The First Thing

The first thing you should know about me is I am not a success story. Nor will I ever be one. From this you can probably glean that I am also a die hard pessimist, but more on that later. I am not a success story because I have never been successful at anything. I mean we are talking extreme unsuccessfulness. Once, in the 5th grade I was playing basketball for the YMCA and I scored a basket for the other team. I once went a whole year going to violin lessons through my elementary school and never learned how to play-I just faked it. I've always been an average student. I have a crippling fear of tests and being tested. To say I have never won something is an understatement. The only thing I can remember winning is a "#1 Horse Lover" award in the 4th grade but everyone got some "award" based on their hobbies and interests. It's funny too because I was raised by winners. Don't get me wrong, my parents are pretty cool and were not the type of parents to force me to do anything and didn't make me feel like shit for being such a loser. They accepted it. However, their first born was a real champion so they already had their winner child and I was destined to be the "quirky" one. For a while being the quirky one was a role that I more than obligingly filled. I have a really bad memory (like some sort of head trauma that I cant remember...) so all of the ages are guesstimated but it was about 8th grade when I started to turn to the "dark side". I just remember being so dissatisfied with life and with myself that it became physically painful. I decided that Kurt Cobain was my idol, that black eyeliner looked best in thick lines and obsessing over my weight was my new favorite past time. Oh and I developed incapacitating anxiety.
I did have quite a few friends but mostly because no one that age realized how harmful self-deprecating humor was so they just thought I was the funny, "weird" girl. I had two best friends who were just as weird but in slightly different ways. I was convinced I was fat (looking back this is kind of hilarious in a not-funny-at-all kind of way) so I started throwing up my food. I wanted to be anorexic and I told my best friends this (HA!) but I couldn't pull it off.  So I figured I would get the best of both worlds- eat my cake and have it too! I would binge eat and then purge it. I hated purging but I felt like it was a good punishment for eating like an asshole, so I did it. This is when my horrible relationship with food began and boy do I love suffering the repercussions! I still look at food with an obsessive eye. I want food more than anything. It's a constant battle (that I am losing, if you couldn't tell).
I didn't start seeing a therapist until the 9th grade (I think) but I had a nice foray into that world when I had scared my best friends one too many times. I wrote them a note (OMG do you think Ryan thinks I am cute?!?!-because middle school amiright?) saying I wanted to hurt myself, or something like that. Next thing I know I'm in the counselors office and shes saying she "found this note" on the floor and that she wants to know if that's really how I felt. It's kind of adorable how naive I was because I really did think she found it on the floor. It was way too many years later that I realized my friends had turned it in (GASP).
In the 9th grade we moved to a new town. You know when, say a plate, is sitting on the edge of a counter and its juuuuuust about to fall and it sways for a few seconds and you're sitting there frozen, incapable of grabbing it before it shatters to pieces? Yeah that's what happened when we moved. My extremely tenuous grip on reality went tumbling down and shattered all over the floor. I was too much of an anxious wreck to act out in conventional ways (i.e skipping school, graffiti, screwing boys, drinking-you've seen the movies) so I decided I was just going to go to school and keep my mouth shut. I wasn't going to make friends (who needs them anyway? says the angst ridden teenager). I began wearing more black and stacking those black rubber bracelets because I was cool. No one approached me and boy was I petrified my first day of school. If it were physically possibly I think I would have choked on my own heart.
Anyway, fast-forward a few weeks or a few months? And I'm standing outside the school waiting for my mom to come pick me up (oh freshmen year...) listening to my Walkman (oh early 2000's) when this girl Molly from my English class asked me what I was listening to (Linkin Park because, duh). We became friends and it was good.
I can't remember exactly when, how or why but I started cutting that year. I could tell you some bullshit about making the pain I feel on the inside more real by showing it one the outside or some crap like that but the honest to god truth is I don't know why I did it. Attention, maybe? Not sure.I should have probably figured the "why" out. But I don't think I ever did. Anyway, it was fairly easy to conceal. Molly knew and my friend Lauren knew but she did it too so it wasn't a huge thing. Back then I was seeing a chiropractor weekly and one day she had me take off my hoodie, which therefore left my wrists wide open for viewing. She asked me what happened and I just completely blanked. I told her I slipped and fell during swim practice and obviously she didn't fall for that. I was convinced that she was going to tell my mom so I was throwing up in my head with anxiety for the rest of the day because I didn't know what to do. That night I called my mom into my bedroom and had her sit on the bed and I showed her my arms. I just remember she seemed really mad. And I cried. Skip a couple weeks and the next thing I know I'm in the most stereotypical psychiatrists room to ever exist outside of movie sets.  I don't remember his name and every time I try to remember what he looked like I just think of the actor who played the dad in the movie Juno, J.K Simmons. My mom was in the room for the beginning but he started asking me increasingly mortifying questions and I finally asked her if she could leave after he asked if I was suicidal. I told him I had thought about it, tossed around the idea, like no big deal. But I had done more than that. I had written many notes, and made many plans. Sometimes to this day I wish I would have done it. We talked about how imperfect I was and how I wanted to be someone else. I told him about my binging and purging, and he told me that when we binge our body releases endorphin's so that's why I felt good after it. This fact actually still fascinates me to this day. I saw him pretty regularly. I acted like I didn't want to but secretly I enjoyed it. It was nice to have an unbiased person to talk to. Someone that didn't have any stake in my life so they weren't prone to crying when I told them my deepest most fucked up thoughts. He told me I had Borderline Personality Disorder and Severe Depression (because, duh). I taught him what a loofa was so I think it was a fair trade, really.
(To be continued...)

Sometimes

Sometimes when I cry out "I hate you!" I'm not sure to whom it is I'm shouting it to. The obvious answer is me because I do , in fact, hate myself more than anyone. But sometimes I think I'm screaming it at you. I'm screaming it at you because this is all so fucking easy for you. But what about me? What about this tattered girl you're dragging along behind you like a broken fucking doll that you used to love but now has become a boredom-busting, convenient, play thing? WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT ME?? Go ahead and tear my hair out. I'll let you. I'll even pretend it doesn't hurt. Go ahead and draw on my doll face with permanent marker. I'll pretend I think it's funny. Go ahead and tear out all of my stuffing and I'll fucking laugh with you and shout "It's fine, I don't need my heart anyway!" And you know why I don't need that fucking metaphorical heart? Because it thinks about your name every time it beats and it whispers "I love you" with every contraction. So yeah, go ahead and take it, it's yours anyway. So put it in a glass case so it can get dusty with the rest of your cruel collection. Maybe one day you'll look at it and as you brush off the cobwebs you'll say "Huh, I wonder whatever happened to that girl." Well I'll tell you what happened. After you took my heart my body grew cold. I lost my appetite and wilted away-my outsides finally matching my hollow, chilled insides. And as I'm lying there praying for death to have mercy on me I'll laugh and say, "At least I tried."

For the Love of Dog

I absolutely love my job. I get to take care of 35 dogs who would have otherwise been euthanized. I feel fulfilled every day and the dogs show how much more faith they have in humanity than I do. It has been really hard making friends here, though. People here are very cliquish and pretty closed off to new people but i am slowllllly working my way in.

Living situation is pretty much not stellar but then again i just don't do well living with other people.

Today I had to go to St. George to see my allergist and it was a surprisingly upsetting trip. He told me things that my other allergist had failed to mention, like my thyroid is going to crap out on me in about five years and my meds make me hungry all of the time.

The fact that my meds make me hungry all of the time is such a huge relief and such a huge disappointment at the same time. It is a relief because now i know im not fucking crazy and i am actually hungry all of the time instead of me just being fat and wanting food irrationally. there is a reason! but it is so extremely upsetting because it makes losing weight that much harder and i know that is why i have always lost motivation in the past. i kind of feel defeated. i know its not an excuse to be fat but now i feel like my uphill battle just became an uphill mudslide battle.

THEN  my allergist totally called me out on my OCD. He saw me picking at my fingers and goes "you know thats OCD, right?" and while I did know that, I just felt it was so alarming to have it pointed out to me by a fucking allergist.

Anyway, I watched this documentary today about the FLDS polygamist group in Colorado City, AZ and how messed up it is and how the kids and women try to escape but Warren Jeffs has them by the throat even from his prison cell. On my way to St. George I had to drive through Colorado City and it was so eerie and depressing. The place is a huge dump because all of their money goes to the church. it just made me realize how lucky i am to have grown up in a "normal" situation that didn't lend itself to some traumatizing PTSD type shit.

i have it so so so good but yet i'm never satisfied.However, right now i'm just so content with the fact that i love my job that everything else is taking a back seat. its just a relief knowing that i'm doing what i love and i'm helping out in my small, tiny way.

I still find myself grossly hateful of people for how they treat animals. I understand that animals don't hold an elevated status in everyone's life but for fuck sake what is the point in abusing a helpless creature? It is even more disgusting because humans selfishly engineered dogs to be biologically obsessed and dependent on humans and this is how we repay their loyalty and kindness.

im not even going to go further than that because i work myself up too easily. i just wish other people could see what i have seen as far as animal abuse so that they would never want to buy another dog again but instead adopt one.


okay im off my soap box now.

i filled out a 10 page packet about my mental health history today so i could get an appt with a psychiatrist to refill my meds. I have a feeling this is only going to go poorly for me. i hate drudging up the past. i just want to leave it back there.

So tired.

One thing that I am certain about when it comes to who I am is that I do not handle change well. I know very little more about who I am but this is a certainty. When I applied for the job at BF I didn't think I would even get an offer. I then got an offer and the rest of my life became just a bunch of anxious waiting for calls. When I got offered the two week evaluation I got so nervous and in the back of my mind i told myself i wouldn't be upset if i didn't get the job because there are other things i can do. Once i got to Kanab i cried  myself to sleep the first couple of nights because i was so torn about whether i even wanted the job. I mean move out to the middle of fucking no where??? But i decided i did really want the job and i was excited but now there is so much other drama in my life that its like jfd;lfsfjalfjdaofjsdoifjsdoajfodjajdso

it makes me sad and frustrated how unavailable my parents are. but then again they are making a living and helping me out. so then i just feel guilty. i feel guilty that they have to help me out with my loans. i feel guilty that they have to help me with my car. i feel like a fucking failure.

i also feel like a fucking failure because i have now been single for what seems like a century. it just affirms that people see the bitchy exterior and im not worth looking further into.

people need to stop getting engaged and married. stop having fucking babies. let me catch up.

life is hard and im tired.

It's Really Hard to...

It's really hard to change your path in life after 6 years. I mean, it's hard for everyone but I have a mental allergic reaction to change.

It's really hard to leave your friends behind. It's especially hard when you don't have that many friends anyway. I have a hard time making friends as I am an "acquired taste" that many don't acquire. I am also extremely picky about who I call a friend. Not in a "I-don't-like-to-get-too-close-to-people"-way but more "I-don't-like-many-types-of-people"-way. I find people to be annoying and generally don't like associating with "new" ones.

It's really hard to keep moving places and having my allotted space get smaller and smaller. I now officially have NO room for personal belongings. I've been meaning to work on that minimalism thing anyway....

It's really hard to admit to yourself that you have been stuck in a rut. Despite your best intentions in the beginning and all of the excitement a promotion brings (OMG, I'm going to do my hair nice EVERY MORNING- HA!) ultimately I grew listless and tired. I hated my job and had to drag myself there every morning. I would then get home and want to crawl into bed and eat my feelings. Food induced comatoses are THE best way to deal with things, didn't you know?

It's really hard to admit to yourself that you are not that great of a person. When your friends stop calling you to hang out because they know you would rather watch netflix or read a book alone, is a point at which one should look into the closest nunnery.

So I hope to god that I am making the right choice by moving and starting over. But it sucks and it's really hard and I don't like being a grown up.

So I am going to just ride the wave of new path excitement and make a list of things I need to accomplish by the end of this summer at the new Fort Jaime and Dogs;

1. Pass the FUCKING GRE!
2. Sign up for school in the Fall.
3. Become a volunteer at the shelter.
4. Lose some FUCKING WEIGHT!
5. Stop hating myself and everyone around me.
6. Grow the fuck up.


So, Okoboji, I hope you're ready for the crazy that is coming to town!

All that stuff between birth and death

So I'm almost 24 and it just scares me because I always felt like at this point in life people are supposed to have shit figured out. I mean it's not like im wandering around totally clueless, but i do feel discontent and totally in loathe of my job. I just have to remind myself (about every 30 seconds) that i am lucky to have a job at all, let alone a full time job...even if the pay is shit.

I cant help but to compare my life to other peoples and its both incredibly harmful and helpful depending on the day/hour/comparison being made. The proverbial "people" always say that you shouldnt compare yourself to other people and be the best you can be, but, like, wheres your reference point for success and failure then
? I mean if i didnt know there was better out there i would be like "LOOK AT ME MOFOS IVE GOT A JOB AND IM DOIN IT RIGHT" but i know theres better and im certainly not shouting that. I need to see people who are totally lazy and wasting their time/life to make me feel like YEAH, OKAY, I GOT THIS! but i also need to see that perfect bitch running her life like it was a fairy tale, so that I feel like WELL SHIT I NEED TO WORK HARDER, and BE BETTER!

Ive always had visions of what i wanted out of life. little images of things i deem perfect and would like them to fit together in this little perfect way, but i know it wont and ill have to sacrifice some/most of the things....i just hope in the end it was all good enough. though it wasnt what i was expecting/hoping/planning on its still GOOD or GREAT. I just want to be able to look back and be like, "wow i had no fucking clue and this is awesome" even if it was something i had no idea would happen.

insert gratuitous artsy picture (that i totally love so shut up)

All you need to know about me...

So the other day while perusing the interwebs like i do every.single.day. (well i actually don't usually during the weekends because i get so sick of it during the work week). ANYWAY, i came across this little drop of wisdom:

“I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.” - Maya Andelou.

Well, Maya, while you did not exactly delve into what you meant by this, i could jump to a few conclusions. First conclusion being: we would not get along. Here is how i handle each of these situations:

rainy day: actually i do love me some rainy days as long as they are cold rainy days and not stupid hot rainy days where it feels like you are swimming in the depths of hell. BUT. sometimes rainy days can alter my mood and turn me into a mega-grump bent on destruction.

lost luggage: while this isn't an enjoyable experience i would like to boast of my awesomeness in how i handled this situation when they lost my luggage on the way to South Africa. honestly i don't know how they WOULDN'T have lost my luggage because the airline lost ME for fuck sake! I should also mention somewhere between not sleeping for 48 hours, weeping in a bathroom in Amsterdam and then getting in a fight over a sandwich in London (I'm sorry i did NOT order chicken because I'm a fucking vegetarian ....oh and the customer is always RIGHT....though considering my mind may have been left on the flight from O'Hare....i could have POSSIBLY...maybe...most likely ordered chicken on accident) i made a few friends and had some nice conversations.
whoa sorry lost myself in the middle there but i found my way back...
so i (finally) arrive in the beautiful land of South Africa and get picked up by the kickass people from GVI where they whisked me away to the magical land of apartments that contain beds for sleeping! As you may have noticed, picking up my luggage while at the airport was not listed as things that i did...that is because (not surprisingly, re: above paragraph) they lost my personal belongings. I however, was NOT (that) upset! It could be because all i wanted to do was sleep in the promise land, i handled it with the best attitude affordable.
However, say, i lost my luggage after a simple direct flight, i would notttt handle it well. I would do the opposite of handle it well because i tend to think the world has literally been rocked off its axis when things like this happen to me. I know this about myself and knowing is half the fun battle.

tangled christmas lights: one would have to actually  decorate for the holidays in order to deal with said tangled lights but lets preteeeend i decorate mmkay? I should also mention that i am pretty fastidious when it comes to organizing so i would undoubtedly have wrapped the lights around a piece of cardboard or something to keep them somewhat organized. So once we have assumed this to be true the fact that the lights managed to get tangled would probably bother me more than untangling them. If i took the sweet ass time to organize the lights last christmas so that next christmass i could reap the benefits, you better believe there would be HELL to pay if they managed to get tangled! There would probably be cursing, screaming but ultimately lots and lots of sobbing (earth is now floating around space until it collides with another planet/star/sun/black hole to meet its untimely demise).

I agree with Maya, i just learned a lot about MYSELF so I'm sure you can gleam what kind of person i am from this...

(that was a lot of unsensicalness so i apologize... but no one reads this anyway so it all comes full circle doesn't it?)