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.