| My Diary Page Sixty-Five |
| May 18, 2006 - You can't start a fire without a spark.. What am I doing with the rest of my life? I really have no idea right now. Next month I graduate from high school. Just a teensy bit delayed. I guess I should be proud of myself? I do feel a bit empowered, because I have finally accomplished something. Well, I think this is the second something that I have accomplished; I did live on my own for a few months anyway. Oh, another thing I have accomplished: I finally figured out the proper use of the semi-colon. OH yeah, and I also FINALLY learned how to do long division! I don't know why it finally clicked when it did, but wooo I felt like doing long division all day once I finally grasped how to do it. It's so fun because I have so many years to make up for. Long division was always my nemesis..that, and proper grammar. Well I guess these last few months haven't been a disaster. I seem to be in some kind of long-lasting low level of depression. Dysthymia, I think it is called. I still get a few things done, but I need to take frequent breaks. My family is on a major house-cleaning, healthy eating kick right now. I'll do the cooking, they can handle the cleaning. I pay attention to my clothing and wardrobe and that kind of thing now. Occasionally wear jewelry. Makeup is on hiatus for the time being. I guess the most important thing is that with the possible exception of prayer, spiritually I'm not..strong I guess? I'm guessing a lot, because I don't really know how I feel about anything. I don't want to say I'm spiritually weak as in I am being bad, because I'm definitely not. I just have very little energy and it takes a lot out of me even to read one verse. I'm not reading much of anything or watching much TV lately. Yet I don't actually feel down, sometimes I feel vibrant and lively. Sometimes I am downright manic. Some days I am definitely better than others. I'm in a strange place right now. Virtually friendless, although there is still Tara, but she's so far away. Outside of my family, I have no relationships. I go to meetings at whatever hall I am healthy enough to go to when I can go; I'm not always well enough to go when it is my own congregation meeting. I say I have no friends, but am I lonely? Well, not exactly. I don't know, I just don't know. Surely I must be lonely. Yet I feel absolutely no compulsion to have any kind of relationship with anyone. I think there is a part of me that is wary of friendships. Sometimes they end badly, most of the time they don't, but they always end. Sometimes I put a lot into it and it ends; other times, I put little of myself into it and it ends. Yet all in all, I am hopeful about the future. With every passing year, I find myself in a better place than the year before. Yes, I am moving very, very slowly in comparison to other people. But I'm learning to appreciate who I am and not be so frustrated with being such a late bloomer. I don't quite know my value or true purpose yet, but someday I will. July 10, 2006 - It reminds me of the pain I might leave behind... I don't care if I live or die. And maybe 20 minutes ago I just realized that it's not okay to feel that way. I used to like the fact that I wasn't afraid of death like other people, but I also don't value my own life very much and that is spitting in Jehovah's face. I do believe that life is beautiful and valuable, in general, for...other people. But my own life doesn't seem like one worth living. I know I mean something to my family and others. But why doesn't my life mean anything to me? Really, I don't do anything all day. I sleep most of the day, get up and get on the internet for 6 or 7 hours, sometimes eat too much sometimes eat too little, don't leave the house and that's pretty much my routine. I did finally graduate from high school recently, but that hasn't given me any kind of boost. Oh well, I'm sure this is part of depression. As I type it out, it certainly sounds like depression. But there is more here than just mental illness. I see other people my age and they are doing so much more. I feel like I can't talk to anyone about this except maybe my mother. Nobody else really understands what it is like to live so insignificantly, and she only understands because she sees me every day. People will just tell me to do better, be more. But I've never been much of anything at all. I was depressed when I was five years old. I always missed as much school as I could, never was very responsible or reliable, have always been a so-so friend, can't hold on to any kind of relationships. I've always been irritable, lazy and I've almost always faded into the background. I've never really wanted to leave the house. Even when I go on vacation, I want to stay in the hotel. It feels like there is nothing out there, but sometimes I feel like everything is out there and I just can't reach it. You know what I probably look forward to the most every day? Going to sleep so I can have dreams. I love to dream. So often I am a hero in my dreams. Or I fall in love and I really feel it. Sometimes my dreams are scary and intense but at least I'm feeling SOMETHING. I had stopped writing songs a few months ago. Not intentionally, I just realized one day that I hadn't written anything in a while. For about 3 months I wrote maybe 2 songs. But in the last 10 days I've written 8 songs. And since I'm starting to ponder my life instead of just barely live it, maybe a summer re-awakening is coming. I hope so. Since I've always been messed up, since childhood, it made me wonder if I could really blame my problems on mental illness. You don't know how long I've had this niggling thought in the back of my mind that I was born wrong. Either I have always had bad character or I missed learning something in childhood that the majority of people learned automatically. Maybe it was one of those days I didn't go to school. Or one of the meetings I missed because I was in the Kingdom Hall bathroom reading an inappropriate book. But then I was reading some articles and I think I figured it out. Bipolar disorder can start in childhood. I didn't know this. Reading all of the symptoms and looking back on my life, it is really obvious that the reason I've "always" been messed up is because I have had bipolar disorder since I was small. No wonder the extreme anger and fights, the bouts of depression, the overall lack of motivation and normalcy. This gives me hope, because bipolar can be successfully treated, it is happening with my mother. It can happen with me. I'm not bad! |