium (a low dose, for “maintenance”, my psychiatrist calls it) and Prozac for the depression. That’s all I take. It’s not a lot to remember. And yet somehow, I have managed not to take any of it for 2 weeks. Instead, I’ve happily been consuming Klonopin (I was prescribed that for something else and then started taking it for sleep), and liquor. Doesn’t matter what kind, doesn’t matter what it’s mixed with. I’m not a big drinker, I really only do it socially and when there is someone sober to drive. I know it’s a slippery slope with me and anything that could be cause for addiction. Alcohol is no different. I don’t have any clinically defined addicts in my family but I know my personality well enough to know that once I get hooked on something, it’s not going to stop. That’s why I binge eat certain foods for months at a time, or only watch particular TV shows until I run out of episodes. I go through withdrawal, even in those circumstances. This week was no different. I knew I was drinking too much. I would wake up and still be woozy from the drugs and the alcohol (because I was consuming them both at the same time, safe or not). I would think about going home from whatever I was out doing and drinking myself to sleep. It was my escape, it’s always been my escape, and this time was no different.

Them: I don’t know how else to refer to them, except as Them. It’s a collection of everyone imaginary that I wish was in my life but aren’t because they aren’t real. Leon, my imaginary friend from childhood. She’s my twin except that she’s the ideal of what I want to be: skinny, thick-flowing hair, confident, brave and magnetic. Then, I’ve got 2 empty slots that sort of fill up with anyone that I’m currently thinking about at the time. This week, because They made an appearance…sort of, was Sherlock. Brendan and I have been watching the BBC version with Benedict Cumberbatch and it’s wildly fantastic (I’ve seen it before but he hasn’t so we had to rewatch the whole thing, but totally worth it). Alright, let me break the scenario down for you. I was driving home from a visit with a girl I know from Girl Scouts (and social media) and haven’t seen in years and years. It was nice, fun, awkwardly polite. On the drive back to the farm though, my brain went all fuzzy. I don’t know if it’s from the previously mentioned issue, or if it’s the lack of medication, or a combination of both, but Leon was visible in my mind’s eye, lounging in the passenger seat, looking incredibly relaxed and at ease with herself and all the worries going on in my head. I could imagine her voice, telling me to relax, to ease up off the reins and have a little fun. She was ridiculously couth about the entire thing. Then, in the backseat, my mind’s eye saw Sherlock, sitting there, calmly cloaked in his winter coat and scarf, playing the devil’s advocate. He and Leon were having a cool, relaxed argument, the way two people that don’t have a personal interest in the matter do. The three of us went back and forth, silently, calmly and before I knew it I was pulling into the driveway of the house, trying to decide who was right in the situation. And for Leon to argue with Sherlock Holmes is mightily impressive, even if neither of them are real. While the conversation made me feel better, the actual thought of Them being there, and giving me comfort is sort of weird. Like, I can’t confide in anyone else right now so I have to make up my social circle. That’s a very strange concept. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, per se, because I’m not actually seeing physical beings but still…I’m 25 years old with imaginary friends. Which leads me into my next topic of conversation….why I need imaginary friends.

Relationship: Brendan and I are sort of in a rocky place. But literally, it’s all in my head. I’m holding things back, I’m not expressing myself to him the way I should be and it starts this snowball effect. I block him out and slam all the doors to myself emotionally. Then, he does the same thing in retaliation, or return, I don’t really know. And it continues like that until we’re pissed at each other for no particular reason. Everything he does upsets me, down to the way he breathes when he’s sleeping. And some part of my brain knows that most of this is the result of being off my medication. I know that the dips in my emotions, the inexplicable anger is the bipolar but it still bothers me. Like, what if that’s how I really feel underneath it all? I don’t think I do but that doesn’t stop the thought from popping up and buzzing in my ear like some annoying bee. And by his breaking point, Brendan will tell me that he doesn’t think he’s ready to handle all of my emotions, that he isn’t sure he knew what he was signed up for when he started dating me (though I told him straight out the gate). It stings when he says that because it makes me feel defective. It makes me feel like if he can’t love me, and I know he does, then who the hell could? If someone who was so willing to give me leeway when it comes to my emotions and crazy attitudes, can’t handle it, what the hell am I going to do if he leaves me? Conversely, I’m so pissed off and low when I stop taking the medications that I don’t care. I convince myself that things would be better off without him here, that I should take the advantage of us having to move to break out on my own. I want to blame all of my problems on him. My financial situation, my living situation, stuff like that all magically seems to be his fault, even when it really isn’t.

It’s easier to live in this world with Them. It’s easier to think that someone, anyone is on my side and completely and utterly understands me in every situation, in every standing and in every problem. Putting my own face over that is not possible though. Trying to explain to the emotional side of my brain that They are me, that Their voices are my own, just divided and situated into different faces and bodies, doesn’t work. If I say that sort of thing to myself, it means nothing. If They say it to me, it’s exactly what I need to hear. It’s the type of support I need to boost my mood enough to get me through the day, or the drive, or whatever I’m trying to get through. Coping skills should be involved somewhere but I feel like this is it. This is my only option and I’m left with nothing else. I’m left to invent friends since I have very few on my own and encourage myself through their words and mouth. It’s pathetic and completely ridiculous.

In other news, I graduated. I’m moving. I’m applying for jobs and organized to apply for the spring semester at University of Maryland. That’s all that’s happened recently. Besides the whole, hearing-voices-sort-of thing. But hey, what’s a girl to do?

God, I remember when this was a thing. This was a multi-day/week occurrence with me. I couldn’t go without sitting in the library and pumping out at least one entry, while writing stories on top of it. But now? Now I don’t write at all. I watch everything. I never read. It’s a shame, really. And I don’t know what to attribute that to. Is it my current relationship with Brendan? Is it that I don’t want to write? Is it that any idea that I do scribble down gets scraped for the next thing until I’m left with a trail of unfinished scripts for the same story in my wake? I don’t know. I do know that once someone spirals down this rabbit hole it’s almost like getting better isn’t in the cards. I don’t care what anyone says about “recovery” and all that bullshit. Because it’s just that, it’s total bullshit. You’re going to have your good days and your bad days just like any other human being, sure. But most other human beings don’t need pills, drugs or the threat of death at their own hand to motivate them into the next tomorrow. I follow a lot of people on Instagram. Some have chronic health problems like me and others have mental health problems (again, like myself). That unspoken view on life we all share was once what was so appealing about following them. When I was depressed, I loved knowing there were other people on this Earth that had experienced the same things I had. But now? I’m not sure if it’s a hindrance, a trigger, I don’t know. I see someone post about the ever-revolving door that is healthcare and I’m inspired to call my doctor and complain about my treatment. I see someone else post about how close thy were to taking their own life a few hours ago and I wonder what exactly I have going for me that I can just sit here with aimless abandon and do nothing. I watch shows and want to know where these characters get their passion, their drive to spend countless hours working for the greater good of someone else. I sit in the library, sometimes watching those shows, and wonder what inspires someone to bring his tutor flowers, or another dude to watch Trump rally videos the entire time I’m here. I used to use this stuff. I used to sit there and attempt to understand the human experience, to write with wild abandon, even if I was only one reading it. Now? Now the only solace I get from my boyfriend, my pathetic attempt at being an adult and my ever empty bank account is sleep. And even that is forced now. To get any sleep of decent quality, I have to drug myself. And once those drugs kick in, it is the greatest thing ever. My mind runs with wild abandon. I’ve even begun to relish my nightmares and let me tell you, that part of my head is a place even Stephen King wouldn’t go. Part of the sleep problem is the fact that Brendan is taller than me, I only have a full bed and the dog and cat insist on sleeping in it too. So, I’m short-changed in the space department. If I stay up, I’m literally up all night because the three of them are taking up so much space that my hips and back end up paying for it. I don’t have an excuse for the rest of it. Laziness? School? I don’t know. But it hasn’t happened. Writing used to be the way I got things out, it used to be the way I processed things, the way I understood the world. I mean, it got to the point that I wouldn’t go anywhere without a piece of paper somewhere on me. I can’t explain how many napkins have idle musings or story excerpts on them. Once, I had no paper, no napkins and a dying light. Still, I wrote in the margins of my wordsearch book until all of those were completely full. The next morning I went back and couldn’t make sense of most of it because in the lack of light, I’d double-backed over my own writing. But it was out. The idea was no longer this virus inside my own head. Now, though, that’s all I seem to have. And the only way to escape them all is to sleep, which doesn’t much work since once I fall asleep, I’m trapped with them. I’m trapped with the gruesome thoughts, the murderous fears, all of it, until my alarm sounds the next morning. And then I wake up, and guess where I am? Back in the cramped bed, in the disgusting house, with way too much to do and no motivation to do it. When I first saw the Matrix, I remember riding to school on the bus (this was in high school, sometime before my license so maybe early 10th grade? 9th even? I’m not sure) and having the same freaky thoughts just about everyone has when they first watch that movie. Is all of this real? Am I in some sort of Matrix? Up until then I’d only experienced one tragedy in my life and created this world of fear and doubt on my own. I was relatively naive at the time and m parents had done a fine job of trying to prevent that from changing. Eventually, the thoughts led to a few story drafts, none of which went anywhere, but the fascination with the storyline changed from utter obsession to mere enjoyment. The possibilities the Matrix creates by questioning our very existence was revolutionary. That’s why that movie is so revered. And in my high school mind, there was some bleak amount of hope that this really wasn’t it. That there was more than waking up, going to school, learning shit I already knew, going home and generally being miserable. Now, though, I sort of feel like Thomas A. Anderson. No, not Neo, the hero of the free minds in Zion. I feel like his Matrix counterpart, the man before Morpheus, the one with his mind still plugged into the Matrix. I’m the one Mr. Smith hasn’t even started looking for because as far as that program is concerned, I’m just another mind plugged into the machine. Sleep is the only time my mind is free. And then, when it’s allowed to roam and fight off society and other radicals, it’s trapped with the Matrix that is my body. I have nothing to do. I’m literally frozen by my own body, stuck to drift through whatever mindset or thought my brain has until the next one appears and the door continues to revolve. Maybe the Matrix isn’t quite the analogy I’m looking for. Maybe it’s Avatar. No, not the Last Airbender with Aang and Katara (though that is one boss show). I’m talking about the blue aliens subjected to human terraforming for some rare mineral on their planet. Jake was a Marine with the loss of his legs. Once a Marine, always a Marine that much is true, but Jake’s body didn’t know that. The only return to the life of walking he was accustomed meant he had to close his eyes and upload his mind to his avatar. When his avatar slept, his mind returned to the shell that was his human body. That’s what I do every single night. I operate this avatar that looks like me, sounds like me and generally shares the same feelings but the only time I actually, truly feel is when I’m asleep. When I’m alone, when I’m sad, all of that is genuine too but if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, did it fall? Does it count if I’m not sharing the experience with someone else? In both movies, they had someone to share all that with and were the better for it. Me, I have someone to share it with but don’t know how. I don’t know how to do what I want and do what he wants. I don’t know how to function on my own unless I’m on my own. Ask me to share that experience with someone else and it’s like giving the reigns to a blind horse and trusting it to lead me home. I can’t. I just can’t. I guess I’m going from one extreme to the other and back again. I was utterly devoted to Mara, with no thought about laying down my life for hers. There was no doubt in my min that it would have been a loss for anyone else but when it came to her happiness, devotion was the only thing I knew. Then, when we stopped talking, I became a loner. I was literally locked in my room with a subscription to Netflix and unwavering Internet access. I ate on and off, either starving or gorging to the point of topping my own previous weight by nearly half. I absorbed series like there was no abandon and found solace in the sad, the ugly and the beautiful. I found my way out of that hole for a brief moment in the sun. I righted wrongs, I did things I hadn’t thought I was capable of previously and so on and so on. Now, though, I think I’ve scrambled back into the nearest foxhole. I hate it in these things, as most soldiers do, but can’t seem to stop diving for cover the second things get tough. I’m in a relationship with Brendan and find myself compromising on the same things I did with her. I find myself enjoying the moments I have alone more than the moments when we’re together. I want to use my family as an excuse for just about anything. I never do the things I love and loathe the things we do. I always refer to whatever I’m doing as what we’re doing. At first, I took some liberty. I was happy to use we instead of me because it meant I had someone to “we” with but now, now I can’t stand it every time it comes out of my mouth. Now, I’m forced to correct myself for those times I’m not even referring to the two of us and just mean myself. My former empathy has turned to bitterness, my former companion has become my foe and I have no idea what to do.

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I’ve got a million things to do. I’ve already done a million things this morning. And I’m pretty sure my hair is falling out as a result. I don’t even know where to begin. My emotions have been all over the place, from elated to down right depressed. Brendan is suffering as a result. I’m suffering as a result. Like…can you tell that my brain is scattered to the farthest reaches of the wind?

Graduation: I’m trying to graduate this semester. I found out I only need one credit before I continue on my pathway to higher education but, as there are less than 6 weeks left in the semester, acquiring that last credit seems nearly impossible. After spending a day running around from different ends of campus, I found someone willing to adopt me into their independent study course, normally worth 3 credits but since it’s so late would actually amount to 1 credit. Great, right? No. Trying to cram even 1 credit’s worth of work into a 6-week period has turned into pure madness. Graduation is in May, and I have yet to purchase anything for it, let alone actually start the paper that I’m supposed to write. I’ve done a teensy bit of research but between writing a paper for an incomplete course last semester and trying to keep up with the class that I’m legitimately taking, I’m swamped. I even missed a meeting with the professor supervising me this morning while trying to do every other thing I had to do. Ugh. My mom wants me to graduate this semester, I want to graduate this semester, but trying to do all of this in such a short time sort of kills the vibe of graduation. It’s supposed to be a fun, exciting time and just like high school, this is turning into a desperate race to the finish line so I don’t have to deal with it anymore. Just like everything else in life. That’s sort of how I roll but I don’t like it. That’s the actual, underlying problem. I am so short-sighted that I end up doing everything like this. Sloppy and half-assed. I’m sick of it. I’m ashamed of my accomplishments because they aren’t accomplishments. They’re throwing myself across the finish line, despite having quit a million times before. It’s not overcoming an obstacle, it’s not accomplishing a goal, it’s being in the right place at the wrong time. I hate it. And I hate myself for doing it. Every. Single. Time.

Sparks: I’m currently residing in my grandmother’s house, that was previously occupied by a family for nearly 12 years. The patriarch of the family was an independent contractor who worked on estates and accumulated a lot of stuff through his job. Cabinets nobody wanted, furniture that didn’t have a home, that sort of thing. And it accumulated in the house. As we go through and get it ready to sell (it was built in the 30s so his lack of care and the fact that it’s old as dirt does not help anything), we find problem after problem. And most of it can’t be fixed cheaply. Painting, holes in the drywall, problems with the furnace, the (practically) toxic water in the well, it’s all horrible. It’s depressing since it’s my grandmother’s house. It’s got sentimental value, especially for my mom. Her siblings share ownership but don’t seem to share te same attachment to the property that she does. They haven’t helped a lick with the entire thing. It’s upsetting to hear her complain and stress about the house, being powerless to d anything. And then I keep finding problems. My mom is digging herself into this hole with this house and all I’m doing is reaping more dirt on her. It’s hard. So hard.

Body: I lost nearly 50 pounds over the course of the last year. I worked hard, ate clean and felt so empowered in my skin. There were still improvements to be made but it was the happiest I’d ever been with my weight. Well, guess what? I’ve gained it all back. I watch My 600-lb. Life and hate myself because I can relate to what the people are saying. I can understand eating as a stress-relief, eating to disappear, eating to make people stop looking at you, to hide behind food. I hate myself, even for typing it. It’s disgusting. And I’ve started picking my fingers again. My thumbs are bloody and scabbed, and every little piece of skin that tries to grow over gets pulled off. I get stuck, picking and pulling rather than doing homework or completing the task in front of me. I leave a trail of little white flecks behind me because I’m pulling so much skin off. It’s horrible. And as a result of all this hate, I want to cry. I want to cut. I want to express the hatred I have. But rather than change my habits, rather than fix things the way I did before, I’m taking it out on my corporeal form. I’m blaming my body for what I’ve done and it’s paying the price.

I can’t explain what else is going on because there isn’t a direct reason for it. Like I said, my emotions are all over the place. I feel stretched too thin and squished all at the same time. I’ve got lots of homework to do, lots of responsibilities that aren’t really my problem to deal with and finding a way to swim through it all.

I was given homework. Believe it or not, Allistair feels that I’ve slipped so much I need a weekly homework assignment to survive from appointment to appointment. And so, here I sit, in the public library, blogging. It’s been so long that I forgot my password to this account (I remembered it eventually, obviously). I don’t particularly like the set-up of these computers because they’re all facing the same direction, which means the only people with true privacy are those in the very last row. And because computers are assigned to individuals to limit usage, you can’t automatically choose to sit in the back. It kinda sucks. As has my mood lately. I can’t explain why but it’s gotten to the point that cutting seems to be a very real option. All the old analogies of drowning, of falling off some impossibly high precipice come to mind when I want to describe how I’ve felt this past week. I was denied my graduation application because I’m short 1 or 2 credits (it’s still quite unclear) and I haven’t heard anything from any of the graduate schools I applied to. Not like it really matters in the end because I’m not going to graduate when I thought I was. Thomas sends me the usual texts pertaining to medical questions but most of them lately have revolved around our differences despite growing up in the same environment. It’s not an easy thing to explain and it certainly doesn’t make me feel like a worthy person. Even last night, I went out to dinner with my mom and Thomas and the entire ride to the restaurant was full of questions about his classes and future endeavors and applying to graduate school. Thomas is a sophomore. I sit on my ass and do nothing while he excels at everything by simply existing. It goes beyond any sort of resentment I may have felt towards him for being the “favored” sibling though. I understand that Thomas didn’t choose that, that he was simply a product of his environment, but when I try to apply the same thinking to myself, it doesn’t work. It becomes a personal vendetta against myself to find all problems and their impossible solutions. I don’t blame Thomas for his success in life. I don’t blame my parents for liking him more. I really don’t. My main problem right now is the fact that…wait…maybe I don’t know my main problem. Maybe I’m not sure where the issue lies. Has my resentment evolved into envy? Jealousy, even? Is this some sort of resignation of…life, basically, because Thomas is ultimately and fundamentally better at it than I am? That’s what I used to do when I was a kid. I would feel unique and excel at something until someone else came along that was better than me. Once that happened, once my unique-ness was taken from me by the existence of someone better than me, I quit. I hated everything about whatever I was good at. I resented the person, I hated the activity or whatever, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Maybe that’s what’s happening here. Maybe, because at one point I excelled at school, I was better at certain things than Thomas (like writing), and Thomas has come along and blown any and all performance out of the water, I want nothing to do with it. Writing was my thing, right? Then, Thomas wrote a 2-volume novel, filling 2 composition books. He continues to write a story, like an ongoing saga, about him and his friends in a mythical place that he’s contemplated sending to Cartoon Network and the like to have it animated. I’ve finished one story in my…no wait, two, in my entire life and both of them were fanfictions. They weren’t even based in my original universe. When I was in grade school, I was mixed with curly hair, that’s what made me unique. Then, all of a sudden, 2 different mixed girls were suddenly being mistaken for me and it became a game of correcting roulette, trying to convince the gym teacher that I was, in fact, Lucy and not Briana or Jessica. I want to be the hero in the story that makes such an impact in people’s lives that they can’t imagine anything before or after my presence. As self-centered as that may seem, that’s what I want. I want to be the Doctor in someone’s life. I want to be Sherlock Holmes, with my quirky residence and annoying habits that people can’t help but to love. I want to matter. And I don’t. I’m just an ordinary human being, with no exceptional skill set, that will wither and die on this miserable rock and no one will hear my flame extinguish, or care, even if they did. That’s how I feel right now. I don’t have a “real” job (I’m a nanny, if you want to be fancy), I live off the government, I don’t own any property or live in a place not owned by my parents. Literally, I am one of those people that could disappear in shows like CSI and NCIS and no one would notice for months, and when it came time to solve my death, they wouldn’t know where to begin. This is the most I’ve written in a while. I have a paper due March 1st that I’ve yet to start. I have to read 2 books for my Sociology of Mental Illness class and haven’t started. Speaking of which, that class brings up so many memories about all my inadequacies, it isn’t funny. My teacher doesn’t speak with the same political correctness that my psychology teachers do, as he shouldn’t. He’s a criminal justice professor, though his original field is social psychology. Because of that though, I feel as if I have a huge neon sign on my head that says that I’m Bipolar, that I have Borderline Personality Disorder, that I’ve stayed in places like the hospital in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. I’ve entrusted my entire life to the “system” of psychology and psychiatry, and for what? It’s gotten me up, sure, but up this cliff that I’m now falling back down. I don’t resent Thomas. I’ve said that. I’m past that. But I do resent my past, what’s happened to me, and all the damage it’s done to the road in front of me. I do resent that. And currently, I resent Brendan. He told me last night to “get over it, just do something.” I try extremely hard not to hold his lack of experience against him but when things like this happen, when I go through this shit over and over again, I need him to understand. I need him to be more supportive than select few were. I need him to want to change and learn like my family has to support me and get me through this. I need…I don’t know what I need. I need air, I need space, I need freedom, I need a break from my brain.