Displaced....

Whelp...PTSD has ruined the best relationship I've ever had. Not to say I don't hold some responsibility for what happened, but...

So I went to Wyoming to visit my family, and my boyfriend broke up with me via video chat (my cell phone didn't good service here). He's sending my stuff to me via movers. Since I'm not able to take care of myself right now, my only choice was staying with my dad, stepmom and two sisters. They live in a 2.5 bedroom trailer with only 1 bathroom. So I displaced my teenage sister from her room, and she is mad because I took down her posters.

As of this moment, I have a week's worth of clothes, an insufficient supply of meds, my teddy bear, and my guitar. Most of the rest of my stuff has to go into storage. I don't even have a place to put my clothes, because the .5 bedroom I'm using doesn't have a closet and my sister's dresser won't fit into my other sister's room. We're discussing moving into a bigger place, but it's the holidays....

I popped the E string on my guitar and gave myself a panic attack. Ridiculous.

I didn't choose to have PTSD, panic disorder with agoraphobia, nightmare disorder, chronic depressive disorder or the other assorted fucked upedness that I have, and these things have destabilized my life yet again.

I'm so fucking tired.

My sisters are so worried that they'll upset me that they hide in their room whenever I'm in one of the common areas. It makes me feel so fucking horrible that I can't even describe it. I'm 1000 miles away from the home I had last month, separated from my dog and my cats. I have almost nothing tangible of my own. My dad and mom are trying their best to make me feel better, and so I try to be positive when I can manage it and the rest of the time I'm just quiet.

They don't know how to deal with me. They love me and they try and I'm grateful, but I'm so lost most of the time that I don't know what to do.

My own special kind of crazy

Back from residential treatment program. I survived it. Some random crazy person showed up on the VA campus with a gun and tried to kidnap my room mate. I threw stress balls at my therapist. I taught the basics of watercolors during recreational therapy.

Therapist had me try to start doing Prolonged Exposure Therapy, the kind where I write in graphic and excruciating detail about the rapes. Didn't work out so well. I wasn't able to finish that treatment and I'm still suffering from the backlash of the extreme stress that put on me emotionally.

I'm tired. Other events that are happening make me feel like my life is cascading out of control. I tend to start crying for no reason and then am unable to stop. I don't sleep when I'm supposed to, I stay awake as long as I can and then I crash hard and fast.

I physically hurt from the constant tension and anxiety that I'm under. My shoulders and neck and jaw tighten up so badly that I'm like a giant bruise.

The value of escapism can not be overstated here.

I don't want to!

I'm in full on rebellion right now. I didn't get out of bed yesterday. I don't want to get out of bed today. I'm supposed to be packing to go to the PTSD residential treatment program. I don't want to go. I have mentally thrown myself on the ground and am kicking and screaming, like a badly behaved toddler at a grocery store.

I know it's childish. I don't care. I'm terrified.

Fragile truce

I have managed to find a little mellow for the moment. Learning to play the guitar, and I find that mindless repetitive fingering exercises are calming.

I'm not thinking about tomorrow, because today is more than enough. I'm going to hold on to this tenuous peace for as long as it lasts.

I've been relying heavily on my medication to manage break through anxiety. It's been really tough. It's like unravelling at the edges.

While I appreciate words of encouragement and support, I would caution readers not to expect much by way of a response from me. When I write here, it is usually because I am going through extreme emotional turmoil. I write this for me first, to help me sort through the kaleidoscope of trauma that I deal with on a daily basis.

Long night

Can't sleep. Crying myself sick all night. I feel like I'm stuck in a situation I can't get out of. Therapy and medication is like slapping a band aid on a broken leg. I need a more permanent solution. Like maybe a lobotomy?

I want to run away to somewhere they don't speak English so I can be truly and deeply alone, because being around people and still being alone is fucking depressing. I'm angry depressed tonight.

I took my calm down medication like a good little soldier, but I'm still all twisted tonight. I don't think I'm going to get any really productive thinking done tonight either.

Patently obvious cry for attention...

Let me count the crazy....shaved part of my head. Didn't do it myself, went to a salon so I could pretend it wasn't a desperate cry for help. Beat the crap out of my punching bag (literal punching bag), and it kept me from crying but now my knuckles are bloody. Small price to pay really.

Having all sorts of crazy and scary thoughts, don't worry, there's no need to call 911.

-I'm losing valuable time experiencing all the things I always wanted to experience, because I'm trapped in agoraphobic hell. When do I get to do, what I want to do?

I don't want to take medication anymore! Like right now! I should be taking a calm down pill and practicing breathing and instead I'm mid panic attack ranting on my blog. Oh shit, I've obviously died and gone to hell and become a teenager again, because that is some stupid rebellious bullshit. Please, let me defy all common sense while shaking my fist futilely at the sky! I don't want to have PTSD, AGORAPHOBIA, PANIC DISORDER, CHRONIC DEPRESSIVE DISORDER, INSOMNIA, AND ALL THE REST OF THIS SHIT ANYMORE! I don't want it, can it please be someone else's turn for a little while?

Miserable

Don't want to sleep. Don't want more nightmares. I'm so tired I'm forgetting to take medication. Went into antidepressant withdrawal today. So I'm exhausted and I feel very sick. Not very verbose tonight, just miserable.

Giant plastic bubbles of crazy.

Just coming off of four days of living in the giant plastic bubble of depression. Tolkien scale epic family drama. Very uncool. I thought I was going to lose my shit completely.

Interestingly enough, I don't quite have that whole "sanctuary" feeling about the new house, so when I had a panic attack in a public place, I attempted to hide in a bookstore. Luckily, I have the greatest boyfriend in the whole world and he came riding to my rescue in his shining Mazda 3.

So, when I refuse to just cry it out, which is pretty much every time I have the urge to cry, I get migraines. So four days of migraines inside my giant plastic bubble of depression. I have issues with allowing myself to be vulnerable. I'm kind of a control freak about not letting my guard down. Obviously, this is not a sustainable solution, but for now, it's the best I can do.

I don't mean to brag, but my family is so dysfunctional that we could supply six simultaneous reality shows worth of drama with enough left over for a few acerbic sitcoms. Gotta love 'em. I'm just going to do what my dog does, and cock my head to the side and pretend to listen. I'm trying hard not to view this is as further isolation, because that wouldn't be productive. Instead, I'm going to view this is an extension of my vastly under-appreciated sense of humor.

Oh, so the giant plastic bubble of depression is the way I picture it when I get so overwhelmed with negative emotions that outside stimulus stops sinking in. Everything just starts bouncing off of my bubble like it's a force field. I guess that would make it a defense mechanism. I can make an additional internal giant plastic bubble of escapism, that will provide some insulation from negative internal stimulus, like depression or anxiety, which I have also occupied over the last four days. This one takes a lot of work to maintain though. I spent the last four days reading trashy romance novels to generate the necessary distraction for my giant plastic bubble of escapism. Basically, I've worked really hard to be blank.

I wasn't ready to deal with the situation. My brain was like "Screw you fuckers, I'm out!" I planted my ass on the couch, with my books, and basically did not move for days. Didn't get much sleep, didn't care what I ate. Nothing.

Today I finally sat and thought about the situation, and it was much easier to cope with after some time and distance. What you can't see, is that I'm tearing up right a little bit even just tap dancing around this subject.

If I should die before I wake.....

So much to say and not enough attention span today to say it all.

Hmm..well I'll give an update first on the things that have been going on. We moved. It was frenetic, frustrating, and exhausting with occasional periods of fierce joy and gratitude. Maybe a little awe thrown in there. It's a truly unbelievable house. I still feel like I have too many decisions to make in any given day, and trying to force myself to make decisions stresses me out. I haven't been sleeping well. I'm in a new environment, and my paranoia insists that we absolutely must find ways to make this house defensible from everything from a burglar to a horde of shambling undead. There is just no way I can make a house this big feel as safe as I want right now.

I'm tired all the time from lack of sleep, or lack of restful sleep. I am having nightmares, probably caused by my irrational fear of going to sleep. I was attacked several times while I was the most vulnerable a person can be: while they are asleep. Twice raped in my sleep, several times woke up to being assaulted, groped, humiliated... Now I seem to be unable to accept the situation for what it really is. I really need sleep. I also really need to feel safe. Taking sleeping meds makes me more vulnerable to attacks in my sleep, because I can't fight back. I am aware that the odds are really against getting attacked in my sleep again, but fear is irrational.

So why am I so resistant to sleep? It's making my life miserable, this not being able to sleep well. A person should be able to feel safe where they sleep. I don't have that. Instead I have this screaming harpy in my head, insisting that the second I let my guard down, something horrible is going to happen to me again. They've taken away all my weapons. I used to sleep with a loaded gun and knife under my pillow. They have generously allowed me to keep my pepper spray for personal defense, but after having carried assault rifles, grenades, hand guns, knives etc. etc. pepper spray seems lame and useless.

I could rig deterrents throughout the house, but this house is big and it seems a shame to spoil the house with all my paranoid weirdness. I used to put wind chimes on all doors, and clunky easily breakable objects under windows. But I looked like a crazy person. I had it rigged so nobody could get in the house without me hearing it and giving me time to either get away or get to a weapon. Please don't judge me, I know how crazy this sounds. I already know I'm screwed up on so many levels.

I don't know how to solve such an irrational problem. Can I negotiate with my fear? I don't know. I'll have to spend some time thinking about it.

Frenetic

They've decided to turn me bi-polar to try and cure my PTSD. Painting, drawing, and writing like mad. I had to give up coffee and I'm not adjusting well, but two cups of tea make me super hyper, and hyper tends to equal anxiety.

Getting ready to move. It's going to be the laziest move ever. We're hiring people to pack all our shit, move it, and unpack it. I'll be babysitting the cats and dog while the movers do their thing. I actually took the dog for a walk the other day by myself, which is a HUGE epic win.

Restricted my television watching to cartoons devoid of realistic violence. Trying to eat healthier. Trying to distract myself from my impatience about the move. Ready to go right now! The new house is about three blocks away from a bookstore. Super excited about it. Bookstores are like church for me.

About to have a huge fight with some distant members of the family. Not looking forward to it, because it's looking like it's going to be one of those "I don't really want you in my life" kind of fights.

My little brother is getting married next week, to one of my friends actually. Weird.

Going to buy a punching bag when we get moved in, because I need some exercise. I'm going to hang it in the garage. I'm also going to have a little mini art studio out there, so that will be my place to vent all the toxic emotions that tend to get pent up.

Jiminy Cricket

It's 11pm and I am once again confronted with the terror of deciding whether or not to go to bed tonight. I'm not sure which I hate more, going to bed, or waking up. Both are pretty heinous. Today I hid in a bedroom for several hours while my bf's parents talked to a vacuum salesman. I couldn't even go to the bathroom, because not only was there a stranger in the house, but he was running a carpet shampooer and talking loudly. Also he was brown skinned and I'm terrified of arabs and muslims. It's not a racist thing, it's a bone deep terror that I have no control over. I'm pretty sure the guy was some variation of Latin American, and not actually an arab. Try rationalizing a knee jerk defense mechanism born from too many arabs trying to kill me, or other soldiers, or fondling me against my will.

So my ramblings about insomnia are because I'm afraid to sleep at night. I woke up being raped twice. I woke up and random dudes had their hands in my clothes. Like every time I tried to relax and let my guard down, something awful would happen. So I have to wrestle with this demon every night and every morning.

Staying awake all night isn't good for me. Everybody judges me for it too, like I'm a recalcitrant teenager. I know that lack of sleep just makes me feel shitty the next day, again, this is something I have no control over. My therapist says I should remind myself that I'm as safe as I can be, and probably nothing bad will happen to me if I go to sleep, but even she knows better than to promise it will be okay. I never believe doctors who make promises.

They've fiddle-fucked around with my medication again. I should be starting a new medication soon. I have to wean myself off of Effexor, which is brutal and causes discontinuation syndrome if I'm late taking it by as little as an hour and a half. I'm 6 or 7 weeks into quitting smoking. I don't know why I'm winning that fight when I'm losing most of the other ones. The doctors are baffled by it too. I'm just enjoying having a legitimate excuse to never turn down dessert.

I'm having manic episodes. I went furniture shopping the other day with bf and his mother, and one minute I would be exhausted and could barely move, and the next minute I was running around the store giggling like a toddler on crack. The doctor thinks that quitting smoking has changed the way my body metabolizes my medications, so they've decided to change everything. Again.

Staying with bf's parents, because there is mega drama at home (not my bf's fault, it's my families drama), so I am hiding. I'm half-way to changing my phone number again so none of my family knows how to contact me except for relatively safe communications online.

Going to be moving soon. Not running away from anything this time, my bf is buying a house so we're moving out of our rental which has become too small for us. So having to make a ton of trifling little decisions which stress me out. Not moving until probably July, but because I have this obsession with being over prepared for everything, I feel like I need to have all the decisions made right this minute, despite having several months to decide things, and even then I could put some shit off.

The new house is an OMG-I can't-believe-this-is-really-happening-it's-too-good-to-be-true thing. It's gorgeous, and perfect, and three blocks away from my favorite bookstore. I'm planning on setting up an art studio in the garage, and probably setting up a heavy punching bag to work off excessive stress and all the extra weight I'm putting on from quitting smoking. I'm trying to stay positive, and accept that good things can happen to me without obsessing over all the things that can potentially go wrong. In my experience, things only start to get good before something horrible and awful happens. I realize that thinking like that isn't helpful.

I have a therapy Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder that tells me how I should and shouldn't think and feel. It pisses me off sometimes. It seems my whole life is therapy these days. I police my own thoughts and everything now. Blah. My mood is pretty much apathy and disinterest, with periodic storms of obsession and maniacal energy.

The recent terror attacks in Boston, and that poor soldier in London getting his head cut off by an angry mob of muslims isn't really helping my paranoia either. I really want to start stocking up with supplies to survive the apocalypse. First aid kits, emergency rations, water, etc etc. Luckily my bf is pretty level headed and becoming an expert at talking me out of my crazy when I get like this. So maybe he is my Jiminy Cricket.

Insomnia and amateur philosophy

Well, I'm still alive. I have not much enjoyed this past week. My mind is not a peaceful place right now. I try to fill it up with books, in fact I've been on a reading binge the last few weeks. I have had a few days where concentration was a very serious problem. Sleeping is feast or famine.

I'm not feeling altogether civilized lately. I keep craving isolation. I want to go off into the woods somewhere, far away from people. I've never been a social animal. I dislike most people irrevocably and instantaneously.

I'm not on solid ground right now, and I know it. Everything feels slippery. I've been a lot of different things in my life, not all of them righteous, but these last few years of feeling like my identity has been adrift...it's hard to take. Being hard-headed, stubborn and spiteful even, have kept me going when I had no hope. No hope, no direction, no motivation, and hardly an iota of self-respect left.

Joining the military was a bad choice for me. Even if all the really bad shit had never gone down, I think I would still be struggling in some ways. The one thing the army really taught me, was how to hone apathy to a fine, sharp edge. All the time, it was MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, even when there was nothing going on. Some jackass NCO would just get bored, and start everyone hustling for no reason. You get crammed into tiny spaces, are given the minimum you need to remember that you are a human being, and shuffled around like a card in a cheap magic trick. Once you get adapted to that way of life, or maybe I'm just screwy, it's hard to shake that apathy loose. Really, once you get to the point where getting shot at can't penetrate that apathy, you are seriously messed up. Even in the barracks life, you just adjust to the fact that nothing you do will ever be right enough for some nit-picky fucker. Getting insulted was routine. They say that they tear you down in basic so they build you back up as a soldier, but it didn't happen like that for me. Build up, tear down, build up, tear down, just over and over. They did the minimum they needed to do to make you do your job when it counted.

I don't believe in the military way of life, that's for damn sure. It's why I never re-upped. The ideals I signed up for, those are still there. I don't have any perspective anymore. If anything it illustrated brilliantly every flaw in our society as a whole. I find myself constantly examining those flaws, trying to be objective. At the end of the day it comes down to the same answer every time. I don't like people. I don't understand them. We are a strange and improbable animal. There are too many of us. I have no empirical evidence to support this theory, but I feel very strongly that we are stagnating as a species. I could probably write a book about everything that is wrong with the world. It would be very science fiction, and extremely macabre. I feel the urge to spout doomsday prophecies. That probably means I should stop writing for now.

Downhill fast

The doctors are playing pinata with my medications again. They really have no clue as to what is going on with me. They added an additional benzodiazipine to my regiment of rescue meds. The pharmacist was shocked that they were giving me two benzos, plus hydroxizine for anxiety. They took away one of my mood stabilizers. All of this is just a stab in the dark.

So I'm doing the things I can do to take care of myself. I remind myself to eat and take my meds. I do my therapy homework. I try not to obsess about things I have no control over. I try to get enough sleep without sleeping too much.

Still I'm frightened by this new plot twist. I worry that I am getting worse instead of better. There really isn't anything else I can do. Just wait and see what's happening and how things turn out.

Encore

Another fun symptom to add to the list, now that the catastrophic panic attack I had earlier is done, is sleep paralysis.

I'm terrified to go to sleep now because the other night I had an episode of sleep paralysis. I was trying to go to sleep, when suddenly I couldn't move. I was immediately struck with a panic attack, and became absolutely convinced I was dying. I felt myself being sucked out of my head, like some demon was trying to rip the soul right out of my body. It was awful. I haven't been that afraid since my very first firefight, the day that I realized that people wanted to kill me, would kill me if they got a chance. I tried to move my hands and feet and couldn't, I tried to call out for help but I couldn't do that either. I wanted so badly for someone to wake me up, save me, something.

So I stayed awake all night the last few nights because I was too afraid, absolutely chicken shit, to go to sleep at night. When the sun came up, I felt like I could go to sleep and everything would be fine. Needless to say my sleep schedule is all screwed up, I'm having more and more anxiety because of sleep deprivation, and I feel like I'm finally losing my mind. I still have that sucking sensation in my head, but it's just a sensation, unrelated to anything that I can tell. But this fear of having another one of these episodes is driving me mad. My medications aren't really working to calm my anxiety right now, and I have a terrible feeling I need to go to inpatient treatment again to get this sorted out.

Years and years of therapy, of trying to get better, and then this shit happens. Add to all of this shit, and suddenly I feel like I need to find a cure for all these disorders ASAP, right now, someone call up God and make a request on his red phone, please, please, please. This is just one thing too many, and I can't deal with all of it. This is killing me. I'm crying and I can't even scrape up the energy to hate myself for it, like I usually do.

I just want to beg someone to help me, in fact, I did beg someone to help me earlier, and they said there wasn't anything they could do. I'm suffering so much right now. (And feeling sorry for myself, and being afraid, and ready to just give in to this soul sucking despair.)

Well I don't know

So just in case anybody was wondering, smoking cigarettes frantically does not help anxiety. Stuffing junk food in my face doesn't help either. My medications are definitely not helping tonight. Pacing. Can't settle down. I want to find a solution to all my problems and I want to find it right this freaking minute. Rationality has no place here. I don't know what to do.

A bit of hysteria

Panic attacks are driving me crazy. I'm crying now, and I don't know why, just quietly losing my mind. Can't concentrate enough to read, and I have nothing in me to write. I feel like I'm about to boil over with some new kind of hysteria. Of course, it's probably the same old thing, fear and fear and fear some more.
Living and dying all at the same time, I suppose.

Waiting

Sleeping a lot, trying to "recharge". Dr has me carefully sedated so I'm tired all the time. Ordinarily it would probably bother me, but I'm sleeping without the nightmares, so I am not really going to complain.

I'm being very careful not to think too much about the future, that way lies madness. I'm just going to kind of coast for awhile, I think. Take my peace and quiet when I can, and try to enjoy it. They will probably change the meds around again soon, because I can only deal with this high level of sedation for so long before I start having cognitive problems. Short term memory loss, confusion, and the ever popular dissociation. That is a problem for another day. I've still got a bit of a hair trigger for anxiety, surprising really, considering the medications. Overall though, I'm feeling better, which is a miracle.

I would not be surprised if I wound up in inpatient treatment again. My meds might need a complete overhaul again, and they probably need to find a different track for therapy. Anything too intense, sets me off completely, but the lower key stuff doesn't help much.

Happiness is a good night's sleep

I had another appointment with the civilian doctor who is supposed to objectively evaluate my disabilities for compensation. The doctor had no idea why I was there other than he was supposed to look at my right ankle, and x-ray it. I think he was a little embarrassed about it, because I had been to the same clinic for evaluations six months previously. It was acutely stressful for me.

I've also recently been having minor dissociative fugues, associated with flashbacks. So far it doesn't seem like a huge deal, other than being frankly terrifying. My therapist made us review my "safety plan", and I am forbidden from handling sharp objects or being left unattended in the kitchen. They changed my meds around, so I am sedated most of the time, again. My psychiatrist took me off of Trazadone, because it was preventing me from being able to wake up from nightmares. Instead I'm taking a cocktail of anti-anxiety meds to help me sleep. We're all hoping these dissociative states are caused by unusual levels of external stress and will be temporary.

So mostly, I'm sleeping a lot lately. I haven't been able to do much reading due to concentration issues, so I've been watching cartoons. It's frustrating, but I have to deal with it. Not much choice.

Hopefully the VA will get it's collective shit together, and make a decision on my request for Individual Unemployability. It would be nice to be able to do things like, you know, pay rent. Buy groceries. Stuff normal people do.

Wasted tears

How do I measure the sheer suckiness of today? World class nightmares last night, one in which I attempted to cut off my breasts with a box cutter type knife in order to escape a rapist. Dream logic, what can I say?

When I was flipping through my VFW magazine, I saw that two soldiers from my former unit were killed in Afghanistan in the last 3 months. I didn't even know them. Flashback and panic attack. I ended up clutching the old memorial of one of my friends from a magazine from four years ago, and crying like I haven't cried in years. I don't cry much. My therapist thinks it would be healthy if I cried more, but it just gives me a headache. I think I cried so much in Iraq, that I have an extremely high threshold for tears now.

I'm terrified to go back to sleep. I feel trapped, frustrated and helpless. I know eventually I'm going to go to sleep, can't prevent it. All I want to do is stay awake. I want to not dream. I want to not have these thoughts running around in the back of my mind. I don't want to think about the rapes, the dead bodies, the war, so of course my bastard subconscious has all on infinite loop.

When I was crying earlier, I was crying at the stupidity of Alex's death. The wastefulness of it. Then I was crying for myself, at the ridiculousness of having survived all that I have survived and being trapped in my home by these stupid disorders. I can't seem to express the magnitude of my frustration at that fact.

I hate being so out of control.

A little perspective please

I checked my mail today, and I found myself fascinated by a piece of paper. Name, date, social security number, address.....

Once I stood on the edge of insanity, realizing for the first time, what it meant to have men wish my death. I have drunk deeply from the cup of experience, and my eyes have been opened to the evil men are capable of. Am I now to be defined by such meaningless equations of raw data? Name, date, social security number, address. Is that who they want to think I am? Is this what I am to be judged by? My credit score? My driving record? Is this what people really believe is important? A little perspective please. It's sheer madness.

My vision of who I am as a person, has nothing to do with such nonsense. I am the girl who survived. Who still survives. Every day I survive my own fear. I survive the knowledge that people are capable of so many terrifying evils, and I do it every day. I have survived war, rape, assault, violence, insanity, despair, rage, guilt, shame, horror, and helplessness. I may not do it gracefully, but I have managed.

I accepted the inevitability of my own death, at times, I even welcomed it. I should waste time filling out three forms in triplicate, provide two forms of ID, and submit to a background check to open a bank account, when the GOVERNMENT provides my income every month? In order to fly home to visit my family, I would have to submit to invasive security measures, and pay out the nose for the privilege of that indignity. The world is mad. The government knows who I am, they have extensive information on my activities for the last decade of my life. First the army, and now the VA, but I can't be trusted on a commercial airline without a body scan? I had a security clearance for Christ's sakes. They know everything about my entire freaking life, including what all my neighbors thought of me when I was ten.

I don't understand people. A little perspective please.

I am 30 years old, and I have no debt. I have no car, and I don't make what would be considered a living wage. I also can't go to the grocery store by myself. I couldn't get on a bus to save my life. I write stories to amuse myself, and I pour my heart out on this blog every now and again. I can't look at my brother in his military uniform without having a panic attack. It is the mundane that terrifies me. If I walked down the street, how many people would I pass would be capable of the horrors I have seen men do? Would I pass the man who would shoot up a school full of children? Would I pass the man who stalks and rapes women, terrorizes them for his amusement? Would I pass the woman who would drown her four children to hurt a man who broke her heart? A serial killer? A man who is thinking of killing the people he works with because he can't stand the tedium of his own life? A soldier who is broken from the things he has seen and is one indignity away from mass murder? A person who hits their children? A car thief? But they want my name, date, social security number, and address to judge me worthy of doing business with?

What a world we have wrought for ourselves...
Please, a little perspective.

Selfish

I am irrational, unreasonable, and difficult to deal with. I whine occasionally. With two additional people in the house, I am in the uncomfortable position of being self-conscious about it, in my own home. Agoraphobic's worst nightmare. Ridiculous. Maybe I will go hide in my bedroom and never come out, too bad there is only one bathroom in this house.

My birthday party was fun. I am keeping the streamers up, just because. I am considering buying a wedding dress and taking up advocating promiscuity. Or take up some other clever eccentricity. If not clever, at least amusing. I don't like people, and generally that is mutual. I'm not likable personally. Which fact I am reminded of, stingingly, on a daily basis, unfortunately. There is nothing like being mirrored in another person's eyes. I don't like it. I don't want to be judged. I haven't done anything to anyone, that should make it necessary for me to judged. I live a very self-centered life. I have to, I don't have a choice. I didn't like high school, and I don't want to live in high school. This is all very petty nonsense, but having agoraphobia makes it all so....uncomfortable. My life is beyond comprehension, sometimes.