Brainstorming

So the theme I ended up pinning down is “30 Days of Stuff That Use to Really Cheer Me Up”.

Hm. I should probably try and figure out a shorter way to say that.

Rika wanted to call it “Things I Used to Give a Shit About” but that seems a bit excessive.

Unfortunately, I’ve only come up with 24 things.  I’m doing it in advance so that I won’t get bogged down by that apathy of depression and go “Ehhhh, I ran out of ideas. I give up.”

But obviously I suck already.

I sent an email to Germany and Texas requesting additional items (if anyone would know, they would).

Hopefully they’ll be able to complete the list and then I can begin!

30 Days bandwagon

I’ve decided to jump on this blogging world 30 day phenomena.

The post earlier about Red Dwarf made me realize that when I focused on something that used to make me happy and instantly elevate my mood, it lifted my mood a bit. So I’m going to tailor this idea into something to make my September productive with this depression, insomnia, eating disorder, switching craziness, and general crummy feeling.

My plan is to format into something like my memory lane strolls.  It’ll start with my first memory of said thing or activity, then my more recent. And perhaps my favorite if it happens to fall in between.

All the alters plan to participate with the ones that they care about or involve them.

It will start Saturday, (September 1st!) with “Hosting a party”.

What do you guys think?

Boys from the Dwarf

To cheer myself up today, I did a lot of Googling and WordPress searches on Red Dwarf, which is my favorite television show ever.

I know that seem strange for a number of reasons.

1. I’m a girl. It’s a goofy sci-fi show centering around 4 men. And not like, sensitively metrosexual men. Just gross, disgusting, dorky men.

2. I’m under the age of 30. This show technically came out in the late eighties. Technically that’s the decade of my birth. I also like Doctor Who (the OLD stuff). I’m an old soul at heart.

3. I’m American. I currently live in the Midwest. Most of us aren’t aware the British do anything besides Harry Potter and Doctor Who.

4. I’m not really nerdy at all. I don’t like video games (with the exception of Left for Dead, but only played at friend’s houses, as I do not own any game consuls).  I hate Lord of the Rings (don’t hurt me!). It’s surprising that I’m technological savvy enough to manage this blog. My area of expertise is law and pickles. I love shopping and shoes (and don’t even get me started on shopping FOR shoes).

5. I hate Star Trek (please don’t hurt me!)

6. Despite dealing with DID/MPD, every single one of us likes at least one episode of Red Dwarf, although Armes has a hard time getting the jokes sometimes. Rather strange. There isn’t much else we all like.

7. One of us had the biggest crush on Rimmer. Still does. I won’t tell you who, as it’s embarrassing to her.
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Anyway, I’m loving how reading about other bloggers excitement for the new Series X (which you lucky Brits get in October!!) has given me such a smile on my face.  In particular this post and this hilarious one featuring SUPER interesting telephone poll photographs.

Now I just need to get the courage up to swing by Army’s apartment and pick up my DVDs. I really need the comfort-food-like quality of a Red Dwarf marathon.

Boys from the Dwarf!

It

It curls
A dark and slinky cat, winding about your ankles

It claws
A thorny pocket-sized monster, fitting perfectly into that hole in your chest

It cries
Louder than a banshee on her best day, louder than a lost child on its worse

It hurts
Sometimes a simple reminder, like a papercut; sometimes a deep wound, like a gunshot

It scars
You can sing and smile and talk and shop and laugh and wash and scrub, scrub, scrub-
and tell everyone it’s not there

But it is

Picture of me taken by an artsy-photography friend in high school. It’s sort of ironic considering the self-harm I struggle[d] with (though never on my wrists).

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A poem I composed a couple years ago that’s describing some of various struggles I’m dealing with right now….

Eating

This is how I feel about the whole fucking stupid eating thing.

(from here)

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t actually think the body is fucking fat or any shit like that. Just tired of dealing with this bullshit.  Especially goddamn Victoria’s.
Ugh.

Also, I want some goddamn cake.

Cramps

(apologies in advance for any male readers we may have)

For some reason I’m experiencing the worse cramps ever right now.  It doesn’t really make any sense because I had my period recently, so there’s no way I’m due. And the only time I’ve ever gotten cramps is the first day or two of my cycle.

Shadow Dragon (my roommate) did point out the fact that I’m living with her now, so it could be the whole “syncing cycles” thing (which I always found really creepy and freaky).  However, I’ve never had that happen to me before.  Not even when I lived with my girlfriend for 5 years.  I mean, we’d have our cycles rather close together, but I never had my body “re-align” or whatever.

It didn’t do that for my mom, when I lived with her after being hospitalized, didn’t happen when I stayed with a female friend of mine for a bit.

So I’m back to wondering. Maybe it’s stress or something.

All I know is it effin’ hurts. Like a bitch.

Support for Claire

Claire is very upset and depressed from Monday.

Let me backtrack:

We had a couple friends over to Daddy’s house to talk about a party we’re hosting this weekend.  Most of what went on isn’t important, especially to this entry, but there was a point where one of the friends, who was a close friend of (almost exclusively) Claire’s in late middle school/early high school started talking about the stories Claire wrote back then.

And she was mean about them. I mean, nasty. I usually try not to speak ill of people, especially friends, but…it’s hard not to in this case.  Plus, it especially wounded Claire.  She knows they were middle school writings, obviously not something that would be published and read by adults.  But it was something she was proud of in middle school. It was her outlet. And she didn’t show her stories to anyone until this girl.

Rika was trying to get out and bitch out the friend, but it wasn’t the appropriate place.  I ended up having to take over for Claire, who went off into a mental-corner and hasn’t really come out.

Writing means a lot to her.  She doesn’t care about being published, or being a best seller, or anything like that.  But she does value it and only shares it with those she deems trustworthy.

(or in the case of this blog, anonymously)

I’m not really sure how to handle this.

Armes thought perhaps I could write an entry on the blog and get some support here.  Claire values all of our followers so much.

Maybe it’s a silly idea.

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A Gentlemanly Morning

The universe is still trying apparently.

I don’t talk a lot about my spiritual or personal-type (i.e. religious) beliefs on here because I’ve learned through experience that 99% of people really don’t want to hear it.

But I’m not atheist, or agnostic. But I’m also not particularly devout and I hesitate to even use the term “religious”. It’s not that I believe in a giant person-type being sitting up in the clouds staring down at me and poking and prodding at my life.

Makes me think of a child with a magnifying glass, gleefully looking at ants too much- creepy.

I also don’t believe there’s absolutely nothing.  There are too many surprising and amazing things in this world, even with the horrible and scary. And of course I know there are horrible awful things that a supernatural being should pay attention to and try to prevent, at least a bit more.
Okay, fine, maybe it’s entirely just universal coincidence, but it makes me feel not so hopeless and stupid and useless if I at lease pretend otherwise.

Anyway, this morning I was feeling shitty.
I slept awful, I woke up feeling awful, I felt useless with SD’s anxiety about her children, my shower was just another moment of time spent with an uncovered body I currently hate, driving to work was full of too many stupid and bad drivers (it’s raining, which in Ohio means drivers become extra-dumbass).

Then I arrived at work and got out of my car and walked towards my office building. I was angry with myself for wearing my black moccasins, which are incredibly comfortable (hence why I wore them), but terribly impractical for all the puddles in the alley from the parking garage to my building.

Then I notice a crowd of construction men hanging around the back entrance to my office building.  I begin to feel uncomfortable, as in the downtown area of my city, those kind of men tend to make uncomfortable jives at me. I begin to quicken my pace to get past them as soon as possible when the universe steps in to pull a 180 on my day.

One of the men meets my eyes and smiles, then goes to open one of the doors of the building.  Another opens the other door and the remaining two move to the side.  They all tip their hats at me and say a polite “good afternoon ma’am” as I walk through the open double doorway like I’m in a movie.

My smile is quick, and my mood isn’t entirely lifted, but my day feels a little brighter.

Self-image

This post is probably going to be ridiculously shallow.  I dunno. I’m having issues determining really anything about myself right now.

Let me start at the beginning.

My friend’s birthday was on Saturday and I went to Columbus to celebrate it.

That morning- well, afternoon, as I slept in. It was lovely. Anyway, that afternoon, I took a shower and spent way too long staring at myself in the mirror both before and after. Like a perv.

Norman Rockwell’s “Girl at Mirror”. Fits my emotions pretty well at the moment.

Mostly hating myself though.

The only casual clean shirt I had that wasn’t too hot for yesterday was a green halter top. I bought it because it shows off my fox tattoo nicely and I used to have this sort of love affair with my shoulders.

But not anymore. I put it on after my shower and stared at myself in the mirror. I frowned. Then I put on my capri jeans and stared at myself again. Then I realized what time it was and that I was running late and definitely didn’t have any time to wash some other shirt to wear.

I went with the green halter.

SD was the first to insist I looked fine.  Then my mother, as I borrowed her kitchen to make the deviled eggs for the party.  Then Texas showed up (we were driving up together) and insisted I looked fine.  But when I went into the bathroom before we got on the road to Columbus, I again stared in the mirror from various angles, and doing various things with my hair in order to try and see what they were seeing.

But I simply can’t.

The party was decently enjoyable. It consisted of a gaggle of girls, and one poor guy who had to listen to us talk about sex and compare experiences, as women do when there aren’t really any men around.  Hopefully he learned some stuff.  He home brews beer and spent a good amount of time talking to me about it and getting me to try various ales and ciders he’s made.

Army also does the home-brewing thing, so I’m used to it and thought some booze would be awesome anyway. I care so much less about my self-image when tipsy or sloshed.

I only managed barely tipsy as some of the other alters were being pretty firm on not going overboard due to the Daria crap we’ve been dealing with.

I do remember one point when we were playing Apples to Apples, I was lying on the floor and messing with the area around my stomach/hips, trying to see how flat I could get it.  Not trying to be inappropriate or slutty or anything, I was simply getting upset with myself for what I think feels like a hugely flabby tummy area.  Texas noticed and tilted her head at me.

“Why are you feeling yourself up?” She asked, a bit more bluntly than Texas normally is. Suddenly all eyes are on me. I blush.

“Oh. Sorry. I feel a bit bloated and chunky at the moment. Carry on. What’s the adjective again?”

The birthday girl, let’s call her Pirate, snorted.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? You look fine.” She said. I shrugged and nodded at her.

“What is with women??” Brewer Dude said, staring down at me, “You all never seem to have any idea that you look amazing and worry about some little bit of curve you have. Most men do not want to touch or fuck twelve year old boys. It’s good you don’t look like one.”

Again, I nod and attempt a good-natured laugh. The rest of the evening goes well enough.  I end up going and spending the night at Texas’s, and again go into the bathroom to glare at myself in front of the mirror for way too much time.

I do distantly recognize the behavior.  Though it’s been years since my concept of my self-image has been so rageful and disdainful, I know the spiral of depression and eating disorders that follow.  And I can feel Victoria eagerly waiting in the wings, desperate to take control of our diet again.

I wish I could see what others tell me they do.  But when ever I stand in front of the mirror, or lie in bed and stroke my hands over my sides, stomach, hips, thighs, all I see and feel is flab, flab, flab.

And I hate it.

And I hate myself.

And I don’t want to be around anyone at all.

Especially myself.