Networking with Schizophrenics Online is Hard

At some point, I will have to find an actual career. Until then, I am going to blog for a little while, just to let others know that it is possible to have a part-time job, go to graduate school full-time, while being a former mental patient diagnosed as schizo-affective.

The main idea people have of schizophrenics is that we go on rampage killings or that we are homeless or in boarding houses. According to the nimh site (national institute of mental health), 1% of Americans have been diagnosed as schizophrenic. According to the schizophrenia.com website, around 2 million Americans have schizophrenia. Where are these 2 million people? Homeless? With family? Independent? Incarcerated?

I go on youtube and forum boards, trying to network with other schizophrenics. The thing is that a number of us are paranoid subtypes. This can mean we are naturally distrustful, suspicious, cautious, and reluctant to reveal too much of ourselves. Or it can mean we think you, the reader, are a member of a shadowy secret organization intent on patrolling cyberspace, if I am to be totally honest. But usually our paranoid tendencies don’t manifest in totally outrageous conspiracy plots like that one, but in more mundane settings like being afraid of getting “outed” on the internet as a person with a mental health diagnosis. This can make us generally leery of chatting with other schizophrenics or about sharing our experiences as being schizophrenic.

I think I am different because I feel slightly more comfortable than other schizophrenics talking about my mental illness on the internet, where I have a fragment of anonymity. Also, I have taken my cocktail of pharmaceuticals regularly since 2009. That was the last time I was in the hospital, if I remember correctly. Being on medication regularly makes me feel almost normal. I will always have a paranoid streak, but at least now it is not a handicap.

My quest for kinship with other schizophrenics is at a standstill. I can’t find too many others who have benefited greatly from medication and can be reintegrated into society. I know they are out there. They just don’t post publicly online, which makes them difficult to network with.

If you are a schizophrenic, please network with others! We can share experiences, learn valuable lessons, and help the mental health system to evolve into a compassionate model of decent treatment services!

Lions, and Tigers, and Finals Week.

When the only thing that separates me from the other former mental patients is that I can perform well in school, finals week is a stressful, coffee-indulging, binge-eating festival of intellectual carnage.

I am schizo-affective. Most of my kindred schizophrenics are busy talking to pigeons in the downtown park, or rocking themselves in their drug-induced stupor. Some of us lead “normal lives,” though. I am apparently one of them. I work part-time and attend college as a Master’s program student full-time. Nobody knows what I am: a former mental patient who spent the ages of 19 – 25 in and out of mental hospitals before I finally stabilized on meds and took them consistently.

Now, I must study and prove that I am more than a delinquent set of brain chemicals called dopamine and serotonin. I am more than a mental patient. Or at least that is the way I must train myself to think or else I will plummet into a fit of self-destructiveness. My entire essence is wrapped up in how I can differentiate myself from society’s image of a schizophrenic: the bizarre, violent, freak of nature that needs to be detained indefinitely. I try to think of myself as a student, as a laborer, as a creative thinker, as a writer. Deep down, I will always be that girl locked in solitary confinement in the triage center of the hospital with three security guards monitoring every movement, but it’s worth a try to act like I have a chance at a happy life. I deserve that. On that nice thought, I will take my leave. Have a great day!

"Whoever told you you're schizophrenic was an idiot," --disability evaluator

I saw a disability evaluator last week. She was a stocky African American lady with a polished, clipped voice and a skeptical look to her.

“Whoever told you you were schizophrenic was an IDIOT,” she said, “There is NO chance you are schizophrenic. I know schizophrenia, I evaluate it all the time, and you are NOT a schizophrenic.”

I started to cry. She just glared at me. Having shattered my identity she went on to tell me how I was not entitled to disability, that I was not schizophrenic, blah blah blah. I sat there for 30 minutes listening to her wail on me. I hated her. I hated her from the deepest part of my soul. It is not nice to try to dismantle somebody’s identity. Schizophrenia is part of my identity. It is part of what defines me, and I don’t like people trying to wrestle out my soul with brittle disgust, like she did.

Two days later was my doctor’s appointment. I told her my Master’s program was going well. Then I asked her what my official diagnosis was.

“Schizoaffective,” she said, double checking with the computer’s information. My mind was restored, in a sad way. I knew I was different, sick, ill, not normal. Now, it was re-confirmed. I had spent two days wondering what I was, why had I hallucinated and heard voices if I was not schizophrenic? But everything was okay, or rather, it was back to being not okay--I was schizophrenic. It made me feel happy, in a weird way.

Note to self: Don't trust anyone. DTA.

I hope you have a nice day! Thanks for reading!

Academia over the Work Force (or how I learned to eat ramen noodles for breakfast)

Our family moved to a new home after we were unceremoniously told to vacate the house we were renting so that it could be sold for a better profit margin than we were providing as tenants. I like this new home better, but with it comes the burden of paying for the elevated rent of a 3 bedroom house...and this makes me think of my future as an employee once I finish this graduate program at the University.


I am almost finished with my Master's program. I am half way through this semester and my grades are A's and 1 B. I need to pull off straight A's this semester, though, in order to raise my cumulative GPA so I can get off probation and graduate next semester. All things going according to my master plan, I will graduate in May, 2014. Or, I will be stuck at the University until December, 2014. I really do not like the way that sounds, as I need to find employment as soon as possible.

In fact, I need to find a job right now, having eaten through that student loan I took out (literally, I need to start packing a lunch and stop spending money at the campus Subway). I am used to working menial jobs, having held numerous minimum wage jobs before I returned to college at age 27 to complete my Bachelor's and start my Master's degree. I have no objection to delivering pizzas or cashiering again. I am not one to think that a college degree entitles me to a good career. I have a degree, but I must prioritize my life and having a neat title is less important than getting paid as soon as possible.

The economy makes me nervous, especially since part of my excuse for staying in school was to avoid the sluggish job market. Now, a year later, it doesn't look like the situation is more stable so I face the dilemma of either applying to a PhD program to escape again or plunging into the work force as another desperate, 30 year old wannabe.

I think that academia has become a secret hide-away for me ever since I turned 18. I found no freedom in the endless sweeping, mopping, and cleaning of my minimum wage jobs and the community college class was the only place where anyone really cared what came out of my mouth (or even encourage me to speak in the first place).

I have my own issues with academia--racial, class, and sexist mentalities that some professors cultivate privately and which a few of us are privy to, but overall at least I get my chance to speak through my essays...and the books! I cannot imagine my life without access to the University's massive library.

I will miss the academic setting--the campus teeming with bright-eyed freshmen, the campus clubs recruiting for new members, the interesting lectures in class, the Starbucks on campus, but alas, all things are impermanent.

I make it sound like my college years are behind me, but the truth is I still have 1.5 semesters to go. Until that time, I have an interview with a telemarketer tomorrow. I hate telemarketers. I never want to be a telemarketer, but then again, I have to pay for my kickboxing classes somehow!

Post script: On that note, I lost 5 pounds the past month doing kickboxing. I am still 171 pounds, which is actually a heavy weight for me, but at least that is down by 5 pounds this month...and I feel a great adrenaline and endorphin rush doing kickboxing. It is very fulfilling and challenging. My shins ache and I hobbled around all weekend on painful legs, but the weight loss and the post-exercise glow makes it all worth while.

A Fresh Start in a New House

After being unceremoniously relocated to another house by our ex-landlord, I am now residing across town. Ex-Landlord wanted to sell the house my family and I were living in so I have spent the last few weeks transporting cargo to our new home.

Right now my old room looks like a tornado hit a stack of books and sent them flying all over a bare room. I still go to the old house to feed the cat, which we have to relocate over the weekend to our new house.

Standing over the literary debris of my old room makes me wonder just how much stuff I actually require for survival. Do I really need a USB powered musical keyboard? Do I really need the old orange folding table? I have a gnawing sensation that I do not need this things; that it is just my consumer mentality that keeps me clicking away on amazon.com, but for now I will just tow the keyboard and folding table across town and ask philosophical questions at a later time.

Right now, I have a new bedroom, a new house, a new neighborhood, and a new semester in the graduate program that is just beginning.

Weight Wars

Dear public, online diary,

today I thew up all over myself. It all started when I got the bright idea to enroll in a training camp for kickboxing. I overestimated my level of fitness and was quickly forced to call it quits early after I vomited outside in the dirt. Oddly, my first day went fine. I was tired and exhausted, but I was not having problems breathing. My second day was much harder, maybe my body hadn't had time to heal itself from last week. Or else it was the five cups of tea I had just before I went. I read somewhere that being over hydrated can be nearly as bad as being dehydrated. But maybe it was just some odd, anxiety fluke that made me burn out on the second day. Either way, I am going back but I am waiting until Wednesday or Thursday to return, and not just because I want  my body to heal; I also want to avoid the camp until I have overcome my humiliation.

Why would I do something like crash-binge exercise? Because I weigh 174 pounds at 5 feet, 2 inches and that puts me back into the obese category. Last year I was around 155 pounds. Now, one ex-boyfriend later, and a summer of sweet chocolate indulgence later, I weigh 20 pounds more. I did weigh 25 pounds more but I lost about 4 pounds since Friday, which might not be the healthiest thing in reality. I heard that 2 pounds per week is the high end of acceptable weight loss, not 4 pounds in 3 days.

Either way, I am tired of carrying all this extra weight. I am taking a lighter load in classes so this means that I have plenty of time to do push-ups, leg lifts, jump rope, and to play with my punching bag. I have waged a war on my own weight since the age of 22 or 23, when I started to gain weight due to a prescription drug named Zyprexa that I was put on during a bipolar episode.

I have watched my weight go up and down by as much as 60 pounds. At age 25 I was 135 pounds. At 28 I was 194 pounds. At 29 I was a 155 pounds. My life has become whittled down to nothing more than cryptic numbers jotted in my notepad--Monday, September 10th, 174 pounds, down 4 pounds, aged 30, 40 minutes of extreme exercise, 600 calories going into the work out, ate 1000 afterwords just to make the world stop spinning. Yes, I literally ate a 1000 calories. It is not as hard as it sounds. A simple combo meal from Wendys or Carl's Jr can set a person back by over 1000 calories! I am trying to remain on a 1200 calorie a day diet, but that should not happen on exercise days, as I learned the hard way. Little food in the belly after an extreme work out left me feeling woozy, dizzy, light-headed, weak, and on the verge of blacking out. I ran to the fast food joint and stuffed my mouth with salt, grease, and meat. No, not good, but it was just a quick fix to get me home without having to pull the car over to the side of the road in order to vomit.

I have decided that I cannot be happy unless I have a Master's degree, psychotropic medicine, pot brownies to soothe my migraines and anxiety, and a better body. Ideally, I would just always be happy without having to strive for anything, but that is not the way my mind operates.

Classes are going fine. I went on academic probation this semester because my graduate GPA dropped to a 2.8, which is well below the 3.0 minimum for Master's degree students. Luckily, I can raise my GPA this semester and take all the remaining courses for my program next semester.

By spring, 2014, I should be applying for my Master's graduation ceremony (and I will be more fit and skinnier).
*************************************************************

Dependent & 30 years old

Now that I am 30 years old I have my Bachelor's degree and by the end of 2014 I will have a Master's degree. Despite my newly found sanity, ambition, and successes, I lack independence.

Many schizophrenics live with their parents or in boarding houses. It is because schizophrenics tend to need a care-taker. No, we are not the sociopathic killers you see in the news. The majority of us are more similar to those socially awkward autistic adults who need someone hovering over them telling them what to do and what not to do.

Common orders include "wash your dishes," "brush your hair," "eat," and so on. If you want an idea about how schizophrenics tend to behave, watch "Asylum" by Laing, a documentary about severe mentally ill people living in a boarding house.

My diagnosis of having schizo-affective disorder has recently been challenged by my psychiatrist, and 2 therapists. Fine, whatever. I have agreed to be termed bipolar with psychosis instead. I really don't care about labels too much. Still, I have grown rather fond of the aloof, giggly, reclusive skitzes I  have come to befriend through various outpatient services and I consider myself closer to them than the other people with bipolar or unipolar depression I have met. Despite the loss of my severe label, "schizophrenic," I still have more in common with schizophrenics than with the Normal population.

I live with my parents. I obey their rules, their curfew, their anti-medicinal marijuana attitudes, everything I do, down to when I take a walk around the neighborhood, is monitored/controlled by them. I was attacked by a sexual predator last year as I walked along a street (in broad daylight as I tried to walk away quickly because I sensed danger), so now I am even more controlled at home because they are afraid something worse will happen to me.

I can't walk unless I inform someone, am not wearing a pair of shorts or a low-cut top, am not without my cell phone, and it is an "appropriate time of day." My limit is 50 minutes for a walk to the store and back or else I get a call on my cell phone to come home ASAP.

I cannot come home after 9 pm, ever. I drive, but I have a curfew about when I leave the house (8 pm is the latest) and when I come come back (9 pm). Sometimes I  have to sneak out to meet a lover.

I have never lived on my own. It is an experience I wish I had. I have always lived with family, even though at some points, I was a paying tenant in their homes.

One day next year I will secure steady, full-time employment and I will go look for an apartment of my own--no family, no roommate. The place will be mine. I will wash dishes at my whim, and come home at midnight if I am studying late into the night at a friend's house. :) I am looking forward to next year!

"Almost Normal-->But Only When Drugged Up"

I have not written any posts lately.

I have nothing to say.

Or rather, I have no desire at the moment to show the general public just how psychologically damaged I really am. My true friend, my ex-boyfriend, the only male I returned to, died. I am shattered. Mourning takes its toll on my listless body and mind. I gained 3 pounds since my last psychiatrist visit. She noted that point on her paperwork when I showed up at her office a few days ago.

"I  need anti-anxiety medicine," I said. I do. Apparently, she is not willing to prescribe medicinal marijuana so instead I got a non-addictive pill to take twice a day. Good enough. If only it could erase the knowledge of my precarious mortality and replace it with the drive and passion I once had.

I might have taken a dose of strong anti-anxiety drugs while listening to Nine Inch Nails album, "With_Teeth" and now I am feeling irrational, strung out, relatively relaxed, but jittery all at the same time.

I slept with this guy from my past. I spontaneously texted him and he asked me to come over. I slid past my parent's room and did a silent exit from home. I drove to his apartment. I slept with him. Then I left. He complained that I was leaving so soon. I patted him on the back and said I didn't want to get caught. I might get into trouble if my mom found out I took off in the middle of the night. He seemed irritated. I left.

I have issues with men. That is not my musing, apparently that is what the professionals say. I submit to their decision. I have an electra's complex from never having a father in my life, from all the damage I acquired from various damaged men, from needing, always needing, love or a reasonable facsimile.

I need my friend, my ex-boyfriend. My true love that I never told how much he meant to me, how I needed him. I miss him.

The cup of diet coke is empty. I slurp air instead. It feels like my life, an empty cup, a hollow space that I cannot stop trying to get substance from. Emptiness. Man, this turned out to be a heady entry.

I will post a pleasant entry later. Thanks for reading!

He is a Criminal First, Mentally Ill a Distant Second

I am a little bit in shock. The local community  newspaper decided to do a spread on "Mentally ill treatment in jails." Lo and behold, the man who sexually battered me while I was trying to sleep in my psychiatric room was being interviewed during his jail stay for a second sexually battery on a psychiatric patient. He was being pitied by the interviewer, who felt bad for him because he was in Atascadero Jail, a place for the criminally insane, and not receiving his lithium.

Let's get our facts straight, yellow journalists, he's a criminal first, a mental patient second.

Where in the DSM V manual does it say that "rape" and "sexual battery" are symptoms of bipolar disorder? I did not receive that memo. Why? Because nobody in psychiatry believes that bipolar = rapist. Unless you look in the section for "sociopaths" where lack of empathy, pleasure in others' pain, and violence are all symptoms of NOT PSYCHOSIS but of a SOCIOPATH!!! Triple exclamation point!!!

So, I had to endure reading 2 pages of embellished, pitying, second rate writing by college students and their yellow journalist professor who had all set out to make the world feel sorry for the criminals because they happened to also have bipolar disorder. This infuriates me deeply.

I did not get medication for a long period of years. I never sexually assaulted or physically harmed or threatened to hurt any human, despite my florid delusions. I coped with my fear, agitation, and anger through writing and drawing. The mental facilities turned me away, the outpatient centers said I was not sick enough, and all this until I literally slashed my wrist in the little psych admitting room. They were all busy treating raping, marauding sociopaths blaming their mental illness for their crimes to get out of jail.

I told you readers several times before, sociopaths blame "mental illness" because they prefer coed living situations with Seroquel zombie-fied catatonic depressive females who they can assault and get away with it over the all-male jail cells where they righteously belong.

Screw the criminally insane and their yellow journalist followers. If a law-abiding citizen has no access to medicine, why the hell should they get medicine?!?! I say, if they want to blame their mental illness for the crime, let them suffer their mental illness. Once they stop saying "it was because I have an illness" and start admitting it is really because they are raping perverts who have anger management issues and no empathy for their victims--- then they can have their medicine.

Growl. I am so mad right now. To make things worse, I volunteer for a group that is supposed to promote equality for the mentally ill, yet they are toting this article as a "godsend" which will help the mentally ill. *gasp. Apparently, they are not thinking about myself or the other woman who he apparently managed to rape completely (I managed to escape by kicking a lot, but with bruises).

Growl. What about the millions of people who are mentally ill but who OBEY the law? Now WE cannot come out of the closet because all anybody hears about is how the criminals don't get their psych meds and commit monstrous crimes because of it! I am sickened. Totally sickened.

Sickened. Thank God I am free from that evil mental hospital and I don't have to  put up with any rapists sneaking into my room and attacking me while I am asleep. I have to remind myself that I am safe now. I am sane now. I am a law-abiding citizen with free will who respects other law-abiding citizens. I am safe...I just have to keep saying that...I am safe...I am safe...that criminal is in a jail cell somewhere...and I am safe.

"I Want a Breast Lift" & "Booby Image Issues"

The up and down swings in my weight have had an effect on more than just my body image and appearance; it has affected the size and shape of my breasts. Every time I lose weight my breasts get a little bit smaller. I have gone from a 36FF to a 34G to a 32G in a year and a half. Then, I gained weight and went back from a 32G to a 34G.

Yes, I fail the pencil test. For the record, that pencil test is better suited to see if a B cup or smaller is "perky." If you can put a pencil under your breasts at a 34G and have it fall you must have implants or magical breasts.

Right now, I am not happy with my weight or my breasts. I would like to lose 35 pounds so I can be 135 pounds. My goal to lose weight this summer burst when I found out my ex-boyfriend AND a classmate died this summer. I started to comfort eat. I have it a bit under control now with the help of a counselor, but I am still 165-170 pounds again (earlier in 2012 I weighed 148 pounds). You can always tell when I am stressed out or in mourning when my weight increases. You can tell when I am happy because I lose weight. I am annoyingly predictable that way.

So, my breasts aren't sagging much, but there is some sagging. Still, I have to wonder if comparing myself to augmented Hustler's models is the way to determine my level of sagging. My nipples still point up, but the fleshy tops of my breasts are not as full as they used to be.

In a bra I like what I see, out of a bra, I am only moderately okay with what I see. I may have a breast lift after I lose weight, especially if this sagging gets much worse in the next two years.

Being a 34G can be a hassle. First, everyone assumes that my breasts are big only because I'm so overweight. Not true! When I dropped to 130-135 pounds back in 2009 I was still busting out of my biggest bra; a 36DD (it was far too big in the band and not big enough in the cups, so my real size back then is a mystery). My breasts have just gotten bigger as I aged. At age 29 I dropped down to a 32G, which is smaller than a 34G both in the band and in the cups, but since I turned 30 I am now too wide for the 32 band and too booby for the 32G cup.

Other complaints include: back pain, chronic slouching, chronic scolding from my mother when I stand up straight ("stop sticking out your chest" she yells), chronic wardrobe malfunctions, bras that are too tight and leave indentations along my rib cage, bras that are too loose and leave me with worse back pain, spending 5 minutes every morning deciding just how much cleavage I should show that day and what bra would maximize or minimize my cleavage, not being able to cross my arms because it makes me have massive cleavage (and this is my natural reflex when I am self-conscious or feeling insecure), not being able to run without running out of breathe and enduring tons of boob sweat, having to spend 80 dollars on a bra that fits (and that is just the starting pay for a bra that fits; the better the bra, the more money it costs. 90-130 dollars is a 'good bra'), wanting hot guys to look at my breasts, getting annoyed when much much older men stare at my breasts or make lewd comments about them, trying to ignore when my professors spend more time staring at my boobs then anything else in the room, that awkward moment when I am walking up to their desks with my exam and their eyes are glued to my chest the whole time to the point where I want to just chuck my exam at them from my seat and roll out the door in a ball....the list goes on. It is understandable that having a bigger than average body part(s) can cause people to become curious, but sometimes it is a bit maddening. I start to feel like I am just a pair of boobs walking around waiting for someone to impregnate me. I resent when a male that I am not attracted to says something dirty or keeps staring at my boobs. I should wear a shirt that says "if you read this you better be moderately attractive, within my age range, and not married, or else rich and intelligent." Maybe my standards are too high?

Oh well. I cannot imagine a life without boobs. I used to be pretty flat before the age of 22, so I can still remember preening for the mirror and imagining what a C cup would look like on me. Now I am a G cup. So, for now I'll just go watch a BBC documentary called "My big breasts and me," a short film that follows pretty women with big boobs as they wander around complaining about their big boobs.

Yeah, today is definitely a major cleavage day. I'm pulling out my mio destino bra for this morning. Have a great day! May the boob force be with you!

"Leviathan Monster or Leviathan Mother?"

I have found a really good lecture on youtube about various political/economic philosophies. I was just writing about how Leviathan governments are not so bad because they protect me, a former mental patient, from angry, prejudiced mobs waiving pitch forks. This video looks at several philosophers, including Hobbes, Rawls, and one other philosopher whose name eludes me at the moment.

I found it to be both entertaining and intellectually stimulating. It is easy to follow for a non-political scientist and it even has little animations alongside the lecturer (which is good because I  have no attention span).

The link is at the bottom of this blog entry.

As a former mental patient, I feel a strong connection to the "Mother ship," the entity that protects me from the wrath of ignorant cretins that like to post their prejudices all over the yahoo comment section. This "Mother ship" is the government. Ironic, is it not? I, a paranoid schizo-affective, who once believed that I was going to be framed, tortured, and revived only to be tortured more, now surrender myself to said government. Why? Because, between the State and well, you maybe, I pick the State to decide my fate. This is not to say that I have total faith in the State, that is far from the truth. The reality is that I have even less faith in the general population, especially those who leave comments on Yahoo news articles. The general population would love to get their hands on my womb and sterilize me so that I cannot breed (because mental patients are hated and scorned by society and they are deemed as Untouchables, the lowest caste of people, worse even then felons). Furthermore, they would like to dismember me and perhaps perform a bizarre exorcism on me to rid myself of whatever imaginary demons religious people believe causes mental illness. FYI, it is just a genetic propensity towards neuro-chemical imbalance, but that takes all the fun out of hating an otherwise innocent population.


But I digress, I surrender myself happily to the State and the great Mothership named mother Leviathan for the following reasons:

1) The government decreed it would pay for my undergraduate education and continues to pay for my education during my current stint in the Master's program. In case you think that no, you the taxpayer paid for it, then you are wrong. You did not volunteer your taxes, the State mandated that you pay taxes because otherwise people would not pay taxes and we would have no freeways, no public education, and no hope for future generations.

2) The government pays for me to get treatment through the county. Again, if you think it is the taxpayers, it is the State that mandates said taxpayers to fork over the cash, and will enforce this mandate if you decide to abstain from your duties.

3) This blog is likely being monitored (wink wink) and being the paranoid I am, I chose to play the little Teacher's pet rather than start ranting about class warfare and how I cannot afford simple dental care and how it's not fair and is totally a violation of the bill of rights concerning class, race, and disability equality. So, instead of saying those things, I say "I chose you, Uncle Sam."

Thanks for reading!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm8asJxdcds

"Internet Bullies Make Me Nervous" & "Finding Daddy online"

Internet Bullies Make Me Nervous

Hello! I was just on my favorite website happily participating in the global cyber community, when suddenly---a woman I have never seen before typed in a very cruel remark and insulted me as a human. I  have my picture up and a link to my facebook page so I am concerned that said person will continue her angry tirade against me via other sites. This really makes me fear cyberspace. She not only intruded in my little world, but she spat out hateful words that I bet she would never say to my face. Online bullies are like closet sociopaths. They must all be outed!

I am still a little shaky from being berated by a stranger. If they humiliate you publicly, who knows what else they are capable of doing?

As for my sex life, it is nil. The only contact I have with the outside world is through cyberspace (one reason why I am so irritated by that woman who wrote insults all over the internet about me).

Finding Daddy Online

In other news, my father wound up in my email box. Apparently, we are both alumni from the same university. He made some "alumni hall of fame" and his little picture and name was listed in the email. My mother confirmed that he was my father. The man I never met and who never loved me, there, in my university email. This has not been a good week for me.

Secret Eavesdropping is Not News to a Paranoid

This controversy over Edward Snowden has many panicking. As for me, the data is old hat. I am a paranoid schizoaffective who has believed that domestic spying has been around since, actually, 1950, but most certainly it has increased since 2001.

I found the uproar to have some comedic properties. It just makes me chuckle that people are like, "You listen to me? ME?" Of course they do. And yes, there is a THEY. Over the years, I have adjusted to this 'delusional' belief system to the point where I can just go about my daily routine, graduate school, relationships, and so on, without voicing any of my so-called delusions. That train of thought runs in the background like a little desk fan, its little motor whirring away as I write, a little noise I barely perceive now and whose gentle wind is mildly soothing in times of heat. Well, welcome, friend. Welcome to my bizarre delusional world of government eavesdropping. They will not harm you so long as you do not get all riled up and start demanding that things change. It is their job to oversee and oversee they shall.

One last remark, I once had a psychiatrist tell me not to drive a car because I would get paranoid and think people were tailing me.

"I don't understand? Follow me, like, in a car? What is this, 1950? They have much better technology now. If they want to follow me, they can monitor me from space with a satellite. That works much better, I cannot out run it, and it can even pick up my vital signs," I replied, a little offended. Some things one cannot outrun and should not even bother to outrun. Like I said, their job is to oversee and oversee they shall.

Here is a link to an online article about how this secret spying program affects those with pre-existing paranoia, or rather, how it really does not affect them very much at all. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

http://news.yahoo.com/secret-spying-programs-affect-clinically-paranoid-182400238.html

I Emailed a Topless Pic and Now I am Nervous

I have no idea what it is about summer time but whatever it is, I become a desperate, attention-craving man-hungry fiend. This summer some guy from myspace hunted me down on another social networking site, using my first name and searching through countless profiles. I was surprised that he found me and sadly, stupid enough to accept his friend request. I should have seen a bright red sign that said "stalker alert," but instead, feeling depressed about my classmate's death and unbearably lonely yet fertile, I chatted with him.

I like to take risque photos so that when I am 90 years old, I can say, hey, look when I was 30 my breasts were pretty nice. I sent him a pic after he sent me a few photos of his manhood. That turned out to be a mistake. While my face isn't visible, you can tell just by the shape of my boobs that it very well may be me. :0

Then he told me was married and even scarier, affiliated with some government forces. As a paranoid schizophrenic, I really freak out whenever someone with a close relationship to Uncle Sam wants to snuggle with me. It makes me think of male Mata Hari spies and honey traps. This is paradoxical because I am eternally indebted to said Uncle Sam for paying my way through college and taking a chance rehabilitating a broken down paranoid schizophrenic. Despite my utmost loyalty (and I am not just saying that because Uncle Sam is reading this), I fear their minions. Not as much as I fear hackers or hedge-fund managers, but pretty close. So I tried breaking it off. The more I tried to shoo him away, the more insistent he got that he chat with me during his work hours. Finally, I demanded his real phone number and then he finally left me alone.

Now I have no idea what he is going to do with my artsy nude photographs. Well, it could be worse, it could be a photograph of me doing drugs, that's illegal. So, at least I can say, "yes, I used poor taste, but no, it was not illegal."

Now I am a paranoid ball of anxiety.

I Have a New Therapist

Well, after my distressing couple of weeks dealing with a classmate/friend's suicide, I finally had a session with a new therapist. She is a PhD at the campus psych clinic. I opted to go to the campus psych clinic because the county's therapists are hard to get appointments with and they are more for crisis-riddled, 100% damaged people (like I used to be until I got adjusted to medication and my grad school life).

We talked about my classmate and how it brought back my memories from my cousin's suicide. I was close to my cousin and we lived in the same house for a few years. It all came rushing back, the closeness we had, the way his life crumbled in a matter of years, the sudden news of his suicide, the viewing, the sight of my dead cousin's brother sitting by himself in the corner of a park, strumming his guitar, while the rest of his family sat around sadly holding pictures of my lost cousin.

My therapist brought up the fact that it seemed like I was hiding from issues with suicide and self-harm in my life by ducking into my academics. I have to agree. What is worse is that failing classes makes me feel not only incompetent and dumb, but it hits harder because the only thing holding me together is my success in my college life.

I sometimes feel that I am also doomed to a life of self-harm, be it through cutting or drugs. I have to reframe my attitude. I have done not too bad the past 3 years. I got my Bachelor's degree in the arts/humanities, and got through my first year in a Master's program. Instead of thinking, "most people with schizo-affective disorder who come from a financially deprived past don't complete college but I did," I think "I don't have any practical work experience! I'm already 30! I'm doomed to poverty and poorly paying jobs!" That might be true, but I could at least focus on the positive parts of my life and personality.

Hopefully, I can work on these issues with my therapist. Also, she pointed out that it seems like I have issues holding a steady relationship and feeling like a complete person on my own. I agree. I think my insecurities are visible and that men with damaged egos seeking an easy lay prey on me, and I let them because I've never known anything else.

I have known that I have daddy issues, or rather never-had-a-daddy issues, but the fact that I feel like I am incomplete without a male sex partner is kind of news to me. I thought I was more whole than that. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. In the time since I started this blog, I have had 3 lovers and 1 one-night stand. I don't know how often other people change partners, but maybe 4 partners in 2-3 years is too much for someone who wants to settle down and be a good Catholic daughter.

My therapist said I was normal, in terms of my behavior, and this was mind-boggling to me. She said it seemed like I had a good handle on social skills except for when I analyze them for hours afterwards. I really want to be normal. I want to be confident, successful, a good role model, but I don't think I am and I have no idea how to be successful. Also, I have major issues with food and eating.

I have been binge eating as soon as the clock reads 5 pm. I have been exercising every other day for at least 30 minutes (either running or boxing), but I still feel like I am being lazy. If it wasn't nearly 100 degrees outside, I would probably spent the majority of my day walking off calories, running along the canal banks in my neighborhood, and doing burpees until I can't stand up.

Maybe one day I will have the ability to look at an ice cream come and not feel like I am about to have a panic attack, a flight or binge eat response, but for now I will settle for just avoiding ice cream cones completely. 

Pizza Binge, Nap, Feeling Calmer

Earlier today I posted a long-winded weeping, mournful wail of a blog entry. I assure you, I feel much better and I am not as emotionally unstable as I was when I wrote that.

Writing out my feelings to the cybersphere felt amazing and healing. Maybe it is the exhibitionist in me, but speaking out about suicide, mental health, and my personal life makes me feel like more than a speck in the world. I feel like a human. Not bad for a dead doll.

Oh my gosh! I am watching a National Geographic youtube video called "Forbidden Love" where a female therapist (therapist, mind you) has sex with male patients for money. Where is this woman and how far ahead must one make an appointment?! Sorry, that came out of nowhere, I happen to be multi-tasking, which makes me a little skitzy in my writing, ha ha.

I still deeply miss my friend and I still feel like curling up into a ball and hiding from the outside world for days and days, but I am not as hysterical as I was this afternoon. I always thought he might have considered me attractive, just because he would always approach me and he never approached other females. Also, he used to smoke his cigarettes, stare into my eyes with a tender look, and smile a crooked smile that was charming but indecipherable. I myself caught myself thinking about him romantically from time to time. One time, a bunch of us were sitting around the table talking. He only made eye contact with me, never my friend. He smiled, laughed a low chuckle, and gave me that askance look he always threw me.

I don't think I ever told him that I considered him a friend. Our graduate program is so tightly knit that I just assumed that he knew I thought of him as more than a classmate. I felt a bond with him not only because we spent so much time in the same circle, but also because he chose me to approach when he had a question. Now, I feel guilty about not seeking him out more when we were still in school. He was always so composed. I felt so scattered, like his opposite. After a teary nap, I woke up and felt a sense of longing and a tiny bit of acceptance. Wherever he is, I will see him on the other side. Then I will see that crooked smile and those tender eyes once again......

I Am Dead Doll

It is all over the media in the next town from me. My friend committed suicide in a public manner. So far, my county has yet to pick up the story. I only found the story by digging through the internet. I don't think anybody else knows. I don't think any of my classmates know how our friend died. His name and mode of suicide is plastered on the internet. Animals, barbarians, hiding behind aliases, debate about his mangled corpse in the comments of their town's online newspaper. One slandered him by saying he traumatized the bystanders (with no mention about how he is DEAD now while they get to LIVE and that his grieving friend is reading every gory, ugly, callous comment they are making...). Ugh. Normal People are so incomprehensible to me. They think us mentally ill are the sick ones?! We are genetically different. THEY are jerks and dogs. They have all the normal mental health and what do they do? They joke about my classmate's suicide like so much Jimmy Fallon fodder. I sent a complaint about the comments to the online newspaper. They never responded.

I cannot believe I missed the signs of suicide. I had more than 4 classes with him this past year...if not past 2 years. We saw each other every day. We greeted each other every day. He would approach me and ask me how I was, what did we do in class, how was my work going. I would make chit chat with him. I was very fond of him. He was tall, handsome, quiet. Withdrawn--I should have known. He has always been a little aloof, I thought maybe it was a cultural thing. No, it was his psychological wound not a personality trait.

This is hell. I drove around in shell-shock, trying to get an emergency session with a therapist. Next week, said the campus health clinic. I went to the county out-patient center where I am a consumer (I am bipolar but currently I have/had no symptoms). Next week, they said. Next week, next week, where will I be next week? I might take my student loan and flee this country. Forget finishing the Masters program. Forget everything. I just want a new start in a country that does not despise the mentally ill or laugh when we end our lives.

I previously wrote that I did not want any anger inside me, but when I read those callous and cruel comments on the article about my friend's suicide, I felt rage. Rage, wrath, hatred, deep-seated anger. I wanted to tell them exactly what I thought of them and their pathetic little personalities. I wanted to cross the line with the people who wrote those comments. I wanted to hurt them psychologically. Hence, the sudden drive to find a crisis therapist. I do not want to be that barbarian that these people are. I want to be able to snub my nose at them. I did not want to cut my wrist like I used to. I did not want to go screaming my anger over the internet like they do. Instead, I sat under the fluorescent lights of the out-patient treatment center and waited. "Next week," the counselor said. "Fine," I said. I left.

Outside in the parking lot I started to cry. I wept tears but I kept walking. I was a robot, a walking dead doll. Crying, floating outside of myself, feeling everything, feeling nothing. Limbo, then hell, then limbo, then emptiness, then over and over and over again, that endless cycle of grief and pain. I drove aimlessly for ten minutes.

I could see my life as endless opportunities. Death was not one. Neither was admitting myself to a psychiatric ward. There are many ways to self-destruct, to erupt like a volcano. I decided to binge eat. Off I went to the pizza joint for a large pizza and a bottle of diet Pepsi. I wanted nothing wicked to come out of my mouth so instead I stuffed it full of carbs and grease, swallow, repeat, until the heaven of sleep comes again, where I can pretend like all this is a nightmare. It is too bad, I ate 1200 calories yesterday and I even exercised. Then I found out exactly how my friend died and I went into a frenzied binge eating, remorse-ridden, tear-stained rollercoaster ride. I still feel like a dead doll. I put make-up on. I stare at myself in the mirror. I see large, oversized, kohl outlined eyes with a look in them like somebody vacuumed out the life out of them. I am dead doll. Hopefully, this will pass. Until then, I am going to eat my pain away.