my identity

i spend most days not knowing who i am. or what i want. or where i'm headed. i hav said thousands of times that i really really don't know who i am.

but that's not true

not even close

the truth is i know exactly who i am. i'm the sick one. i'm the weak, fragile, delicate one who's not doing anything because she's sick.

i'm too sick to work. i'm too sick to maintain a normal schedule. i'm too sick to have my children live with me. i'm too sick to maintain relationships. i'm too sick to be responsible, or accountable , or dependable. i'm too sick to have direction, or purpose, or goals.

so i stand still. or sit still. in all actuality most days i lay still. and do nothing. my life has been on pause for nearly 10 years because i'm the sick one. i'm that person in my own eyes, and in the eyes of everyone who knows me. failure is the norm. giving up is expected. and i am accountable to no one. not myself, not my parents, not my friends, not society, no one. but it's ok because i'm sick.

i don't wish to downplay mental illness. i do have an illness. it is real, and at times those with this illness really are too sick to function. but not for nearly 10 years. not me for nearly 10 years.

all i see is the illness. all i feel is the weakness. all i know is failure. all i can do is hide.

i don't know how to break this cycle, this pattern, this trap. they say it takes 21 days to form a new habit. how long must it take to break a 10 year long one? one that is so ingrained in the core of my being any attempt at change brings on panic, fear, and a total loss of rationality.

my confidence is below zero. my energy, will, strength and drive are non-existent. in my conscious mind i want more, but in my heart and subconscious i find it impossible and give up before i even start trying. the lows are getting lower, the highs have nearly disappeared, and i have given up on myself mentally, emotionally and physically.

i don't know where to start. even starting to think about starting brings on unbearable uncomfortableness.

i have become my illness. i am not a person living with, or fighting mental illness. i am mental illness. its who i am. right now its all i am. its all i know.

i am the sick one...

something's gotta giv

haven't posted in a long time, but not all that much has changed.

a month and a half ago i moved into a great apartment in a great new city, but i am still my not great self. i wanted to start fresh in a new environment, new surroundings, with a new plan. so far no fresh start and not one bit of sticking to the plan. after a month and a half i am not even close to finished unpacking. there is still a room completely full of boxes, a dresser in the hallway, and i have yet to commit to the arrangement of my living room furniture after 12 different tries so that too is a disaster area. i planned to go to bed at a decent time, wake up early, and most importantly get out of bed every day. FAIL. i planned to stop wavering between starvation and overeating and eat a whole food, healthy, energy boosting diet. FAIL. i planned to start school and make friends and learn a craft and build a future. FAIL. i planned to get a job, meet people, gain experience and confidence, and feel useful. FAIL. i planned to find a roommate to help with rent, start budgeting, start saving, and get control of my impulse buying and wasteful spending. FAIL.

in reality i spend most days in bed watching tv on my computer and bingeing on sugary, salty, fatty, carb loaded food to try and fill the giant void inside of me that i thought i could run away from. i moved halfway across the country to escape the pain and the emptiness but it didn't work, pain and emptiness followed me. or more truthfully pain and emptiness are inside of me, so much a part of me that i cannot escape them and they just moved right along with me. I barely clean anything in the house. I'm not even taking care of myself. Showering is such a chore that sometimes I goes days (several days) between them. I neglect my face, my teeth, everything. I am gross and disgusting. I am a mess. And I don't care. But yet I do.

See here's the thing. I am tired of being poor and worrying about money, yet I spend money I don't have on things I don't need and waste money on binge food (1/2 of which usually gets thrown out) like crazy, i am not motivated to find work, find a room mate, or find my passion in life so that i can actually focus on a real career. I hate being fat, chubby, and out of shape and want to be thin and fit yet I binge eat constantly, don't eat regular meals, don't eat healthy foods, and don't exercise at all. I am lonely and want friends and a boyfriend yet I don't try to go out anywhere, in fact i rarely leave my apartment. I don't actively put myself in situations where i could meet people and even if I did I would be too shy and lack the confidence to speak to anyone or put myself out there anyway. I want to not be broken and sick anymore yet I don't take my meds, don't see a counsellor, and haven't even tried to find a Dr out here yet who may be able to help.

I want so many things yet I am doing nothing to get them. I want so much change, but I do not have the energy, motivation, drive or inclination to work for any of it. I am exhausted and feel like I have nothing left. I feel empty and useless all the time. I feel broken and not good enough so what is the point? I feel like it will never, can never change so why bother. I feel like sick and weak is all I know how to be anymore. I am so afraid to fail that I am afraid to even try. My confidence is so low that I assume total and complete failure at EVERYTHING from furniture arranging, to school, to diet, to friendship and so I refuse to try. I sabotage myself at every step before I even begin because quitting has become easier to take than failure. Being stuck and immobile and frozen and not caring not trying is better than failing. As long as I don't fail. I can't deal with anymore proof that I'm not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, talented enough, or anything enough. I can be a useless nothing easier than risking proof of my failure.

So here I sit. Fatter than when I moved here. More exhausted, stuck, broken, and depressed than when I got here. And not showing any signs that the pattern will change. At this rate within a year I will be a 180lb slob who is completely broke, on the brink of homelessness, living in a disgusting mess of an apartment, and showering 3 times a month. I will spend every, not just most, days in bed and leave the house once every two weeks or so. It sounds horrible. It is not what I want, but it is where I am headed. And I don't seem to have it in me to do the things necessary to change the downward slide.

I want and need change. I want and need a life. I'm just too lazy and useless to do anything about it. I have become so entrenched in my sick, weak, victim role that it's become impossible to break free and be anything else. I'm letting my depression, eating disorder, bipolar, and borderline completely take over and ruin my life even more than they all ready have. I'm letting them take over to the point where it's soon going to be too late. I've wasted so much time, and just keep wasting it. Days, weeks, months gone.

Yet here I sit. Doing absolutely nothing about it.

Most days I just want it to all be over, but I'm too lazy even to do that.

change your life???

ok my life sucks. and i'm not just complaining and exaggerating. it really does suck. i don't have a job. i don't have a permanent place to live. i have a ton of debt. i have no goals. no direction. very few friends. i often spend days or weeks in bed just watching tv. i am obsessed with body image and have absolutely no self-esteem. i'm 33 years old and i have nothing to show for it and no idea what i'm going to from here on.

i need to change my life. i know this. i've needed to change my life for years i just haven't been able to do it.

i need to turn off the tv. i need to sleep better. i need to eat healthy and exercise to be thin instead of not eating. i need to be kind to myself.

if only it were so easy.....

to change my life i need to change my thinking. i need to retrain my brain. how do you do that? how do you block out 17 years of bad thoughts to let in the good ones?

i want this body EXACTLY

I want this exact body. Realistically I know I can never be that tall, but if there was a way to try (no matter how unhealthy or unproductive) I'd be in. I want those arms, those abs, those legs. Why???

Because.

Because fat is ugly. Who told me???

Me.

Who is the only person who actually sees me naked, half naked, or gives a shit what size I am???

Me.

Will I suddenly be richer, happier, funnier, more fulfilled, more exciting, and have more friends the day I'm this thin???

Doubtful.

Will i land a fantastic job, find a fantastic boyfriend, drive an amazing car, live in an incredible apartment, and instantly have this awesome life???

Nope.

Will all my dreams and hopes and wishes finally come true???

Probably not.

Will all my fear and pain and shame magically melt away???

I wish, but no.

So why? WHY do I obsess every single day over my weight, my fat, the size of my thighs, and my jiggly arms? Why do I waste half of my day's brain power thinking about food and this stuff? Can you imagine how much else I could get done if this was not on my mind ALL the time? If I was not worrying, counting, planning, avoiding, hiding?

None of it makes sense but I keep doing it. What are some of the ridiculous things I have done for this.....

-I have a 98th percentile IQ but I am messing with my intelligence and memory by convincing my shrink to put me on Topamax as my mood stabilizer because it is an off-label weight loss drug

-I waste hundreds of dollars I should be saving or paying on other bills on expensive cellulite creams and weight loss pills and gimmicks (many of which are unhealthy. esp for a person with a mood disorder)

-My weight has gone from 127 to 102 to 120 to 108 to 125 to 115 to 105 to 123 to currently 113 in the last 3 years putting me at risk for all kinds of health problems and giving me stretch marks and messed up metabolism.

This is in addition of course to all the starving, bingeing, purging, hiding, lying, guilt, and shame.

I know that what I do is bad. I know that what I do is wrong. I know that what I do is hurting me. I know that what I do doesn't really make sense and I really need to stop.

But if I I could just get back to 102 then I'll stop then it'll be ok, then I can stop. Then everything will work. I promise.

See. Not gonna happen.

its been a long time

I haven't written anything in a really long time. It shouldn't really matter if anyone reads my words, the point of this whole exercise was to help myself. Something I am not very good at doing. I would love it if I had someone to talk to, but my main focus should be myself.

I HAVE been focusing on myself a lot lately, unfortunately i've been focusing on (obsessing on) the wrong things. My weight, my looks, my weight, my failures, my weight, my past, my weight, my regrets, and my weight. Not good. A major MAJOR life change is barely more than a month away and all i seem to care about is whether I'm under 110 pounds or not. I currently live in a house that I own in a very small town. My mortgage and taxes are INSANELY cheap and in addition to that the house is almost paid off. I also live in one of the cheapest parts of Canada when it comes to living expenses. My huge epiphany at the beginning of the year, which I'm now convinced was merely an extended hypomanic episode, resulted in me putting my house up for sale. When I started to come back down I realized I may have made a mistake, but didn't get too worried because there hadn't been any interest in my house at that point. About a week later a couple looked at my house. A week after that they made an offer. During this process I found out that there is a problem with my basement. This problem will be time consuming and expensive to fix. I don't have the time, money, or desire to fix this problem. The people who made the offer on my house do. They were also willing to pay very near my asking price in spite of the basement problem. Even though I had the feeling I was making a mistake I accepted the offer. In 5 weeks I have to be out of my house and I have no idea where I am going to go. I am about to be homeless and broke and screwed. I am supposed to be moving to a very expensive city and I have no real job skills. On top of that I have trouble holding a job for more than 3 months because I fall apart and stop being able to show up.

I have failed too many times. I have let myself down too many times. I have been let down too many times. I have been hurt too many times. I now expect it every time. I expect to fail, I expect to get let down, I expect to get hurt. I don't trust anyone. I don't trust myself. I have lost faith in everyone, especially myself. I have stopped dreaming. I have stopped planning. I have stopped hoping. There doesn't seem to be any point when you've seen the worst outcome so many times and now that's all you expect. The problem is that because I expect the worst outcome so vehemently I actually bring it about on purpose before anything has a chance to play itself out on its own. That way I can blame it on my illness or actions as opposed to a legitimate failure or someone else really hurting, failing, or not liking me.

Sometimes self discovery is good. Sometimes it just makes you cry for an hour and a half.....

life is so trying sometimes....

unfortunately i am not. that is to say i do not.

i was trying. for a couple of months. and then i just stopped.

but i need to start again or things are going to get very ugly very fast.

i have pretty much screwed up both jobs it took me so long to get. why? cuz i went to van n got depressed i couldn't stay then came home and had my water heater blow up so one morning i was jus too tired and fed up to shower with cold water in the sink and i didn't go in. didn't call didn't go in, nothing. that was to job #1. kept going to job #2 until screwing up made me so depressed i started bingeing and staying in bed and got so bad i just didn't go there either.

and now i have stopped everything. stopped cleaning my house. stopped taking care of myself. meds ran out and i didn't go get more. i am eating more and more and doing less and less. i gained 8 pounds in a week and i want to die. i want to cut i want to hurt i want someone to hit me with a bus. i can't stand this.

but its my own fault because i gave up. on trying. on myself. on my future. on progress. on my health. and now i'm screwed again.

tomorrow i need to try. but what does that entail.....

tomorrow i get the tattoo i've been soooooo excited about for months. i'm not excited at all now. stupid depression. also, the tattoo is symbolic. symbolizes the change i went through at the beginning of the year and all the progress i made. the successes. my goals.

success change progress and goals are all gone. so tattoo not as exciting because i suck again. i hate myself sometimes. most times. i hate my life. but i am too lazy and stupid to change it. i keep giving in and giving up and accepting the same shitty stuff. hiding away. not living. not thriving. not moving. i want so much but have so little. and it is my own fault. its all my fault. i used to blame the disease but really its me.

aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

"to be successful in life gravitate toward the standard of excellence, not the standard of acceptance."

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." MLK Jr

"If I have the belief I can do it, I shall certainly acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." Ghandi

"The future depends on what we do in the present." Ghandi

"under the bludgeoning of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed."

need to find the hope and will and drive again.

need to believe i am worth it

ugh

i think i need new or simply more drugs. the depression has crept in and is getting worse and worse....

lamotrigine is supposed to help with bipolar depression....

i am eating sooooooo much. i need to eat better. for my health, for my self esteem. the sugar and carbs just make the mood swings and sleep patterns worse. and the guilt and hatred from bingeing is so harmful.

i need to change so badly but i am soooo tired ALL the time. i want it, i just can't seem to get going. find the drive the motivation, the willpower.

feel like such a failure. such a disappointment. a loser. u waste. so broken. so useless.