Bullies

I read another blog about this just a few minutes ago, and it really got me thinking about things that I had blocked out in my memory.

I was one of those kids that was just troubled. Many people said that I had an old soul…..I think they just meant that I had more issues than a child my age should have. I wasn’t a girly girl. I would scream, kick, and pitch a fit if anyone in my family tried to put me in a dress. Unfortunately, because my mother was determined to keep me out of my overalls and t-shirts when I was a toddler, she bought me this super frilly terrifyingly pink disaster of a dress. This started a long standing tradition of my mother forcing me into outfits that I absolutely hated for the rest of my school going life.

I was a geek from the moment I stepped into kindergarten until the moment I stepped off of the stage at graduation. And I still am. I was bullied from as early as 1st and 2nd grade. I was destined to not be one of the “popular girls”. In elementary school, kids would steal my food, pour drinks over my head, call me all manner of silly little kid names. As I got into Middle School, things just got worse. I had a small group of friends, but sometimes, even they couldn’t be trusted. Almost every time I confided in someone, all the sudden the whole school knew, and I had a new nickname. Hell, I was sleeping with people out behind the school when I was still a virgin! Amazing trick, that.

I started my periods early, and they were extremely heavy. I know, now, that I have endometriosis, which would have made them horrible, even as a teenager. I always had to stay home at least one day during my cycle, and at least once, while I was in school, I would bleed through my pad. For *years* I got “Bloody Mary!” shouted at me in the hallways. It followed me all the way into high school, among other nasty nicknames.

I was smart, once I hit High School, I made sure that I made friends with some of the bigger, more scary boys around. If I hadn’t, I would have gotten the tar beat out of me on several occasions.

When I was in High School my disorder kicked in. I became the little creepy goth girl in the corner that no one wanted to have a thing to do with. I got called everything from slut to Morticia. I weighed 115 lbs, but that didn’t stop every girl coming or going from telling me I was morbidly obese and I should kill myself because I was too ugly. Or that I should have been aborted.

My school life was hell. I even going picked on by the *teachers*. I was so scared to even move that I just sat in the back corner of my classes and buried my nose in a book. One of my classes, I was so afraid of the teacher I went and helped the lunch ladies clean just so I wouldn’t have to face her, and I still made a B in that class.

School failed me. The marked me as a bad kid for one reason or another, and so I didn’t get the help that I needed to get away from the bullies. No one understood. Even my parents thought I was an awful child, they never believed me when I told them what was going on.

I still have the scars from those days. I don’t think that bullies understand the extent of the damage that they do to the people that they pressure. Or they do, and they just don’t care.

I have had a few of the girls that were awful to me in school come back and apologize. I just shook my head.

Teachers and school staff need to do a much better job at taking care of the kids that are in their charge. You never know what they might be having to deal with.

Thought of the Day #5

It’s been months since I did one of these, so here goes.

Emotion of the Day – Tired

My endomitriosis has been acting up all day. I don’t know the little beast that’s in there kicking my ovaries with little pointy boots, but I would really like for him to give it a rest. Other than that I have been doing rather well, considering. Things could be much worse. Knock on wood.

Thought of the Day – I wish more people understood. I hate explaining myself and apologizing over and over again.

Bad day.

Today has been a bad day. I have been in a dark place. Dark enough that I stared into the vastness of it and was scared. I have knitted and crocheted so much today that I have blisters on my fingers. Yarn burn. Just to drive away the storm clouds and the all consuming darkness. Once again, my lack of a love life isn’t my fault. It is someone else’s. I am back to not being able to watch sex on television. To cringing every time someone is even slightly affectionate towards me. All because the one person that I want to want me…doesn’t. I feel worthless, ugly, and unwanted. Even though I know that’s not what he is thinking. And I don’t dare tell him that because I wouldn’t want to make him upset for anything. I feel so alone. So dark. Like there isn’t a star in the whole sky.

It sucks. I am so used to feeling this way that I don’t know how to come out of it. I just…wait it out. Until I can breathe again. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. It drives me mad. This vast emptiness.

Bipolar Slump

I know I haven’t been on here in a while and I apologize to all of ya’ll that actually follow my crazy crap. I’ve had a rough little while, had a bad hit while I was already in a downswing, so I’m feeling worse that I have in a very long time. I am crafting until my fingers bleed just to get my mind off of things. I finished a scarf, and started two more. Scarves are easy, I don’t have to think about them while I’m making them.

I had been working on this one since New Years. It’s the first thing I ever knit, and I just went and went until I ran out of yarn. It turned out pretty good.

Mom got me some fancy hard-to-work-with yarn. So I decided to knit a scarf. I have pulled this darn thing out twice to get the right size, but I think I’m finally happy with it.

I hope I have enough yarn to finish this one. The pattern is one of my own design, and I rather like it. I’ve got four 4 balls of this yarn, and I hope it’s enough to finish this thing!

Thanks to everyone who watches my posts and comments. It always makes me feel better to get an encouraging thought when I’m feeling horrible.

Thought of the Day #4

I haven’t done one of these in a while, so here we go.

Emotion of the Day – sad but hopeful

I got some rather terrible news last night. That the specific girl the ex was cheating on me with was a girl he had been talking to through our entire relationship. It seems they have moved in together. Lovely. Most of me doesn’t care. But there’s this little bit of me that really hopes they die in a fire.

However, though I am not looking to date, I have met some pretty awesome men. I’m trying to re-connect with some old friends. Trying to figure out who *I* am. All on my own. Not bogged down by who I try to be for the people around me.

Dermatillomania

I realized the other day that I qualify for this. So I thought I would share.

I have always “picked”. At scabs, blemishes, scars, hangnails, infected hairs, anything that wasn’t “right”. I didn’t know that there was an actual name for it and that there was a disorder associated with it. They’re embarrassing. I try and wear clothes that will cover them. Thankfully my scars fade easily. My shoulders are covered in little white scars. It’s depressing and so many people will see me picking at a scab and yell “UGH! GROSS! STOP THAT!” But, I can’t. I will itch and twitch and go crazy until I pick at it. Meh.

Phone Calls

So. I found this great site that has a bunch of relatable statements about mental disorders. I think I am going to make blog posts about them. Here is number one.

So many people don’t understand my weird fear of phones – including my parents. I have had friends stop talking to me because it is difficult for me to talk on the phone. People think that I’m just being dramatic, that I’m just pretending to not like phones to avoid them. No. Really. Phones can give me migraines and panic attacks. Just from the stress! I have always asked my mother to take care of my medical appointments and things of that nature, because I just plain can’t handle doing it myself. She used to try and force me to do it. Now she just says that I’m lazy and don’t want to do it when someone else is willing to do it for me. Beyond not true. Sometimes I wish that people could live in my head for just a few days. To realize how hard it is to live with severe and irrational fears. I get an adrenaline rush from making plans with someone. That is how scary it is for me.

I wish more people understood.

Misconceptions

I’m sure all of you out there with the same diagnosis have run into people who just plain don’t understand. They call you lazy, bitchy, moody, sender of mixed signals. A whole cacophony of different insults. Just because they simply don’t understand. Even when you try to explain it to them, they see you making an excuse, or don’t believe you at all.

I can’t work. I’m not on disability because my therapist doesn’t think that I’m “sick enough” for it. Stress is one of my biggest triggers. If I work, I make it less than 6 months, and then I get suicidal. I either quit, or they fire me because I’m not as good a worker as I was when they hired me.

Lately, I have gotten any number of people telling me I should get a job. That I’m just lazy. That it’s my fault I’m in the situation I am because I won’t get a job. I guess they don’t realize how painful it is for me to hear people that I care about tell me that, like I don’t WANT to work.

I would love to be out there doing something to help my family. To alleviate the strain on our finances. I don’t sit on my ass all day and enjoy the fact that I don’t have a job. I hate it. I wish I was normal. That stress didn’t cause me to fall apart at the seams.

Imagine, if you will, going to work every day like you’re supposed to. All of the little things that happen. Making your boss irate. Having to deal with coworkers that you don’t like. Having deadlines. For you, the normal person, it’s stressful but doesn’t really affect your daily life other than making you a little aggravated.

Now imagine that same stress like straw on a camel’s back. You never know when that last straw is going to be placed, but when you do, all the sudden you are suicidal, crying, and hiding away from the world because that is what triggers your illness. Just like weird weather can make a previously injured knee twinge.

That’s what it is. An *illness*. Too many people don’t realize that it’s not something that I can snap my fingers and change. Though I wish I could. My meds work the majority of the time. But stress can easily overpower them.

So. The next time you whine and bitch about someone being “lazy”, think before you open your mouth. They might be dealing with something that you, a normal, couldn’t even fathom.

Downswing

One of the things that everyone who is bipolar has to go through. Unexpected downswings because of one…or half a dozen…triggers. My biggest trigger is stress. Doesn’t matter what kind of stress. Anything that gets me out of whack can ruin my mood for months. I’m headed towards a downswing.

With as bad as I have felt over the last 3-4 weeks, I have finally started seeing the typical beginnings of a downswing. I sleep until 1-2 in the afternoon, I’m having a really hard time getting interested in doing anything. My blood pressure is up more than normal.

Sometimes these episodes can last for months. Or weeks. Or days. I really hope it doesn’t stick around too long. Because I get hypomania and all kinds of crazy during fits like this.

It it stays too long, sometimes the only way to snap me out of it is to learn how to make something new.

Thought of the Day #4

“Have you ever just wanted to punch past you in the face?”

Yes. Every damn day.

I have made so many mistakes over the years. So many things that have shaped the disaster sitting at this keyboard and typing these words. The scared, depressed, self-hating mess sitting before the computer.

So many things that could have been avoided had I not been impulsive, danger-hungry, and careless.

I miss the days when everything was simple. No consequences. When I got to play the game my way. And when I owned the world.

But now? Now I’m a nerve-wracked mental case with severe anxiety disorders and a body image that would made an elephant think it was small. I would love to go back and do things over. Not date the guys that I did. Stand up to the bullies in high school. Work harder. And smarter.

But then I wouldn’t be me.