state of mind

I don't feel like I'm in the right state of mind. Everything is hazy and I don't know anything anymore.

Fuck the holidays. Nothing good ever comes from the holidays, only horrible repressed memories.
Just fuck it all.

I'm feeling really tired & cold. And most of all, I feel alone. I am surrounded by people and I smile and joke and participate but I will never stop feeling alone.
A certain someone was right. We're bipolar. We'll live alone and we'll die alone.

Argghh I don't need sleep!!

Dear electronic diary,

I've been up working on homework. I'm now feeling accomplished and tired, but I am stubbornly holding off on bedtime.
If I try to sleep now I wont wake up on time to make it to my important class (which, is inconveniently scheduled at the start of my day).

A recap:

Today has been one of the best days so far.

V and I went to Guitar Center to pick up a pretty PA system. The Fender 300 (while being convenient in its portability and an essential tool to her trade) is super freakin snazzy. Everything folds up into this weird rocket ship looking hunk of machinery. It was just so great to see her that ecstatic about something. It's the face I make when I can officially claim some awesome new lens or flash unit as my own. She just had the biggest smile & was ready to start doing backflips. We were, fortunately, in my car, so flipping of any sort wouldn't have been possible.

We also got her kick ass merchandise stuff in the mail that I designed & ordered as part of an early Christmas present. I think I was more excited than she was as we opened the package, but it just made me feel like I did something right when she was admiring everything & when she was showing her mom. It made all those hours I spent designing everything completely worth it just to see this person that I absolutely adore so happy.

I don't think I've ever put in extra effort for anyone I've been in a romantic relationship with to that extent and without actually wanting anything in return. It is the strangest thing. I mean, I don't know what happened. I usually only do stuff if I know I'll get something, usually tangible, for my efforts, but I just wanted to see her act like a little kid on Christmas morning opening presents under the lights & plastic pine tree (cutting down real trees hurt the environment).

On top of that, when she was happy I felt some of that joy. Not as much as her, but enough for me to forget any of the usual feelings of doubt, anxiety, & sadness I usually carry around. It was like that bag full of rocks I carry on my back was put down for a second so I can stretch & take a deep breath. I'm starting to think that maybe if I do more nice things for other people this depression will start to go away. Maybe if I keep making peoples day in some minuscule, insignificant way I could leave those rocks behind in the dust of my footprints. Who knows, it could be worth the try just to one day wake up to find that I wont be weighted down by those metaphoric rocks that I've had all my life. We will see...

Anyway, those were just some minor items. I can't wait to see her reaction when I give her the much cooler stuff I plan on making when the holidays come around :)

Pass the eggnog

The semester is almost over and I have never been more relieved to be finished.

The past few months have been a torrential downpour of research papers & essays & even more research papers. I can honestly say that when I am done I will have earned every single point in my statistics class.

I'm also glad to be able to hibernate during the holiday season. Stupid retail job aside, it will be a good time to just retreat. I will have deserved some time to be a bum during the winter.

It also worries me a bit, since my mood just starts to worsen as it gets colder. Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to be lurking its ugly head, waiting for me to think I'm doing fine. I'll enjoy free time so much that I slowly start to isolate myself from the outside world. I'll make excuses to not go anywhere because it will be too cold out & stay in my home for weeks on end. At first I'll really enjoy catching up on my reading. Then I'll clean the house, organize everything, and maybe do something new with my hair. I'll teach myself new things on photoshop & watch movies all day.

Then I'll slowly start to get moody & not want to be around anyone. I'll no longer enjoy any quiet time to myself because I'll be bored, but I will be too fearful to leave the house because by then I would have talked myself into distrust & anxiety from the thought of having to interact with people.

I'll become just sluggish and bummed out because of my mental state & because I would have gone several weeks without sunlight on my face. Soon after that, I will be absolutely nuts.

This seems to happen every year when it starts to get cold, and I don't get back to living my life until it warms up & people force me to get outside & do things. The holidays are a blessing in the form of rest & a curse in the form of me sinking into a deep depression.

I remember 2 holidays ago I was at one of my lowest points when I was completely alone & just felt sick in every sense of the word. I spent Christmas Eve barhopping, surrounding myself with other strangers who felt completely alone. No one in that bar came in with someone else. People were all staring into their drinks & I felt so disgustingly similar. I hated how I fit in with this group of sad people. Drinking to drown out everything on a day when everyone else is at home with friends & family. Feeling completely alone because I had worked so hard to isolate myself. I felt out of place at family holiday parties & I didn't exactly fit into the rock bottom bar fly scene. I remember just wanting to literally go jump off the bridge over 75/85 in midtown. So I got in my car, started the engine, opened the door & puked on the sidewalk, & took a 5 minute nap because I was just too scared to end things, as miserable as I was.

I drove home & thought about the bridge that night, promising myself that I would never end up like the people in that bar. I would either have that friends/family holiday kind of life or work my ass off at my career. I would not stoop to that point again, because that would be the end point. If that were to be my only option I would not be driving home, but letting myself fall off a bridge. I decided that I'll either have a family or a career (maybe both, if I'm ever that lucky), but I wont end up with nothing to my name.

My holidays are usually miserable. I dont really recall any of them, since pointless memories shouldn't be held onto. It makes perfect sense to me why so many people kill themselves during that time of year. You just feel like there is nothing better to wake up to the next day and there is no other hope for you to live a meaningful life. Worse of all, you have nobody to express that to because you are alone, with no one to remember your name once you're gone.

I really hope this holiday won't be like the rest. I'm going to try to force myself to do something with my time instead of hoping I'd have the will to live to start spring semester.

Maybe I'll try a new approach this year. Work on my career stuff, volunteer, or go out shooting cool pictures. I haven't decided. I just dont want to get too comfortable with having alone time so I won't want to isolate myself.

One starts to wonder...

I have this problem.

It will probably never be fully resolved, hard as I try. And believe me, I've tried. I'm still trying.
Every single day is a struggle.

I try so hard to push out all the negative thoughts, the horrible feeling of someone sitting on my chest & pushing out every breath I have, the feeling of vomiting burning poison from my insides. I have to remind myself hundreds of times a day that everything will be okay and that I am okay, but I only partly believe myself. I've never been able to fully believe that I am a decent person. It feels like I'll always be this damaged, broken thing made up of countless individual failures that will always define who I am and it will never be any different. No matter how hard I try I always see that person in the mirror while everybody else sees someone who has it together. They see someone who is confidant & social. They see someone who cracks silly jokes & has no qualms about working hard to get things done. They see this persona I've built up for as long as I can remember and they will all leave in disgust the day they discover that I am a fraud.

Tomorrow I will try again

I've taken things for granted.

Specifically, I've taken my new calmer and doped up state of mind for granted, so I will start taking zoloft again tomorrow morning.

WIthout it I have started to slip back into a weird cycle of depression and everything is starting to feel horrible again. Everything is falling apart in my head again, even when they're not actually.

I hate that this medicine makes me normal and almost whole. I hate that I am a broken person with too many individual failures to ever forgive myself with the only thing keeping me from feeling okay is 100mg per day.
However, if that's what it takes to be even be close to being a normal person then beggars can't be choosers.

Tomorrow is another day. Another start to what I know can only be better.

leaving the church to find God

I have been so against organized religion for such a long time. I've been full of distrust & resentment towards any form of organized religion, believing (to this day and possibly for the rest of my life) that all organized religious bodies are corrupted by a lust for power, money, and control of the brainless masses.

It has taken me til recently to understand my original intentions for leaving the church: I needed to find God for myself.





So here's some back story. I was raised in Catholic and Buddhist settings in VN. I came over to the states & attended a Methodist church with my family because the only Vietnamese people we knew in America were affiliated with that church.
We moved down to Atlanta and my family went to a Baptist church.
For the most part, my father sat outside in the car & waited for us to be done.
I never knew his reasons til now.
He probably had the same beliefs that I do. That this is all fucked up and we were all being brainwashed.
I admire that he decided to humor us instead of forbidding church attendance in general.

In my teens (12-17) I attended an Assembly of God, which is like Diet Pentecostal, aka Pentecostal Lite.
I sang along with the shitty, mediocre, unimaginative songs. I raised my hands during their praise & worship because everyone else did too and I honestly let myself believe that if I tried things their way it would help me to get a little closer to this faceless god that everyone so blindly follows.
They fed us political BS about what it truly means to be a "good Christian" and live a life that is "right with god", and like many of the other attendees I ate it up til I could vomit their rhetoric back at anyone who doubted.

The only thing that accomplished is losing many friends and making myself out to be a complete jackass.

I passed their righteous judgment. I refused to budge from their belief system even though it makes no sense. I turned into a hateful little drone intent on doing what they, and I, believed to be the work of this god.




But then I realized many things.

1. They couldn't answer some very simple questions. How are we going to make the world better? Why do we raise so much money to expand the physical building that we call church but we rarely talk about raising money to help out the local neighborhoods? What the fuck does sitting around a bonfire on the shores of Panama City singing crappy songs have anything to do with being Christian?

2. The church body (it's people) would love and accept me unless I >>> a. am not hateful & judgmental about Muslims, b. ask the sort of questions that revealed how little everybody knew or cared about what following Jesus really meant, or c. flat out fuckin' flaming queer and loving it!

3. I felt more like an outcast with these supposedly loving individuals than with the "heathen nonbelievers" they so vehemently despise. (Yeah, that love the sinner hate the sin bit is total bullshit. What gives any of us the right to determine what is sinful in another person's life, eh?)

4. I was becoming more hateful & narrow-minded, completely missing the whole point that this Jesus guy talked about.

5. I'm too fucking smart for this shit.

6. Everyone, including me, put on the sickeningly sweet, polite face on church grounds. We all acted and spoke like complete douches when we were anywhere else. Nobody was comfortable being themselves at church. WTF!



So I ditched the church.

And I was angry & resentful with what I thought was God.

I realize now that I don't want to run from God. I had to leave the church, cleanse myself of their indoctrination, and reject every belief of what this god that they brainwashed us with is. So in a way that makes me an atheist, if I reject all the notions of THAT god.

I had to leave the church to find my own salvation and to find my Savior wherever He is really hiding.

Because if I have learned anything in all these years, it is that Jesus is rarely found at church.

vietnam

i gave my mom money yesterday in an envelope labeled "mom-vietnam".

i've been saving cash hoping she would not have to feel the burden of paying so much for a plane ticket. vacations shouldnt start off with financial stress. it should be a break from all the stress.

it hurts my heart that this is the only way we can say 'i love you' to one another is through money & materials that cost money, but i think as i get older it just makes it easier to accept that it is the only way she knows.

zzz

losing my balance upon trying to walk into my apartment, tipping, and nearly falling over before i caught myself on the door handle, has made me realize how important sleep is.

i am about to try and rest now. my hands are tingly and numb from being so tired.

Clifford

I'm going to volunteer tomorrow morning for Story Time at BN.

Clifford the Big Red Dog is coming to visit the rug rats & feed them tiny sugar cookies before giving them back to their parents.

Then I have to go home, shower, eat breakfast, put on some decent business attire, and drive back towards the general area of work in order to meet with a possible client. I have to somehow impress these people with my portfolio enough so that they'd feel justified paying 600 bucks for me to take pictures.
I still think 600 is a freakin' steal. Even the 750 I normally charge per wedding is ridiculously cheap compared to some of the other wedding photographers out there.

Wish me luck.

hello summer

i just have to say how much i love summer.

technically it is still spring, but as any georgian would know summer starts in the middle of the last 2 weeks of winter here. the days go as follows: cold, sleet, 60 degrees, 75 degrees, snow, cold, 80 degrees, rain, frozen rain, 75 degrees, 75 degrees, 80 degrees with humidity, and then BAM!- it feels like summer until around november-december.

so i dub this georgia spring-summer, or sprummer if you would.



no, but seriously, now that the sun is out, the days are longer, and i can go outside without my long coats i just feel so ridiculously alive... and cooped up.

i dont know if it is the hypomania starting to kick in or the fact that my body is craving sunlight and exercise, but i've been going out almost every other night or laying in the sun with music & booze almost every other day.
on top of that, things are starting to pick up since it is wedding/graduation/prom season!
that means more gigs so i can work at BN less days and still be able to pay the bills.

my cameras can safely be outside for shoots without freezing over. my subjects can be in natural light without bulky coats. i feel like i am doing something enjoyable again... huzzah.

my list of workplace annoyances

if it werent for the maladjusted sociopaths who come into where i work my job would be freakin awesome.

i hate it when i answer the phone & the person on the other line goes "could you help me find a book/look up a book/do you have this book...?"
"yes."
and then they go completely silent.

0.o

see, when i ask someone if they could help me obtain some information i usually follow with what i want exactly, especially if they say "yes...?"



then you have the loud-mouth, inconsiderate, ignorant ass wipes who could just listen to you for 2 minutes while you give them information and hear nothing whatsoever.
for example "im sorry that book is a textbook that we'd have to order for you. since it is a prepaid item, 79.95, none of our local stores carry it. the only way for you to get it is to pre pay and have it ordered. that should only take between 3-8 business days"

and then they'd go "uh huh.. so you dont have it? and none of your stores do either? can you order it? how much is it? how long would it take if i ordered it? do i have to pay first???".... etc.

did you not listen to a word i said, jackass?!?!

that is such a pet peeve to have to repeat something i just said bc the other person didnt listen. this information is on something that is pertinent to YOU, not to me, but to YOU!!! open ears work better when accompanied by a closed mouth.



then there are the slow-walkers. the ones who stroll gently and placidly when you walk them to the section for a book they need. they drift off in their own thoughts, pause to look at something, then wonder where you went because they didnt bother to even keep up.

and i just want to kick all of them in the asses. like seriously, i dont want this book. i dont care. this is something you're asking me for. you should care enough to keep up & not pause to look at something when i have other things i need to get done.

ugh. end fuckin' rant.

i hate my jobbyjob.

about to go see friends. updates, etc.

balloonia

balloonia

vlog the first

vlog intro

sertraline

i started to take my generic zoloft again. this time i will try to do it more consistently since it seemed to help when i wasnt missing doses & etc.
i'm starting to take it around 11-midnight when i'm about to go to sleep. hopefully that will keep me from being sleepy during the day time.

here we go again.

funny creepy sad

i've been doing lots of random reading for some of my psych classes and it strikes me as really strange and funny how screwed up i was as a kid.

there was that time we were staying with my uncle & grandparents in saigon. it was a huge apartment on like the 4th floor with lots of people, a large dog, and several cats. so one time i remember playing too rough with a dark furred kitty and he scratched me. out of complete rage i grabbed him by the tail, took this random blunt object, and smacked the hell out of him. i didnt really understand the concept of life and death, except that he was alive the moment he scratched me and then not so alive shortly thereafter.[how come nobody punished me for acting like such a little savage anyway??? all the adults were there when it happened].
then there were all those times i tried to set things on fire in VN and in the states. i finally stopped doing that around age 14 because i started amusing myself with drugs instead.
i also remember the elementary school i first attended in PA, with huge fields that had to be maintained using a huge lawn mower. i was standing in the way of the driver during recess and just waiting to see if he'd run me over, just out of curiosity. then one of the kindergarten teachers noticed and rushed to grab my hand and get me out of the way, when all i could think of was maybe if SHE got run over by one of those things it would be really interesting to watch.
in addition to all that i had horrible rage as a kid. i seriously flipped out and put some serious whoopass on my cousins when we were all little (even though some of them were older and larger than me) whenever they pissed me off. i also screamed, yelled, and threw things at adults who told me no or ignored me, with every intention of hitting them in the face & head.

all in all, that was a seriously messed up child who grew up to be an equally messed up (although somewhat contained) adult.

fuckin' weird.

crazy recluse under a bridge

i was doing ok for a while (or so i thought) until about a week ago when everything just didnt seem real. so i flipped out and had a little coke/adderall bender. it wouldve just been coke alone if i had enough cash, but i only had enough for one good, solid line that made me geeked out for almost an entire day. then everything started hurting because i started to withdrawal and like a pathetic addict i had to make do with like 6 adderalls just to make up for that awful feeling of bad sex and being cheated on after losing your phone and wallet on a public transit vehicle (because that's what it feels like after i start to come down to reality, whatever this reality is). and when that just didnt really cut it after a while i flirted with the idea of accidentally cutting a little too deep and bleeding to death, but thought i should probably do that in the bathroom so i wont stain the carpet in my apartment and leave jason & kelsey to have to clean (or just replace the entire carpeting altogether) which would be completely uncool considering how they are letting me stay there for such unbelievably low rent. i ended up just cutting shallow lines into my arm until i felt better, but now i dont know what's going through my head. everything is just moving in slow motion and i feel like my head is underwater. everything has a hollow ring to it and each time i blink it seems harder to open my eyes and be in the present. i just have 2 more classes to go through and then meet with a group member to work on our presentation for a bit. i just have to hang tough for a few more hours of noise and crowded hallways and i'll be good.
my shrink has suggested writing down everything that goes through my head whenever i start to feel that panicky sensation that makes me want to run away from everything and do stupid shit. i'm going to take her suggestion and hopefully it'll keep me grounded.

fuck!!

i am so bad with managing time and keeping up with things.

fml.


i missed an exam for one of my classes.
for some reason i thought it was going to be due at the end of this week, not the start of this week.

fuuuuuuuuck.


*bang head on desk*



oh well.. i'll just have to do really well on the rest of the assignments.

i just. well, fuck. that's all i can think of. just fuck.

mmhmm

There is this band, Relient K, who sings really teeny bopper pop/punk semi Christian songs.

They are one of my favorites.

I listen to their album (MmHmm) in my car, blasting it above the noise of Atlanta traffic and my own shrieking, whenever I feel like flicking off the world & the powers that be. Whenever I want to say Fuck it all and just give up I sing along to their angst ridden teen Christian pop music and I feel better.

There is one line that goes "and this is how I choose to live, as if i'm jumping off a cliff knowing that you'll save me, knowing that you'll save me..." and it hurts my heart.

I so desperately miss those days when I felt everything was going to work out in the end. I was so stupidly, blindly, ridiculously ignorant and optimistic that God will fix everything and that all the bad things that were happening was only to make me stronger. Whenever the world was in utter chaos and going to shit I hung on to those shreds of hope that somebody was out there who cared about me, loved me, and wanted the best for me, and that person was in total control so that nothing could really break me.

And I just don't believe that anymore.

I miss being able to trust my life in some sort of force outside of my own being.

I just wont. I cant.


there is no way i can ever go back to just being that blind. not after getting fucked over so many times. i wont.

i just miss KNOWING that it'll all be ok in the end.

wtf 0.o

this is the fourth time i got this kind of message on myspace looking for escorts, and lord knows how many times i've gotten messages from creepers in general. that place is so dirty...


"hey whats up how you doing name Brandi i am not gay i am online for looking for some beautiful females that want to make some good money and if interested hit me up only open minded women though.... not trying to come off as being rude just coming to you on a real deal no BS. on making some real money but if you feel like i came off on you wrong sorry but this is only for the open minded females that want to make some money so if interested hit me back also this is for the adult industry hit me back an ill tell you more of what i am looking for thank you. WHAT WE ARE CURRENTLY HIRING FOR: ESCORTS,DANCERS, AND ADULT FILMS ONLY RESPOND BACK IF YOU HAVE INTEREST IN THE ADULT ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY THANK YOU!! PLEASE READ ALL BEFORE RESPONDING THANK YOU!!!"




sigh.


0.o



what the fuck!!!

i feel the urge to wash my skin with gasoline and fire now.

how do you just solicit a complete stranger on the interweb like that?

and do i freakin LOOK like a skank!?!


gaaaaaaaaaawd!!#%$#%$@$!$&^%!!

clouds

It is so cold in my apartment (even with the gas heater) right now that my breath comes out in little clouds. I like smoking when it is like this anyway... the vapors seem to be way more than my little lungs can hold.

Anyway, this is day 3 or 4 of my being on zoloft.

I don't notice anything different, except for feeling really horrible and anxious when I was an hour late on my dosage today.

It should take about 2 weeks for this stuff to start really working. Hello, prescribed addiction.

And I still can't sleep.

update

today is the third day i've been on zoloft. 50 mg, once a day around noon.
there are no noticeable changes so far.

i hope it works soon. i had a weird depressive mood swing yesterday for a few minutes. it only lasted the time it takes for me to smoke a (legitimate) cigarette but it was an awful feeling while it lasted. then it went away again.

i really cant wait for this stuff to work, although according to my boss, "you might get bored sometimes".

freezing my balls off

i feel extremely lazy today.
there is no motivation to be active whatsoever.

i blame it on this god-awful weather. i mean seriously, can it just warm up to the 70s already? i mean, what is not to love about warm weather? the sun, the occasional cool breeze, the girls coming out in shorter and shorter skirts, the totally badass tan one gets from going on 3 hour runs a few times a week, the heat waves coming off the concrete, the girls coming out in shorter skirts...

it just makes me want to move to the land of perpetual summer and leave this completely miserable southern tundra behind. i mean, foggy & grey i can deal with, but add frigid air to that and it spells out certain death.




ugh, so anyway, enough about how much i hate georgia and cant wait to live on the west coast somewhere.

my visit with my new shrink, Pegah, was pretty awesome.
it was a combination of me being ready to figure things out for the first time and her being really genuine.

i'm pretty excited about this.
i can't wait to see where it'll go.

good son

I am watching Good Son for a class right now, and my attention has pretty much worn out.

Hence the blogging about watching a movie.. :)

The character referral for class is due Thursday so I am watching the interesting parts only. God bless the fast forward button.

So I have been diagnosed with Bipolar II.

After the movie is done I am going to drop off my prescriptions for zoloft and adderall and start on my meds tomorrow or wednesday.

I'm a bit nervous. When I was younger the welbutrin made me feel suddenly very motivated to kill myself. I was in a depression that was like a really slow anger without the energy, and then suddenly I had the energy to make everything stop.

Antidepressants react strangely in younger people anyway, but maybe this time it wont make me all retarded.

I still can't help but be a little edgy about this.

crazy doctor

I've had several assessments in the past few months and now the counseling department at GSU has finally come up with a diagnosis: Bipolar type II.

Bipolar II is similar to Bipolar I in that I have episodes of highs and lows, although I will have have full mania. My up episodes, hypomania, are usually when I am loud, energetic, extremely social, and full of thoughts & ideas that bounce around my skull rapidly. This is to be followed shortly by depressive episodes where I feel worthless and suicidal.




Anyway, they want to start me on zoloft to help with the depression. This is risky bc it possibly triggers episodes of hypomania.



I just hope I don't become a raging douche bag while I'm on meds, or try to kill myself like I did when I was on welbutrin.

Sigh. Freakin' apprehension.

Battle robots

My post has nothing to do with battle robots.
I was just thinking about how cool it would be to have my own evil mechanical minion that serves as a giant walking computer as well.

Anyway, school has started and I feel pretty far behind already.
I have so many papers to write & projects to work on.
One of my books isn't even here yet. Screw you, amazon.

With almost full time at work, 3 classes, a lab, and trying to get AlphaCubed off the ground I feel like I have no time for anything. Except, you know, the occasional blog to bitch about how stressed out or tired I am.
I think this completely packed schedule is going to benefit me, though. If I have no time to sit and think about all the horrible things, if I have no time to dwell on the anxiety & dread, then it should go away eventually.

chemicals and mood swings

I have no idea what is wrong with me.

I start off the day fine, then I feel awful for hours, then I am fine again, then I stay up at night because of the anxiety attacks. I feel like I am going to puke because of this constant fear & dread in the pit of my stomach. There are all these random thoughts that come out of nowhere and make no sense, like they don't even belong to me.
I keep thinking about how much I hate everything, how much I hate myself, and how easy it would be to just make everything stop permanently. There is no reason for me to think like this or feel this horrible, but I do. I'm trying hard to just be logical and think about all the good things in my life, all the good things I am looking forward to this year, the next year, the one after that, and so on and so forth, in an attempt to make these thoughts and feelings go away.

FML. I just want to be normal.

i feel weird

nothing makes the alone feeling more apparent than waking up in the middle of the night in an anxiety attack and not being able to talk to anybody because you might bother them by calling.

Everybody is leaving me.
Slowly, but surely.


It is one of my greatest fears and it is happening one person at a time.


I think I am just meant to die alone.