the way things are

i'm going to try to be better about posting more regularly. i think that blogging is good for me. alex explained it well by saying that although writing in my notebook is helpful, sometimes i need to get it "out there," into the world. not that i want everyone to read or know what i have to say, i guess i just need to release some things.
this new semester has already been characterized by ups and downs. familial drama is something that is hard for me to handle. the situation itself is ridiculous. basically i'm borrowing money from my grandmother and all my mom's siblings flipped their shit. money makes me uncomfortable, and i wish very much that i didn't need her support, but i do. it's sad to think that the family i loved very much could treat me and my mother so negatively, let alone treat my grandmother as if she is an invalid (which she certainly is not).
once again, my wonderful sister stood up for me (quite fiercely). i'm grateful to have the wonderful immediate family that i have. they've put up with my through all my shit and still uphold the "don't fuck with my sister/daughter" attitude.

i want this year to be better. i suppose that there isn't much i would change about the last year, it was long and at time difficult and painful, but in retrospect, many wonderful things came out of it. of course there are things i regret -- i wish i had talked to/seen julia more, i wish i had gone to her funeral, i wish i had the energy to be a better friend -- but there are a lot of things that i am grateful for.

i pray that in this new year i will grab ahold of healthy opportunities and that i can learn, at least a little bit, that how to cope in healthier ways. i know that i'm not going to change, that i'm not going to wake up happy, and that it will probably be a long time before i appreciate my body. but maybe i can take some steps towards being okay with myself.
moreover, i hope that this year will bring good things to the people i love so dearly. i know too many people who are struggling. i wish so much that i could help.

organically wrong?

Being home is always hard, not that it's bad, just that it is such a different place. it's a place where parts of me walk on egg shells. i absolutely love being with my siblings. more and more i realize how lucky i am to have them (which says a lot because i cannot remember not being grateful for them). but i guess i feel like the broken child. i use to try so hard to be the "okay" child, i was good at school, i was in the marching band, i took pictures and ate with my family. i didn't want them to know that i was fractured.

obviously my plan didn't work out. when i first talked to my parents about being depressed, it was my first semester of college. i think my mom understood that it was something deep, but for a long time it felt like my dad just thought i was mourning the loss of my boyfriend. that was hardly the beginning of it. he got me prescriptions of cymbalta (depression hurts, cymbalta did not help), but talked about it like it was just something to help me while i was stuck, told me i could just take it for a few months.

three and a half years and 6 antidepressants, 2 mood stablizers, and 5 sleeping meds later and i'm still stuck. obviously i've been in worse places than i am now and perhaps a few better along the way, but even with my hindsight bias, i feel like a dark cloud followed me even through the good times.

my exboyfriend once told me that he didn't understand why i was so sad all the time, and that maybe i was doing it to myself. it seems like, given my circumstances (a wonderful family, caring friends, a good education, an amazing girlfriend), there is no reason for me to be so unhappy. could it be me? why would i do it to myself? i can't let myself believe that that is true. that's just like "choosing to be gay". why would someone choose to be discriminated against? why would i choose to hurt?

i know that there good and bad decisions that i've made along the way, but i never once thought to myself "maybe i'll just try to make things a litte worse". there were somethings i knew were bad for me, but they all had/have their purpose. my eating disorder was a way to cope while holding on to the "okay child" title, self-injury was less obvious than my eating disorder and made me feel when i felt numb. it felt like the ends justified the means. although now i can see that the ends might have been better had i not picked up my maladaptive coping mechanisms.

in the grand scheme of things... how much of it is my doing? it's obviously all my responsibility, but for the longest time i've wanted to know how much of it is organic. how much of it is something that's biologically wrong with me?

strong women

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Anaïs Nin

letting go

(from last week's postsecret)

I hate feeling torn between holding on and ruining everything and letting go and not having a way to cope. This year has been possibly the best and worst year of my life. I have so much to be grateful for, and I remind myself of that everyday. Yet I still find myself wanting to revert to what I know made me feel better about myself. Something that was stable when I wasn't.

I know that relapsing like I did before is not okay, but that doesn't make it any less appealing.

i can stand up straight

it's been a long time since the last time i posted. it has been hard to write since julia's passing, each day that i put if off made it that much harder. for a long while, and even still at times, i couldn't think about having an eating disorder or food or be introspective in any way without going back to her. back to little julia. i hope in time i will be able to explain her beauty and do it justice.

it's been a year since i started this blog. it's weird how time passes. when i got my one year follow up survey from renfrew i couldn't open it. i never did. i just knew that it was the wrong thing at the wrong time. what it comes down to is this ... it's hard for me to look at how much has changed and even harder to look at what hasn't.

i've obviously grown and changed and learned much about myself and life, but i have also found my self walking in circle, thinking in circles and even trying to justify those circles.

i want to push through this.
i need to find peace.

as grief sets in

In loving memory of Julia Bliss.

(please click link)

hope is the thing with feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

- Emily Dickinson

wishing all of you well