You Army

Quickie

2012-01-23T15:58:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: Spotlight by Rose Wong]

Gotta make this one quick. Ten minutes until class.

Been stuck in my head a lot recently so decided to do something to make it more fun but now regret it a little bit not that much though.

Missing and postponing doctor appointments which I recognize is a bad sign so making it a point to make it to one tomorrow and schedule another one with the other one.

Decided to stop my online shopping habit. As bad as crack cocaine I swear.

Going to NY to visit my sister this weekend. Taking me to go see Rent for an early graduation present. Excited. Never seen a Broadway musical.

Parents getting excited about my graduation. Knocking on wood. Hope they don't jinx it and cause a butterfly effect that will land me in the hospital again and push everything back. Again. Indefinitely. Again.

It's really gray outside.

Got a flow book that my sister got for me. I have so many notebooks lying around my apartment. I try to keep only one as a diary but then I start avoiding it like someone I had a one night stand with or something and then go telling my stories to another one until that one becomes too much like a diary.

I really need to write. Something I learned about myself in college.

I really need to read and write to survive. It's like oxygen. And music too. I think I could go through another inpatient stint if I had ample notebooks and books and music. But they wouldn't give me my headphones so WTF.

Classtime.

Strawberry Shortcake

2011-12-30T13:04:00.001-05:00

[Picture credit: someone's pin on Pinterest]

"Waiting for the perfect love?"

"No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don't want to eat it anymore and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for."

"I'm not sure that has anything to do with love," I said with some amazement.

"It does," she said. "You just don't know it. There are times in a girl's life when things like that are incredibly important."

"Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?"

"Exactly. And When I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. 'Now I see, Midori. What a fool I've been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I'll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheescake?"

"So then what?"

"So then I'd give him all the love he deserves for what he's done."

"Sounds crazy to me."

- excerpt from Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami

The Importance of Being Earnest

2011-11-30T09:37:00.001-05:00

[Photo credit: Daul Kim by Cecile Bortoletti for Lurve Magazine 2]

Recent events have pushed me to, once again, undelete this blog and write this. (It's worth noting that I write only when the urge hits me, which is probably why I am not studying it.)

It is of the utmost importance that mental health is discussed, not only in America, but throughout the world. It deeply angers and frustrates me when I hear about the struggles that individuals go through due to a lack of support from their loved ones.

The idea of mental illness is an enormous stigma, and though race, nationality, and geography play a large role, I can only speak of my experiences as an Asian-American woman and Texas resident. Upon diagnosis in Baltimore, when I arrived in Texas I was taken to a mental retardation center. Past entries have described my experiences in Austin State Hospital, but, in a nutshell, medical insurance is the saving grace between good treatment and bad treatment. How can the uneducated public take care of their own when those licensed to do so refuse to?

There needs to be a change in how mental illness is addressed and treated, everywhere. Suicides are all preventable, and too many times, help is not given and problems are not addressed until the individual views suicide as the only option.

I am open about my diagnosis with Bipolar I. After my third stint in the hospital in September, I gave formal letters to all my professors explaining why I had missed a week of classes, some of which included exams. Although some understood completely, others did not even know what bipolar disorder was and, to put it frankly, didn't seem to care. And I am supposed to be attending the leading research university, correct?

People have come to me to talk about their own experiences and struggles with mental illness ever since my diagnosis, and one thing they all say to me is, "... but I don't think my case is as bad as yours." The only reason why my "case" can even be pegged as "bad" is because of the tragically wrong way it was handled from the beginning.

Just because I am receiving treatment by no means indicates that I am mentally incapable of understanding what I am receiving and why. Placing pills in the palm of my hand and assuring me that it will "make me feel better" is patronizing and dumb. Telling me I am just stressed because of school and "the overbearing nature of my Korean parents" is ignorant and dumb. (One licensed psychologist actually had the audacity to inform me that my parents' minds were still in "Co-ree-yuh," when he obviously had no idea that my parents immigrated to the states at age 20, had met and married here, and had raised us in the most "American" way that they knew how. He obviously had no idea that my dad only speaks Korean to my mom. He assumed that they were not citizens.)

I am beyond blessed to have parents that are so supportive of me and my illness and my treatment. I am beyond blessed to have friends that treat me as if I am no different. I am beyond blessed to have a boyfriend who visited me daily when I was hospitalized and who sat with me and all the other patients for hours and who bum rushed a security guard to get to me in the "observation room."

Others are not so lucky and it pains me to know that they continue to think it's "all in their heads." I completely understand. The moment you realize that you have lost your sanity, it feels like someone has flipped you upside down. I was sitting in my bunk as a summer RA in a college dorm and I felt my stomach hit my throat. I remember being in a hotel room with my dad and punching the walls over and over and over. But it got better. Everything got so much better.

A friend recently asked me if I had the choice, would I choose to have this disease. Obviously I wish I had not experienced some things that I have experienced. But I think I would still choose to be this and to have this. Kay Jamison said it best by writing, "I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no... and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated... I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and have been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters... Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But normal or manic I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know."

RambleRamble

2011-11-16T20:43:00.001-05:00

"Sheriff"

by Alfred McMoore

Everyone is insecure. It's very obvious to me now. An old friend of mine used to ask people the question, "What compliment do you like to hear the most?" Their answer indicated what they felt the most insecure about. We went around, asking everyone we knew, extracting their deepest insecurities with a seemingly harmless question. Someone who clearly had an eating disorder answered, "You look like you lost weight." (See, some of this shit was pretty heavy.) Someone we both thought was ditzy answered, "That was a good idea, _____!" We laughed at that. Someone I think about dearly answered, "You're a good friend." That was sweet.

I suppose it's human nature to not reveal your vulnerabilities to others for fear that you'll be attacked. I suppose that's not even human nature, that's kind of animal nature. Not even animal nature, because plants do the same thing. Life nature. That's redundant. Nature. It is natural to not reveal your vulnerabilities to others for fear that you'll be attacked.

I'm not sure if this is a quality that I have acquired over the years or something I was born with or something I picked up in the loony bin, but I am almost certain that I now have X-ray vision. I can see right through you.

I've written about this before, but some people who know I have bipolar disorder think that that makes me a very good listener or a very understanding person or something. It's almost as if I'm the Father and they're the Catholics and we're at Confession and they're laying out all their sins. Actually, it's not like that, because, I've never been in a confessional, but I don't think I'd be that open to the reverend of my church because they're actually pretty judgmental. But I guess that's the point I'm trying to get at. People think that since I have bipolar disorder and I've been hospitalized in a psychiatric ward three times, I am no one to judge them so they tell me all the little gory details of their lives. And yeah, I guess I'm no one to judge, but even if no one has ever doubted your mental stability, you're no one to judge either.

Oh yes, and I guess I need to include the part where they suddenly get very insecure about everything they've said so they pretend that they never said it.

It's like this. I've been in places where people have had very real problems. They have nowhere to go after they're discharged. They are paranoid schizophrenics and they have nowhere to go. They were raped as children, they're 18 years old, and to me, they are still children that need to be taken care of, and they have nowhere to go. They have black eyes and bruises given to them by their boyfriends and husbands and they have nowhere to go. They are heroin addicts and they have nowhere to go. They are prostitutes and they have nowhere to go.

And I feel blessed to have been there, I truly do. I feel truly, truly blessed. When I was there, both in Texas and in Baltimore, I felt like...

I don't know, it's like this. I was raised in nice places and my family started out with less than we have now but I can never say I've went to sleep hungry or without shelter or clothes or anything like that. But it's like... I'm lucky to have been shaken from my comfort zone. I know, as parents, you want to protect your child from everything that's wrong and scary and ugly in this world, but I've looked at it all straight in the face and seen what evil can really do to people and my god you know it really really fucks people up. Like, through and through, just completely fucks people up.

And sometimes I do feel sorry for myself and throw myself a little pity party in my head. Poor Alina, poor Alina, you've been through so much, you poor little girl. And to be honest, I guess I really have been through a lot (I mean who can really qualify or quantify that statement), but do you know how powerful a smile can be? Or just eye contact? Do you know?

It's like this. They knew I was from Hopkins because everyone that put me there made such a big deal about it, but it really doesn't help you once you're inside. The interns or nursing students or whatever (I mean I have no idea why they were there, they looked my age) would jump up in the morning asking if I wanted coffee. I mean, I knew it was decaf, what the fuck, and I didn't want special treatment. I mean I guess the only person that really understood that Union Memorial was not hell to me was my nurse because I told her I'd been to ASH and she'd never been there but she knew what it was like to be in a State Hospital. ASH was previously named Texas Lunatic Asylum.

It's like this. The doctors I guess didn't want me to stay there that long because I was getting too attached and too friendly with all the patients there. I don't know what it is, but I just really really care about people sometimes it just kills me. Like I still think about Michael and Arielle from ASH and wonder how they're doing and I still think about Patrick and if he made it to Colorado and it's like when I was there with these people I truly saw their vulnerabilities and they saw mine and we were just in there together thinking the same thing. Fuck, this sucks.

And when I'm on the outside, here, where I am right now, it's like I'm surrounded by people who have the same exact identical vulnerabilities but instead of being honest about it they just do things to hurt each other before they get hurt first. It's just so fucking twisted to me.

I think it's my goal now to keep the mental institute mentality with me forever.

You're It

2011-11-13T14:26:00.001-05:00

Swing Me Higher

by Matheus Lopes

In every way that he abandoned me, you were there.

It was sunny and the third or fourth day I had no sleep. It was a Saturday. He had to go to work for an emergency and I went with him. We had the windows rolled down on the freeway and the sun was hitting my face and I held his hand and squeezed it as tight as I could because I was scared and I knew it was happening again and I needed to feel him and know that he wouldn't leave. I had my head turned away from him, and tears started streaming down my face because I was so scared and so happy and it was just a very strange sharpness that I was feeling. And we got there and I went inside with him and I kept my sunglasses on in case we ran into anybody but we didn't. My eyes were completely sunken in. I was weak and I was tired but the sun was pouring in through the windows and I just felt completely present. I wasn't thinking about the past or the future I was just there in the sun and he was still there and very gentle and protective and caring and I kind of knew he was it for me.

Later, when I would find no rest in the observation room before being admitted, he would sit on the arm of the chair I was lying in and cover my eyes with his hand because he knew I didn't want to see where I was or what was happening. He had to get past a security guard to get to me and when she didn't want to let him in he pleaded, "But I haven't seen her all day!"

It was just so different from the other times when I waited by myself or in the company of a police officer or a homeless man or a frustrated nurse. He was with me the entire time and as my mom talked to him about how I was as a child he kept watching me and even though I was moments away from returning to my worst nightmare, I felt protected.

I already knew what I could and could not have once I got inside, but I didn't have anything with me, so they asked my mom if she could get my things. She was so frazzled and worried and trying to affirm with me everything I needed, but I just told her to let him take care of it and he did. He brought all my things to me in my backpack, and they took my "LOVE HOPKINS" button off before they gave it to me inside, and they never returned it, just replaced it with an "AT RISK" tag, but I threw that away.

Because it was a very bright color and obviously not something I wanted displayed once I was out, but also because it didn't pertain to me at all. At risk for what? Suicide? No. I didn't want to kill myself. I guess I was at risk for being a danger to myself since I hadn't slept in days, but my journey back into my illness was not made alone. He was with me the whole time and he tried to understand and even when I was babbling on and on he listened and asked me questions, trying so hard to gain any kind of understanding, and when he pushed too hard and I started to scream or cry he would just get so mad at himself. And I know he felt helpless because he pounded his chest so hard when I was in my room, screaming and crying, because he needed to punch something but he didn't want to scare me so he just pounded himself and I later saw a fist-sized bruise on his chest.

And he's asleep now and snoring very loudly and I have a wad of tissues in front of me because I've been silently crying the entire time I've been writing this, but I'll throw them away and he'll ask me if I'd been crying and I'll say no and he'll ask me if I'm lying and I'll say no and he'll know the truth and I won't have to tell him.

Bleu II

2011-11-10T12:05:00.000-05:00

Out of the Blue
by Charnine

"It's not real life!" I shouted. I was just so disgusted with myself and how I had let myself fall into that haze and so angry with him for being so attached to it as well and this overwhelming force of clarity was pounding its way into my head, making me cry out these revelations to myself and to him as we lay in bed waiting for sleep to finally come.

Freshman year, I lived in Gildersleeve House. We had to go to the basement and talk to the Residential Director about racism. This kid named C____ from Miami was defending his somewhat ignorant thoughts on the subject and after receiving much criticism, he cried out, exasperated, "I think about things, okay? I probably think more about things than all the rest of you!" Up to that point I didn't think well of him, and I actually don't think well of him even now, looking back on this memory, but at that moment, I felt like I understood him.

Back in Round Rock, I was at speech and debate practice after school and a girl on the team said she didn't like watching deep movies because they made her think a lot and thinking so deeply made her depressed. And I've never thought ill of her, I just never got to know her that well, I guess, but at that moment, I felt like I understood her as well.

When I was eleven years old, I started thinking that I was the only real person in the world. Everyone and everything around me was just a figment of my imagination. My mind simply created my surroundings and its inhabitants as I moved around. What was behind my field of vision was nonexistent. Things only existed when I saw them, and even then, nothing was really real. I read a book of fiction in my middle school library about a girl who felt the same way, and I found that so frightening I had to put the book back on the shelf.

I've told this all to my psychologist, and he believes that, in my life, I have found it very hard to trust people because I have never felt truly safe with those who were supposed to take care of me. As a result, in my eleven year old mind, I came to the conclusion that nothing was real. I was alone in the universe.

When I was sixteen I went on a trip to Spain with my Spanish class. We went to an art museum and saw great works of art by great Spanish artists. Dali, Picasso, Miró. In the midst of the Spanish Civil War, these artists created their most memorable pieces. Soft Construction with Boiled Beans. Guernica. But I related most to Miró. Bleu II. Our tourguide explained that the devastation these artists felt from the daily tragedies of the war caused them to react in different ways. Miró reacted by choosing the viewpoint of an innocent child.

Close your eyes to the harsh reality surrounding you and open them again as one who doesn't know any better.

Miss

2011-10-20T21:11:00.001-04:00

[Photo credit: haribote]

My boyfriend is on a family vacation and won't be back until November 1. I haven't been here without him since the first month we started dating. It's harder to sleep at night. I can't stay in my apartment for too long without feeling anxious, so I spend my entire day on campus. I'm done studying for the day, but after a quick shower and meal at home, I'm back at the library.

I'm spending a lot more time with my girlfriends here, which is fun, but I still miss him a lot. He calls me three times a day, even though he's in Asia. Always checking up on me and making sure I'm okay.

Sigh.

Hospital Beds

2011-10-13T23:14:00.001-04:00

Just Keep Doing What You're Doing

2011-10-12T18:38:00.002-04:00

View above Texas
[Photo credit: me]

I'm not supposed to try and look too far into the future. This is another way of saying I'm supposed to take it one day at a time. I think I'm only supposed to take that advice temporarily, though. I've more or less fallen into a rhythm of waking and going to class and studying and doing homework, but without the future, I see no point to my actions.

Every Friday I see my psychiatrist. He tells me, "Study hard, keep doing what you're doing." What am I doing?

Every morning I take 25 mg of Seroquel, .5 mg of Lorazepam, and 25 mg of Lamictal. I drink coffee and go to class. In my free time on campus, I go to the HAC lab and do work or sit around in pretty places and read my Kindle. After my last class I go home to my little studio apartment. I get comfortable and take another Lorazepam at 5. I do more work. I eat dinner. Before I go to sleep I take 50 mg of Seroquel, .5 mg of Lorazepam, and 25 mg of Lamictal.

I guess this sounds good to a psychiatrist, so he tells me to "keep doing what [I'm] doing." But there's no purpose behind my actions anymore. I forget everyday what I'm doing here. I like it here, with the pretty campus and my few friends and my boyfriend and going through the motions of being a college student, but it's like that scene in Alice in Wonderland where the day turns right into night, day on the left side of the screen and night on the right. I'm here, and my future is there, and it's just a complete mystery to me. I can't put any of my eggs in any basket until I control this and I'm a little confused as to when I'm supposed to feel like I'm in control of this.

Nothing that mattered to me before matters anymore. I think if you get to the root of things, the root of what I really want, there's this obvious divide. I want to feel safe, of course, and safety in a sense means to me my medication and my doctors and the net of the hospital, but there's also this overwhelming desire to go out into the world and touch things and feel things and by things I think I mean people.

I am kind of a loner on campus now. I have no friends in any of my classes and I always sit by myself. To be honest, I don't like any of my classmates. They seem to me like they just don't get it. They sit and squabble about the answers to these homework assignments and this exam and this quiz and this class and that test and they pretend to be stressed about it, but I can tell they really enjoy being stressed out about these things. Like this is what they wanted along. To be 21 years old sitting in a classroom talking about homework. Like this is it for them. Like this is awesome. But I just want to go to Soundgarden because Patrick said you could sit there and listen to music all day and no one will bother you. Patrick wants to kill certain people that did unspeakable, disgusting, horrible things to him, and I can't blame him for it but what baffles me and just touches me so so deeply is that his eyes are still kind and he's 40 years old and he just needs to go to Denver where his buddy is, just like Sal in On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

It's like I was taken out of the system and then transformed and put back into the system and everything is different to me now. A part of me just wants to leave.

Vanity

2011-10-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: www.stylefrizz.com]

I'm in the Science and Engineering floor of the school library at a computer desk doing my Thermo HW. A young little white man was sitting at a table adjacent to my desk before I got there. He packed up his things to leave, but before he did, he walked up to me, asked for my name while reaching out to shake my hand, and told me I was very pretty.

I was born in 1989, the Year of the Snake, so I am supposed to be smart, evil, and vain. My innate vanity was fanned throughout my life. I look exactly like my mother, who has told me all my life that I am pretty. Korean people have complimented me on my eyes my entire life. The following statement is not a lie. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I am overjoyed at my reflection.

It's a common thought that people who care a great deal about their outer appearance is hiding something on the inside. I can see that and I feel I exemplify that.

Whenever I am in a spell of hypomania I take forever to get ready.

When my dad took me home from Baltimore The First Time, I looked very ugly and crazy and I had to go to the airport like that and the girl that was sitting next to my dad and me on the flight home moved seats to be with her friend and they both sat and pointed and stared at me.

When I was taking my lithium, I had a gross amount of acne all over my face, neck, chest, and back and gained fifteen pounds. People would ask me about my skin and comment on my weight.

So when I arose from the ashes of ugliness, I swore to myself I would never be ugly again. My physical appearance had a lot do with why I stopped taking my medication. I would rather be beautiful and crazy then ugly and sane.

Crazy/Beautiful.

Union Memorial

2011-10-08T13:59:00.001-04:00

[Picture credit: yahoo.com]

One of my nurses wheeled me into the elevator. My mom and my boyfriend followed. As the elevator was going to the 6th floor, we stopped at a floor and two staff members entered, one male, one female. "Keep it tight," said the man to the woman. "That's a little inappropriate, don't you think?" my boyfriend asked. Everyone in the elevator burst out laughing, including me, excluding my mom, who didn't get it.

The elevator doors opened, and in front of me was the door to the psychiatric ward, and there were kisses and hugs and I was wheeled in.

It was nighttime. The place was so much nicer than ASH.

It makes me tired to talk about all the people I met and the conversations we had and how I behaved and what I said, so I will just say a few things.

Don't be a nurse in a psychiatric ward if you can't handle it. If you know you can't handle it, then get another job. Don't continue being a nurse in a psychiatric ward if you're bad at it. Your actions have lasting consequences.

Okay, I do want to tell a story.

I couldn't sleep and I just had taken my medication which should have made me fall asleep but something in me was fighting it and I was in so much discomfort I pressed the button for my nurse. She came in and I told her I couldn't sleep and I was exasperated and exhausted and the word "shit" slipped out of my mouth. She immediately became defensive, and snapped, "Don't you cuss at me!" She left.

I threw my pen at the wall. She came back in and said if I didn't settle down, I'd have to go to The Quiet Room. She left again. I left my room and announced, "I want to see what it's like!" The security guards chuckled to themselves, "She wants to see what it's like."

They took me to another staff member who they thought I had bonded with in my admission. "Girl, what's the matter?" she asked. "I just can't sleep. I'm so angry, I just need to punch something." Immediately she also got defensive, pushed her chair back, with her arms up and said, "I know she's not going to be punching me." Security took me to The Quiet Room.

The Quiet Room is a jail cell. There's a mattress on the ground that smells like pee. The walls are cement and there's a tiny window at the very top of one wall. The room is very small, and shaped like a triangle. They put me in The Quiet Room, closed the door and locked it. It was a very heavy metal door and the lock made a deafening noise.

I was scared. I was yelling and screaming and trying to open the door but it was so heavily locked. Then security came in, held me down, and my nurse gave me two shots into my butt cheek. I screamed like a banshee each time.

They left and bolted the door again.

I immediately got up and banged and punched at the wall and the door. I screamed at the top of my lungs for them to let me out, I'd be good from now on, just let me out.

No one responded.

I was completely alone in The Quiet Room.

I took off the hospital gown that was covering my back side and used it as a blanket. I lied down on the pissy mattress.

I opened my eyes and daylight was streaming in from the tiny window and the door was open.

I got up, wrapped my gowns around me, stuck my nose in the air, and stomped back into my room.

I Thought I Beat This

2011-09-30T10:13:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: whitegadget]

I thought I beat this, I thought I beat this, I thought I beat this.

I have an exam in less than an hour, but I don't care because I thought I had beaten this but I was very, very wrong and the gravity of the situation is weighing down on my soul in such a way that Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics seems like a funny character brought to life to distract me from the true meaning of the matter. And that is that I am not invincible like I thought I was and I am still a baby and I am still at the beginning of this sordid journey, this awkward dance with a chronic disease that pervades every inch of my life.

And you tell me to think of other people with their problems and how other people deal with their problems, but please do not patronize me. I mean not to hold this as my banner while I stand atop my pedestal emblazoned with the words BIPOLAR but just as I hated lithium, I am hating this tiny brown pill that I take four of each day along with two little white ones and three tiny white ones because they serve as another admission that I did not beat this, I did not beat this, I did not beat this.

Yellow Rose

2011-09-25T21:44:00.002-04:00

[Picture credit: beautifulflowers547.blogspot.com]

I relapsed on Wednesday, September 7th. It's almost like a little buzz I get in my head or some feeling I get behind my heart, but I know It's coming.

And it came.

And I had to go to the hospital, I just had to. Back to the emergency room. Back to the gowns. But he was with me with his hand over my eyes and my mom was there and they rode with me on the elevator and then the nurse wheeled me into 6 West.

And there I stayed for a week.

And I don't want to talk about it now. I finally have a psychologist that I trust and like and a psychiatrist, too, and I will want to talk about it later, but right now it's too soon.

But he was there everyday and he bought me yellow roses and tiger lilies and I twisted off one of the heads of the roses because I didn't want it to die and I dropped it in a styrofoam cup of water and there it bloomed until it filled the entire cup and every morning I'd look into the yellow petals and feel a little calmer.

It will be a week tomorrow that I've been out and it just hit me like a wall this weekend and I had to cut ties with so many things that I thought were so important to me, but I know now were just temporary. It has to be different now and I have to stay here and continue with what I've started and I screamed at him on the phone yesterday that I don't want this anymore.

And these girls. These stupid, awkward girls with their dumbfounded faces that don't know what to say but just look like retarded children.

And you can't understand me and I don't want you to understand me and I don't want you even near me because all you do is suck out my energy and use it to decorate your own notions of yourself in your head.

My mind may need to catch up my feelings, Dr. V, but right now I just feel as if I am completely alone in the universe with this and all that is keeping me connected to this world is my Andy.

Back to the pills. I was so stupid to think I beat this. Back to the pills.

Snowball

2011-08-02T12:19:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: epha]

I played violin from when I was five to ten years old, so approximately from 1995 to 2000. I played the trombone from when I was ten to thirteen, but that's beside the point. When I practiced the violin, my violin teacher or my mom would make me use a metronome. Years later, when I was to play the trombone, I would have this electronic metronome the size of a credit card that would make these annoying beepy sounds, but that's beside the point. The metronome I used with the violin was a piano-top metronome and was basically an oscillating rod that would go to and fro, back and forth, ticking out a rhythm that you could set by shortening or lengthening the torque of the rod or something like that. Shorter rod goes ticktickticktick, longer rod goes tick -- tick -- tick and so forth and so on.

And now I am about to make a pretentious metaphor. As a bipolar person, I am a metronome. Certain factors in my life shorten or lengthen the rod, increase/decrease the torque, etc., but my time in equilibrium is always limited.

Last night I had a panic attack. The semi-serious type where I hyperventilate and get a tingling sensation in my hands and feet and go partially numb. Immediately before the panic attack I was in my room by myself feeling really dismal about the condition of the human race in general and crying silently to myself while my boyfriend studied outside. And then the crying got kind of not-so-silent and then I had to tiptoe outside and show my boyfriend I was crying and have him comfort me.

I was a very emotional, easily-affected child and many nights I would not be able to sleep because of my anger/excitement/sadness. I would start out crying and then I would think to myself how sad it was that I was crying in my room all by myself so then I would usually make a big show of it, kicking the walls and so on, until my mom or dad came into the room to console me.

I was thinking about all this while I was crying by myself last night in fetal position on my bed. At 22 years old, I really am just a large child or a larger version of myself at 8 years. Still prone to the same temper tantrums and meltdowns. But only now is it considered a serious problem, requiring medication and therapy.

I was explaining to my boyfriend last night in ragged breaths that my mind kind of snowballs out of control at times. I will start worrying about one thing and more worries will make themselves known and stick themselves to the original worry and before I know it I have this humongous mass of anxiety sitting in my head making me cry out and shake and stopping me from being functional.

And then I kind of think to myself, I can't go on like this forever, you know? I'm technically an adult and I just can't freak out like this. I'm going to be older with bigger responsibilities and children, I hope, and I really don't want them to see me freak out like this because I think seeing my own mother freak out like that really traumatized me from a young age. But then he tells me to just take it one day at a time, and I guess that's the right way to think of things, but it just sounds very trite.

I think my favorite piece of advice when I'm depressed like that is something my mom says. "Alina, just think of life as simple. Just think of life as easy." I feel really lame for quoting this next bit, but a Switchfoot lyric is "Living is simple, breathing is easy." When I'm completely wrought with anxiety and overwhelmed with what I truly love in life and what we're all going to do when we're older and if we're all going to still take care of one another, I just try and meditate on that fact. Alina, just stop thinking of life as so complicated. Or as my mom says it, "Don't think of life as so complicate." (My mom is very bad with adjectives... She often asks me if I'm boring when she means bored.)

Life moves so quickly and so many bad things are happening in the world and so many people around me are failing to reach their dreams and expectations, it's hard to keep that in mind, especially with a big snowball sitting in it, but maybe it will instill itself in me with time.

2011-08-01T21:42:00.002-04:00

I don't want to be a baby about it or anything, but these pills make me nauseous and give me a headache and I am feeling pretty bad right now.

3 years?

2011-04-25T11:39:00.000-04:00

I haven't been taking my medication at all this past semester and I've been fine.

This girl in one of my classes said something about a blood test for BPD. Kind of goes against everything I learned.

Just in a peculiar mood today, I guess. Woke up kind of angry and annoyed.

Going to be in Baltimore all summer. Don't know how I feel about it yet.

Waha Ma!

2011-01-06T17:22:00.000-05:00

I am going to say goodbye to this blog indefinitely. Goodbye!

Should I explain myself? Okay, I will.

I started this blog because I was in a very sorry place where no one understood me. I was isolated from my friends and put in a loony bin. I got out only to be put back in by a fat white man who listened to very bad radio.

I want to say something. My extensive music collection bonded me to everyone in that place. I will never forget you dancing to Tupac, good sir (I am sorry, I forgot your name but I think it started with a "C"). Michael, you taught me how to dougie before Cali Swag District. Music heals all. Music connects all. Even in an asylum. Brett Dennen put me to sleep (wow, just as I wrote this, "When I Go" started playing on my computer). Who knew Bob Marley's words would become a mantra for so many of you?

I want to say something else. The drugs don't work. The doctors don't work either. Only time and people can heal you. Don't listen to them when they tell you you're going to be like this for the rest of the life. You have to believe that you will get better or you never will. You have to believe that this is only temporary or else it will literally kill you.

Forgive him. Something to think about. Every woman in there was hurt by a man. Men are stupid creatures that do things without thinking of the lasting consequences. Yes, women are strong, but we are also very weak and vulnerable and sensitive. It is okay to admit to yourself that he completely fucked you up. We all have our sob stories and he was just one of yours. But dwelling on it and refusing to move on just makes you the fool.

Happiness comes and goes, my friends. Good times come and go. But you're still here right? That must count for something.

Gracias, 2010, Farewell

2010-12-31T20:56:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: soulist-aurora.tumblr.com]

Thank you for healing me and loving me this year.

2010-12-12T22:28:00.001-05:00

Jan: congrats on making it through your first semester back

2010-12-09T09:59:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, it's so real that it scares me. I fall into it and it consumes me and I know in the back of my head that it'll all be over once the sun comes up, but at the time, I can't think of anything else. I remember screaming and crying with my head in my dad's lap, begging him to take me home. I remember whimpering to my mom on the phone, waiting for my dad to get there. I remember my dad telling me he has to leave me. I remember him trying not to cry. I remember the staff entering the room, pulling me onto my feet. I remember screaming at them to let me stay there with my dad, but they wouldn't let me. She used force to get me to move and I flinched so hard I could tell it hurt her to see me like that. And I screamed and I cried and I thought he would be able to bust me out of there, but even he couldn't do that. But he's still my Superman.

It's been over a year since all of this happened, but sometimes at night I still think about it and it just gets me so incredibly sad I shut down.

I don't think anyone truly understands how traumatizing the hospital was. I don't think anyone would understand unless they went through that themselves.

My dad and my mom and my little sister would come to visit me every day. My mom would bring a pillow so I could lay my head in her lap while she stroked my hair. She would smell me and tell me I smelled different. My little sister brought me a little cat she had made for me with googly eyes. Fucking cats...

That's why I rush through my appointments. That's why I don't want to tell them everything that's going on. They'll put me back there and I can't go back. They fucked up on me and they'll fuck up again.

I was supposed to take my little sister trick-or-treating and I couldn't 'cause they took me the day before.

That's the thing. I didn't know why I had to go in the first place. I never asked to go. They would just come and get me.

So yes. I think that's why I still feel this way now. No one had explained to me anything. No one had told me that they thought I was sick. I was just taken away. In handcuffs, in the back of a cop car, I was taken away. And if I didn't understand then, what's to say I would understand now? If they came for me now, what's to say I could stop them this time?

I try to laugh about things I did now. I just need to talk about it in some way, even if it's in a joking manner. But some of it I still can't touch. And I guess it'll just take time, but I'm not sure if I'll ever fully recover from it.

One night I just couldn't take it anymore, I had to leave, so I walked up to the glass window and asked to be let in and it was this nurse on night duty and I just started screaming at the top of my lungs that I had to leave, that if you called my dad he would come and get me, all you had to do was call. I was just screaming and crying and she was this really young white woman and I could see it in her face that she was struggling to remain calm and composed and to not seem scared of me. But I just couldn't stop screaming in her face that I had to leave. And I guess I know what I looked like to her now. I was barely 100 pounds, a complete insomniac, with this long black hair that I never brushed and I was attempting to force her to let me leave.

And I was waiting in line for my pills and suddenly the nurse puts a new, small pill in my palm and I have no idea what it is and so I ask her and she tells me it'll calm me down and organize my thinking and I'm thinking to myself, who am I to know if she's telling the truth or not.

Fuck.

And then this girl comes in on a wheelchair with no shoes on and she looks like shit and it's obvious she just failed at killing herself.

If all of this is swimming around in your head, I don't think you'd be able to sleep either.

Lecture

2010-09-08T21:09:00.001-04:00

(clockwise from top left: Prof. David Yue, Systems Bioengineering; Prof. Hynek Hermansky, Introduction to Information Processing of Sensory Signals; Kathleen McDowell, Systems Bioengineering TA; Professor Mark Franceschini, Business Law)

"Engineering is not so bad." Prof. Hermansky

"Electrical signals are pregnant with magic." Prof. Yue

"This just ain't right... that's a legal term." Prof. Franceschini

"It's rounding, whatev." Kathleen, the TA

"It was just like BOOM, like that." Prof. Yue

"It was negative and positive and thus love forever." Prof. Yue

"These guys are in search of love... and the love that they want is the SH group of cysteine." Prof. Yue

"Forgetting is important." Prof. Hermansky

"It is not recognizing things quickly that is important -- it is ignoring things very quickly that is important." Prof. Hermansky

"They meet and they shake hands and they sit at the computer and they produce papers, but there's no spirit behind it." Prof. Hermansky

"Why is the most important question you can ask." Prof. Hermansky

When I Go

2010-09-03T10:26:00.001-04:00

Hold this heart when I go
Sing my song when I go
Sing it loud when I go
Sing it proud when I go

Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly and
Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly and
Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly but
I know that I'll be yearning to fly

When my, when my, when my soul
Takes leave of this world
When I leave this flesh and these bones
Oh I swear to you that you won't have to go alone

Hold this heart when I go
Sing my song when I go
Sing it loud when I go
Sing it proud when I go

Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly and
Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly and
Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly but
I know that I'll be yearning to fly

The first time my heart collided with yours
You know I felt the ocean tickle the earth's sandy shores
But changes come and we know we can't stop them
But I hold these memories
And I will never drop them

And I'll watch over you
I'll watch over you
Oh my care will cover you just like the morning dew

I'll watch over you
I'll watch over you
Oh my care will cover you just like the morning dew

Hold this heart when I go
Sing my song when I go
Sing it loud when I go
Sing it proud when I go

Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly and
Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly and
Some people are learning to die and some people are yearning to fly but
I know that I'll be yearning to fly

Oh the thought of death has yet to make me afraid
'Cause I will march right off of this world into the next like it's a grand parade
But if you feel lonely like you want to just run and hide
Then I'll wrap my wings around you and give you strength and I won't leave your side

And I'll watch over you
I'll watch over you
Oh my care will cover you just like the morning dew

I'll watch over you
I'll watch over you
You know I'd love to get heaven, you know I'd love to see the view
But first I think I'll stay and watch over you

Oh I'll watch over you
I'll watch over you

Consider the generic cell shown in panel A.

2010-09-02T13:47:00.001-04:00

[Picture credit: trese.sc.utwente.nt]

The window said not to tap on the glass. How else were you supposed to get their attention? By standing there smiling? Of course we tapped on the glass. The window was smeared with finger and handprints.

She never tapped though. She kept her eyes on the ground and shuffled to the locked door, whispering something very quietly under her breath. I sat at a table nearby, watching.

She needed something. She would shuffle toward the door, mumbling all the while, retrace her steps backward, and then forward again. Why weren't they watching her like I was?

Why couldn't she speak up?

I drew her in my sketchbook that my little sister got me.

Her family came to visit her the same time my dad came to visit me. Her daughter and granddaughter I believe, along with an older man. She didn't come out. They had come but she didn't want to see them. I sat with my dad and the granddaughter stared at me until her mother told her not to look at me, loudly, as if I couldn't hear her.

I was glad to leave them and go back inside.

Forever

2010-08-31T14:05:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: theparadime.com]

Every morning I've got a new chance
I want to land the part of Eddie in The Stranger Dance
Cause he gets to swordfight the duke
He kidnaps the queen
And you think the score's set but you can't truly see
Til you know the two sides of Monsieur Valentine
Til you know the two sides of Monsieur Valentine

Every morning I pull on them pants
Mmm but I don't get out so much since I acquired St. Vitus dance
I turn the news on a while
I practice my scene
You think things are straight but they're not what they seem
Til you know the two sides of Monsieur Valentine
In his coat and his boots and his blackheart machine
No, no one knows the two sides of Monsieur Valentine

Every morning I've got a new chance
I want to land the part of Eddie in The Stranger Dance
He makes love to the duke
He swordfights the queen
He steals the whole show in his last dying scene
No one sees the two sides of Monsieur Valentine
No, no one sees the two sides of Monsieur Valentine
No one sees the two sides of Monsieur Valentine
Mmm hmmm mmm hmm hmm hmm

To Lie or Not to Lie

2010-08-27T15:28:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: Swedish National Heritage Board]

Starting this fall, I'm going to be receiving pay for my work at the research lab that I have been working at for the past two years. I had previously been earning academic credit. Because I am going to be considered an employee of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, I needed to pass a screening at the Occupational Health Services office.

I was tested for colorblindness, measles, mumps, Hepatitis B, syphilis, rubella, TB, and drug use. I also had to have a talk with an RN. She asked me about any mental illnesses and I told her I had bipolar disorder. I then had to explain my two hospitalizations, my medications, and my current treatment. Then she handed me a packet to give to my treating physician. Apparently my medical provider has to write some form of "doctor's note" clearing me for work.

I chose to give the packet to the psychologist I had been seeing on campus for the summer. She, in turn, told me I had to come in to sign some papers in order for her to write the letter. She also had to receive permission from the head of the department.

All I had to do was tell the RN that no, I was mentally fine, and I could already be on payroll.

My boyfriend says I shouldn't have said anything, that my disorder is my business. I think he's right. Or is he? Is it unethical to inform your employer that you are "mentally ill?"

Am I going to have to do this with every job I have in the future? Does my boss have to know that I'm bipolar? Do I have to report my hospitalizations? No one would really be able to tell, unless I fly off the handle during work hours, which I doubt I will. It's not like you can spot a bipolar person on physical appearances alone. It's not like there's a blood test for it.

Maybe I should keep my mouth shut about it from now on.

The Loop

2010-08-22T15:23:00.001-04:00

[Photo credit: Siuloon/Grzegorz Grzesiak]

The first time I heard a successful loop, I was standing in The Backyard with a protective body behind me. Damien Rice was onstage performing his last song. He would play a bit, press the pedal, and the bit would play over again and again and again. While the bit played he would play another bit or sing a different bit, hit the pedal, and again the bit would play. He did this again and again until the entire venue in which I was standing was reverberating with the sounds of this loop, this steady stream of song, that seemed to echo every emotion, every thought, every passing feeling of mine. I leaned backwards into that protective body and cried with the overall beauty of the moment.

I wish life could be like that. I wish I could just hit the pedal after certain moments, so they would repeat themselves on and on into eternity. Are our memories constantly looping? Is our life simply one big loop? A simple repeat of occurrences again and again with some invisible engineer with his foot on the pedal? You live and love and lose. And then you keep on living and love again. And lose again. And so forth.

If I could hit the pedal right now, I would. I'm at the start of something very special. It's important to remember the beginnings of things, when things were good. Not all things end the way they started, so why have them end at all?

My Face is the Size of the Moon

2010-08-19T11:12:00.000-04:00

I got all four of my wisdom teeth extracted from the depths of my gums on Monday. I was not put down, just given Xanax an hour and a half before the procedure. I thought I was awake the whole time, but when I turned to ask the dental assistant if they were going to put me down, she responded, "Honey, you've been asleep for the past hour and a half." It's Thursday and my face is still swollen, especially my left cheek. Apparently my left upper tooth was very difficult to remove and they had to slit way up into the inside of my FACE. GROSS.

I've been listening to a lot of Tegan and Sara and thinking about how similar I am to these lesbian identical twins. They seem to just know what I'm thinking and feeling all the time. I would give examples, but they're too personal.

Ironic, isn't it, that I'm shying away now? I think it's because now I have something worth protecting. Before I had this, I was just so reckless with my emotions and experiences. I bared myself so wholly. I bared others so wholly when I shouldn't have. But now I want to keep this to myself because it's mine and only mine.

I guess I should give a medical update of some kind. Have I told you yet? I'm only on lithium now? Only three pills at night? I'm sure I told you. I guess I should work on getting a permanent psychiatrist at Hopkins now, but I'm really not taking this disease seriously anymore.

What if it's gone? What if I don't really have it? What if it was just a one time deal? I mean, I'll take the lithium to humor you, Dr. Mond, but I really think I'll be fine without it.

Dr. Lamba said a relapse would most likely happen. My boyfriend picked me up in his car after she told me and I cried and he got pissed. At her. He thinks I'll be okay.

I think I'll be okay, too.

Dr. Lamba says the true test will come this fall semester. She says I haven't had any stress up to this point so I've had no reason for a relapse. I kind of think that's bullshit. I was so stressed. I was stressed about getting back into school, I was stressed about getting jobs, I was stressed about therapy, I was stressed about the amount of medication I was taking, I was stressed about getting over my ex. Academic stress is so much better than emotional stress.

Whatever, Dr. Lamba, I think I'm fine.

Mistakes & Regrets

2010-07-15T11:59:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: zeynepkinli.wordpress.com]

A run on sentence: I feel like I've kind of gotten my shit together now and am at a place of peace and happiness but now I'm looking at the past and feeling a little guilty for people I've thrown under the bus and mean things I've said and attacks I've made and stuff.

Second attempt: I've got my shit together now. I am now at a place of peace and happiness. However, I look at the past and feel guilt for some things I have done. For people I've thrown under the bus. For mean things that I've said. For attacks that I've made.

And stuff.

Third attempt: I am almost at a place of peace and happiness. However, there are still mistakes I have made and regrets that I have that weigh on my mind.

I am sorry for throwing your name under the bus, Mr. Man, Mr. Boy, and Miss Woman. I should better protect those that are mine and those that were mine. You were tied to me once. You had known me once. You were fond of me once. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If you are reading this, or you, or you, you know who you are.

I would contact you, Mr. Man, but I've contacted you too many times already. To do so again would be trite.

I would contact you, Mr. Boy, but I don't really know how to do so without seeming malicious.

I would contact you, Miss Woman, but I'm still a little ashamed.

I think sometimes I fly off the handle and act without thinking and speak without thinking and feel self-righteous and all-powerful, and you could blame it on the disorder, but I really think that's just the way I am. I've been this way since I was a little kid. I wrote your name on the church steps, remember? Saying you were a bad girl? In big block letters in black permanent marker. That's what I wrote. That you were a "BAD GIRL." I had to write an apology letter. My mom made me sit down at the breakfast table and write it. I was sorry. I'm sorry.

I can be mean. I can be ruthless. I can stoop down to very low levels. But I think I'm good, deep down.

You're probably good, deep down, too. You just never really understood me, I guess.

I don't hate anyone. I don't love everyone. But I don't hate anyone. Don't think I hate you. I forgive you, Mr. Man. And Mr. Boy. And Miss Woman, even though you said you didn't do it.

It's all forgiven. And I know I'm forgiven, too. You'll forgive me, sooner or later.

The end.

Quarter-Life Crisis

2010-06-30T15:08:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: Julia-Fullerton-Batton]

So... this was the goal, right? To return to this shit town? Baltimore, Maryland, USA. The Happiest Place On Earth. Well, I'm here. I'm queer. And I'm over it. For the most part.

I was seriously considering changing my major to Writing Seminars. Because a handful of people have told me I'm a pretty good writer. And because in AP English, Mr. Rodriguez entered me into a writing competition telling me I was the only one in his class who had a chance of winning. And because I enjoy writing. And because I love reading. And because it makes me... happy.

But it's going to be a bitch to switch (that rhymed). IFP 1. IFP 2. Eight Writing Sems classes. Four English Lit classes. Two philosophy courses. Two history courses. Four foreign language courses. I would love to take all these courses, actually, but it'll take like three years. And I'm not going to cost my parents an extra year of Hopkins tuition.

So I am stuck. A BME major at the #1 BME school in the world. Some may say I am poised for success, but I am not so sure.

When I think about my future, the only thing I am positive that I want is a husband and kids. That's it. I'm not really sure what else I'm going to be doing.

In ten years, I'll be 31. I want to be married and pregnant with my second child. Living in Southern California. Dogs. Beach. Husband. Babies.

Yeah that's pretty much all I want.

Husband. Babies. Dogs. Socal.

Welcome Back

2010-06-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: bp.blogspot.com]

I've been back for over two weeks now. Class started on Tuesday. School is hard. Research is hard. It's hard for me to get back in the swing of things. At times I catch myself wishing I could go home. This summer is going to be tough for me.

I have a lot more to talk about about what's been going on since I've been back, but since this is read by other people, I don't want to say anything. Some stuff can only be written in my diary. But a lot of stuff has happened.

I think this blog might die once fall comes.

Still

2010-05-14T15:38:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.nittygrittynow.com]

It still hurts, Mom. What I really want to do is get drunk and high and numb, but I hear that's not a good idea. But it still hurts. What am I supposed to do? If I was an artist, I would channel my pain into creating something horrendously beautiful. Too bad I'm just a biomedical engineering student who has a blog. Pathetic that this is all I can do. Sit at my desk and type away on my computer, broadcasting to an audience of acquaintances.

I had this business teacher, Mr. Franceschini. In the beginning, I thought my rights were violated at the hospital. Maybe they were. I e-mailed telling him so. He gave me his cell phone number. I didn't call him. I e-mailed him instead after I was diagnosed, and he told me he didn't work with cases like that, but he gave me the number of another guy who could help me out. But then I figured that the hospital wasn't trying to harass me, they were just making sure I didn't hurt myself. Just holding onto me until ASH was ready for me. Just waiting until morning.

Waiting until morning can be really painful. I would lie in my bed and my head would be spinning every which way and I felt so lonely and just wanted it to be day so I could be with people again. Once the sun started rising, I would always think, "Oh shit. I didn't sleep again." After the second day, it would turn into routine. Then the behavior would get worse and the hospitalization would come.

Of course it still hurts. How could it not?

My Goals for the Summer

2010-05-12T20:30:00.001-04:00

[Photo credit: www.nittygrittynow.com]

1. Get an A in Digital Signal Processing.

will require much time studying

will require much time in the library

will require big headphones

2. Accomplish much in research

will require much time in lab

will require much time on the shuttle

will require big headphones

3. Lose 20 pounds

will require much time in gym

will require little headphones

will require special diet

will require Greek yogurt, blueberries, grape tomatoes, Crystal Light, spearmint gum, and Froot Loops

will require many trips to grocery store

will require shuttle

will require big headphones

4. Grow out hair

will require time and patience

will require someone to keep me from going to the hairdresser when the impulse arrives

will require alternative activities

may or may not require mood-altering substances

would be nice with big headphones

will require alternative hairstyles

will require bobby pins, ponytail holders, and fitted hats

will require sick body to pull off

see goal 3

5. Have an adventure every day

will require certain people
will not require certain people
may or may not require mood-altering substances
may or may not require the absence of mood-stabilizing substances

will require consequent trips to doctors

will require long walks

will require big headphones

Alina Thru the Ages

2010-05-09T23:56:00.001-04:00

baby

toddler

little kid

big kid

middle school

lowerclassman high school

junior year

senior year

summer before college

freshman year, fall semester

freshman year, spring semester

summer before sophomore year

sophomore year

sophomore year (high)

sophomore year (MSE)

sophomore year (ex's room)

summer before junior year (subletter's room)

summer before junior year (resident advisor's room)

summer before junior year (manic-depressive)

summer before junior year (post-hospitalization)

junior year

medical leave of absence (pre-hospitalization)

medical leave of absence (post-hospitalization)

medical leave of absence (pledge mom/conscience's visit)

medical leave of absence (working at American Apparel)

medical leave of absence (about to get fired from American Apparel)

medical leave of absence (Round Rock Public Library)

medical leave of absence (day of haircut)

medical leave of absence

medical leave of absence (SXSW)

medical leave of absence (ICC, Irvine, CA)

medical leave of absence (readmission period)

post-readmission, medical leave lifted, now

My Feelings Exactly

2010-05-09T21:14:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: image3.examiner.com]

Uh ooh ooh uh ooh ooh uh ooh oooh
Uh ooh ooh uh ooh ooh uh ooh oooh
Uh ooh ooh uh ooh ooh uh ooh oooh

Hands down
I'm too proud, for love
But with eyes shut
It's you I'm thinking of
But how we move from A to B it can't be up to me
Cause I don't know
Eye to eye
Thigh to Thigh
I let go

I think I'm a little bit
Little bit

A little bit in love with you
But only if you're a little bit
Little bit
Little bit
In lalalala love with me
Oh ah

Uh ooh ooh uh ooh ooh uh ooh oooh
Uh ooh ooh uh ooh ooh uh ooh oooh

And for you I keep my legs apart
And forget about my tainted heart
And I will never ever be the first
To say it's still a, Game over
Ah ah ah
I would do it
Push a button
Pull a trigger
Climb a mountain
Jump off a cliff
Cause you know baby I love you love you
A little bit

I would do it
You'd say it
You'd mean it
I would let you do it
It was you and I and I only
Ha hm

I think I'm a little bit
Little bit
A little bit in love with you
But only if you're a little bit
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
Little bit
Little bit
In lalalala love with me

I think I'm a little bit
Little bit
A little bit in love with you
But only if you're a little bit
Little bit
Little bit
In lalalala love with me
Ah oh

Come here
Stay with me
Stroke me
By the head
Cause I would give anything
Anything
To have you as my man

Come here
Stay with me
Stroke me, by the head
Cause I would give anything
Anything
To have you as my man

Little bit
Little bit
A little bit in love with you
But only if you're a little bit
Little bit
Little bit
In lalalala love with me

I think I'm a little bit
Little bit
A little bit in love with you
But only if you're a little bit
Little bit
Little bit

Doctor, Doctor. Sphincter, Sphincter.

2010-05-08T18:57:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.baxterphoto.com]

Dean Boswell: No, listen to me. Listen to me. Alina... listen to me. If you want help you're going to need to talk. Alina, if you run away... listen to me! If you run away, your parents will call the cops and they will find you.

Dr. Mond: Just tell the doctors about how you couldn't sleep in the beginning. Just tell them there's a suspicion you have bipolar disorder. Best of luck.

Mental Retardation Center: I'm going to rule out bipolar. My best recommendation for you is to go to a battered women's shelter.

Dr. Farmer: Yes, you definitely have a mood disorder. I'm writing you a prescription for lithium and lamotrigine.

Nurse: Take this. It will calm you down.

Dr. Reynolds: You are out of touch with reality. *Deep sigh* Alina, I don't want to argue with you anymore. If you want to go home, I'll let you go home, but I'm telling you, these problems are going to keep on coming back and you will end up here again.

Dr. Farmer: Risperidone. It organizes your thoughts, helps with sleep.

Michael Russel, LPC: Feel the stress trickle down your face. It is warm. Feel the stress roll down your back. You are calm. Now on the count of three, you will open your eyes. 1... 2... 3.

Dr. Farmer: We're going to need to increase your lithium.

Dr. Farmer: We're going to need to increase your risperidone.

Dr. Farmer: We're going to need to increase your lamictal.

Michael Russel, LPC: I don't think you need me anymore. It's been a trip.

Dr. Silver: Alina, what are you going to do? What are you going to do if you go manic again? What are you going to do about your substance abuse problem? Are you using? What are you going to do?

Dr. Roberts: How do you feel about taking risperidone? Is it working out for you? How much did you weigh in the hospital? How much do you weigh now? When's the last time you got your blood levels checked? Well, I think you're very articulate, and I think you're very knowledgeable about your own situation.

Extreme Frustration

2010-05-07T15:14:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.jedsart.com]

I don't eat much. I work out twice a day. I've gained five pounds. I started this journey at 104 pounds. I steadily went to 110, then 115. 120 came quickly, then I grew concerned. Started exercising. Went to 125 despite the exercise. Upped the exercise, lowered the calorie intake, weight myself today, 129.

I've heard of people gaining 40 pounds on lithium, but never thought it would happen to me. This is extremely frustrating.

Finale

2010-05-06T09:26:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.nittygrittynow.com]

I was officially readmitted yesterday morning. I was registered for all my summer and fall courses by lunchtime. I can finally breathe. Everything I have been working toward has been accomplished. No more waiting, no more anxiety, no more wondering. I'm going back, May 18, and that's really all there is to it.

I have less than two weeks until I leave. It's fucking insane. I've been home since September. Time inched by at times, but it passed all the same. I'm ready to leave.

I'm also ready to lose all this fucking lithium weight. My metabolism has supposedly decreased by 15%, and I have to eat less and work out more to remain the same weight. I have to eat even less than that and work out even more to lose weight. I'm not anorexic, but I want to lose 20 pounds. It makes sense, because I gained 20 pounds.

I hate when people come up to me and say I look healthy. That's another word for fat. When I was skinny, they would comment and say I looked sick, but now they say, "Ahh, Alina yah... sal jjuhsuh! Bohgee johwah!" And I just have to thank them like they just said something positive.

I am also afraid that I have become stupid. I haven't learned anything for a year, except for facts about my disease and no I did not learn anything at ACC. I hope I don't fail my summer class.

Okay I have to go to my last doctor's appointment with Dr. Farmer. I think I need to get my blood levels checked again. And I'm going to push to get my lithium decreased. And my risperidone. And my lamotrigine. Do I even need these drugs???

As I Wait

2010-05-01T14:26:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.rebekah-kim.com]

I called Dean Boswell's office yesterday. Her assistant told me she's swamped. She'll get to my case in a couple days and send me her decision through e-mail. How anti-climactic.

Waiting is a pain in the ass. It's all come down to this, and all I need to hear is a yes or a no. I just want an answer. This silence is impossible to bear.

As I wait, I'm forcing myself to believe that I've been readmitted and thus making plans as if I have been. Planning trips to New York, buying concert tickets for the summer. How pathetic would it be if I wasn't readmitted after all?

I've been stable for four months now. I feel normal again. I understand now why people stop taking their medication once they get better. I feel like I don't need it anymore. I'm taking an anti-psychotic for psychosis I don't have. I'm taking anti-convulsants for convulsions that aren't coming, lithium for moods that are already stable. Why continue to take nine pills everyday? Would it really hurt if I stopped now? Would I really relapse?

Relapse is a scary word. All the doctors talk about is preventing it. All Hopkins cares about is what would happen if it happened again.

I wonder what it would be like. I stop taking my pills and I'm normal for a while. And then what? Do you think I would go manic first or go into depression? Let's say I go manic. How high do you think I would go? Higher than last time? Higher than the time before that? If I do go manic, that means I'll be depressed immediately after. Would I stay in bed all day? Would I cry? Would I become suicidal?

Or maybe nothing would happen at all. Maybe I'd remain perfectly fine and the doctor would tell me, Alina, you are an odd case, your bipolar seems to have left you! And I'll celebrate with my family and smoke and drink with my friends, because I can now, and sleep without taking pills and eat breakfast without taking pills, and not have to worry about being "too happy" or "too sad."

What I think about as I wait.

Art

2010-04-30T18:06:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.nittygrittynow.com]

I love art. Omona goodness, I really love it. But I'm scared to produce it myself. A friend of mine offered to let me borrow her DSLR to shoot with, saying I would make a good photographer. I haven't taken her up on her offer. I'm too scared to try. I appreciate good photography, good fashion, good books, good film so much, and I don't think anything I could possibly make could compare.

Some have asked why I don't follow my passion and become an English major or try getting into fashion or film. Writing for a living would be pretty dope, I'm not going to lie. Maybe because my dad was an engineer, but a job to me always presented itself as going into an office every day and working.

It would be awesome to be a writer. I'd probably just write short stories or something. Maybe articles for an online magazine. Just sit in nice places and write. Travel the world for inspiration.

But that's not realistic.

I think I was made to appreciate. To do math and science for a living, write as a hobby, and appreciate art as a passion.

This has nothing to do with art, what this post is entitled, but I think it'd be awesome to be a high school English teacher. It'd be nice. I think I'd do well.

Maybe I should have thought about all this before I applied to college. But who really knows what they want to do that young anyway? Those who say, "I knew I always wanted to be a doctor" are kind of kidding themselves. How did you even know what doctors actually did when you were seven years old? The first time I was asked what I wanted to be was when I was three years old. I said I wanted to be a mom.

This is going to develop into another post I can feel it.

I started wanting to be a scientist in fifth grade. I wanted to be a marine biologist after a trip to the tide pools. I wanted to work at the Hopkins Center of Stanford University. Then in high school I wanted to be an oncologist after I did a project on cancer. Did you know the cancer cell is actually very beautiful? I entered my freshman year of college still wanting to be an oncologist. Then I stopped wanting to be pre-med. Why was that? I think it's because I was surrounded by a lot of other pre-meds who presented themselves really poorly.

Now I want to be an English teacher. Fuck, what am I going to do with my BME degree.

Cut Cut Paste

2010-04-29T09:44:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: api.ning.com]

I have to cut you out entirely. I have cut you out entirely. I don't know when this will end, but I'm starting now, again. If I could take it all back, I would. Everything I did afterward. It was all so stupid. I wouldn't have done what I did to you. But it's too late for all that now. Now I can just start, again. This process is stupid and shallow and consuming, but I think it's necessary. Because I need to be my own person again. So, I have cut you out. I don't want to hear about you, hear from you, or see you again. You're dead to me.

Harsh? Yeah, I think so too.

Okay time to golf!

GO!

2010-04-28T23:07:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.ohlalaparis.com]

I'm fucking exhausted.

I climbed Enchanted Rock with an unni today.

I'm fucking exhausted.

My keun samchoon and keun sookmo are here today from China. Once I entered the door I was smuthered with kisses and hugs and showered with presents and cash. Felt good.

Okay, so I'm going to be hardcore disciplined from now on. I was trying to look at pictures of hot girls to motivate me to work out, but it wasn't working. But then my friend introduced me to the hottest fucking man in the world, Andres Segura, and now all of a sudden I'm dying to go to the gym and not eat. There's something about a hot man with a six-pack that makes me want to be equally hot. To be with him. Because that hot of a man needs a fucking hot chick. And plus, being hot would make me feel good about myself obviously.

I felt like I was such hot shit last summer. I mean, I was manic, but I still thought I was the hottest thing ever. Well, of course I felt that way. I felt that way because I was manic. Anyway, it was a good feeling. I'd like to feel that way... sober? Is that the right word? Stable? Yeah, I'd like to feel that way stable. Stable and hot. Wow, those are great words to aspire to for me. To be stable and hot. Awesome.

New Candles

2010-04-24T13:07:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: www.teamgal.com]

My little sister gave herself a hickie. -_-

I spent my Friday night with church people. As a matter of fact, I spent my Thursday night with church people, as well. And I kind of gathered some sort of understanding. The college group at my church is just another version of a fraternity/sorority! There are African-American fraternities, Asian fraternities, Indian fraternities. This is just an Asian-American, Presbyterian fraternity/sorority! We're all Greek after all!

I wish I felt like they were family to me. I guess it's hard since I'm never consistently here. I'm just starting to feel comfortable and now I'm about to leave.

This reminds me of TKPC, the Tri-Valley Korean Presbyterian Church, the church I grew up in. That was family to me. That was also kind of like a fraternity. There was an initiation into the youth group. The older kids all took care of the younger kids and we all went to each other's birthday parties and had a bunch of fun while our parents gossiped downstairs.

AKPC, my current church, was also like family to me in my youth group years. We were all super tight with each other and would walk to Taco Bell every Sunday after service. Lock-ins, Praise Nights, retreats... they were all so much fun.

I feel like it's harder now to gel with a group of Christians. I don't know if it's because I've changed or because the people have changed. I tried joining a campus-based church in Baltimore, but found it hard to fit in. I felt like I couldn't be myself around them.

I know I do things that might not seem right in the eyes of God. But I do them anyway with little to no guilt. Because I like to. Because I'm young and my whole life is ahead of me and it's fun and I should have fun now before I have more responsibilities.

I used to read the Bible everyday. I've read the Bible twice cover to cover, but that was back in high school. I used to pray everyday. I used to really try to grow spiritually.

But now I feel like growing spiritually doesn't necessarily have to mean growing in Christianity. I'm finding all these truths to meditate on, especially in Buddhism.

I want a religion. I want something central in my life like that. But is Christianity it? Is there a reason why I can't seem to get along with Christian groups?

I feel like this is a journey of self-discovery that I need to embark on. This past year I've learned a lot about myself, and it wasn't necessarily through my shrink. But for some reason, this just isn't something I've been able to reach a conclusion on. I've learned about all kinds of relationships. I've been in all kinds of relationships. I've learned about a mental disorder that I never thought I would have. But it all seem so superficial when considering the fate of your soul, doesn't it?

I want to be a more spiritual person. I want to look inward rather than outward. I want to have a connection to some Higher Being. If I want it enough, I'll strive for it. Maybe that's what I should be doing with my time instead of worrying about my hair.

Good Night

2010-04-22T00:11:00.000-04:00

In sororities you have pledge sisters and big sisters and little sisters and pledge moms and all that. I'm in a sorority, so I have a pledge mom.

I have a big sister. A real big sister. For some reason, I have never been able to fully open up to her. That's one of the reasons why I joined a sorority in the first place. I feel like I'll be... burned by her? Rejected, in a sense? If I fully open up to her, that is. I can't be myself entirely around her without at least a little bit of fear that she'll hurt me.

My pledge mom is kind of like the big sister I never had. I can talk to her about anything. While I've been home, I've sent her numerous e-mails and Facebook messages talking about my life. She always gives the best advice. Whenever I feel like I'm about to go manic, I tell her first. She's the only one who has come to visit me in my time away.

That's not what this post was supposed to be about. Fuck, what was I going to say.

Oh, that's right. I think I've come to the realization that I am a smuther-er. Like Jackie from That '70s Show. I smuther the ones that I love. I am a Stage 5 clinger. I am clingy and needy and an attention whore. And on top of that I have the propensity for losing my mind. So I am the craziest, worst girlfriend one could ever ask for.

I'm trying to change. I'm trying to chill out. As my pledge mom says, to have more self-control. But I'm still kind of holding out for someone who will find my -isms endearing.

Or maybe I should just change.

Good Morning

2010-04-21T12:07:00.000-04:00

I look like a little boy now.

I did some stupid shit yesterday. It was 4/20. No, I didn't smoke. My acts of stupidity were under no influence save for my own emotions. I'm sorry for what I did. I didn't mean it. And if I did mean it, I'm sorry that I did.

I did some more stupid shit last night. For that, I can say that I did mean it. I meant it very much, but I pretended this morning as if I didn't mean it. But you're not going to read this anyway, so my confession here doesn't even matter. I can actually probably say anything I'd like about you in this domain with little to no consequence. But I won't. Because that would be some more stupid shit.

I will resolve to never again engage in said stupid shit. I shall transcend this stupid shitty-ness and embark instead on a journey worth travelling.

Oh yeah, my interview went really well on Monday. He said I was articulate and knowledgeable about my own situation. I might find out today if I'm back in, maybe next week. My parents said, though, that since I didn't do anything wrong, they have no reason to keep me out. That even if they don't give me a recommendation, I can still go back. And I think that's true. I wasn't like that other Texan guy who carried a gun in his back pocket, even if my dad and I went shooting while I was home.

Conclusion: I must be far more careful as to what words come out of my mouth. I must strive to mean what I say, and say what I mean. No more mistakes, even if one word rhymes with another. And if I've been saying what I've meant all along, then I really need to reevaluate my state of mind.

Is this confusing?

Sleeping in Parking Lots

2010-04-19T11:51:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: www.polyvore.com]

I haven't been sleeping in parking lots. I don't know why I named this post that. I think it's because I'm listening to "Chicago" by Sufjan Stevens and he says, "We slept in parking lots." Yeah, that's it.

I have my second interview in a couple hours. I'm pretty scared. It's with Dr. Roberts and he's like the oldest man in the world. I met with him once back in Baltimore and the skin on his head is very wrinkled and thin, but taut so he looks kind of like Clint Eastwood's great-grandfather with really big eyes. And anytime you say anything he frowns and brings up his lips and goes, "HMMmmmm...." and then scribbles down on his pad. Maybe he won't be so scary over the phone.

Anyway, I have no idea what we're going to talk about 'cause I thought we covered everything last time. He's a psychiatrist, not a psychologist, so I guess he's going to talk more about my medication? I have no idea.

After this I think I might have to talk with Dr. Mond, the director, and maybe then, finally, I will have an answer. Oh wait, my parents will have to talk to Dr. Mond, too. Then maybe I'll know. It's already the end of April, my flight's in less than a month, I have to find out soon.

You know, I've been thinking lately how simple life is. I've been carrying this humongous burden with me for so long and I just realized how unnecessary it is. I don't have to worry all the time. If I'm doing everything on my end, nothing should go wrong. And if things go wrong anyway, I'll deal with it then and it'll pass in time. I just have to do me and not worry about all the trivial shit that I tend to clutter my mind with. Everything has to be streamlined. I feel like there's clarity now. Like I've been meditating for a long time or something. At the same time there's this sense of urgency I have now. I feel this great urgency to get back to school and continue my life as intended. Dr. Silver says I'm not the same person as I was before all this, but how can I not be? How can my diagnosis have completely changed who I am? That's bullshit. I'm still me. It's always been there, always, so why say that I'm different now? I agree, now that I'm aware, I have to take certain precautions and do other things to keep me functional, but I hate to think that I am no longer the person I was a year ago. I'm still me.

In a couple months it will have been a year since my first breakdown. Time goes by so fast and so slow at the same time. So much has happened and I feel like so much has yet to happen still. But again, life is simple. I just have my things to do everyday, and time will pass and I will experience things and be happy and be sad and love and lose and all the rest like any other person on this earth. And I'm looking forward to it all so very much.

A Question

2010-04-16T18:40:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: www.orlandofuntickets.com]

Is it insane of me to miss insanity?

Beneath the Surface

2010-04-15T11:33:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: farm4.static.flickr.com]

Last Thursday I flew to Irvine, CA for my sorority's bi-annual conference. It was my first time away from home since November. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

The two weeks prior to the trip I was depressed. I went in to my doctor who told me that the trip might be just what I needed to raise my spirits. She told me, though, that if it didn't end up doing it for me, to start taking twice as much lamictal. I'm taking twice as much lamictal now.

I tried to have a good time. I was with friends, sisters, who I hadn't seen for months. Being with them again was comforting, but the depression followed me there. I had a complete lack of energy the entire time. While others seemed to be the peppiest people in the world, I remained docile and quiet. My twin constantly checked up on me, asking me if I was okay.

The last night I had a panic attack. That morning's medication had gone missing. I think it fell out of the case. I was sitting at a restaurant, surrounded by sisters and all of a sudden it was too much for me to handle. I had to get out of there. I went outside and smoked a cigarette with one of the new girls. It didn't help. My twin took me to the car and gave me a hand massage. I ended up throwing up on the 405.

When I was doubled over in the car, hyperventilating, I just kept on thinking, 'I want to go home, I want to go home.' I felt so immensely homesick. I missed the structure, the predictability, the stability. This feeling stayed with me until I finally arrived home the next night.

This experience almost made me doubt my readiness to return to school.

I have another interview with a psychiatrist this time on Monday. I don't know how much longer this process will take. I just want it to be over.

Reflective Properties Part 2

2010-04-03T00:22:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: zenhabits.net]

I just read through the first few posts of this blog. I started this in October, before I was diagnosed. Before my second hospitalization. Before the break up. So much has changed since then.

What have you, the reader, learned from all this? Have any of you even read each post chronologically? Is the majority of you just visiting passerby? If you are, what do you think of this? You come across this as a link or a story on a news feed on a social networking site and you gather that Alina is "going through a lot," as I have heard several times. Almost everyone I know has learned about my diagnosis from this blog. There was a girl, who told a girl, who told her mother, who told my mother, who read but did not understand. There was a woman who told a group of people, Alina has a blog. The group read and told others who also read.

I know many people read this. The people who come to me, however, always act extremely guilty for reading this. Some have actually apologized. Why should you feel guilty? If I didn't want this to be read, I would make it private, as I have done in the past. If I wanted this to be a private journal, I would pen these posts into my diary, that is beside me right now. If you have questions, why not ask? It would be much better than discussing it and coming up with theories amongst yourselves for my mother to hear later and worry about, don't you think?

Everyone used to have a blog. A Xanga. This wouldn't have been a big deal back in 2004.

Lately, I have been feeling very ugly. This is a far cry from last summer, when I thought I was hot shit and acted like it, too. I truly believe it has to do with the lack of hair. And the acne. And the fat. This trifecta of physical faults has been making me very depressed, as of late. The hair is my fault entirely. I cannot blame it on a pill. I can, however, for the latter two. So I went to the doctor, asking for a reduction in the lithium (for the acne and the weight) and the risperidone (for the weight). She did as I asked, and also increased the lamictal (for the depression). I then end up bruised and crying in a ball on my mother's bed, unable to get up. What the fuck. She then sets all my dosages back to normal. But I am at square one again; fat, pimpled, and unhappy. I throw up my hands in exasperation.

I started this blog, back in October, before my diagnosis, before my second hospitalization. I was initially put on lithium and lamictal. Both mood stabilizers. I went manic again on Halloween. Risperidone was added to my cocktail. This whole time we've been attempting to keep me from going manic again. Why have we not anticipated this depression? Why are we only addressing one half of the illness? It's as if they'd rather me be depressed. I mean, I guess. A depressed person is easier to handle than a manic person. But I'd personally much rather be happy than sad, even if it is maniacally so.

I wrote the original "Reflective Properties" the day before my diagnosis. I'm writing this before I get help. I can't live like this.

I need to be fixed.

Keep Your Problems to Yourself

2010-04-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.getreligion.org]

I've been depressed for over a week. It's getting worse. I'm crying a lot. I'm not going to class or anything. Lamictal's supposed to be a mood lifter, but when we increased the dosage I started getting bruises. I found a new one yesterday even though we went back to the original, minimal dosage of 50 mg. I'm not allowed antidepressants because they make me go manic. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

I'm not trying to be dramatic, although people are treating me as if I am. I've been told to pray. To change my diet. To stop pitying myself. There's no reason why you should be sad Alina. Try not to be sad. Don't pity yourself.

If someone came to me in despair, the last thing I would tell them would be to stop pitying themselves.

I need help. I need something. My psychiatrist knows about my depression but just blamed it on my period.

Why isn't anyone taking me seriously? I'm feeling like I did back in July. I don't know what to do.

Chop 'em Down

2010-03-31T17:38:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: paperandstitch.wordpress.com]

Gotta tone it down. Whine, whine, whine. Drama, drama, drama. Blah, blah, blah. Life can be simple if you make it out to be.

Just had my interview with Dr. Silver. Harmless. Only lasted half an hour. Questions: "What makes you think you're ready to come back to school?" "What are you going to do about your substance abuse problem?" "What are you going to do if you go manic again?" "What changes are you going to make once you come back to school?" "How are you going to be socially?"

She basically told me that she's going to recommend weekly therapy again for me when I go back. She also told me that I'm not the same person I was before I left, and I won't be able to just pick up where I left off. I'm going to have to take it easy for a while. I won't be able to do everything I want to do, and I'm going to have to lower my expectations.

Man, I guess...

I was crying again last night. Don't really know why. I went downstairs onto my mom's bed and just cried while she prayed for me. She showed me these monthly calendars she's been keeping on my moods and episodes and shit. This depression I've been feeling is the first mood alteration I've had for seven weeks. Which is good. According to her calendars, I was going haywire every other day back in October and November. Like Black Friday. I forget what happened, but that was a really bad day. But I'm feeling fine today and less melodramatic and woe is me and shit.

My psych and my therapist still need to get their papers in to my school. This is like in high school when some retarded teachers had to be bugged constantly in order to submit their letters of recommendation to the colleges you were applying to. Fucking annoying.

But Dr. Silver says we have ample time for this whole process. That we don't have much left to do and I'll know soon enough.

Man, I guess I'm straight and everything, I'm just fucking ready to leave already.

FUCKk!!!!!!!!

2010-03-30T19:46:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: fc07.deviantart.net]

My interview is tomorrow at 1:00. Let's take some time to ruminate, shall we?

I'm sitting on my bed in my room right now, with my computer on my lap. Outside it's 79 degrees. I just ate a Big 'n Tasty at McDonald's because my mom's too sick to cook. I'm listening to American Football. I am considering cutting my hair again and am desperately wanting to lose 20 pounds. Perhaps I will lose the 20 pounds before I cut my hair again. Perhaps I will resist the urge to continue changing myself and just leave myself alone. See what happens. Perhaps I will balloon into a gargantuan whale. Or perhaps my mania will strike again and I will become a scary scarecrow. My hair will grow. My hair will be cut. My hair will grow again. Up, down, round and round goes Alina on the carousel.

You know what. I feel like a failure. Oh my god, that's what I've been trying to say this whole time! What's been on the tip of my tongue for months now! I feel like a failure! I failed! I failed by being bipolar, by being sent home from my job, by being sent home from school, by not being let back in. I failed at keeping my relationship alive, at staying physically beautiful, at keeping the only job that satisfied me. I failed by not going manic again. By staying complacent. By being fat and lazy and not doing anything about it. I am just one big failure.

This is hardly the thing to be thinking before my interview.

Why is every day a failure for me? Why don't I do something everyday? Why don't I change myself for the better? Why don't I work on myself? Why am I letting myself lose worth? Ugh!

If I was committed enough I would throw something, but I'm not even committed enough to this feeling to do such a thing. I've become so apathetic and emo and angsty and antsy and gray. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I always say. What happened to today? Why can't I do anything today?

Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FUCKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes I'm such a dramatic bitch, I just loathe myself sometimes.

Untitled

2010-03-28T23:09:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: qarrtsiluni.wordpress.com]

My dad called my doctor this morning. I'm to return to my original dosages. Well, not original original, but the most recent. My lamictal will go back down to 50 mg from 100 because of the bruises. My lithium will go back up to 1200 mg from 900 and my risperidone back to 1.5 mg from 1.0. My dosage changed a total of two pills. Only two pills and that's how big of a difference it made. I don't think I should mess with it for a while.

I don't know how honest I should be on this blog anymore. I keep on switching it from private to public. I want to say so much but I don't want to get in trouble. I know a lot of people are reading this (I can see you all on Site Meter) and I guess I'm glad, I mean I'm being heard and maybe someone out there is benefiting from this somehow, but at the same time I want some privacy as well. But I don't want to watch what I say. I just want to say whatever is on my mind and whatever I'm doing and you know, I'll be able to look back on this and read what I wrote and remember and be... immortalized somehow through this.

I killed my Facebook. No one can see anything anymore. I guess I'm still trying to privatize myself. Yet I'm baring myself so completely in this blog... Why is that I make myself so inaccessible and accessible at the same time? Why do I enjoy making myself vulnerable? Why do I love and hate attention at the same time?

I have a confession to make. I'm going to deprive myself of sleep to see if I go manic. I'm going to sleep at my usual time but I'm setting my alarm for 4:00. Just to see what happens. I'm going to be sleeping this little at school anyway. I should start getting used to it now. Is this really that dangerous? Won't my meds be able to handle this? Am I holding a gun to my head?

I know this isn't the end of the world. I know this. I know life will go on and I will go back to Baltimore and finish school. I don't know what will happen after that, but I know something will. I know this is almost over and I just have to wait a little longer. I know I have a trip to California coming up. I know I have readmission coming up. But at the same fucking time I feel like I'm stuck here forever. I can't snap out of it. I feel like my life has boiled down to this. I've been home for way too long.

I'm so bored I'm poking at myself. I'm so unstimulated and I'm searching for any high I can get. Boredom is the most dangerous of moods. That's it. I feel like I'm in danger right now. I don't feel safe. I feel on the edge of something. I feel like I'm coasting on a razor thin line between sane and insane. And the thing is, I want to be pushed over the edge. Just to... have something happen. Have something fall and disrupt this pattern of life I've been leading. I just want to push myself. Just push.

Push, push, push.

Bruises

2010-03-27T21:55:00.003-04:00

I'm getting bruises for no reason. It's a side effect of the lamictal. I can't wear my contacts because they fog up. This happened the week before my breakdown last summer. I feel like something bad is about to happen and I don't know what I can do to stop it. I need to talk to my doctor but it's a Saturday. Why is all of this happening at the end?

Privacy

2010-03-27T17:10:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: www.easyhealth.org.uk]

No one can read this anymore. I feel like I have more breathing room now.

I had a breakdown this morning. I couldn't stop crying. I woke up at 6:30 and went downstairs at 7:00. I didn't feel like eating. I was sitting at the breakfast table with my mom, when all of a sudden I start crying. I can't stop. I tell her I don't want to take the pills anymore. I snot up a small pile of Kleenex. I go upstairs and get into bed and cry. At noon my mom and dad come in and try to comfort me. They coax me out of bed and into the shower.

In the shower, a switch goes off and I'm suddenly fine. I get ready, put on my makeup, get dressed and go to IHOP with my mom and Angie. We go shopping after and I buy something. I'm perfectly fine.

I didn't take my medicine last night. I told my mom I forgot, but I did it on purpose. I don't want to take these stupid pills anymore. They're making me ugly. I'm taking so many. No one else I know is taking as many as I am.

I actually wanted to die this morning. I think I need to go back to the hospital sometimes.

Restart

2010-03-25T16:57:00.001-04:00

[Picture credit: hribar.info]

If I could restart any segment of my life, it would be this period of being at home. I've done a lot of things I regret and wasted a lot of time. These are the things I would do over.

I would not cut my hair. What a stupid decision. In a mental hospital, having long hair is kind of gross. There are no hair dryers and you're just walking around with wet hair looking like the girl from The Ring, so it's understandable that I wanted to cut it all off, but I sorely miss it now. Now I will have to wait for it to be long again. Sigh.
I would not cut my hair the second time. This was also a stupid decision made on a stupid impulse.
I would go somewhere. Staying in Round Rock, Texas this whole time has sucked. I don't know where I would go, but I would just go somewhere.
I would not have spent time with a certain someone who will remain unnamed.
I would have gotten a job earlier. I would have had more monies now.
I would have maintained my waif figure. Being fat sucks.

So my time at home is almost over and I do not feel good about it. I don't feel like I accomplished anything, besides getting better. And I guess that was the whole point of me being at home, to get better, but I still feel like I should've gotten jacked or learned a new instrument or something. I have a lot of new goals now. I came up with a list of Alina-isms that I am to work toward. The second most important one is to grow my hair out. It's a very superficial list. I will not disclose it here.

You have to keep certain things about yourself the same in order to be iconic. And that's the whole goal, right? In life? To become something of an icon? I want to be an icon. Everyone should have -isms. Signatures. Come up with a list of your own. Things you want to be, always. Things you want people to remember you by. Superficial things. I'm not talking about kindness or compassion. I'm talking about things like always wearing red nail polish or always having a pixie hair cut. Shit like that. It's fun.

I came up with my list while sitting in Cultural Anthropology at Austin Community College. Oh yeah, that's another thing I regret. Taking Cultural Anthropology. Well, I guess what I should really regret is not registering earlier. All the classes I wanted were full. I wish I had taken French and Ballet like I planned to. I'm not even getting credit for this class. Sucks.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm really unhappy with myself right now. I don't think this is bipolar depression or anything like that. I think I'm genuinely just dissatisfied with myself. And this is all coming up because my interview for readmission is coming up and I'm going to have to explain what I've been doing for the past school year, and my explanation will be crap. I should've done more. I should've been more. I should've made better decisions.

I guess you live, you learn, and you move on. I think I'm still at the learning stage.

Time Machine

2010-03-22T23:15:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: chawedrosin.wordpress.com]

I want to go back in time to July. Not because July was a happy month for me. I broke in July. I just want to go back and look around and remember. I want to remember what I felt like, what I did, who was with me. I wrote in my journal a lot. The journal's missing. I think my mom threw it away when I was in the hospital the second time. That kills me. That journal is priceless. Here I have pictures from that time:

The earrings my ex bought me for my birthday. I was really happy. I loved those earrings. I wore them on the way home.

I took a lot of pictures of myself with my webcam. Do I look unstable?

At home in August after the fight. Very unstable. Was taken to the hospital that day. Put on celexa and trazodone.

For some reason I danced a lot after I left the hospital.

I was also very weak and assed out everywhere.

Then I went back to school.

A day or two before I went manic.

Then I got sent back home.

And went to the hospital again. Put on lithium, risperidone, and lamictal.

The day after I was released.

I was paranoid patients from the hospital would recognize me so I cut off all my hair.

I got a job at American Apparel.

Then I lost it.

I gained 20 pounds and cut all my hair off again.

And that's where I am now.

That was a nice trip.

Weight

2010-03-20T22:55:00.000-04:00

[Photo credit: artfiles.art.com]

I am comfortable talking about my weight. I know it is common for girls to never discuss their weight or divulge their weight to anyone. I am kind of a boy in this matter. I don't really give a fuck.

In high school I averaged 122 pounds. In college, I averaged 118. I can't eat when I'm stressed. At the time of my second hospitalization I weighed 104 pounds. I lost 14 pounds in a couple weeks. Now I am on lithium and risperidone, both weight-gaining drugs. I am now 124 pounds. Okay, now I feel stupid. This is only 2 pounds heavier than my high school weight. But this also means I gained 20 pounds in a few months. Okay, that doesn't sound like that much either when spread over five months. That's 4 pounds a month.

Anyway, I know it sounds sick and twisted, but I'd like to be my crazy weight again. I wore 00. I bought a size 0 suit from Theory that I cannot fit into anymore. I bought size 0 jeans and skirts. I had to buy new clothes. Okay this is interesting. I am normal now. Stress-free normal Alina weight. Why am I striving to be the weight I was when I was mentally ill?

Maybe it's because I had abs then and my ribs stuck out. And that look is pretty sexy.

But back to the point. I am trying to lose weight. Being 5'4" and 124 pounds is too heavy, in my opinion. My goal weight is 110 pounds. Okay I'll be honest. My goal weight is 105 pounds. But I've mentioned it to my mother who says I'm crazy, no pun intended. How did I lose so much weight the first time? Oh, by not eating, not sleeping, and running around campus barefoot. Awesome. That can't happen again. Now I'm going to have to lose weight the normal, sane way. With the roadblocks that are metabolism-slowing medications in my way. Diet and exercise, don't fail me now.

I will let you know how this goes. I have tried unsuccessfully for the past month. I will start over. Tomorrow is Day 1. GO!

Finished!

2010-03-14T14:52:00.000-04:00

[Picture credit: www.flickr.com/photos/allard1]

The mourning period has officially ended! I am completely done wallowing in my own stupid sadness! I am done talking about him! I am done thinking about him! I am moving on! I am happy! I am fuh-reeeeeee!

Fast-forward. Fast-forward through all the events I've been looking forward to so much. Fast-forward through even the summer. Fast-forward through the first semester back. Fast-forward instead to March 14, 2011. I will have this same feeling then. It will be an awesome day. Last year was the torture. This year is the healing. Next year will be the shit. Fast-forward. Press the button and hold.

This too will fade into the background. I will not have to think of this at all soon. It will remain buried. It will be as if nothing ever happened. There will be reminders, twice daily, but they too will become trivial. I won't mind. I won't care anymore that I have to take nine pills a day. In groups of two and with the big one taken by itself, that's only five swallows. Five swallows in a day. That's nothing. This too will fade into the background.

I'm holding onto this feeling. I feel so light right now. I feel like a cartoon, like a caricature of myself. Is this the beginning of mania? Even if it is, I don't care, this just feels so good. Life feels so good.

Life As a Shorty Shouldn't Be So Rough

2010-03-07T18:00:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: www.metalkingdom.net]

It's hard being a bipolar bitch, man. Previously I've written about my manic episodes. Yeah, they can be sprees of complete energy and elation. I have yet to mention, however, the rage and paranoia that almost always accompany them.

I had just been kicked out of school. Security guards had to escort me from the Counseling Center on the top floor of Garland because I wouldn't leave. I was fucking pissed. I thought everyone was staring at me as I walked with my dad back to my apartment. I gave all of them the middle finger. My dad tried to stop me the first couple times, but after the sixth or so, he gave up. At dinner that night at One World Cafe, I gave everyone the middle finger as I ate. That's actually pretty impressive now that I think about it.

Earlier in the summer I cussed out a cop that I had called from my house. He was in my living room giving me shit about something so I cussed at him and he told me to watch my language, so I cussed at him more.

I've cussed out my ex more times than I can think of.

I've hurled things at walls. Feebly attempted to trash a hotel room.

It's this feeling of great... annoyance. Despair at why the world is the way it is and why people are the way they are and the only way to react is to throw a tantrum. But since you're a full grown adult now, these tantrums are so much larger than anything you threw as a kid. They're intense and ungodly and embarrassing to look back on.

I'm embarrassed when I look back at my episodes.

I was reminded of all of this yesterday when talking with my mom. She brought it up. I had totally forgotten that I had done all of those things.

That's the thing, though. As a friend said, being bipolar is like being on autopilot except you do things you don't normally do, things you don't want to do, things that you'll forget about later. It's a fucking nightmare.

To be completely out of touch. To lose all sense of reality. It's a trip.

'Fuck Me in the Ass'

2010-03-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: crossedfingers.wordpress.com]

Maybe one of these days this will turn into a normal blog about a normal person and the normal things happening in her normal life.

It's March, which means we have one more month until April, which means we have one more month until I am readmitted. Or not readmitted. One more month until Cali where I will be joining hundreds of other SOPis in celebration of our SOPi-dom. A couple more weeks until SXSW. One more week until training at the Gap, where I was just hired. I'm working two jobs now, isn't that insane? Time is picking up now.

I still can't believe I've been home for as long as I've been. I lost it in July, came home, left in the end of August, came home late September and have stayed home ever since. October, November, December, January, February. I've been home five months. Holy shit. Actually that doesn't sound like that much. But I've been fucked up since July, so then that's eight months, and that really is a lot.

As I look back on these eight months, I think to myself, 'Fuck me in the ass.' The last eight months have been hell. I was taken out of school, away from my friends, put in a mental institution, twice, had to experiment with medications and suffer their side effects, be on lockdown for the first semester, work crappy part-time jobs and go to crappy community college for kicks... I deserve a big present. I'm not even kidding. This July, I expect a fantastic fucking birthday present from somebody. My 20th year of life has been so amazingly shitty. It has been monumental, yes, but still so amazingly shitty.

But it's almost over. Only one more month until I know. If all goes well, only two more months until I'm back where I'm supposed to be. Then the rest of my life will unfold and I can forget all about this mess of a 20th year. But I doubt I will.

Lamentations

2010-02-18T00:48:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: www.funeral-flowers-online.com]

I don't know why it's so hard for me to bury you. I'm still very angry at you for not being there. You said there are things that still make you angry. There are things that still make me angry, too. I think I will always be angry at you. I will always be angry at you and I will always be in love with you.

I'm beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe I have romanticized you to the point of absolute transformation. But as hard as I try, I cannot look at the past, our past, without a deep sense of longing.

You left a hole. I've tried filling it with things and other people. I thought I succeeded. Do you know how much I cried over you in The Beginning? My mom found me in my room and tried to hug me to her chest but I wouldn't let her. What were you doing then? I feel pathetic talking about this, but all of it is true.

I thought losing you was symbolic of my future. No one was ever going to accept me because of what I had. I went downstairs crying in hysterics. I'm not going to have babies and no one is going to want to marry me. My parents tried to console me.

In The Beginning, before The Beginning, I was in my bed. I needed to talk to you so badly. I couldn't sleep, I just needed to talk to you. But you wouldn't answer, would you? And I still feel like your reasoning was stupid. I know you feel like you did everything you could, but I know you didn't. I know that, if you really wanted me, you would've acted.

Hold, drop, and shatter. It's the same tune played over and over and over. I will be singing this song forever. Or for as long as necessary.

A part of me is truly worried about that, though. Who's going to open my medication bottles for me? Who's going to hold me when I'm shaking or bring me food when I can't leave the house? Who's going to want to deal with me for the rest of his life?

I'll be good. I'll try hard. You are gone, but you will be there. Another you. And, of course, maybe you will also drop the ball. Hold, drop, and shatter. But practice makes perfect until you don't have to practice anymore.

Bum Bum Bum

2010-02-14T16:48:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: 4.bp.blogspot.com]

My energy has left me. I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt for things I've done. I think I'm depressed. I'm worried about something. It's eating away at me. This feeling of regret is heavy. Everything seems like too much effort. My room is becoming a mess. I don't want to get up in the mornings. I don't want to get ready for the day. I don't want to go to work or class. I just want to sleep all day and night. I want to stop eating. I just want to become a blob in my bed and settle.

Another reader. Another admission. Another admission of a reader reading. It's okay if you read this, readers. It's a blog. It's meant to be read.

Middle Ground

2010-02-08T01:09:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: c2.api.ning.com]

It's nearing midnight as I write this. Just watched the Super Bowl with some friends and ate a lot of wings. One that was garlic/parmesan and very delicious. Saints won, which is good, because I was rooting for them.

Everything's been really normal lately. First my weekly therapist decides to push our sessions to monthly, and now my monthly psychiatrist wants me to come in just one more time before I leave. Which is in May. I am on a normal streak. It's fucking amazing.

One tool to help bipolar people track their moods is the mood chart. It's important to track your moods, if you're bipolar, because you can more easily pinpoint the stressors in your life and how they subsequently affect your levels and behaviors. You also have a record to go by when dealing with your therapist and/or psychiatrist. Together, you can modify your treatment according to your most recent mood history. My charts have had nice, even, straight, clean lines, right down the middle. Nice round zeroes in the boxes for Anxiety and Irritability. I am in the green (red is manic, purple is depressed, and then the rest of the spectrum is filled in in the middle). My mood charts are actually very pretty. I'd like to show them off, but that'd be weird.

It's nice being a normal person for a change.

Being One and Not the Other

2010-01-31T17:55:00.003-05:00

[Picture credit: hiphop-n-more.com]

I wasn't properly diagnosed for a long while after my first hospitalization I was diagnosed about a month after I had been sent home from school. My parents had mentioned the words "bipolar disorder" in passing, but had never sat down and discussed it with me. I was on Celexa and trazodone, but I had completely... lost it at school, and I was faithfully taking them.

The internet is the most useful tool today. But I didn't want to use it. I didn't want the truth. I wanted so desperately to believe that what had happened was a fluke. But I wasn't getting better. If I ever write a book, I'm going to ask my ex-boyfriend to compile all the e-mails I sent him. It's all there. The evidences of my mania, the confusion as to what was going on with me, the rage and despair I felt, and finally the light - my self-diagnosis. I finally Wiki'd "bipolar disorder." "People commonly experience an increase in energy and a decreased need for sleep." "People may feel they have been 'chosen,' are on a 'special mission,' or other grandiose or delusional ideas... At more extreme phases of bipolar I, a person in a manic state can begin to experience psychosis, or a break with reality, where thinking is affected along with mood." Holy shit. According to Wikipedia, I was bipolar I. I contacted the director of the counseling center, the psychologist/psychiatrist/counselor/doctor that had dealt with me since what happened in the summer. He told me that, indeed, he suspected I was bipolar.

I was, am, according to my psychiatrist and my therapist as well. My psychiatrist likes to say I have a "mood disorder." My therapist straight up calls me bipolar, all the time. He whips out his copy of the DSM-IV (what they use to diagnose mental disorders) reads it aloud, and says, "Wow, you're really, really bipolar ain'tcha?" My psychiatrist and my therapist are like my divorced parents. My psychiatrist is very scientific with me and says something about my folate receptors and tells me to read Unquiet Mind and join DBSA (the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance) and, oh, your therapist called me again... My therapist says hey, let's try hypnotherapy one more time, and hey your psych isn't answering my phone calls, and how are you feeling sexually, and don't get too fucked up on New Year's, and just because you're an MD doesn't mean you always know what you're doing. They are my "team," my "people."

I have yet to hit a major depressive episode. I have never been suicidal. Sometimes I think there's something wrong with me. Like I'm not even a good bipolar, where the fuck is this suicidal behavior? Just kidding. That was very horrible for me to say. But I have been manic many, many more times than I have been depressed. I was hospitalized twice because of my mania I have gone psycho. I have completely lost my marbles. Psychosis. I've gone through it.

This is what makes me bipolar I.

There are three mood stabilizers prescribed to bipolar I patients: lithium carbonate, anticonvulsants, and antipsychotics. I am taking all three. I am currently on lithium, Lamotrigine, and Risperidone. I also take Lorazepam (which is like Xanax) when I'm starting to get really coked out and on my way to mania. I was prescribed Ambien to help me sleep, but it has come to my realization that I make phone calls and raid my refrigerator without knowing to on Ambien. So we're getting that checked out.

I've got my shit under control now. Again, my therapist thinks I'm good to go. Straight up though, when I go back to school in the fall, I'm going to get worse. Lack of sleep is a primary trigger for mania, and a full night of sleep every night is just not guaranteed at Hopkins. I think, honestly, some days I'll be kind of loopy. I won't be as serene as I am now, sitting on my ass in Texas, not doing shit. Sigh. I'll have to get a new "team" there to keep me in control. I have overprotective friends that will worry about me sometimes. My parents are going to be freaking out and calling me everday. But nigga, I'm straight.

I'm number one.

IV

2010-01-29T23:14:00.001-05:00

[Picture credit: thenewactivist.wordpress.com]

The next part is pretty gruesome. I didn't want to talk about it. It's dramatic and painful and unholy and something I blamed him for not preventing. There was no way he could have... he didn't know, right? But at the time, I was slowly coming to the realization that he wasn't there. Funny how that is. Anytime I really needed him to be there, he wasn't, save for what happened in Building B. I would need him again, see him again. Soon. But he wouldn't be there those times either.

I could tell my dad was outside the room. I went limp. The nurse, exasperated, tried telling someone to make my dad leave. He didn't leave. I slid off the bed into a wheelchair. In front of my dad, they bonded my arms to my body and cuffed my hands to the bonds. They placed a hood over my head. My dad winced. "Do you really have to do that?" "She's making herself throw up." Lie.

They wheeled me away. Fuck, I can't even type out this shit without crying.

Okay, so they wheeled me away. To a car. One of those cars with a cage between the front and back seats. I was put in the back seat. I flopped down. I couldn't right myself because my hands were cuffed to my body. Through the netting of the hood that was secured over my head, I stared at the floor of the car as it began driving away. The seats were plastic and hard. I slipped up and down the seat the entire ride.

I didn't know where I was going! I was so fucking... God. I didn't know where I was going, I thought I was pregnant, I thought you were there and you weren't, I thought I saw you but you weren't there, I was being taken away, I had vomit in my hair, handcuffs on my wrists, leather bonds around my body, a hood over my head. I was a fucking animal.

This was the worst time of my life. This just kills me to write about because I want to forget it so badly. I've had this fucking... blog for months now. Talking about my mania, what happened in Baltimore, my fucking past relationships. It's funny how I can finally talk about this now after the shrink tells me I don't need him anymore. It's funny how I'm revisiting it now that I'm okay.

There's so many more nightmares I have to tell. But I think this is the worst. Being taken like that... You know, I'll never really forgive him for not being there for that. I know it was impossible, but I don't care. I know this was before the diagnosis and everything...

I think that's when we truly died. We didn't break up until over a month later. We even celebrated our anniversary after. But I feel like if you truly love someone, you'll be there when she's in the back of a cop car, hooded and chained, psychologically carrying your baby. I feel like if you truly love someone, you'll talk to them when they call you, crying, from a hospital.

I don't want to finish this story with another post. I'll just tell you the ending. They took me to ASH. I called him from inside. He told me I wasn't supposed to be talking to him and hung up.

If your girlfriend lost it, would you treat her like that? I truly felt worthless then.

And ten days after my discharge I flew back to Baltimore, went back to school and went back to him. Of course I got sent back home. Of course we broke up. How could I truly be okay after that shit? How could I truly be okay with him after that shit? How could anything last?

I've been home for four and a half months now. I snotted up three Kleenexes while writing this post. Back in October I ended up in ASH again. I had already started the blog by then. You can actually go back and read the post I wrote right after I got out.

But my therapist says I'm okay now. He rated me a 78. I came to him a 54. An 80 is really good, a 50 is really bad, a 40 is hospitalization time. He thinks, come April, come readmission time, the school will have no reason to keep me out any longer.

I think I'm ready now. I can talk about this shit now. I'm comfortable with my diagnosis now.

My life has been intense these past few months, huh?

III

2010-01-29T11:54:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: www.spec-net.com.au]

My social worker came to talk to me. She brought me into a separate room. I told her everything that had happened. I talked about wanting to jump off a cliff but Texas was too goddamn flat. I showed her the bruises. She wrote everything down.

I was taken from my room of curtains to a room with a glass fourth wall.

No more women. Just men. The guy in black with the shaved head and the earpiece in, a cop, and a male nurse.

I jumped up from bed again. I played with the equipment around me again, until I got yelled at. They needed my blood and my pee. I couldn't give them either. I hate needles and I couldn't pee for some reason. The cop turned water on and made me pee right there in front of him, behind a curtain. All three of them held me down and took my blood while I kicked and screamed.

While the three men were surrounding me, I heard "half-way pregnant" over the cop's walkie-talkie. I assumed they meant me. "Am I half-way pregnant?" "What is half-way pregnant?" "Five months," said the nurse. I was five months pregnant? "Is it a boy or a girl?" "... girl." I started having a panic attack. Words were escaping my mouth like rapid fire. About my mom feeding me sushi, about my mom knowing I was pregnant and that must have been why she beat me, about how my mom was just trying to kill the baby.

The three left the room and the cop said something to the rest of the hospital staff.

I was so confused. I kept on trying to leave the room via the glass wall but the cop would push me back inside. "Are you going to do drugs again?" he asked. "No, sir," I said. Of course I wasn't going to do drugs again, I was five months pregnant with a baby girl.

What was I thinking then. I was thinking, yes, I am going to keep this baby. I am going to quit school and take care of the baby so he can keep on doing what he's doing. I made that decision, there, in the hospital, while I was being unknowingly assessed for my sanity.

I had nothing left to do but lie down on the hospital bed. A little Chinese nurse came in with a pill. "You have to take this." I thought it was a pill to kill the baby. I refused to take it. She tried forcing it into my mouth and I karate chopped it out of her hand. She left the room and complained to the rest of the staff, "She not nice!"

What happened next. I know they made me take the pill anyway. Yes, and then I threw up. In my hair. Alone. While a black cop outside the glass wall watched me.

A nurse and a security guard woke me the next morning. The nurse told me I had to get up. The security guard said, "Oh, look she stuck her finger down her throat." The black security cop was about to say something, but didn't. I couldn't get up. The security guard jabbed me below the jaw. I wretched. The nurse told him to stop. She struggled to put my clothes on for me. "I didn't become a nurse for this," she said.

Okay that's enough for right now.

II

2010-01-28T21:37:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: www.reliancebuildingcompany.com]

Okay, I have regained composure.

They gave me food, which I ate. I think I hadn't eaten in a long time.

I had a nurse, some girl my age who did all the bitch work, a female police officer, a social worker, and this guy in black with a shaved head.

I jumped up from bed and took the purple latex gloves from the box on the wall and snapped them on. I do this all the time back in Baltimore. I examined all the equipment around me. I left from behind my curtain and went to where a doctor was looking at a computer. I studied the files around him. He sighed like a big asshole and told the female police officer to handle me.

They needed me to pee for them. I took my cup to the bathroom. Again, I was blind. I saw into what I thought was a waiting room. I saw him. Again, I did not have my contacts or my glasses. I saw him and he looked up at me and I thought to myself, "He's here. I knew he would come get me. I wonder when he arrived." I was happy.

This is what I thought was going to happen. I thought I was going to rest at the hospital and give me something to take. I thought he was going to then take me from the hospital and stay with me until I got better. There, in my gown, with an unfilled cup for pee in my hand, blind, I felt safe and happy, knowing that he was there to rescue me.

And I'm about to cry again. Excuse me.

I

2010-01-28T21:22:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: www.elfrijolero.com]

It was nighttime. I was sitting in the passenger seat of my sister's car, parked in the garage. I had my feet up on the dash. My dad peeked his head out from inside the house. "TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL!" I screamed. The cops arrived, and an officer walked up beside the car with a heavy flashlight. "Step out of the vehicle," he said. I did.

The EMT men took my pulse again. It was jumping around. They told me they were going to take me to the hospital in the ambulance. An officer got my wallet and phone from my dad and gave them to me.

I was put on a stretcher. One man was driving, one man was in the back with me. He strapped me in. He poked parts of my back and asked me if they hurt. They did.

We arrived at the hospital. "Don't drop me!" I whimpered. They assured me they wouldn't.

I was wheeled inside and passed onto others. I didn't have my contacts or my glasses. I was very blind. They had me change into a gown and slippers. They asked me to name my next of kin.

I gave them his name and his phone number. Yes. I did. I gave them your name and your phone number. I wanted you to know where I was and I wanted you to be there and I wanted you to come get me.

I can't write anymore right now, I'm crying.

Today is a Good Day

2010-01-27T21:30:00.001-05:00

[Photo credit: www.theallseeingeye.us]

I was told today that I am fully recovered and ready to go back to school.

That is all.

To Be a Longhorn or Not to Be a Longhorn; That is the Question

2010-01-24T16:58:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: img186.imageshack.us]

I have lately been debating with myself whether or not I should transfer to the University of Texas at Austin, the nearest university to my home here in Round Rock. Back in 2007, I only got into two schools: Johns Hopkins and UT. I picked Hopkins because it was more highly ranked, more prestigious, and because it was far from home. I remember freshman year, thinking that perhaps I had made the wrong choice. The prestige of the school came with a high bill that my dad was footing. This made me feel very guilty, especially since I wasn't doing very well. I'm still not doing very well.

When I lost my mind the first time, my dad had to leave my family's California vacation to come get me. The second time I lost my mind, my dad had to fly out from Texas to come get me. Wouldn't it be so much easier for my dad to just drive twenty minutes the next time I lose my mind?

Should I be basing my next two years of college life on my illness? Should I allow myself the chance to finish what I started? Will the stress of Hopkins set me off into mania again?

Baltimore is a sucky city to live in. Austin is not. UT is a fun school. Hopkins is not. UT is cheap. Hopkins is not.

I don't quite know what to do.

I'm applying to UT for now. I don't have to go if I'm accepted, but at least I'll have the option.

Once

2010-01-21T18:27:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: www.thehipstermom.com]

I haven't really talked about my childhood much.

Once in third grade, I tried to explain my thought process to my teacher, Miss Kirkwood. "See I can think of anything and that will lead to something which will lead to something which will lead to something! Like you and I are walking, and that makes me think of Winslow, like Carl Winslow, from Family Matters and that makes me think of autumn leaves like they show in the beginning and that makes me think of Halloween and why do they call it that anyway? Halloween? And I know I shouldn't feel this way but I like Halloween much better than Christmas. And it never snows here in the winter time 'cause we're in California and we're in the little corner of California and the sidewalk by my house is shaped exactly like California, with the corner and everything..." And then she cut me off. She wiggled her eyes back and forth, back and forth and laughed. I didn't know what was so funny, but I laughed, too.

Once when I was even younger, I couldn't sleep, so I brought my doll into my bed and brushed her hair and talked to her for hours until my mom came in and shouted at the sight of me. I think to her I looked like a babbling ghost.

Once when I was only one or two years old, I was sitting up in bed and thought that perhaps, my mom wasn't real at all. That upset me a lot and I cried and cried and cried.

Once when I was ten, we were driving in the van to Costco and I stared at my baby sister in her carseat next to me and thought that, perhaps, she wasn't real at all.

Once when I was ten, I thought I was a robot controlled by external forces.

Once when I was eleven, I had to run up the stairs in a certain amount of time or touch a chair a certain amount of times or my family would die.

Once when I was in fifth grade, I couldn't help but think the darkest and most disgusting of thoughts, and I didn't know what to do to stop them.

Once when I was eleven I read an article in Parade about a girl with obsessive compulsive disorder, and I thought I had it, too, but I didn't tell anyone because I was ashamed.

Once when I was ten I tried telling my parents that I needed some sort of mental help and they said okay but I didn't know how to start.

Once I thought it all went away but then, when I was a teenager, it came back.

Once I was a student at Johns Hopkins and it came back again a hundred fold and rocked my world so hard I had to be sent home to recover.

Once I was hospitalized five times because of it.

Once I sat down and read books that other people wrote and began connecting the dots in my life and realized that it was there all along, under everything.

Once I sat down and had the idea that I would write a book about all this, too, because my story is as good as any, I think. But I think I should live some more so I have more stuff to write about.

Circles

2010-01-17T00:18:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: interactive.usc.edu]

After we made the decision for me to return to Hopkins in the fall, I bought a pretty weekly planner from Barnes. I thought I was going to use it to keep track of my homework assignments. I had no idea I'd be using it to track my moods, symptoms, and manic-depressive cycles.

August 31. Meet Dr. Beth Silver at 358 Garland Hall (Counseling Center) at 11:00 AM.

September 1. Dr. Roberts 3:00.

September 2. First Day of School. Stat Mech - Ch. 1 get book from J.H.

September 4. SAC Fair. Get MIS Book. Read for Thermo. SBE, review lecture. L---- comes.

September 8. Get Business Law book.

September 9. 12:15 Dr. Beth Silver. Read Ch 2 and Ch 3 of Thermo.

September 10. Thermo HW, SBE HW.

September 11. RA Sushi and party with Lambda.

That was the last entry from school.

October 14. 10 AM Dr. Farmer

November 2. ESCAPE FROM PSYCHO WARD #2.

November 18. 10 AM Dr. Kelley Farmer

November 21. E.A.S.T.

November 25. No sleep.

November 26. No sleep.

November 27. BLACK FRIDAY = BAD DAY. Got peacoat and Theory suit. No sleep.

November 28. Woke up @ 2 AM. Ask Dr. Farmer for more Xanax.

Then the director of the counseling center told me that I should remain home for another semester and get weekly therapy.

December 7. RR Counseling Center 3:00.

December 10. Emo's 10:00.

December 14. RR CC 3:00. Sad to happy.

December 16. Dr. Farmer 10:00 AM.

December 19. Took Ambien.

December 21 - 24. Ate a lot of sweets and craved food, carbs. Woke up in middle of night.

December 25. Woke up 2 hours before needed to. Took Ambien. Did things in sleep.

December 26. Threw up.

December 28-29. Energetic! Hand shaking a little bit. Slept only five hours.

December 30. Took Ambien. Called people in sleep, ate sugar cookies in sleep.

December 21. Up!!!

January 1. Took two Lorazepam. Felt better.

January 5. Feet touched ground.

My mania comes at the end of the month. I was sent home at the end of September. I was hospitalized at the end of October. I didn't sleep for three nights at the end of November. I reached hypomania at the end of December.

Circles. It just goes around and around and around. If history repeats itself, my next launch into outer space will come in a week. It would be fun and even welcome if those launches didn't come with crashes. I'm losing and gaining ten pounds every month. I'm going from sleeping five hours to sleeping eleven. Citizen high to citizen low. Every month.

This is rapid cycling, isn't it? Shouldn't my meds be squashing this? My body and my brain are on this rollercoaster ride, and I don't know if I can keep up. I'm getting tired of this. Circles and circles, over and over and over...

Take Care

2010-01-14T18:43:00.001-05:00

[Picture credit: www.illusionsgallery.com]

I need to be taken care of. I don't know why that is. I don't know why I always need to be checked up on. I guess I always play the Victim Card? What... do I always put myself in risky situations? Am I naive? What is the reason for me always needing someone to save me?

I'd like to be woman enough to say that I don't need a man in my life. But right after I lost him, I had to find another one, didn't I. Why do I always do this?

Why can't I get myself out of my own way? Why can't I make sure that I'm okay? Why can't I open my own prescription medication bottles?

They tell me not to be "that girl" that always has to have a boyfriend. What's so bad about that girl, though, honestly? Are they saying this just because they're jealous? Is "that girl" really that pathetic? Am I? Why am I asking so many questions?

Dear Future Boyfriend,

I am very needy and dependent. I will smuther you. I am a Stage 5 Clinger. I will demand of you all your time and energy. I am also extremely jealous. But I will buy you nice things and be very loyal and faithful. You will need to do many things for me. You will need to be extremely patient and understanding. Before it gets too serious, you should know I'm a bitch to deal with.

Oh yes, and I am also bipolar.

LOVE,

Now

2010-01-12T00:38:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: inkingthdreams.wordpress.com]

I'm back on the map, again. I was actually thinking about deleting this blog permanently. I looked back on the things I said and all the personal things I shared and thought to myself, "Why the fuck did you do that?" It's weird when I'm about to share something with someone and he or she says, "Yeah, I read that already on your blog." I have Site Meter on here, so I can see who's coming in, from what location, and for how long, and when this was public, I would get hundreds and hundreds of visitors every week. That scared the shit out of me.

But I still have shit to say.

Life has settled into a nice tempo, now. I work at American Apparel. I like working there. The people are chill and I get a good discount and free clothes from time to time. I'm starting community college soon. Taking Cultural Anthropology. Going to weekly therapy. That's going pretty well. Seeing my psychiatrist every month. Meds seem to be doing alright. Everything's pretty much good to go.

I have about two and a half months left until I have to start getting ready to go back to school. I have to be interviewed, my doctor has to be interviewed, my therapist has to be interviewed, and my parents have to be interviewed. My doctor, my therapist, and I all have to fill out questionnaires. My doctor and my therapist have to write formal letters of recommendation. All this for a recommendation from the counseling center to Dean Boswell, the Dean of Student Life. Then she will have the final say as to whether or not I will be allowed back at Hopkins starting in the summer.

I didn't plan on working or going to school, but the director of the counseling center at Hopkins told me it would show that I was being productive in my time away from school. I didn't plan on going to weekly talk therapy, but the director also said that I would need at least three months of it before I was allowed back. I planned on going back for the spring semester, but he said that I needed more time. He said bipolar students need more time.

I wonder what it's going to be like, back at school with my new diagnosis. I wonder what it's going to be like, being in class with kids a year younger than me.

I never would have thought, a year ago, that I'd be here now. A year ago, I was with him, at the house, dreading the start of spring semester. Now I'm at home, out of school for a semester, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, working retail, and going to shrinks. Damn.

Sometimes, I just think about my situation and get so fucking depressed. You live your whole life thinking you're normal, and then suddenly you're not. Suddenly all this shit happens to you, and you don't know why and you're in an office with the Dean of Student Life and your dad, who's in tears next to you, and she's telling you you have to leave. And the director of the counseling center who's just spent hours with you, just talking, is sitting there with his hand to his mouth, just staring at you and you're so fucking confused. And then you have to pack up your shit and leave, but you want to at least say bye to your boyfriend but he's not picking up his phone and he's not even there. And you have a letter in your hand, telling To Whom It May Be Concerned that Alina Pak is on an MLOA and so can you please end her lease with no penalty. And then you're on the next flight home, and you're sitting next to your dad on the plane and he looks older than he's ever looked before. And you arrive in Austin and you scare your mom with how skinny you got and soon you realize that your little sister's been told that something's wrong with you, not on the outside, but on the inside. And then finally, finally the notion creeps into your head that everything you believed was wrong. That you didn't have a miscarriage, that this is not just depression, that it wasn't your boyfriend, your schoolwork, or your family that did this to you. That holy shit, he was right the whole time. You fucking have bipolar disorder. You're fucking manic-depressive, type I, and you were delusional and crazy and no, it's not normal to take your shoes off and run from the North Gate to Garland. And fuck, fuck fuck. You are not normal. You were insane. You got to that point. You reached insanity. And it was beautiful and tragic and you killed the best relationship you ever had but it was all worth it in the end if you gained the knowledge, right? The knowledge that you are what you are and there's help and you're going to get it, have to get it, for your life to go on. And yeah, you miss him, and you still wish that it could have survived, but you're a different person now. He's a different person now. Everything's different now.

And now you just have to pick up the pieces and do what you have to do in order to get back to where you left off. You have to finish what you started and then move on. You have to do what you have to do. This was all coming. This was all going to happen sooner or later. Better a boyfriend lost than a husband. Better a year of school than a year of work. Better a family to come home to than a family to take care of. Better you do this at your age than a couple years down the road.

And this will all be nothing in a few years. You'll be able to look back on this and sort things out in your head and accept it all, piece by piece. And yes, you'll have to share this with your new him, sooner or later, but the time will come. And you'll be scared that people with judge you, or, even worse, that people will be scared of you, but that fear will also pass. And you'll live and you'll breathe and you'll love and you'll do everything you set out to do.

Because that's the way it has to be.

Hippo-Mania!

2010-01-05T14:32:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: signalblog.ca]

I entered hypomania on Tuesday, December 29. My feet touched the ground today.

New Years Eve was very fun. Who's reading this blog again? I don't care. I had fun. I had a lot of unholy fun.

I was very affectionate. I was feeling very sexual. I spent a lot of money. I went downstairs and ate cookies in my sleep. I called people when I thought I was dreaming.

This was hypomania. Not full out mania. I didn't see things or hear things. My anti-psychotic's got that shit on lock.

Towards the end, hate touched me and I harassed my ex-boyfriend. I kind of don't care, though. He broke up with me because of this so he can go fuck himself, really. See, there I go again! But all my feelings of nostalgia have turned into feelings of hate.

I realize though that being a psycho-bitch is, well, being a psycho-bitch, so I deleted him off of everything, including my phone to keep myself from harassing him in my sleep.

I need to get that checked out. Something's not right with my meds.

But when I'm hypomanic I have the jitters, and I need Xanax or Lorazepam to calm myself down. But, for some reason, when I drive or... *sigh*... when I drive or have sex, I'm calm.

My mom wants me to get right with God and read the Bible everyday and go to church and all, and yes, I should... or should I? Yes, I should. *sigh*

Don't Be Ignorant

2010-01-05T13:26:00.000-05:00

I am not weak, and I am not a victim. The stupidest thing to say is, "Alina, you're stronger than this." I am not stronger than my genes. This is an illness, not a choice.

I apologize for nothing.

Medical Update

2009-12-26T23:33:00.001-05:00

[Photo credit: www.saw.usace.army.mil]

My doctor increased the amount of lithium I'm taking because of an episode I had a month ago. I got my blood drawn to check my lithium levels. The clinic is faxing the results to my doctor. My therapist wants to know the results, too. We're getting my trophic levels checked, as well.

I don't know if it's because of my increased dosage, but I threw up at work today and went home early. I've been doing so well for the past few weeks, too. I hope I don't have to start this cycle of side effects over again.

Maybe it's because of the weight I've gained. I jumped from 106 to 115 in a week. I am constantly wanting to consume and constantly wanting to drink. I think that finally made me sick. I've been eating like a madman this past week. This is definitely a side effect of the lithium.

The thing is, my body kind of can't get fat. My mom says there are three types of people: cow people, pig people, and chicken people. I am of the chicken people. This means that I get indigestion or "cheh" very easily. Whenever I eat too much or start gaining weight, I "cheh." I throw up, have diarrhea, etc. until I am a lower weight. I can't binge. I can't eat a ton of food whenever I want to, or I get sick.

So I need to train myself to fight this need for consumption that the lithium is giving me, or else I will get sick.

I am like Alice in Wonderland. Eat me and you'll grow bigger. Eat me and you'll grow smaller. Just have to find the right amount.

Normalcy

2009-12-21T22:23:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: my HP webcam]

My life has been tucked into its cradle. I am stable, warm, well-fed, and happy. I have my routine and my niche now.

I have to dress nice to work. I get free clothes. I kiss boys. What? I mean, I dress nice to work and get free clothes.

I go to therapy. I take my medication. I get my blood and thyroid checked. I kiss boys. I mean, I go to therapy and take my medication and get my blood and thyroid checked.

I am happy and moving on and just trekking along quite nicely, now. Carry on.

Acceptance

2009-12-16T19:35:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: roughguidetohappiness.blogspot.com]

The past few months, I've been asking myself "why" a lot. Why did this happen to me? Why me? Why now? Why can't I go back to school? I'm done asking why. All that does is give me anxiety and a big headache. I have finally come to a place of acceptance. I have accepted what has transpired in my life the past few months. I have accepted the fact that nothing will ever be the same again. I have accepted the fact that I need some more time before I am fully ready to return to Baltimore. I have accepted the fact that, once I return, things will not be as they were before I left.

I hope my life will be long. I hope my life is long enough that one year does not seem so much. But this has been a monumental year for me. Everything changed this year. And I can accept those changes now and move on.

Black Cat

2009-12-12T14:07:00.001-05:00

[Photo credit: glassowater.wordpress.com]

Let's revisit my Second Breakdown. I should rephrase this. It was not a break "down." It was a breakup? No, no, no. The breakup came later. I mean to say that I was very... up. Very energetic. Very, very up. Like I was on coke.

I had trouble sleeping the night before. I had called my ex-boyfriend, who kind of said some weird prayer to me and told me I needed to sleep. I believed he was implying that he would be there in the morning. I was very excited. I went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up. He wasn't beside me. Strange. He must be on his way, though. So I dressed in my neon yellow dress. I went downstairs. I waited for him at one of my apartment building's entrances. I called him, but there was no answer. I left him a message telling him where I was. I waited for him to come get me (he wasn't coming at all... isn't that so depressing to think about?).

But there was a black cat. Its eyes were the color of my dress. It was lurking around the bushes. I coaxed it out of its hiding place. It came toward me. People leaving the apartment building asked if it was my cat. Its owner, a blind elderly woman, came out, but it wouldn't follow her back in. It paced around the entrance of the apartment building, protecting me. Whenever someone else came near me, it would claw the mat that lay at the apartment entrance.

What did I do then? I think I forgot I was waiting for my boyfriend and ran to my friend's apartment to go swimming. Our friends joined us. They protected me. They stood around me, just like that cat did. They told me my ex-boyfriend was looking for me the day before, but I didn't care. He didn't matter to me in that moment in time.

I was very, very happy that day. It was a very good day. And he was nowhere in sight.

Depression

2009-12-12T12:42:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: www.pinktentacle.com]

It's gray outside and in my head. My room is a mess. My bathroom is a mess. I'm in bed. I don't want to do anything. Everything hurts. Everything is heartbreaking.

Thinking about this next semester is depressing. These days pass so slowly. Day by day by day. Every day is the same. Why did this happen to me? Why am I not at school, right now, stressing out about finals like the rest of the world? Oh, that's right. It's because I have bipolar disorder. Fuck that. I need to be back at school. Fuck Hopkins. Fuck the system. Fuck the fact that I am working the system in order to go back to the system.

Fuck my ex-boyfriend. Fuck this town, fuck this city. Fuck Baltimore. Fuck the fact that I am dying to go back.

I thought he was trying to take me away the whole time I was there. I was that delusional. I actually waited for him outside and left a message for him telling him where I was. I was wearing a bright yellow dress. There was a black cat outside that waited with me. It clawed the mat it was on anytime anyone else came too close. It was protecting me.

How is it that black cats would protect me and he wouldn't do anything? Oh, yes, because my dad told him not to. Well, fuck that. Was this before he even came? I think this was. I'm not sure anymore.

Every night that I went asleep, I thought he would be there when I woke up. And every morning he wasn't. Imagine how confused I was if I honestly thought that. Imagine how fucking heartbroken I was when I thought he was there the whole time, but he wasn't. Imagine how fucking heartbroken I was when I thought he was at the hospital with me, but he wasn't. Imagine how fucking heartbroken I was when the Dean told me I had to go home. Imagine how fucking confused I was when I came home and heard they thought I had bipolar disorder. And then imagine how fucking scared I was when they sent me to the hospital a second time. And imagine how fucking heartbroken I was when they wouldn't let me go back to school again. Life has fucking sucked for me this past year. Completely blown. My life has been blown.

California

2009-12-10T18:09:00.001-05:00

[Photo credit: resipsa.law.miami.edu]

I have a lot of time. I might spend that time in California. Stay with my aunt and uncle. Make art. Work. Spend time on the beach.

I'm going to go in a month. Goodbye, Texas.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2009-12-10T11:13:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: oksenate.gov]

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lost! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

I would like to forget this year. I would like to think that, perhaps, we were riding somewhere and found ourselves in a horrific car accident, and he died and I was in a coma and a year passed and I awoke not even remembering him or the whole incident. Memories hurt horribly. He can somehow move past them and speak to me in cold words, but I must forget them.

I want to forget him, I want to forget the hospital, I want to forget getting kicked out of school, I want to forget being taken from my home, I want to forget it all. I would like to pretend that something has happened to my school. All of the students have been sent home for a year, not just me. Or I would like to pretend that I never even went to my school. I know no one there. All I know is my family and my friends from home. All I know is this life of taking pills and passing time.

I must confess something. I had two mental breaks of complete clarity last school year. In both times, I tried breaking up with him. How can that be? I claim to have been completely in love with him. But twice, my mind broke. I remember two distinct times where my entire manner of thinking was transformed. And in both times, I thought to myself, I shouldn't be in this relationship.

I snapped back into place both times. It was strange. But now, now. I am almost apologizing for those incidents in my actions. I am attempting to prove to myself over and over again that I was head over heels in love.

But maybe. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe it doesn't matter. No, that's right. It doesn't matter at all.

It doesn't matter what my dad did. It doesn't matter what I was diagnosed with. It doesn't matter how it ended, how it started, or what happened in the middle. All that matters now is this. I am here. In Round Rock, Texas, living under the same roof as my parents and my little sister. I am in therapy. I am on medication. I am getting a job. I am enrolling in community college. I am coming up with evidence, proof that I am getting better and proof that I can return in good condition.

That is my mission. Everything else is trivial. I need to forget all else. I need to succeed in what I'm doing now. When the time comes, I need to make a convincing argument that I can return to school. And when the time comes after that, I need to return to school with a clear mind and soul.

But for now. For now, I can relax. For now, I can spend time erasing you from my memory. I can spend time learning things I didn't have time to learn at school. I can spend time with my baby sister. I can spend time earning money.

I am spending time. Like a girl in a candy shop, I am spending my time. A little bit for you, a little bit for you, but none for you anymore. I'm done spending my time on you. You died in a great big car accident, and I'm sorry, but you're dead to even me, now.

Short-Lived

2009-12-08T11:14:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: freefoto.com]

This hiatus was extremely short-lived. The need to write is too great. Things are happening to me everyday.

It is not my choice whether or not I can return to school. It is the Dean of Student Life's. She waits on a recommendation from the Counseling Center. The Counseling Center speaks directly to me, my parents, my psychiatrist, and my therapist here at home. I talked to the director of the Counseling Center yesterday morning. He told me to try to go back to school in the spring was a waste of time. He told me they would give me a negative recommendation. He told me I need more time to prove to them that I am stable.

This was expected, but painful, nevertheless. My worst fear is that they won't let me back next year, either. The soonest I can go back is the summer, so I will try to return, then.

I started with my new therapist yesterday. He's an old, white man with a belly who comments on my Asian-ness and insists on not being racist. I might find a new therapist. He said something pretty deep, though. "It takes extraordinary things to get to extraordinary people." I think he was trying to say that this whole situation was Jesus trying to talk to me. Again, I might find a new therapist. He's a hypnotist. I think he's going to try to hypnotize me later. He talks too much. I think I need a new therapist.

I feel like Donnie Darko.

I'm signing up for community college classes for next semester. French and Ballet. Fun, nonsense classes that I wouldn't be able to take with my heavy courseload at Hopkins. I'm also getting a retail job. My mom and I picked up a million applications yesterday from the outlet mall by my house. With work and class I should be busy.

If I want to go back in the summer, I need to start getting ready mid-spring. I need two interviews, one with a school therapist and psychiatrist, and one with the director. My therapist needs to be interviewed. My psychiatrist needs to be interviewed. My parents need to be interviewed. Forms need to be filled out. Letters need to be sent. The whole process takes about 12 weeks. So this means three whole months before I go back, I need to get my shit together. So March. In March of 2010, I need to start hustling.

It's December now. All of this happened in July. It's been six months now. Three more months and I'll be getting ready. Three more months after that I'll be at Hopkins, maybe. And then on and on and on with the rest of my life.

Hiatus

2009-12-06T19:27:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: www.pseudobook.com]

I am officially now taking a hiatus. I'm going to leave, now. Wish me luck. If I don't see you next semester, I'm sorry. I'll try harder next time.

I'm going to graduate. It's inevitable. It's going to happen. Right now, Baltimore is home. That is also inevitable. I will return sooner or later. If you see me, you see me, if you don't, you don't. But if you do see me, please don't tell others you did. I want to keep a low profile.

Thank you for reading.

Talk to Me

2009-12-06T18:20:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: thepaisano.wordpress.com]

I went to church today. Saw a friend who's leaving for Chicago for the last time in a long time. Had a very long conversation with an old friend.

Conversation makes me feel normal. More so than writing down my feelings and my thoughts, bouncing all of it off another human brain reciprocates a feeling of calm and normalcy.

I'm going to a new therapist tomorrow. I'm not sure I need it, but my therapist at school thinks it's a good idea. He also thinks I should take some classes at home in the spring. The registrar doesn't think it's a good idea.

So I'm trying to go back. I've asked for an interview. I'll hear back tomorrow.

Home is a much more emotionally stressful place than Baltimore will be. The situation with my dad hasn't improved much. My relationship with my mother is strained. They don't know how to handle me anymore. They're too scared to push or pull too hard, thinking I will readily shatter into pieces.

Maybe I will.

I don't know what to talk about tomorrow. My old therapist at school and I talked about my boyfriend and my sorority once a week, every week. Her main concern was that I have someone, just one, person that could come to me when I was on the verge of self-destructive behavior. She wasn't exactly sure why he couldn't come when I needed him to. I explained to her that his parents were Asian and protective. She didn't understand, but took it.

A friend just came and left. We had a lot of good talks. She thinks I'm fine. She agrees with my old therapist -- I need someone to be there for me.

It's not bad to be dependent on another. I don't see it as a flaw anymore. I need people. I need a person. I think that's actually beautiful. Needing another.

Kay Jamison had someone that lived in her building who took care of her. They had a non-romantic relationship, but he was always there. Through her sleepless nights and times of excess energy, he stayed up with her, talked to her, talked her down from her mental ledge.

I need someone like that. Someone who knows, exactly, what my illness is and what comes with it. Someone who's not scared to handle a girl who likes throwing things from her apartment balcony. Someone who is not scared to tell me when I am being irrational. Someone who will walk with me to get ice cream at two in the morning.

Now, who. Who is this someone? Maybe that's what I should talk about tomorrow.

Privacy

2009-12-05T15:40:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: www.emergentchaos.com]

If you can read this, you are one of the chosen few. I put Site Meter up on my site, and the influx on this blog has been astounding, so I now made this invite-only.

I started this blog to organize my thoughts and to shut down rumors that had been popping up both at school and at home. However, it is now starting to do more harm than good. I am getting too much attention.

When someone "wants to talk," I now question their motives. I don't want to be a charity case. I never asked to be. Girls are coming to me with their sob stories, and to be frank, I don't want to hear it.

I don't want to hear about your failed love life. I don't want to hear about your problems with your ex-boyfriend. This has nothing to do with your ex-boyfriend. I am sorry if I sound insensitive, but to be completely honest, this blog is about me.

I don't want to go back to school and have to talk to a million girls about their problems. I have all that compassion in me, I do, but this is getting overwhelming.

I just. Need. Privacy.

I am not going to start an Ex-Girlfriends Club. What is happening in my life completely transcends my ex-relationship with my ex-boyfriend and with all my ex-boyfriends before him. This is so big, so much bigger than that, that I can still barely wrap my big head around the concept.

Now I understand why Sam Kim was telling me to be careful of the younger ones. They are reading too much into this. They look up to me too much. They are becoming too moved. They are finding mirrored parts in their lives and thinking it appropriate to respond and, basically, to complain.

I am an unni figure to many. I understand that now. Now that I understand, I have to be more careful in what I say, and much more selective in who I say it to.

Immaturity

2009-12-03T10:58:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: sunnyskeptic.wordpress.com]

Last night, Angie gave me a back massage. I started crying. I told her I just wanted to go back to school. The crying turned into sobbing. My mom came in to give us both tea and found me on my bed, in my nightgown, glasses fogged up, tears pouring down my face.

I keep on saying this. I want to go back to school. I want to go back to Hopkins. What does Hopkins represent to me, anyway? Was I truly happy there? Dare I say it, but was I truly happy with my ex-boyfriend?

Virginia Woolf wanted a room of her own. I wanted that, too, last year. I remember wanting space. But as much as I wanted space, I clung to him like a fucking koala on a eucalyptus tree. I was so needy and at the same time, so agitated. This is my immaturity.

I have inappropriately contacted many people through Facebook messages, e-mail, and by phone. He doesn't pick up his phone anymore.

I called him repeatedly last night, then texted him, "You're a bad friend." I e-mailed my school therapist five times, telling him I was being physically abused.

What is this part of me? This immature, crybaby part of me that craves attention? I either crave attention or I want to be completely left alone.

I am only 20 years old. That's nothing. If I live to 100, I have only passed 1/5 of my life. Why do I feel like my life is ending now? Why do I continue to be so melodramatic? Why do I continue to throw temper tantrums? Why do I continue to scream at my parents?

My mom is drowning herself in Scripture. She tells me I have problems with temptations. Bullshit. I have problems with my brain. I am no addict. I am not addicted to weed. I just like it. If you like something you're going to do it. I have tried other drugs and hated them. I have tried drinking and hated it.

Is it immature of me to just want to get high?

Why I Relate More to Black People Than White People

2009-12-02T19:37:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: www.musiconplay.net]

I'm white-ist. White people are the creepy child molesting, hick-ish, kicking, ignorant people that have angered me my entire life.

The first time I was called "Chinese Eyes" was scarring. When white people would continually bring pandering attention to my Asian-ness, I would recoil.

How was I first taken to ASH? I don't even remember. Let me think... Oh, right. From St. David's. The white doctor didn't look at me for more than a second. The white nurse said, "Don't worry. I know these types. They're so particular."

The second time a fat, white, ignorant cop who listened to hick radio went inside my bedroom to take me.

The white man who was in charge of my discharge pronounced Korea as "CO-ree-yuh." He told me my dad's head was still stuck there.

My only friends in the hospital were black. They get me. White people pretend, but they'll never know what it's like to be a minority.

White people are racist. If you're not white, you're not racist. If you're not white, you can be prejudiced, but you will always know pain that The White Man will never, ever know.

Sunny

2009-12-02T09:53:00.001-05:00

[Photo credit: art4linux.org]

Now, it is obvious. I truly do have bipolar disorder. Can you not tell? Are my highs not higher than yours? Are my lows not lower?

No one can peer into another's mind. I do not know what anguish my readers have personally gone through.

But so many times my peers come to me, wanting to compete. "At least you don't have cancer." "Excuse me? Please don't say that. That is very insensitive." "No, really! Do you really think you have it worse than cancer patients."

What I have is a chronic illness. It can be fatal. Some people simply choose not to believe in it.

I know people who don't believe in mental disorders. I've been to a mental retardation center; believe me, I know how it feels for someone not to believe I have a problem.

Don't refuse to believe in it, until it is too late. Daul Kim just took her own life. I have known so many people from my high school that have taken their own lives...

... depression is real. I just suffer from a special kind.

I am foolish to miss my highs, knowing my lows are going to come like they have.

I need it to be sunny, all the time. All the fucking time, I need the sun beating down on me.

I simply despise it when people ask me, "Alina, what do you do all day?" I survive. Do not think I am lazy. Do not think I am taking the easy way out. Believe me, I'd much rather be at school than staying in my childhood bedroom typing away on Blogger. School was my everything and it has been taken from me. Hobbies? Guitar and art and music. But they depress me now. I have grown so dependent on them, it just reminds me how much of a fragile little person I am.

I hate being fragile. I hate it that people have to take care of me. I want to take care of others. Not the other way around.

He said, "Alina, do you really think we could've gotten married?" If you see him, slap him across the face for me. Hard.

I need the sun.

Disappointment

2009-12-01T19:35:00.001-05:00

[Picture credit: sallutti.wordpress.com]

How do I deal with this? The one thing I was looking forward to was going back to school this January. Why aren't the meds working yet? Why aren't I getting better? Why do I continue to relapse? When am I ever going to go back to Baltimore?

When is this going to be over? When can I move on from this? What the fuck am I going to do with this my entire life?

I needed you! I begged you to keep me! I didn't want this! You treated me as if this was a choice! I kept on running to you and you kept on sending me back!

Damn you! God damn you! I hate this pathetic feeling of disappointment!

I am constantly confused. Constantly. How did this happen? I was blindsided by this. Completely blindsided. Why do I keep blaming myself? Why do I keep on believing I did this to myself?

I hate feeling so out of control. I hate this horrible feeling of helplessness. The one person I thought I needed turned his back on me. The people that are responsible for my safety made me feel very, very unsafe.

I have been hurt. I have run blind. I am so blind. I am so jaded. I am so, so, so disappointed.

Cabin Fever

2009-12-01T15:37:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: www.thruthewoods.com]

I understand why my parents are being overprotective of me. I do. I am their precious daughter. I have been admitted to the psychiatric ward twice in the last six months. When I am let out of the house, I smoke marijuana. I am, overall, a frail little woman vulnerable to temptation.

But I tire of this house. I tire of my parents. I do not tire of Angie, but I do sometimes wish she was older. Censoring myself around her is growing tiresome. I am so tired.

I don't understand what side effects to look out for and run to my psychiatrist about. She costs $75 a complaint, so I don't really want to complain too often. My spine is super shaky. I don't know why. I sh-sh-shake a lot. I'm nauseous. I have trouble sleeping. I think I'm supposed to truck on through all this shit. It's like there's a light at the end of this mad, mad tunnel that I'm supposed to look for. Right now, to me, it seems like a pinprick.

I am in my room. A purple/bluish room. A calming room. A comforting room. With white wooden furniture with gold accents. I love my room.

But it is eating me alive. It is literally consuming me. I am becoming a little pod person. A little crazy pod person, taken from her university, stuck back in Texas, stripped of her fun, stripped of her marijuana, and given tons of pills as friends.

Oh, I'm becoming so kooky.

Creep

2009-11-30T12:24:00.001-05:00

[Picture credit: www.lomorale.co.uk]

I need to get this out of my head.

I met two creeps my last stay in the psych ward. Yes, everyone was crazy, but for the most part, everyone was good people.

I met the first creep on the way to the basketball court. "Hey! You're good-looking!" He was a hick. Overalls. Eyes bulging out of his head. Tobacco stained, crooked teeth. He said if I gave him a bottle and some time he'd give me something to put on my chapped lips. Disgusting creep. He wanted me to write him and gave me his address. I gave it to one of the staff from my unit without looking at it.

The second creep turned out to be someone I was connected to. I was sitting on a rock, basking in the sunlight, listening to my music with my big headphones. He comes up to me, also with headphones. He's blasting his music into his ears. He introduces himself. We get to talking. He starts saying he can sing. Takes my headphones and tells me to put a song on. I do. He attempts. He sucks.

He asks me my ethnicity. I tell him. He tells me he used to date a Korean girl. Describes her to me. Turns out she's my ex-boyfriend's sister. I get creeped out. I've heard stories about him. He tells me he's checking me out.

I hope these two creepers go to hell.

Why

2009-11-29T15:53:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: www.mihummel.net]

Why do you always have to remind me. Why do you insist on reminding me. I know what I thought. I know what evil thought has raced around my mind. I would never hurt her. I will always protect her. To my last dying breath, she will be looked after. I love her.

Last Relapse

2009-11-29T02:56:00.001-05:00

[Picture credit: www.drugalcohol-rehab.com]

I relapsed for about a week. It was scary. I'm recovering now.

This blog is getting so raw and personal, it scares me. It's like this is my monster, my proof that a monster exists within me. People may poke fun at me during my relapse and cause true harm. I fear of this.

It's as if I'm drunk messaging everyone, friends and enemies alike. I seize all day. I shiver and shake until Angie hugs me to her, telling me to stop. I scream at the top of my lungs in my room in anguish. I take long hot showers to forget everything.

My parents grow concerned, scared, and tired. I scare everyone except Angie. She just grows annoyed.

I hate being this way. I do. I hate, hate, hate being this way.

Correction

2009-11-28T17:10:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: I don't care]

I need to stop blaming my relapses on drugs

The truth of the matter is... my family is going through such a hard time right now, I have panic attacks. And these attacks take weeks to recover from.

Marijuana

2009-11-28T05:53:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: current.com]

I have had a running 5 year relationship with marijuana. It must end now. I smoked again a week ago. It caused a relapse. But, during the relapse, I reached a very wise decision.

I'm taking the rest of the year off. Not going back to Hopkins. Might transfer to UT Austin or UC Berkeley depending on where my family is.

Baltimore's really scary.

After this semester, at the end of next summer, I'll make my final decision on what I'm going to do.

That is all.

Passive Aggression

2009-11-28T04:41:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: www.tak.net]

I woke up at 2 AM. Explains the early morning post.

I hate passive-aggressive people. If you have a problem with me personally or by anything I say on this blog or any other form of medium, please grow some balls and tell me directly. By phone or by face.

Commenting on this blog anonymously or calling my number from an unavailable number or stalking other people's Facebooks to view mine is creepy, indeed.

So stop this passive-aggressive behavior. It is making me angry.

A Walk to Remember

2009-11-27T16:57:00.001-05:00

[Photo credit: moviesworth.wordpress.com]

I cried when I watched this movie even though a friend had spoiled it for me before. I cried harder because she had spoiled it. I'm so sensitive.

I feel almost as if I'm living her life. Don't read too much into this one, guys.

Hacking

2009-11-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

[Picture credit: www.owningpink.com]

In sixth grade I sent a virus to a girl I didn't like.

She had to hire a tech guy to fix her computer.

Oops.