Alien Brain Disorder

Muay Thai, Podcasting, and Eating Lunch

I'm sorry it's been a month since I wrote here but I have honestly been either so busy I want to fall over or I have been so depressed I want to fall over. I want to try and keep up with everything. While discussing my plans with my friend last night she said "How do you have time for anything?" and I laughed. BECAUSE I DON'T. And I still get frustrated that I can't do more. I wish I didn't need as much sleep as I do so I could stay up later to do MORE things.

This month I started a Science Fiction podcast with my fiance because we both love Sci-fi and podcasts. I made up our website, coded things, submitted us everywhere, we have been recording, researching, releasing, promoting, and I am so in love with it! These are the kinds of things I wish could just be my work full-time. If you have any interest in this please check us out! www.scifidoublefeaturedrivein.com

Also this month, I have started training in Muay Thai. I am going full force with it, starting at 4 days a week, if not more. I am also so in love with this! My therapist said I needed stress relief and I found it. I also have always wanted to get into a physical, competitive sport and I'm glad I found this. Every day I am sore but I feel great. The gym I go to is supportive and full of great people. I can't wait to become better and to one day fight in the ring!

To continue improving my health I am now eating 3 meals a day (holy shit, right?) I have always been busy and with my social anxiety, I hate eating at work in front of people so I just.... wouldn't. But now I am forcing myself to. Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Everyday. Full of fruit, vegetables, proteins, and all good stuff.

My therapist said I should write when I am feeling good so when I get depressed, I can read back and feel better. This blog is definitely that place for me. I have already written so many positive things here and I need to keep at it! Even if it adds to my schedule that grows longer and longer every day.
But a busy mind for me is a happy mind, as I am sure a lot of you can relate!

My Dreams

I have been pretty much on my own since I turned eighteen. Bouncing from apartment to apartment, job to job, to try and make ends meet. I never had the money or means to go to college beyond a few community college classes, and honestly, between working full-time and all my mental health issues, I really didn't have the time or energy anyway. I have had my struggles and I have worked really hard to get where I am in my field to be able to support myself. I make decent money and live.
I was talking to my therapist this week and she asked me about my dreams. I told her "I don't have the luxury of dreams."

This doesn't mean I don't have them. What I meant is I don't have the luxury of even entertaining the idea that any of them are a reality. I have no support to quit my job and pursue them, I have no time in my busy life to truly work on them (I barely have time to write here), I can't go to school, I just... can't. I am very hopeful. I try to do the things I love in my limited spare time, but most of the time they fall to the wayside. Most people just say I am not trying hard enough. I could if I wanted to. This makes me roll my eyes. Sure, tell me I can go back to college if I just saved enough when I live paycheck to paycheck to just keep the nice little life that keeps me together every day. Sure, tell me I can just make time if I was dedicated enough. You have no idea what it's like to be so emotionally exhausted at the end of the day that you literally fall asleep at 9:30 PM no matter what you're doing. I don't know if you know what it's like to cry every night and morning because you are so depressed that your life is not what you want it to be. That you will just have to work a job you have no love for till you die. And this is your life. And you do dream, you dream of wonderful, beautiful things but you know that you are trapped.

I know that there are others who have sacrificed. I know my situation isn't special. I know this pain is felt by plenty who sacrificed happiness for survival. To you, I feel your pain. I feel your sorrow. I wish we could all be happy because we only get this one life and the fact that we have to live it so trapped in misery is a crime. So tied to survival.

I hope one day I can find a way. I hope we all can.

Until then, I try to find the small ways to make this better. It's hard, the depression and anxiety is literally physically painful most days. Hours shouldn't be counted down but savored. Dreams shouldn't be a luxury.

Faking It: Mixtape

I've been struggling with some pretty severe depressive episodes lately. I really just wanna give up on everything. From what I talked about in my last entry, all those bad things feel like they are just getting too heavy to carry. Most days I just want to lay in my bed and cry. Unfortunately (or I suppose, fortunately?) I can't do that because I have to function like a person or my whole life would fall apart.

Something that comes with my depressive episodes is an extreme disassociation from myself. I feel like my life and myself aren't real. It's as if I am a stranger in my own mind. It's incredibly frustrating to go through because I have no control over it and never know when I will feel like myself again. It just comes and goes as it pleases, making me even more depressed because I feel like I have no control over my own mind.

I never let anyone outside know this is going on though, except maybe my fiance and my best friend. So today I have for you all my depressive episode mixtape for when I'm "Faking It"

I wish I had more to say.

I'm going through some rough stuff right now.

The Wheel

I feel very guilty. I have been neglecting a lot of things lately that I want to be doing like writing here on this blog, keeping up with my weekly organization of myself, getting back in reading/writing/practicing music/cooking better food/exercising... there's a lot. I have just been paralyzed by stress and depression. I have to literally drag myself through the day and convince myself to do the simplest things like shower or get up in the morning. It seems like everywhere I turn there is only bad things around the corner. I know deep down that I am allowing myself to be overwhelmed with the bad things and there are still good things in my life that I am ignoring but when depression hits it is easy to just say "Fuck this, life is bad right now."
Every day I just sit in chronic pain at my desk, my head swimming with all the stresses of the day and just beg the universe "Please, just give me something good."
Back in middle school I was really obsessed with Mythology. I thought the concepts and stories were so interesting. There was this one idea that our lives are like a wheel. When we are at the top all these good things are happening to us but then it will spin and we will be at the bottom where everything bad happens. But don't worry, the wheel will continue to turn and you will be at the top again.

I try not to get these ideas so solidly in my head because I believe that when we subscribe to something it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course, if you believe that once something negative happens you are in for all the negative things, then you are just surrounding yourself with negative energy and that just brings the negative things upon you. At least that's what I believe. I understand if you think that's utter bullshit and what is going to happen is what happens.
But I am a massively paranoid person.
I feel like I am at the bottom of my wheel right now. I just need to get back to the top.

The Cool Girl

My whole life there has been two of me. There has been the person that truly exists and lives. The one that is real. Then there is "the cool girl". She lives in my mind. She is everything that I wish I was but I have never been. She is skinnier than me, more creative than me, more talented, more organized, more motivated... more EVERYTHING.

Since I have developed insecurities, she has existed to break through them. I could always close my eyes and just see her, always so close to reality. Just 15 pounds away, just pushing myself a little further towards a goal. Always so close to my cool self. My perfect self. I wanted to be her so bad. I still do.
It's an obsession that I feel I constantly stand in the way of. I have confessed this to my fiance during our late night talks when we are lying in bed in the dark. He says I'm already cool. That all my goals are attainable. I still want to be her.
She doesn't take pictures with back fat.
She doesn't have weird adult acne.
She has cool clothes and hair that looks way better than mine.
She has the willpower in the morning to do her hair and put on makeup.
High heels don't hurt HER feet.
She practices her cello everyday.
She pushes herself to use her yoga mat.
She eats healthy delicious food.
She doesn't cry all the time.
She has way more fun.

God damn her.

Why.
Can't
I.
Be.
Her.

Pickles

The best decision I have ever made (besides my fiance) was the day I decided to get my dog, Pickles. The second I locked eyes with her, I just knew that she was my dog and I somehow knew her name was Pickles. I didn't think about anything when I got her. I had my friend sit with her while I ran to the bank to cash my tax refund check so that no one else could take her. From that second, Pickles and I would never be apart.
When she first came home she fit in both my hands. She would squish herself in between pillows to fall asleep. I had never in my life before that ever been more in love with a living thing.

Pickles has shown me love when I had none. She has gotten me through the toughest times in my life. She has always been by my side. I can't imagine how I would have navigated the last six years without her. The love from a dog is one that cannot be replaced or described. She has a brilliant personality, she makes me laugh, she comforts me when I cry, and she is way too fucking smart for her own good. I will never be able to repay the countless heartbroken nights where I shed too many tears or the nights I felt so alone that she was there for me.