Hey! It’s been a while…

The last time I posted here, things were… Not good. We’d lost Dumbers, we had a lot going on with nightmare neighbours and I was generally quite unwell.

We got shot of the idiot neighbours this year. We welcomed a new critter to our household, celebrated our 15th anniversary, and I have come along in leaps and bounds since last I updated too.

I’ve been to a proper restaurant – twice. I’ve become more assertive and confident in general and worked on friendships, and now I have a small circle of people I would consider to be true friends. I started a remedial art class for people who suffer mental health difficulties as a way for me to ease into learning so that eventually I can take classes that will net me qualifications and take me even further along the way towards besting agoraphobia.

I’m a long way off of being independent, but hot damn am I making progress 😊

Because of this, I feel exhausted quite a lot. Suddenly it seems life has changed a great deal and I’ve gotten very busy with different things. I have to have small meltdowns where I process everything that’s been going on, and sometimes I shut down completely for a bit. Needing my meds a bit more as a result but generally I’m feeling more positive and I’m doing so much more too. Hoping to be around a little more now.

Anyway, new critter. After the loss of Dumbledore last year I originally wanted a syrian hamster, as Dumbie was a special case and a rescue. Then I found out about Duprasi. They live 5-7 years on average and have good temperament, and are similar in terms of need. So, I found a breeder, we spoke, and she actually drove many miles up to where we live to let me choose the baby from the litter that had been born 4 weeks previously.

Freja is just over 12 weeks old now and coming along pretty well herself with being brave. We love her dearly ❤️

So, okay, not that…

..Deleted review posts. The idea was to review stuff often, but honestly my heart just isn’t in it to go into loads of detail about every thing. It is so tedious and quite frankly life has not dealt things synonymous with structure and routine lately. 

As usual, I have no idea what I’m doing. 

We took Dumbie to be put down early July, after a week’s rapid decline in mobility and general wellbeing. We’re still feeling the loss quite terribly. I’ve never lost an animal to euthanasia or dealt with its death personally so it was a bigger blow than I expected. I was quite ill for a time and I’m still not quite out of it, but I’m functioning almost as well as before all the stuff, including losing the hammie, kicked off. 

I buried my him in a little metal golden Rolo tin outside our front window, put some rocks on top and planted some flowers, with help from friends. I managed to fit his tiny stuffed carrot toy, Mr Carrot, next to him, which brought sweet smiles to us. 

We miss him so, so much. 

I’ll end here cause I’ve ended up harping on about Dumbledore. 

He was a little asshole. But he was my baby boy. ❤️

The truth upsets people, which upsets me

I really hate it when people ask how I am, because I can’t help but lie, even when I’m actually trying to be honest. I just feel horrible. I can’t even tell my doctors, or even fully tell Mik.
I’m trying really hard.
To move myself, be productive, not think too much about everything.
To feel emotions properly, to stop melting down at the slightest thing, to stop the automatic pretending everything’s okay when it’s really, really not.
Maybe I could stop jumping and squealing at every noise?  That’d be good. 

To eat properly, exercise, but not obsess and get destructive. Accept the disturbing intrusive thoughts and dreams I torment myself with and not let them get to me.
To engage myself in things I’m supposed to enjoy, to challenge myself despite feeling less and less like I’m coping with the everyday.
To want to be alive, and function, not resent the people I’m here for.
To not take it too hard when I’ve got another minor ailment or five seemingly brought on myself.
To stop.
I’m trying and floundering.
I can’t turn it off, I can’t calm down, I’m perpetually lying, angry, guilty, so guilty, afraid, worried… Doubting, questioning.
Every time something goes away or I think I’ve got something down… It’s like the shittiest game of whack a mole ever.

How am I?
I’m tired.

Still in limbo

Yeah, so I’ve not been here. Still undergoing meds changes and a bunch of health issues I’d rather not go into (nothing life threatening or serious just a plethora of things not worth detailing) which have impacted my ability and desire to do a lot of the stuff I do normally.

 

I do have some updated recipes I’ll get round to posting. I do still Sew stuff, just not lately. I don’t draw because my computer packed up and I’m not getting another one until we move. Dumbee is still alive, I’ve dyed my hair lengths red, I turned thirty and I recently got back into reading for the first time in years I’ve been able to concentrate on a book. I’m also starting to get into certain comic books now I have a Kindle Fire. It’s made all the difference, so now I actually read.

 

I’m still trying to get out of here, I’m still trying to get better and I’m gonna try and make more effort with, well, everything.

 

I’ll catch up here sometime soon.

Long Time No Ramble.

So, yeah, I guess I’ve been pretty quiet. Sticking to things has always been an issue for me, so it’s not unusual.

 

Been through a lot of meds changes these past few months. Withdrawals for a long time on one med, a new one entirely, then a supplementing new one that really didn’t work out at all… now I’m four weeks into a new side-medication and it seems okay. But all of it combined with SAD made depression even more depressiony than usual. Panic and anxiety have been on the high too so now I’ve got to use my discretion when it gets too bad as to whether to use a beta blocker to calm the physical or a sedative if it’s more mental. Cause sometimes you just get the physical stuff and you feel okay, but it leads you to the mental.

 

Anyway.

 

I came to the realisation that I’ve exactly one week of my twenties left as of today. It’s weird. I’m not afraid of ageing, but I guess I thought I’d be further along by now. If not in regards to mental health progress, than further towards our home where we will settle down. Married, moved. At least more capable than I am now. But, life rarely does as you expect. To be entirely honest, 30 is something I never thought I’d reach. Figured I’d have done something stupid before then, but, here I am.

 

I’ve come to realise that while I may not be all that strong, and I’m certainly Madam Overreacto, I’m tenacious. I may get confused, freak out, whine and say I’m giving up and feel as though it’s all for nothing, but I still try my damndest. So there’s something there.

 

Anyway, I just felt like getting a little out here. I’m hoping to be more interesting next time – still very lethargic and apathetic in terms of hobbies and actual fun things at the moment. Got something new, fun and exciting (for me) coming up soon so I’ll probably witter on about that at some point.

 

I hope you’re all doing well, and have an awesome Christmastime and New Year.

~Kimmie

Bleh

People… confuse me. They always have. I can empathise with a person, I can try to understand why they feel things and do things but I just can’t connect with them. I think I’m too much in my own head for that. I get too paranoid, nervous. The more I interact with people, the worse it gets. And a lot of people I know have their own little opinion on why that is, and to be quite honest, I don’t care to hear what they think they know, because, to be frank; they don’t.

They don’t see or hear me getting pissed at them for an imagined (or real) slight, because I don’t show it. I don’t do that. They don’t see me in sobbing fits that wake the neighbours because I’ve happened to piss someone off and find out about it. They don’t see the times I cannot express myself or contain my rage/panic/sorrow and thusly tear out my hair or hurl myself into walls and doors in fits like a bratty toddler.

Of course, people think that knowledge fixes things. Sometimes it only compounds the issue and adds more to your already overcrowded mind and frustrates you all the more because, dammit, simple things shouldn’t be this hard.

Sometimes the only reason you talk to people is because the guilt and anxiety you’ll feel if you don’t will make your life so very much worse for yourself, so you do it, and you hide how you feel, because what is the point in telling them? It’ll make you feel ashamed, them feel uncomfortable and both of you feel down. So you hush.

I feel things rather too strongly at times, as we all do. My coping mechanisms are still in infancy in some things in life, and while it’s not my fault, it’s mine to fix, and it’s very difficult to do so. Try to explain and people treat you like you’re a benefit fraud or a retard. Even people who are supposed to love you. And even if they don’t treat you like that, you think they do. It’s fun. (Sarcasm, there.)

Thing is, you feel stuff too strong, you overreact, you got to realise other people have feelings and reactions of their own. So, you hide yourself away, but that hurts them as well. When they’re around, perhaps you take it out on them. you can’t do anything right, except try your damndest and my GOD if you don’t do the wrong thing almost every time, but you still keep going.

Right now, I’m in a difficult place. I made friends – ACTUAL humans – of a few neighbours. This is a new development and not one without its problems, especially when they have problems similar to your own.

I’m withdrawing from a very difficult medication and onto playing around with new ones in eventuality and the discontinuation is worsening, understandably, the more I taper off. I do know it’ll end.

My breast tumor seems to have grown, although I’m not sure – upon my exam the doctor discovered another in the other one, so I got a fast tracked appointment to attend during a school half term next week, which I’m really not looking forward to, especially since the withdrawals have been unbearable the last day or so.

But, hey. I got reasons to live somewhere that mean absolutely NOTHING to me right this minute, which is just lovely for everyone who’s a part of my life.

I’m really, really tired. People see the thing I have to be around them and they don’t know how much it exhausts me. They know I’m pathetic but they have no idea how bloody useless I am. I’m fighting because if I don’t, people make me feel bad. I’m not fighting for me, I just want some peace. I stop the facade even a little and the concern/third degree/whatever is just so unbearable I either feel guilt or just so angry I want to tear down everything.

Anyway, I vent. I don’t really care for response. I just have nowhere to put this and actually voicing it is more trouble than it’s worth, as usual.

I want to take a moment to talk seriously.

I know I cover a lot of deep stuff alongside the arbitrary nonsense and homemaker/cutesy stuff, but I really need to just get something majorly important off my chest here.

We hear it said in many ways – “don’t judge a book by its’ cover”, “you never know what goes on behind closed doors” being just two of them, and I suppose it can apply to a lot of things about a person that we may not know upon first glance, but what I’m more interested in talking about is less “first glance” and more “the skin you’re being shown”.

Simply put, no matter how together someone’s crap seems to be (or even not to be) the opposite may indeed be the case for them. Recently, one of the people I would count as my hero in many ways revealed something to me, very matter-of-fact. They don’t like to look at themselves in the mirror, if they can help it, ever. They don’t avoid it for the horror of their reflection or anything like that, no, plainly put, they just don’t like to look at themselves if they can avoid it.

Another person I know, they help everyone as much as possible. They’re no pushover, by any means, but if it came down to helping someone out, they’d give their last penny if they weren’t in sore need. Yet, you’ll never hear from them if they urgently require something: you’ll perhaps find out after the fact, that they were short one time. But they state it the way they say anything that just passes a few words with a friend.

I’ve met quite a few people recently. And, like all of us, they have their own massive struggles, their own demons. But it occurs to me just how little we see of the struggle within a person.

For instance – I use this thing called MyFitnessPal. Big deal, right? Millions of people use it. Anyone from a meathead to someone recovering from an eating disorder and in between, all kinds. But if I tell you I have logged my diary every meal, every bit of food, for 1325 days without missing a single thing, you may be surprised. You’d be more surprised to know that I can’t relax until I’ve logged the food I’m eating, or that until I happened across this thing that lets you plug in all your data I would constantly (and I do mean constantly) add up guesses of the calories, fat, salt, sugar, et cetera of everything that touched my lips, dozens of times a day, feverishly, checking, calculating, guessing, trying to stay under 2000 calories. Finding this helped me to stop that. And also taught me to pay attention to things that mattered (like fats are actually helpful, proteins are good, et cetera) and enabled me to lose a further 50 pounds and end up eating 2100-2200 calories a day.

Now, that’s just one of my little bits of crap, and it’s completely arbitary even to me. Many will still not comprehend my stupid obsession, even if I take the time to explain its’ roots. It’s not important anyway. My point is that my mind was so very taken up with so many things and alongside other incessant chatter in my head, I had this math going on and on and on, and it does affect your capabilities.

The person you have a casual quick small talk with? They may hold on to everything you and they said and freak out over it for days, seeing some insult, some slight, some odd thing either they or you said and they’ll not be able to let it go. They may have seemed perfectly at ease but in reality their heart pounds, they sweat, and they’re internally screaming and wanting to run from social interaction because they’re having a panic attack. Or, you know, maybe they just stopped to have a chat with you about how much they hate the traffic.

The mother you see constantly struggling to keep time and house in order? Maybe she’s so rushed off her feet doing things for everyone she knows every minute of the day, she barely gets to sit down for half an hour. Maybe she gets no aid from those she helps. Maybe she spends her time looking after a sick relative. Maybe every time she gets something done, it’s soon undone by ignorance. Or maybe you keep catching her at her bad moments.

My point is, you just don’t know. Chances are, you never will. All you ever see with anything is a combination of what you’re shown and what you believe is there.

TL;DR: We all put up fronts to hide our weaknesses, our weirdness and our pain. Count yourself lucky if you don’t have many, but try not to guess at others’. And don’t pity anyone, either. We’re all just trying to get our house in order, keep our crap in line and hopefully get to the end of this thing we’ve been thrust into with some sense of having lived.

A person at their weakest is so agonisingly close to showing the strength they possess, even fleetingly, even if they keep having to prove it again and again, and if only to themselves. Don’t forget that.

Now have a thing. Because this is me and I cannot leave things this way.

Updates on a few things

It’s been a busy month. I’ll try to keep the updatiness quite short so as not to bore, and I promise there will be pictures 😉

Creativeness

• I’ve finished three skirts now; just drafts with no lining and cheap fabric to test how they hang and to practise sewing. My first was a circular skirt made from one piece of fabric. The second was the same skirt but made from two pieces stitched together at the sides, and the third was a square skirt with two tiers (a handkerchief hem skirt). These enabled me to practise different stitching and preparation processes, different hemming techniques and generally just practise with my new craft.
  

  Hanky hem skirt – needs a double-sided fabric, or lining, as you can probably see.

• I’m soon going to tell you to disregard my last post, which was about cookies. I’ve been tinkering and I discovered that refrigerating the dough is detrimental to the texture I want to achieve, and I can now do better cookies without oats than with.
  

  My sister asked for super chocolatey cookies, so I made up a recipe and it was awesome.

  

  Also, I made this. Cinnamon bread twist FTW!

Animals

• My little robo hammie, Dumbledore, is getting old, it seems. More and more of late, he’s having trouble climbing. He has a few frames he scales to reach the upper level of his cage (as I broke the ramp that leads up in a way that cannot be repaired), but he’s failing to get and stay on them in increasing amounts. And when he inevitably falls, he tends to land on his back and struggle to flip onto his paws. Being the bumhole that he is, he bites me when I try to help. It breaks my heart to see him struggle though, so I decided this morning to remove the upper level from his cage entirely once he’s more awake. To be honest, he tends to struggle just climbing the steps on his little bridge. I suppose he’s only six months away from his normal life span, so I shouldn’t be too surprised. I love him though.
  

  Love this picture. Called him while was eating, his expression is so funny.

• My sister and her boyfriend went on holiday for a week last week, so we were tasked with looking after their cat, Poppy. Poppy’s a very odd cat. Well, she’s crazy, really. A very dependent cat, and loves to play. She’s got the craziest face, and looks super mardy/bonkers all the time, even though that’s not always the case. She’s a very sweet thing, and she missed her momma a lot – she’d follow me everywhere, and if I wasn’t outside in the garden with her she’d rush in every now and then to make sure I was still around. It got to the point where I decided to have Mik drop me off and spend the whole day there, because she gets really lonely. She was a good companion and now the week is over, I miss her 🙂
  

  See the crazy face? 😀

  

  Pops ❤

Material Things

• I got a bunch of goodies as souvenirs from my sister’s holiday; a souvenir teatowel and fridge magnet and some candy in the form of sour gummy octopi and assorted hard candies, which contained the freakiest, soul-stealingest candies I ever did see, which of course was awesome. 
  

  DERP.

• I got a few things recently. My eyesight test was finally due so I went in, and my prescription had changed. I really needed new glasses, so I was happy anyway. The last time I went two years ago, the frames I wanted and the anti UV green tint were not covered by the glasses voucher I get, and I had no money, so I ended up with barebones plastic frames (which I did like, to be fair) and standard lenses. This time they suggested thinner lenses and a blue tint, but the price I would have to pay was beyond my reach, so I got the free ones – except this time they had the exact frames I wanted two years ago in the free section, and now the anti UV comes as standard! 😀
  

  Old glasses (Poppy for funsies)

  

  New glasses (photo taken ad hoc on the day, sorry, don’t have another yet)

• Also glasses-y – once I’d gotten my new prescription I entered it into a website where you can order glasses at really cheap prices. I chose a 2 for £10 deal but got one as sunglasses, which cost an extra £5 for tint, and then it was just a fiver delivery, so I got two pairs of prescription glasses for just under £20! I’m super happy too, I didn’t expect much quality, to be fair, but they’re surprisingly well made. And I have real sunglasses for the first time ever, that I can see in! They both came with the green anti UV too 😀
  

  *makes Terminator music sounds*

• What else? OH. E3. SO they finally announced Fallout 4, which happens to belong to my absolute favourite game series. And what’s more, they made a special edition that has a replica wearable and a prop from the game. I won’t harp on about it, but suffice to say I preordered that for a console I did not have (and did not plan to have) because FALLOUT. And the replica and prop are something fans of the game series are very excited about. The preorders are all sold out now. Oh, and we kinda bought an Xbox One we can’t really afford. We were gonna get one anyway and we have been saving all year and stuff.

That’s about all I can be bothered with for now. There’s more but it’s not important/can be touched on later/I can’t remember. Oh and I’m on new meds again, which seem to be making me cry at everything but also be braver. We’ll do a stupid personal feelings post another time. Or maybe not, I dunno.

TL;DR – Sewing things. Cookie recipe redux to come. Hamster ageing. Catsitting fun. Candy and presents for catsitting. Many glasses cheap. Game of decade (for me) on its way. Console good. Feelings too feelingy.

Now see my favouritest picture of a cat I ever did see.

Ahaha.

I make things.

Lately when I haven’t been in a hole of self-pity and actually managed to care about something, I’ve been making stuff. Namely, homemaking; sewing and cooking.
I’m practising hems on skirts right now. I’ve made 3 skirts, one has been trashed for scrap and two are just about wearable but I’m not keeping them, I’ll be scrapping them eventually as well. Fabric is not cheap, so I recycle into smaller things. I’m devising a wallet of my own making and I make bandanas for Willow:

I’m likely gonna make tiny clothes for my stuffed animals because I am a saddo.

Cooking, I have successfully managed to make a full sized skinny cheesecake

(and eaten three servings at once) and been messing around with things like pretzels and sweet rolls again. Nothing amazing to show or share really.

Aside from that I’m honestly struggling. Pretty much constantly on vitamin d supplements, and psychiatric meds have been changed about but unfortunately making things much worse and anyone with depression knows just how crushing it can be at times. It’s weird, I am waking up feeling quite positive and ready to be productive but somewhere along in the early afternoon it’s like my brain gets tired of trying and doesn’t see what on earth I’m bothering for and life becomes just trying to distract yourself until you die. So happy fun times eh?

TL;DR – baking and sewing when not being depressive pain in ass.

Awkward end of post so here’s a picture of me holding hands with Whisk.

Anniversary

It was our anniversary this weekend, and we saved up money beforehand so we could go to the National Space Centre, which is a short car ride away from home, but neither of us had ever been. Both of us are quite keen on space and astrological occurrences so we were really excited to go; we booked in for the day before our anniversary.

The first thing we noticed were two classes of schoolchildren. Not a shocker, it is a national museum after all. Figured though it’d be a quiet day to go. The ground floor houses the majority of the museum – the planetarium in the centre, and then small exhibits all around. It was really hard to see anything, because by the time we got our tickets and everything sorted there were another half a dozen schools touring too. Pretty much everything on the ground floor, however, was clearly aimed at children and almost entirely disappointing. Our hearts sank, because we were expecting a bit more of the actual history and technological side of things. Therefore, I took very few photos. There were some things of note, however: (Clicky piccy for descrippy…)

A small room was hidden away – a “tinytarium” for small children! I didn’t start the show, but it was quite adorable.

A pocket sundial according to the placard, but to me it looks like a gyroscope?

An old pocket sundial; I really like this. Isn’t it cool? Look at the craftsmanship.

I don’t know what this guy is doing. He was on a long wall mural about different types of energy.

Apparently this is Mercury. Or, y’know, the scary moon from LOZ: Majora’s Mask….

This was really cool statue outside the building, I like this a lot.

Shiny.

Infrared viewer thing 😛

This was really big, I liked the model, but it was poorly lit and it did not turn at all. I did not get a good view of the UK 😦

There was also a couple of activity areas – one was a weather simulation thingy we couldn’t get anywhere near, and the other was all about space training and what it’s like to be an astronaut, which I’ll get to at the end. (You’ll see why.)

We noticed some stairs after we circled the ground floor, and it led us to a small area on 1st floor with more of the actual mechanical side of things in it. A few engine parts, rockets, a showing of the very first sci-fi film made – Le Voyage Dans Le Lune, from 1902.

Look, a rocket.

Left to right, from V-2 rocket; gyroscope, turbo pump, steam generating chamber.

This is a really cool Gamma 2 rocket engine. It looks kinda steam-punk, no?

Rolls-Royce rocket engines. British made 😀 used for Blue Streak rocket.

These rockets were so huge!! On the left is Blue Streak, and right is Thor Able. Blue Streak was never used, but its’ tech went on to use for other things. Thor Able was used several times in USA.

A signed copy of H G Wells’ The First Men In The Moon.

A poster for the first Sci Fi film ever!

BOOM.

The scary glass elevator took us to floors 3 and 4, where we encountered more old things from the sixties, more tech and more fun stuff…

And then I about pooped myself as we went up in the glass lift. I don’t joke here – I was terrified. Of course, the masses of kids added to the overall anxiety, so it was a combo. I was okay though.

Look at this Apollo fuel cell. Magnificent. Imagine all the tiny components it takes to make this thing.

Somehow, the fact that the Noddy puppet has fallen down makes this all the creepier…

TELL ME THIS ACTION MAN DOESN’T LOOK LIKE SYLVESTER STALLONE. I DARE YOU.

There was a really cool space pod simulator thing, too. I sat in the thing, and there were controls across the way. Sadly, we didn’t have any time to test it out – some kids appeared and I couldn’t well tell them they couldn’t play. About four of them squeezed in with me before I suggested I get out so more of them could get in.

Mik’s view of the pod – the controls.

Oh, there I am, in “space” 😀

Derp.

Look at this awesome satellite! I was quite taken with this.

Finally, we hit up the astronaut training. Most of the stuff was swarmed and therefore inaccessible, but only one person was bothered with the Astronaut Acuity test – you input your age, height, weight and sex, it takes a bone density scan, and you do a little mental agility program, and it tells you how well you’d handle being in space physically and as far as brain function goes…. Shall I leave you with my score?

ELITE! Yeah! Apparently I could even be a PILOT! 😆

Kimmie OUT. *drops mic*