I HATE FLOSS!

So I do floss every night, but it's always an ordeal. I think that ?Oral B? satin floss works the best for me, but it's really plasticky and easy to break... right now I am out of it and have to use the lovely generic Safeway brand. And every night it gets stuck in my teeth (my teeth are pretty nice. I've had a retainer, but never braces, and they're all straight and close together, but not too close... apparently too close for Safeway floss though). Tonight I got it stuck between my wisdom tooth and the tooth in front of that on top, and I was yanking so hard with my hands wrapped around the loose ends that I actually cut my hands. My floss was so stuck that my hands are actually bleeding from trying to wrench it out.
I need to come up with a solution to this problem.
On another hand, I'm getting kinda sick of being busy. There is debate, key club, violin lessons, cello lessons, piano lessons, church, weight watchers, orchestra festival, studying for the AP biology test, studying for the AP US history test, studying for the SAT I's, studying for the ACT's, studying for the SAT math II, studying for the SAT biology test, studying for the SAT literature test, doing homework, missing school... wanting to sleep...

BLEH.

But...
I have been thinking. And that round with Malaina... I was so incredibly confident. Last year I told Amanda to teach me to be confident, and I was more confident in that round than I can remember being ever before in my life.
I couldn't win for her... but maybe I didn't fail her. Maybe I gave her something that for me is way more important than winning:
For the first time in my life, I believed I could win.
Maybe that is the most I could give her.

State debate tournament (Malaina is BANANAS!)

My preliminary record was 3-1 (another miracle... I thought I was sucking... and for the second tournament in a row I beat this boy, Max. He got 2nd place at the last tournament and 4th at this one). I walked into octafinals and looked at the girl that had won state last year, all of a sudden, out of anonymity. She was no longer anonymous, but infamous. Ignomanious, I would say. She was tall, thin, Will's kind of beautiful, and I wasn't afraid of her becasue I knew Amanda could have beat her so easily.
I guess I forgot that it's been apparent all along that I am not as good at debate as Amanda is.
I fought, though, and my arguments pounded hers like hammers on fenceposts, but she is something other than a person when she debates; she annihilates; she leaves little pellets and skeletons of debaters and their dreams in her wake.
I never gave up. I fought and faought and she lied and lied. I felt good about the round and my debating. I wanted to win it for Amanda. I had promised her I would, a long time ago in September.
I lost, of course. Malaina (my opponant) is mesmorizing. Lay judges don't see the circular confusion of her arguments; they lap her and her slitted miniskirt up. Me, I lost it in the cross-ex when she slaughtered me and in the affirmative summary when she made up a lot of lies about me.
I was supposed to win for Amanda... I thought I could, for an instant. I really believed it. That was supposed to be enough... believing...
I failed. Not myself. No, I have next year. But Amanda... there is no next year.
The whole time during Malaina's affirmative summary as she lied and lied about the things I said, all that was playing through my head was "This *crap* is bananas... B-A-N-A-N-A-S!"

Oh how I longed to burst into song.
New plan though: when I hit her at NFL's (in finals of course) in two weeks I will mention her name in ever speech (instead of saying 'my opponant') and I will get her name wrong every time. Constructive... I'll call her Melanie. Rebuttal... I'll call her Natasha. Then after the round when I shake her hand I will say, "Great job, Andrea!" And she will say, "My name is Malaina." And I will slap my forehead and say, "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry Natalie, I'm just so bad with names when I have no reason to remember them."

Also, during her aff summary if she is aff I will shoot spitballs at her through a straw.

And of course... voting issue number 1- value criterion clash. Voting issue number 2- who better upholds justice/which thesis makes more sense. Voting issue number 3- Natalie is BANANAS, B-A-N-A..."
You get the point.

:-) It's high school and I got beat by someone I really wanted to destroy. Let me be immature for a moment.

Meanwhile, I struggle to cope with letting someone down, even if they don't think I did. Brittany and Will said to me, "I thought you should have won, definitely on the flow." And Mr. Pogreba said, "The ballots all said it was really close." And I said, "I didn't want to win for me." And they all stared at me blankly. "Who else is there to win for?" they asked.
They just don't get it, do they?

State debate tomorrow. I don't feel like debating. I feel like building a tent on my bed and reading and not talking to anyone ever again. I realized today how much more comfortable with isolation I am than my friends are. They need each other. I don't need anyone. There is only me in my world, and I can live like that. Sure, there is a degree of loneliness, but no dependence... I can't decide whether to feel disgusted with the way they require a vibrant social network in their lives, or to feel disgusted that I'm such a recluse and I don't.

Things are just sloshing around inside of me. I want to take three weeks off school to remember who I am.

On a different note... my friend Brittany and I have been volunteering at the humane society all year (I don't know if I've mentioned that), and it's great fun. We usually go Saturdays but due to the questionable regularity of our visits, we have changed to Thursdays, so I went Saturday and today. On Saturday Brittany was walking this really cute dog whose owners had abused it (those people deserve jail time, not just fines), and it was peeing on all these car tires so I told her to watch him (I have a bit more experience with dogs than Brittany). Anyway, not two minutes later we were talking to this lady and her dog decided I looked like a car tire. I was very mad at Brittany.

I don't know what's wrong with me lately... I just feel numb. Numb but depressed and lethargic and so incredibly freaking angry, even when I'm tired enough to drop off to sleep in five seconds. It's just this crazy mixture of emotion that must have something to do with being in the middle of my third exhaustive year of high school.

Is it wrong to be frustrated with the sexual nature of boys, especially boys who struggle with sexuality? Having been victimized sexually, having been shut of really from normal sexuality, I just feel such an anger towards guys who let their sexuality control them. WHY CAN'T THEY JUST SEE GIRLS SOLELY AS EMOTIONALLY PLEASING BEINGS? Why do we scream sex? Why can they not control their sex drive?

I know the male sex drive is so much stronger than the female one... but it's so hard for me... I just feel sick thinking about it.

Today I tried to make myself throw up by eating ten foot-long sticks of celery and drinking one quart of water without breathing. I felt very, very sick for a while but was unsuccessful. Oh well that's probably a good thing. But I am always on the lookout still, even though I don't intend to use the info, for new methods.

This time of year I always fall into this slump. I don't feel like doing anything. I just want to lie (lay? Which is what you do to something and which is what your body does?) at home and read. I am SO sick of school. Granted I was sick of school the second day of it, but the problem has worsened and worsened until now, when I really need to force myself to do SAT prep for just twenty minutes a day, and I find myself ignoring anything that is not life threatening or due tomorrow and reading all night.

In biology we are starting anatomy though, which is really interesting because it is my favorite part of biology. That is the only ray of sunshine in my abysmal storm. But even that has a catch- namely that in less than a month we will start dissecting cats. My friend Sam, who was going to be my lab partner, decided it was imperative that he have a complete schedule change, so now I am with this girl I don't know very well, and I don't know how to explain to her what is going to happen. I am SO SO bad at dissecting. Last year I couldn't even look at our frog. It just bothers me so much that that was once a breathing, living animal. Last year we had to scrape the skull off our frog and cut the eyes in half so we could see the brain, and I spent the whole time trying not to throw up. Sam was my partner then, and after ten minutes of argument over who had to do it we finally took the easy way out and told our teacher we "didn't understand how to do it." Why she bought that I don't know, considering you just had to drag the razorblade over the head, but we were successful because in her attempt to show us she ended up doing it herself.

Anyway, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to handle this cat. I probably won't be able to. I won't be able to do anything and then one day when everyone least expects it I will either throw up or faint. That would be exciting. We need something interesting like that to puncture this January monotony.

THREE MONTHS UNTIL SPRING BREAK....
I can't do it.
Nearly every huge emotional breakdown I have ever had has occurred between Semester tests in January and spring break. School just becomes so tedious and unbearable...

This is off Postsecret. I think that in part it's really true. In my life, and in the lives of those I have observed, walls have been partly for keeping people out, because I have been afraid of what would happen if people knew me. But inside of me there has always been this dream of someone not being stopped by these immense walls inside of me.
Whoever was strong enough to fight through the walls, to kick over the cannons, to keep coming through everything... they must really care. I must be worth loving then. I must be worth something.

The only person I know who has fought through my walls without any help from me and continues to fight them whether I want her to or not is Shauna. I don't know another person like Shauna. I'm high and she makes me talk. I'm sad and she makes me laugh. She sees right through me and I don't understand it... but because I hurt her, because she still comes banging through this maze around me, I know she cares. I know that without a doubt.
I always wanted someone to not be okay with my answer of "fine." People ask how you are... you feel like killing yourself... you say fine. If someone really wanted to know... if someone cared enough to make a difference in your life... they don't accept that as an answer. Really suicidal and depressed people usually insist that they are okay. If you smash past that... if you don't accept it... if you keep looking for where they are hiding past all the lead and titanium and brick... you have proven to them you are different than all of the rest.
Some people I have lowered my walls to because they earned my trust. And I know those people care as well. But you have to admire the ones that fight through it. That won't let you go.
This blog... it has been about being wall-less. THIS IS ME!!!!!! This blog... there are no lies. There is 100% truth. I leave a few things out, but for the most part this blog is full of all the parts of me that are hidden from the people I know in real life. I don't let people in. My counselor told me Saturday that she felt like she'd been banging on my walls for nine years and that I'm finally beginning to lower a drawbridge.
The good thing about walls is safety. Nobody knows you completely. Nobody sees who you really are. But that also means that you never know if people would love the person you are underneath it all. They are friends with someone that is only one millionth of you. If you keep all your secrets locked up... you are safe from unwanted intrusion. But how will you ever know if people accept who you really are?
And so with this blog... I have taken a chance... to present myself completely, no walls, none of the usually defense, no impaling sticks in the front yard. You who read this... this is me... this is who I am... this is all that I am... and I can only ask of you...
Is it worth it?
Am I worth fighting for?
IS THIS PERSON YOU SEE WORTH LOVING?
None of the rest of them can answer that. Nobody else in the world but the people that read this can answer if Lindsay, as a whole, nondivided, complete, honest... if that girl is worth loving.

The whale died. Why? Why couldn't they just keep it alive? It mattered to me.

There are several things I need to do for college... my parents and I finally talked about the most important today, which is that I need to do a research project at some facility this summer. My parents wanted me to do it at this lake that's near my town, but I would have had to do it with these old people and that made me feel very panicky... so then my dad said I can do it at his work and when I finish it (it'll take 6 weeks, 8-9 hours a day, M-F) we can send the abstract into a medical journal and they might publish it. That'd look pretty good.
Also I need to call the tutor and set up times to review geometry and trig so I can do well on the SAT math II's.
So much to do...
I just feel suffocated. I can't breathe. This is one of my last summer's as a kid and I will spend it doing genetic research. I feel like I've lost my childhood already. I've had to grow up.

edit: I just watched What the Bleep Do We Know and most of it was stuff about quantum mechanics and the Penrose theory that I had already read about alternate realities and such. But the movie reminded me of how crazy quantum physics is... it's a mix of psychology, science, and philosophy. If I had to call it something I'd call it applied philosophy. The Penrose theory pretty much goes along with Nietzsche and existentialism (yes, Shea, physics and philosophy can relate!). It made me lean towards quantum physics again as a career choice instead of astrophysics.

The two things the movie mentioned that I actually hadn't thought about before (which is silly of me... I thought that I'd totally explored the physics of consciousness... then again that's probably not possible):
1. A man on it said that if you cannot control an emotion, it is because you are addicted to it. I found that very interesting. It would mean I am addicted to depression, which I know is true because it's all I know. I'm not sure if I believe that statement is universally true though. I have never learned to control anger, and yet I deplore and don't feel addicted to it.
2. You don't fall in love with a person. You fall in love with the chemicals their presence releases in your brain. That is very antisentimental, but I cannot argue with the biology of it. Your brain only knows the chemicals your hypothalamus releases. I'm going to continue believing though that the release of this cocktail of chemicals being unique to a person indicates a love of that person.

One last thing... the world is of course mostly vacuum. An atom occupies a relatively large volume but is not very dense, especially the electron cloud. Scientists are currently trying to get a temperature at absolute zero on the Kelvin scale (this wasn't in the movie, I've just been thinking about this), but how could that ever work? If particle motion stopped then atoms would collapse in on themselves, and because of the relative volumes of the nucleus and the electron cloud, that would mean all matter would shrink instantly (or almost instantly) to a bajillionth of its original size, which would destroy it. So it doesn't make sense that that is physically achievable. At least if you want to preserve matter it wouldn't be. It brings about an interesting question though... if there was no vacuum, how would we perceive reality? Another thing... there is no accounting for consciousness, not physically anyway, not through science. An atom, neuron, or cell is not capable of conscious thinking (even though studies have shown one neuron's ability to recognize pictures). It is logical to follow that a bajillion of them wouldn't suddenly become capable of this. So is the only way to scientifically account for identity spirituality? Isn't this hole in physics indicated that there is something more than this world?

Trouble

Do you know what's really cool? Rediscovering books you loved when you were younger... like I am re-reading the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman that I read in sixth grade, and the Alanna series by Tamora Pierce that I read over and over again in middle school, and the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis (of course) that I loved and treasured from the first time I read them when I was seven years old. There's something so comforting about realizing that the magic in them is still there... it doesn't go away.
On the book tangent... I discovered three half finished books (about 30,000 words each at the moment) on my laptop that I forgot I'd started writing a few years ago, and I've decided to actually make some sort of commitment to finish them.
As for music and today... Two shocking discoveries: 1. I actually like an Eminem song. I never thought I would. But I was listening to "Mockingbird," which I think is to his kids, and I liked it. 2. I LOVE "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani which is this lovely shallow song about cheerleaders and such but I can listen to it over and over again... This (whatever you want) is bananas... B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Finally, on to the real topic of this post... I went to a movie with Charlie today. I didn't kiss him. He looked like he might kiss at the end there, but I got up out of his car. I don't know if I want it yet. He did have his hand on my leg and my hand the entire movie though. I definitely encouraged it. And then after he said we should go out again next week. I like him a lot... but he isn't Josh... and I can't get too far into a commitment with him or I will find myself having to cheat on him, which I don't want to do, and I don't believe in doing in any circumstances. But I don't know what else to do. I want have a relationship with him... But I can't let go of Josh... wow.
I noticed today though that his hands on me did not alarm me in any way. Slowly, slowly, slowly I am fighting off what they did to me.

Do you really know who you are? Or have you just told yourself that you do long enough to believe it? Have you just acted like you did so long that you can't conceive anything else?

What are we so afraid of? Like Shauna said... it can't be caring... that's the wrong battle. Pain doesn't come from compassion. Never...

We get to a point where we are so willing to destroy that it's terrifying.

The worst hurt

It is cold here than it has been. The cold in me is more than that... the pain in me is more than me...
My English teacher is always quoting transcendentalists, always telling us to let go of the everyday things, let go of the stress and busyness and become part of something bigger, some network of compassion. But we are all in high school... the business separates us from a truly painful reality. The busyness is our own distraction. Without the everyday stuff, without grades and debate and music lessons, we have to face what is real, what is past the extranneous... and that is what hurts, when we face the huge interconnectedness of things and find no place to fit in.

I don't care what you say about being young... I want to help something... I want to be someone... what hurts more than all of my dim little ailments, all of my insignificant and trivial pains, is that I am living and drowning myself in the business when everywhere around me a gauze net of cosmic pain stretches over everything and everyone. I can't take a breath from the monotony because the true horror of life is too much to take in a moment. It is a hollow ache in my sternum; it is my heart bouncing around in my ribcage like a mallet on a harmonica.

If I were to kill myself tonight (I won't) then this is what I would say: I needed the blankness to escape the responsibility. Because I see the anger in the world and I do nothing... I feel the pain of the world and I black it out with test scores. There is more to life than me and more to life than high school and more to life than the small things I consider failures. I think I am a failure because of my inability to debate well, because I cut my arm, because I throw up, because I breathe in aerosals. No... I am a failure because I run from life. I run from the stark reality and hide in these small failures. Failure is... failure is not giving. Not giving all that you are to try to remedy something. There is absolutely no way I could alleviate the pain in all the world... but the failure is not trying... the failure is collapsing something that is so much bigger than me until it only revolves around me an my life, unnaturally and awkwardly orbiting the things I have chosen to value that will mean nothing when I die, nothing at my funeral, nothing when I face the expanses after death.

I want to escape it. I want to leave behind everything that does not matter. I want to stop being so cowardly as to concern myself only with what has been placed in my immediate vicinity. I want to let go of this remnant of me and only me and embrace something bigger... something in which I can find a place designed for me and do something I was destined to do. My whole life I have sought to understand people. I have penetrated the human mind... I have analyzed and analyzed my parents and my friends and my mentors and struggled to understand why they do the things they do. Consequently, I can forgive someone of almost anything... because the human mind reaches some odd conclusions, and finds itself trapped in some nightmarish places, and those that do not take the time to know, to understand, do not realize that there is a way out other than monstrosity. I can empathize. I have compassion, I would like to think. I want to help someone. I want to help you all because you are hurting... and I see it... and I collapse into myself. I have learned so much about the mind, and yet I have not used it enough...

Perhaps my life is contained in what is right around me... even then I should strive to make a difference in the people I am connected to. There is a hierarchy of emotional support in the world. Sentimentalities become an inverted pyramid, each upper level grower closer to the ground, carrying more weight, and yet strong enough to stand.

I WANT TO CARE! I WANT TO LOVE MYSELF! I want to understand a reason for living that is more than just the everyday... I want to make a difference... I want to help people... I want to give back what I have been given...

Monday I will go back to school. I will look over my semester tests. I will think about college. I will know that my friends are miserable but I will be too afraid to confront them on anything, and similarly I will keep myself hidden and closed up. I don't know how to do anything different. But inside of me I am always aching... because everyone is hurting... and I only run away.

SEMESTERS ARE OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Results:
Math (took in December for college): 100% (A in class)
History: 83% but then the highest grade was an 86% out of thirty something kids, so he curved it 12% so I got a 95% (A in class)
Biology 2: Not sure. We didn't have a test, we just had to write this paper on which viral vector we would choose for gene therapy for a disease she assigned us. I think my paper was OK, probably an A. Definitely an A in class.
Orchestra: A. What is alarming is that I've been in the back forever and now she has me sitting first chair in the section, which means I have to 'lead' about fifteen people behind me and it's rather frightening as I've been enjoying lounging in the back so much.
Chemistry: I thought I did badly, and I didn't really study, but apparently I got the highest score, an A (A in class)
Money Management: I actually studied for this one. The test went well I think except I messed up a problem trying to figure out the principal on some care loan. Oh well. No results yet.
English: I realized I hadn't studied at 11 p.m. last night, so I studied for two hours. It was easier than I thought it would be, and I only had to get a Dish on it to get an A for the class, which I'm sure I got.
It's interesting how every semester I get less and less stressed about semesters, less and less worked up, and study less and less and still do alright. Even without my Sponge Bob pj's.

Onto another note I'm having those days/weeks/lifetimes. I haven't been eating much lately but I've eaten a little more today. Like I said I lost eight pounds, but I have gained a pound back. Every time I feel like eating I think about control and I think about those dummy models at Victoria's Secret and it doesn't seem worth it to eat anymore. I'm falling back into the bulimia with the binges and purges, more so than I have in a year. I'm getting back to where I was last year, which is good or bad depending on how you look at it.

I don't really understand why I should quit cutting. What's so wrong with it? Actually on a religious standpoint I can, and I'm already in enough trouble with God to make it worse, but other than that I don't see the point. It's my body, my choice. It feels good to me. Something I didn't write in here (for good reason) is that a few months ago I cut my wrist very, very deeply. It was literally over a centimeter deep. A paperclip could disappear entirely into it sideways. It's the deepest I've ever cut, anywhere. I didn't want to die necessarily but I couldn't stop, and I didn't really care anymore if I lived or died. Those veins are a lot harder to get to than you'd think. It bled a lot though, it soaked through sheet after sheet of gauze. In the end, I really did want to die but I couldn't... it just got deeper and deeper but there was no vein. Finally someone forced me to stop. It seems that every time I get down to it and decide I actually want to kill myself something or someone stops me. Maybe it's God. I don't know. I struggled with religious faith etc. for a while but I'm starting to reaffirm what I believe in... so I'm willing to consider that. I know without a doubt that I believe in God and Christ's resurrection. I've never doubted that, as scientifically ridiculous as it may sound sometimes. I guess that science is just assuming their is no God... if there is a God (which I think there is) why couldn't he use science? Wouldn't he be more powerful than natural law in the long run?

I'm getting off the point though... the point is I can understand why I shouldn't cut my wrist, because I have a huge scar on it now and I know that if someone hadn't stopped me nothing would have stopped me from finding that vein. But cutting your arms and legs really isn't that dangerous. I know there are other ways to cope with things (I did it for nine months) but why should I pursue them when cutting works for me? I guess the best thing for me to do right now would be to turn to religion and use that for an answer until I can find a more immediate one (although religion is probably the most important answer to anything in my life).

I'm feeling okay today, but now I know how to make myself cry... I just think of her leaving. And it makes me so mad I could break anything, anything at all...

edit: forgot to mention how screwed up my love life is. I am going to go see Josh in two weeks and go skiing with him... don't worry I will be very careful. But I trust him. Tomorrow I am going to a movie with Charlie. I hope I don't kiss him. Maybe I will. I don't know. It's a good way to hurt myself and everyone involved. Wow I didn't know my life would become this romantically complicated.

semesters and spongebob (tragically separated)

Yesterday my mom got in the back of my car. "What's this spray can and rubber cement doing back here?" she said.
"They're some of my art supplies."
"But what's the aerosal?" she shook it up, the ball bouncing around inside.
"It fixes pastels so they don't rub off."
"You're huffing between class, aren't you Lindsay?" she said jokingly. She thought that there was absolutely no chance it was true.
"Yep, that's it," I said, pretending to be joking.
"You have a drug problem, don't you, Lindsay?" my mom smiled.
"Now you've caught me."
Interesting how I got through that whole conversation without lying once. It's also interesting how people fumble around in the dark, hitting on the truth with boxy shoulders and ringing a bell they don't want to hear, so they don't. My mom inadvertently had the most honest conversation she's had with me in months about the problems I am facing, and she didn't even know it.
Irony irony irony.
Of course I haven't gotten high since last Wednesday, so that's something.

Do you like the new background? I was getting board of the pear thing. Also, it works with all my green font which I would have been too lazy to go back and change on every post to match a new background. Also, the dark background goes with my Emerson quote: "When it's dark enough you can see the stars." You know Emerson wanted to kill himself once, after his wife died and everything got all messed up? Then he turned into a crazy transcendentalist hippie. Go figure.

It's semester test week. I have AP US history today, which I actually need to do well on. I don't have to go to school until 11:50 but I had to get up for seminary this morning. I came home and sort of fell back to sleep and had all these really scattered dreams, all of them having to do with being unprepared for something. Hopefully that is not an indication of how this history test will go. And worst of all I can't find my lucky Spongebob pajamas that I always wear to semester tests.
Speaking of those pajamas... I find it odd that I find Spongebob so comforting. I remember watching that show every day when the psych hospital was driving me crazy (I'd say that's a little counterproductive). You'd think I'd hate him, but he did get me through the worst week in my life. When all you're talking about is DID and cutting and bulimia and rape and physical abuse and all of the other crap everyone there had gone through, you're perfectly willing to laugh until you cry over a little yellow idiot that is so stupid he's hilarious. Ever since then he's had a special place in my heart.
Wow, I'm getting a little too sentimental about a cartoon here.

So my weight is weird I've decided. I lost eight pounds last week, but gained three back in the past three days... I don't know. I'm trying to eat I really am, but every time I do I feel like what little control I have is slipping away...

EDIT: I have been attempting to think more about college (and trying to figure out how to survive the SAT II math test full of trig and geometry). We're supposed to have ten places we want to go by February somethingth, but I can only think of four... but here they are: MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, BYU. I might want to make the last one one that I can actually get into, so I get into TWO colleges instead of just BYU. I don't really want to go to BYU though. I don't really want to got to Salt Lake City. I really hate Salt Lake. Also I went crazy there a few years ago. Also although I do love Mormons, I'm not sure if I could handle being surrounded by the annoying kind.
Also I really want to go to Oxford or Cambridge in England for a semester no matter where I go, but my mom says all of my plans all depend on whether my grandfather decides he actually likes me enough to give me the savings he invested for me (or maybe whether he likes us enough. All I've ever done is work hard for him).

Tournaments are the most highly stressful, draining activities you could possibly imagine. Way more draining than any soccer, tennis, or baseball game ever has been for me.

This is what happened... it's an old story reoccuring. I was 4-0 when I broke into octafinals. That's the first time I have EVER not lost a single debate in prelims. But I thought I had lost them all. So when I looked at the postings I didn't believe them. I asked my head coach several times if it could have been an accident. My speaker points were high, I see looking back, so I must have been seated fairly high, probably in the top six or less out of 35.

I went to that octafinals round, confused and worried that me competing in it was a mistake, and it was the same boy I lost to in semis last weekend. I was negative though, and last weekend in Wyoming I had beat him as negative. But when I saw it was him... when I saw him standing there... I knew I had lost. Before I even walked into that round I had lost.

And I did lose. Not over arguments, but because all the ballots said they voted on his presence and performance... basically his appeal to the judges. Which is something important that I need to work on.

But it's hard to play out this same story again and again. It happened a lot last year. I do really well in preliminaries but cannot believe it and lose my first outround. It's getting old.

As cliche as this sounds, I did literally cry myself to sleep on Friday not. Not about tthe tournament but because this is my last month and then I will maybe see her twice in the rest of my life. That's all I could think about all weekend. And as irrational as it is (she's done nothing wrong), I am furious at her for leaving... I hate her for leaving. I have been avoiding her.

Below anger there is nearly always hurt, and I am hurting incredibly badly, and there is no one to blame it on but her, even though I know it's not her fault. I just don't want to lose her...

random philosophical ramblings

The only interesting thing I heard all day:
My English teacher told us he is sort of curving the semester test next week. He will take the highest score and raise it to 100% and then raise everyone else's score proportionally. He told us that every year someone talks about all conspiring to do badly on the test so everyone would get a 100%, but he said that never works because people are too afraid for their grades. Imagine if one person got a 97% and everyone else got a 40%.
I think it's a fascinating concept, that in our effort to get good grades we are elimating, with our misanthropy, our only chance of all doing perfectly. We are too mistrusting. Our fear of failure is the main reason to form a union, and yet this fear of failure, paradoxically, is also the main reason that union will never form. We are so concerned about our individual welfare that we would never take a risk for the community. We are so cynical of people that we would never dare to trust in a scheme like that.
I wouldn't. I would be too paranoid of that one person that could ruin everything. So paranoid that I would become that person.

It is interesting to think about, our lack of faith in each other, and how through it we can never achieve what it is that we most want.

conversation

This is a conversation between me and my friend Shauna that we carried out on my notebook during chemistry. Reading over it I think she may have hit on a few really true things. She does know me a bit too well. I'm kind of starting it in the middle. She's in itallics and I'm in normal type. (This conversation transpired after she asked me if I was high last week and again today.)

Please tell me, I'm as ready as I will ever be, and a lot more ready than I was.
I have other people I can talk to.
Well then why not me? I'll be here all the same you know.
Because you don't need it right now.
Maybe I do.
Nope. You're surviving, same as me.
Maybe I would rather take the tough stuff, so we can at least laugh as well. Not this. This isn't what friendship is, this blankness. I feel like we are on a two-dimensional earth together. It is not worth it. It is just numbing. I don't want to be one of your drugs.
The only thing I'll tell you is I'm getting lost in drugs. And it sucks.
Don't you realize that you have everything you need to stop if you know you want to? You know that you don't want it. Really, what else could it take? You underestimate your will.
I don't know if I want to.
Well you don't seem very happy about it to me. You seem dead.
Ah, the joys of paint sealant. I feel numb. Okay by me.
What is there to feel numb from? What are you so afraid of?
Caring.
Well you obviously still care. Since you started writing this. So they aren't exactly working??? You haven't been hurt because you care- you're fighting the wrong battle.
Caring --> pain. Everything I believed in has dissolved. I swore I'd never do this and now I have to get high to survive a day.
What did you really believe in?
Not drugs. Not escaping from reality. Not apathy.
And why did that dissolve?
I don't know. I guess it didn't but I'm no longer living by it.
Why not?
I don't know. I seem to have failed at a lot of things.
Like what?
I don't know.
You know it is just because you concentrate too much on success.

She may have said a few things that were a bit TOO true, things I'm not sure I wanted to hear. But she did remotivate me. Tonight I took four pills. This is who I am, who I am meant to be. Seven pills a day to stabilize my mood. That's it. No more chemicals. It's so weak to run away from reality like this. I'd rather live in any moment, rather care, no matter how painful or horrible it was, than exist in a numb fog. It feels nice now but years later I will look back and realize I never really lived in high school, never really existed, and I will regret it then. If I think about all of the moments I'm wasting (these are the only moments I get to be sixteen years old) then the horrible feelings seem a bit more worth it and I feel a bit stronger.

It's interesting, hitting walls and pushing people away. I pushed Josh away last night. I pushed Charlie away today after he talked about going to a movie. I looked at him and just the idea of trying to pull myself together enough to go on a 'normal' date with him was way too daunting. I pushed all of my friends away from me today. I pushed my parents away. I'm closing down.

I thought all of yesterday about some way to get marijuana and alcohol. I still can't think of any. Most of me is really ashamed in myself for even trying to figure this out, and for knowing that if I did have some way to access those nothing would stop me from using them. As a last ditch attempt to escape things this morning I drank this cup of cappuchino. It couldn't of course have any effect on my mind or this hugely deep depression I have sunken into, but it did give me a sense of doing something wrong, which in a way hurt me, which was what I wanted.

I think maybe I've reached a point where I really need to evaluate myself and what's going on with me. I took a walk last night in the dark into the woods to this limekiln and I just lay there on top of it for a long time thinking of how easy it would be to just lean over and fall off the twenty-five foot wall and hit the sharp rocks below. I looked up at the stars and watched my breath. I sat for a while cutting my hand with a razorblade and wiping all the blood on the ancient cement but then I threw the razorblade as far as I could. I think I might not even have been trying to hurt myself anymore at that point, I think maybe I was trying to hurt everyone else, but cutting myself was the only way I knew to create pain. I realized I've somewhat failed my debate coach. I asked her to help me to be confident so I could win rounds and here we are a year later and all I feel is worthless. I hated myself a lot. It felt good to cry alone. I realized how much I hate letting people my age close to me. I don't want to let them in. They can't handle me and I don't want them to. I want all of my friends and boyfriends to just go away for a while.

I haven't hurt that badly in a really long time. I kept thinking of everyone I knew that had been sexually abused and it felt like my lungs were being punctured and slowly giving out. I wanted so badly for some sort of drugs to take me away. I can keep overdosing on prescription drugs but I am running out of drugs that really do enough to make me high enough to not care anymore. I'm trying so hard to give up and not care but I can't, because some part of me still wants so badly to believe that there is some worth in me.

Today was bad too. I hurt. I hurt really, really badly. All I need or want is for someone who knows me and cares to hug me very very closely and let me cry and tell me everything is going to be okay. For right now I'm in pergutory, somewhere suspended slightly above hell. I know I need to reevaluate my life and who I am, what I believe in and where I'm going, but right now I'm perfectly content to destroy myself in every way I know how.

I need someone to hug me very, very badly, but there is no one here because I've pushed them all away. I've done everything I can to hurt myself and it's not enough. I want to stop feeling. I want to stop thinking. I don't feel like I can handle this any longer.

People may believe in me... that keeps me going. Maybe I even believe in myself, and my capability of getting past this. But I'm not even really sure I want to.

EDIT: Yes, I do believe things are disintegrating. My mom told me to take my dog to the park so I walked her around the park and then I sat in the car breathing in as many harmful aerosals as I could find. The inhalents bloomed into my brain and it gave me this wonderful detached feeling... I just kept breathing more and more in... paint sealent, rubber cement, nail polish remover, air freshener... Yes, things are slipping a little out of control.

I'm disappointed in myself. I really thought I did well in that round.
Well I guess the judges didn't think so.
They voted on things that weren't issues in the round. Arguments he didn't make an issue.
I always vote on dropped arguments.
Well you shouldn't. And I didn't drop any more arguments than he did.
YOU ALWAYS DO THIS LINDSAY! TRY TO MAKE THINGS NOT YOUR FAULT WHEN THEY ARE!
I do not. It was a 3-0 decision. I had to have done something wrong. I just don't understand what. They shouldn't have voted on the things they voted on.
IF YOU DON'T WANT MY OPINION DON'T ASK IT!
I didn't.
DON'T EVEN TALK TO ME ABOUT IT! YOU LOST, OKAY?!!! STOP TRYING TO BLAME IT ON SOMEBODY ELSE.

Then, again, there is only me left to blame it on.

Last summer I drew a big poster of all of my goals for the year. I looked at it this morning and I had failed at all of them. I pulled it off the wall and and tore it up, tearing all the goals out. I crumpled up a piece of paper and put it in the sink and lit it on fire. I threw in my goals and watched them burn, the flames reaching almost a foot high. I just kept throwing them in, watching the blaze of all that failure.

And, oh God oh God oh God, I still cared... I still really cared.

Oh, lovely insomnia for two nights in a row... last night it was because I was high... this night I don't know.

I took a sleeping pill. Hopefully I will asleep and STAY asleep soon.

Hey College Board-
Do you know what I think about PSAT's? They're crap! They're cruel! They mean nothing! You want to know what I think about ACT's and SAT's? I think that they're developed by white elitists and are no indicator of somebody's intelligence or even aptitude at ANYTHING besides test-taking. I think you don't remember what it felt like to have a three hour test determine the rest of your life. I think you've never had trouble taking timed tests, never had panic attacks, never...

Oh gosh I hate this. They talk about college. I want to puke. Stupid PSAT score. Writing/English: 76 and 75. Math? Sixty fricking 6.

Anyway my mom called a tutoring place. My gosh I'm in my second college math class, linear agebra and differential equations and discreet dynamic systems or something, and I can't do frickin geometry. If it was a calculus test I'd ace it.

I took a bunch of pills not prescribed to me tonight to calm me down. Anxiety ones, mostly. I took one that I didn't even know what it was. I just swallowed it. My parents' meds mostly.

I wish I had some alcohol. I'd get drunk. I wish I had pot. I wish I had ecstasy or LSD or crack or anything... even heroin. It's an f-ing good thing I have no access to drugs or I'd do them, despite all of my individual opinions about drugs, I'd do them until I was so stoned I didn't know my name. Drink until I threw up. I remember being drunk. It was nice. I miss it. Even the way the walls waved in and out. Everything felt really far away.

Even being high of those crappy lithium overdoses had it's nice effects, like the way it separated you from the world. I'm just so sick of throwing up. (Lol, kinda a perpetuating problem the way I stated that).

I'M NOT LIKE THIS. I'm a straight A student. I'm not a druggee... But I could be. Oh man I could be so easily.

I'm so selfish.

People are starving.

I watched Batman Begins last night. Awesome movie about sociology, economic philosophy, and societal obligation. You are what you do. And I do nothing for the world. The one thing I have that I could use to help people- my ability to write- I am too busy doing crap I don't care about like going to music lessons and money management homework to use. I'm a disgrace.

I want to make a difference. I want to help. But I got the message from Batman. It doesn't matter if I want to do those things. If I don't do them I'm just like all the people that don't even care.

Do you know what's weird?
The people that read this blog, this whole thing or maybe even parts of it, will know me far better than my friends do, without ever seeing my face, watching me trip, laughing at/with me, hugging me, touching me, buying me a gift, seeing me when I'm tired and in sweats, seeing me dressed up...

I guess just without having any sort of real contact with my life. And that is exactly how I set it up... this blog... because I couldn't have possibly survived when I started writing this blog with somebody close to me knowing me as well as the people that read this would. It was a safeguard. It was like Voldemort... if you split yourself in pieces no one can really kill you.

But then again there is one person who reads this blog, who knows me this well, who has seen me fall down stairs, seen me laugh so hard I cried, seen me on the verge of tears from depression, seen me so mad that I cracked out of myself... And through that (and one other person who doesn't read this much but who knows me very well) I have learned to be real with two people on the planet... only two...

I thought that everything that was real in my life was on the internet, in this blog, in these words. Over the past year I have learned that my physical reality is real too, my friends, my family, the people I see every day. I have learned that I am not whole without these pieces (even if the first still feels more real to me).

I have learned to love with BOTH of these pieces of me...

but it still feels odd, that you could know me, you who read this, without ever seeing me...