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 ❤️

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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.