Sorry, I'm kinda posting a lot. But I forgot to post about my mental health state this past week.

I thought I could handle everything without slipping away, but I couldn't. I quit eating for a few days, and then compulsively ate again. There was no purging though; no laxatives, no overdoses. I thought about OD-ing today, but I decided not to. I'm trying to transcend that.

The anxiety and panic attacks and OCD have been very bad lately. I haven't wanted to tell anyone, because I didn't want to screw with my meds again. However, I can't handle this anymore. I feel like I did four years ago when I was going in and out of dissociation and psychosis. Thinking about boredom makes me feel like my molecules are going too fast; my electrons are gaining so much velocity that they're escaping the gravity and flying off into space, grabbed by inappropriate atoms with filled valence shields, converting me into some freak anomale.

I'm doing a little better bipolar-wise at the moment, but at Civitan I resembled a yoyo on crack. There was no reason for it; everything was so spontaneous. There were no triggers to change my moods. One instant I was happy and alive and real, and the next I was dead and depressed and lost. I raged against the bipolar all week. I suppose these rapid cycles that happen when I'm on meds are way better than the extreme, longer cycles that happen when I'm off meds, but they're so disconcerting. The difference between on-med and off-med depression for me, however, is that when I'm on meds I know I'll come back up. The difference between medicated hypomania and mania is that when I'm on-meds I'm just hyper, annoying, only slightly out of control, rather than spiraling into psychosis.

However, I need to do something about the panic, the anxiety, the compulsion, the unending obsessions. Please, please, please God give me one day where I think about my ACT's and SAT's less than ten times. I just want to forget them! Please help me to stop having panic attacks when I think about boredom.

I don't want this! I don't want any of this. I took one of my mom's xanax, because when I get like this they usually calm me down quickly. I know I shouldn't self-medicate, but it's mroe appealing to me than falling into that psychosis that I went through a few years ago.

Civitan

When I started this blog, there was no one reading it, and I swore to tell the truth in its entirety. This was the only place that I was completely and totally honest about my life. I wanted to understand something: the wholeness past all of the deception. When people started reading it, it increased the cathartic effect of truth-telling. It really was complete, devoid of fabrication; people read it, which made it real.
Now, there are several people reading this, a few of whom are hopelessly entwined in my truths. But this blog began a year and a half ago as an exercise in understanding my unimpeded identity, and it will continue to be that. I will continue telling the truth. Perhaps maybe I can take this exercise and implement it everywhere in my life.

When I got to Civitan I was thoroughly numb. I saw Josh everywhere. I sat in the couch that I sat in last year when I first saw him, hovering over Jane, smiling, and so hot I thought I'd never have a chance. It was easy, though, when I found out that he was one of those unconfident boys that doesn't seem aware of how cute they are. I'm good about seducing those. I can feel confident around people that don't feel confident; it's only around those that do feel confident that I lose all of my assertiveness.
I saw Josh in the cafeteria, in the stairwells. They were these little phantom images of Josh, because he was gone now, because I could not let him go no matter what I tried.

I found Emily. Or rather she found me. I wasn't sure whether to expect her there or not, and I wasn't sure how to deal with it if she was there. I was paranoid that she wouldn't like me. I was paranoid that I would screw everything up. It wasn't about Josh when it came to Emily... it was just about wanting her (needing her in some ways) as a friend.
It was odd, meeting someone I knew a lot about. It was hard to get over how real she was, in stark contrast to those ghosts of Josh that were floating everywhere. I didn't bother trying to pretend to be someone I wasn't; I just acted liked myself and prayed she'd like me.

We have these envelopes at Civitan that people send you notes in, and after dinner on Sunday, the first night, I found a note from Josh in mine. "I'm here. I'm sorry." I don't know how to explain to you how I felt in that moment. It was as if I had been living in this dream world for three weeks. I think that I had forgotten Josh was a real person, and seeing his handwriting shook everything up for me. I didn't know what to think, feel, or do. Yet again I was trapped in an emotional situation that I was not ready for and had not prepared for. My wrist was still swollen from the last time that happened.
I panicked, I'll admit it. My heart started training for the Indy 500. My lungs felt like they were struggling with iron constraints. I had to keep trying to calm myself down from the rampant anxiety. I tried to close my eyes and imagine seeing him, and it made me feel so disconnected from reality. I had thought I would never see him again; I thought that's what his therapists said had to happen. I thought that he didn't love me anymore, and that his love for me had been part of his BPD all along. I thought that he wasn't the same Josh that came to prom a month ago. I didn't know how to handle this new person. I had just started trying to get over him (although I still thought incessently of suicide and I still knew I'd never get over him in the way Ariel told me he'd gotten over me).
When I did finally see him, sillhoetted in a doorway, the bottom dropped out of everything (I'm sorry, this sounds so dramatic, but it was dramatic). He saw me and turned around and walked away. I saw him and it was like seeing a ghost in the flesh, like seeing a resurrected being. I had almost convinced myself that there was no Josh anymore in the world, only those flimsy memories, and seeing him jarred all of my shaky resolutions that I had been struggling to build since I got that message on my cellphone.
I also knew, upon that fleeting glimpse, that I still loved him with all of the passion that I had ever loved him with, and that if there was anyway, anyway at all in the universe, that I could still be with him and that we could be healthy, I would give up everything material that I own just to have it.

That night was... awkward. I didn't know who he was anymore. From the stories I had been told, he had changed a lot, lost control. Emily sat between us and I didn't look at him, except to look at his hands, which were shaking uncontrollably. I didn't speak to him. I asked Emily whether I should talk to him, and she said only if he talked to me. I didn't know who he was anymore, and I was prepared to ignore him the whole week if he ignored me. I wasn't sure how I could handle loving him directly again; I didn't know if the fierceness of my emotions would be containable in that stressful atmosphere. I worried that I would explode. Every time I saw him I felt like crying, crying, crying, because I thought I had lost him forever. Having him there, seeing him... it was like someone was giving me some tiny shred of hope again, some tiny, feeble ray of light in all of that consuming darkness that threaten to destroy me. I can't blame myself for groping for it, for clinging onto it like it was the only objective thing in a subjective universe.

He did come and talk to me that night. While we were playing games I stared at him and felt that my cardiac muscles were slowly dissolving and my heartbeat was converting to mush. I didn't know how I could go on living my life without him. I remembered all of those days in the past few weeks that I have tried to be strong but ended up in messy tears. I remember all those wondering hours when I pondered whether it was possible or worth to survive after all that had happened. I remembered my tentative resolves to keep on living, to try to find all of that worth inside of myself. I remembered looking inside of myself and being truly shocked at the strength that I found there, beyond everything. I knew that I could exist without Josh, that I could possibly learn to live someday. But I also knew that I would give anything just to have him back again, just to make it so that I and his health could coexist.

Small talk? Maybe. He stood next to me. He said something like how are you, and I answered. I asked if he was doing better, and he said somewhat. It was awkward at first. But he was still Josh. From everything everyone had been telling me, he had metamorphosed into some boy I didn't know. But when I saw him I realized that he was still the Josh he'd always been, but he had lost control, which was bad, and he had lost his masks, which was good. Of all of his masks, I like his raw and bleeding face better- bleeding from the cold, but finally exposed enough to heal.
That night we sat in a group around Dennis (the leader guy) and Josh held my hand. The whole universe was flying through my mind at that moment. I didn't know if it was healthy, or right, so I kept asking Josh, kept letting go of his hand and making sure that I wasn't the focus, that he was himself and not his standard Lindsay-mask. He insisted he was though.

Over the week I realized that he is beginning to make the changes that he needs to make. I am no longer the center of his world. One of the biggest reasons I was attracted to him last summer was that he needed taking care of, and I needed so desperately to be needed. But I understand now that we both need to change those pathologies. I need to let go of that desire to be strong by taking care of him, and find strength inherent within myself (which I am beggining to do). He needs to let go of clinging to me and being absolutely dependent on me, and give everyone in his lives the roles that are appropriate in his healing (which he is beginning to do).

On Monday he scared me by yanking me out on the roof (very against the rules) so he could talk to me alone. I was having a panic attack the whole time we were up there (I'm a little paranoid about breaking rules). He explained to me that his parents told him he wasn't allowed to talk to me for six months to a year, which I explained to him was very not true. I had thought I wasn't allowed to talk to him for at least that long. It was a miscommunication. When he asked if he could kiss me I let go of his hand. I backed up five feet across the roof (I'm amazed at my presence of mind amidst the panic attack). I made him sit there for a minute and really think about what differences there would have to be if we were involved again. I made him think about how I would just be a part of his life, not his whole life. We both thought about it.
He didn't kiss me until we were both entirely sure it was right. It wasn't exactly at that moment. I kept, over the week, constantly making both of us step back and evaluate what was going on. I kept asking if he would be okay on Thursday when I left. I kept reminding of my constancy (and me of his, as I have that symptom of BPD majorly). I kept telling him that I would continue to exist when I went home on Thursday, and he didn't need me to be with him to be happy.

I think that our relationship over the week was making some major moves towards health. I wrote him several notes, all saying that it had to be a healthy relationship, because I'd rather have no relationship than an unhealthy one. We were keeping it real. It was hard for me to try to adjust to not be the center of his life, but it was a relief to know the pressure was gone and that he was beggining to heal.
I also cannot explain to you how wonderful it felt to know that his love for me hadn't been part of his BPD, and that it still existed even when he was trying hard to contain any BPD tendancies.

I don't think we should ever be together really alone, without a social setting, for quite a while. It keeps things real. I don't think, for instance, that it will be smart to do anything like prom for quite a while. But I do believe that these babysteps are taking us to a better place. What we both made clear over the week was that things absolutely had to change. There simply was not the option of going back to the way things were, as tempting as it was. The week was constant work, constant evalution of the way things were going. However, things can be better if they have to be different. That's what I'm always trying to tell myself: as scary as change is, it's worth reaching out sometimes and grasping it, just because of the possibility that things can be better.

However, I am leaving out some majorly important parts of the week. That's how my relationship with Josh was going. But there was an equally important relationship present that I was struggling to hold on to, and totally confused about: my relationship with Emily.

Emily loves Josh. I have known that for a few months, ever since I talked to her one time quite a while ago about how I was afraid that Josh was deifying me (which he was). It was pretty obvious in that conversation. However, although I am horrible about fear of abandonment and I need to be told every day that someone loves me for me to believe it, I didn't want to be afraid of what would happen between Emily and Josh. Through all of this I have tried really hard to just trust God. I felt in my heart that Josh was the right one for me, the one I would be with forever. But I also felt that if that ever quit being true, God could handle the situation and help me pull through it.

As soon as Josh grabbed my hand on Sunday night I thought immediately of Emily and knew things were getting complicated. I knew she liked Josh a lot. So I wrote her a note about it, and she wrote back confirming my fears to the worst degree.
I didn't mind that she likes Josh. There's not really much you can do about loving someone. However, I felt totally and completely miserablet that she had to see Josh coming back to me. I think that sometimes Josh isn't really sensative of what girls aroun him are feeilng. I know that he knew Emily was hurting, but I don't think he thought really about how horrible it would be to watch what happened if he were her. I don't even think I really undrestood how horrible it was.

But my last post was about her. Every time I saw her I felt physically sick. I felt doubled over in pain. I hate hurting people. But it was such a horrible situation. I just couldn't let go of Josh because of her, even though a large part of me wanted to. This made me feel selfish, which made me angry at myself. I wanted so badly to do something that made everyone happy, but it was a lose-lose situation.

So although I was so happy to have Josh back, I was also completely and totally miserable. This misery was my fault of course, not Emily's. I want to emphasize that I'm responsible for my own feelings and reactions.

I also really do not want to lose Emily as a friend over this. She is an amazing person. Even though she was hurting all week, she helped me through it. How unselfish is that? I think it's amazing. I don't know if I could do that. I remember when Kayte and Sam hooked up, and how angry I was unconsciously at both of them. I really admire Emily's strength, and that she cares about me even though I have partially ruined something important to her.

Well, the drama continues. I went whitewater rafting yesterday on the Lochsa which was really fun, as there were quite a few large rapids (although none as big as one of the ones on the Snake that we do every year). I was FREEZING though. The water temperature was 40 degrees.

Tomorrow I'm leaving to go to church camp for a week, and then rafting for a week. I'll be back on July 2nd because I have a college class starting on the 3rd (the writing one). I have to drive back from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, all by myself, which is like six hours. I am excited partially because it means I am growing up and can be responsible enough to drive home alone, but I am unhappy because I really hate long-distance driving.

What happens when everything is lying on the ground... Do you pick up the pieces all around? And if the world should fall apart hold on to what you know... take your chances turn around and go.

I don't know what to think or feel at the moment. Civitan was pretty amazing in a lot of ways, and totally completely miserable in others. I will write more later, as I've been whitewater rafting all day an am exhuasted right now.

One time, when I was fourteen, I fell totally in love with this boy named Sam. Every time I saw him my heart would skip ten beats. I loved him for a year. Then we had our eighth grade graduation dance. When he danced with me, I felty like I had escaped my body somehow and transcended all of my misery. He held my hand and I thought I had it made.

The next week I watched him kissing one of my best friends. I'll still remember the way my stomach felt in that instant, knowing that I was just one dance. He went on to be in love with her for two years... I loved him secretly. Some part of me probably still loves him, but I let it go as much as I could, as it hurt so, so badly.

em·pa·thy

1. Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.
   

Sometimes, when I look at someone, somehow I can feel some of what they're feeling. Maybe it is that I see myself in them; maybe it is that I can imagine their emotions. Maybe the way I feel when I look at them isn't the way they're really feeling at all but rather the way I would be feeling if I was them. It doesn't matter, I think; it's all empathy in the end.

That's what Civitan was. There was a small amazing spark of happiness exploding inside of me. But every minute there was that suffocating punch of empathy. So much I felt like crying a lot.

I didn't eat part of the time, not much anyway; I was cycling like crazy from hyper to really depressed; I felt like everything was spiralling out of control. But I got my hope back, when I thought it was lost.

I can't say it wasn't worth it, to get him back. I can't lie. But it did hurt- more, I think, than anyone will know. I kept remembering watching Kayte kiss Sam at morp in ninth grade and the way my stomach dissolved in that instant...

and it hurt so much.

I hate myself when I cause pain.

what I'd say to him

Well I'm off to Civitan. I do believe it will hurt a lot; I'll see him everywhere, us, last year, so full of hope.

I was listening to this song the other day and it seemed so appropriate... it's everything I say to Josh inside my head that I'd never tell him:

"Behind These Hazel Eyes" (Kelly Clarkson, although I doubt she wrote the words)

Seems like just yesterday
You were a part of me
I used to stand so tall
I used to be so strong
Your arms around me tight
Everything, it felt so right
Unbreakable, like nothin' could go wrong
Now I can't breathe
No, I can't sleep
I'm barely hanging on

Here I am, once again
I'm torn into pieces
Can't deny it, can't pretend
Just thought you were the one
Broken up, deep inside
But you won't get to see the tears I cry
Behind these hazel eyes

I told you everything
Opened up and let you in
You made me feel alright
For once in my life
Now all that's left of me
Is what I pretend to be
So together, but so broken up inside
'Cause I can't breathe
No, I can't sleep
I'm barely hangin' on

Here I am, once again
I'm torn into pieces
Can't deny it, can't pretend
Just thought you were the one
Broken up, deep inside
But you won't get to see the tears I cry
Behind these hazel eyes

Swallow me then spit me out
For hating you, I blame myself
Seeing you it kills me now
No, I don't cry on the outside
Anymore...

What is it in us that finds the strength to live when everything has fallen apart and it seems as if there is no hope? That odd rejuvination at the end of everything has been one of the most amazing things in my life. When it seems like nothing's left, when it seems like everything has liquified and run away, I find this rock-solid place within myself, at the bottom of everything.

Yesterday was the last day of school. I survived my junior year, somehow. This is the first year since eighth grade that I've had really stressful outside circumstances that justified my depression. The past few years I've pretty much just made myself miserable. But, it means another year has gone by during which, miraculously, I have managed to keep my 4.0 GPA through the bulimia and cutting and debilitating depression. Maybe there's something wrong with that. Maybe it's bad that I will let everything else go before I let my grades go. I know that for a lot of really depressed kids grades are the first thing to go. I'm not sure why they are the last for me. I'm not sure why they matter so much. They probably shouldn't. I should probably care more about being happy than having A's. But it does make me feel better that no matter what happens to me, I will fight to have that consistency in my life, those A's on my report card. I think that ultimately what keeps me hanging on to my grades is that they are the last thing separating me from my brother, and years ago when I swore I would never be like him, part of that promise was that I would always care about my grades and do well in school.

I feel so weak. I don't know how I'm doing this. Every day I keep getting these urges to do things like cut, but somehow I don't. I don't understand where my ability to keep breathing is coming from. I don't understand why I suddenly want so badly to live. There's been so many times where I've thought my life was so unfair, because there were so many people dying of cancer and car accidents that wanted to live when I was healthy and all I wanted was to die. The funny thing is though that even when I was that depressed, I think that if I got cancer I'd want to live. I think that if I ever die young I want it to be that I chose it, that I killed myself, not that something else killed me. Something in me always fights. Something in me can't give in when it's the outside forces hurting me. I'll let the inner deterioration run its course, but the second you try to hurt me or try to force me into something, I will fight you. I'm the only one allowed to hurt me. It's control. It's safety.

But I'm alive. This summer will be busy. I have to work five hours a day on my PCR and southern blots in the genetics lab. I'm going to read a lot. I'm going to practice violin a lot. I'm going to understand why I want so badly to live. I'm going to make it so I'm not miserable next year. I'm going to do something, anything, to uncover that rock place inside of me and build all of my hopes on it instead of the shiftiness they're built on now.

I haven't forgotten, either, that the rock is God.

why am i being positive when i feel miserable?

I found this word today...
cic·a·trize (sk-trz)
tr. & intr.v. cic·a·trized, cic·a·triz·ing, cic·a·triz·es
To heal or become healed by the formation of scar tissue.

Everything is kinda falling apart. Josh has borderline personality disorder. I cried tonight, harder than I have since I was little. It was one of those sessions of heaving sobs, when your whole diaphragm contracts, tight as a fist, and pained noises. At first I was alone, but then my mom came out and held me.
Because I'll probably never see him again. Because his love for me was a part of some disorder, it wasn't real like my love for him. Because that hurts like all hell.
In the end, though, what has always mattered more than anything is that he gets better, that he heals, finds happiness somewhere. Never in me, I guess. Now, all I can really be is some distant friend, some memory of a horrible time of his life.
I trusted him so much, and he left me in the end. It's not his fault, and I don't really blame him, although I am irrationally angry with him for not loving me the way I loved him, for being able to move on while I sob uncontrollably and live in this haze on a daily basis. Still, he has proven to be like everyone else in my past- damaging, painful, and in the end, always abandoning.

How can I just let go of him? I thought I would be with him forever. I don't have a choice now, for his sake, and I guess mine in some way. I have got to let go. I have got to let go somehow or I'll be miserable forever...
Right now that seems the plausible outcome, the misery. I can't imagine living, really, without talking to him, without his emails, without everything...

There are memories, so many memories. I will write them all tomorrow as the first step of letting go. Right now they rush through me and make my dry eyes wet again. They hurt more than the memories of being raped do.

I'm not sure how I'll be okay. I can imagine being better, someday, but I can't imagine getting better. However, I believe I can go to sleep in a few minutes, and wake up, and live through tomorrow. When eternity is too huge a chunk to handle (especially when the boy I imagined spending it with is now completely lost), I'll just have to live for tomorrow, live for the day. Tomorrow, I will find something to make me happy, if only for an instant, if only something small, and it will be the first step.

I like that word a lot. Cicatrizing. Creating scar tissue. Healing.

It seems like every day I just do what it takes to live for ten more minutes, and that's it. I used to be alive... now I'm just surviving mostly.
Yesterday I got invited to two parties, went to neither. I couldn't stand the thought of standing around and getting hit in the head every once in a while with a frisbee. I felt like cutting my other wrist, but after some internal debate I decided to do the responsible thing. My parents and I went to Tropical Snow. Erin was working. Just seeing her helped. But not enough. I still felt all crazy, so I went to a movie with Brittany. (The Da Vinci Code). That got me through until 11 p.m., which got me through until I went to sleep, which got me through until this morning. And then there was church which pulled me through until noon. I came home and I made a collage about Josh, which tortured me but kept me alive until 2. Then I tried to do some homework and I started losing it again. Everything fuzzes in and out. I can't stop and think because I start panicking and hyperventalating. I can't think. I think about the past and it's like this bittersweet hole that consumes me. I think about the future and I get that fluttering sick feeling again. I think about now and I want to kill myself, because I'm not really here, I'm doing the one thing that I hate- surviving, turning off the feelings, breathing for ten more minutes.
I think my parents think I'm handling this Josh thing. I think everyone does. But I'm just good at swallowing it all, at dealing with crap when I have to. It just works to get me through. It's all building up though, inside of me, and the craziness is coming back. I feel crazy crazy crazy. I want to feel but I don't want to feel. I finally quit feeling about Josh and everyone seeing him but me and talking to him but me. I finally just shut it all off because I couldn't handle it anymore.
Erin says I feel things more deeply than everyone else. I guess she's right. I don't really know why. I wish I didn't sometimes, and sometimes I'm so glad I do.

Tonight I was starting to get all panicky and weird again so I watched another movie (Redeye). I've realized that watching movies is the only thing that connects me, grounds me, when I'm floating away. So I do it a lot when I'm trying to keep my heart beating for just two hours. Then I can do something else.

Every once in a while I stop and I just cry, although I don't really understand that because all the feelings keep getting shut off. I don't know what I'm crying about. Everything.

You know why I'm writing this? To live five more minutes. Because while I'm typing this, it doesn't matter that Josh is somewhere, happy and alive, and I'm just surviving because I'm lost without him in some way I could have never expected. While I'm typing this it's okay that I feel totally alone and hollow and eaten-up inside. While I'm typing this it's okay that I'm numb and can't feel and that everything starts going black when I think about that girl that kissed Josh. While I'm typing this, I can be sure that I am safe.

But in a few seconds I will hit "publish post" and everything will be variable again. It's kinda late though. I might read, and that might get me to bed. And then I will sleep. I love sleep. Last night I had a dream about Ariel, even though I've never seen her, and she was holding me on a couch as I cried, and I felt so safe. I can't feel like that in real life. So I guess those dreams are the only times I'm really alive right now.

That's so messed up, isn't it? I want this to go away but I don't know how. I'm losing control again in a bad way. I can't look at anything or it starts swirling. I can't think becuase there are too many voices in my head. I wouldn't want to think anyway.

I feel so horrible... I want to throw up all this pain and misery and anger. No, anger is what I need. I realize that I feel the most lucid when I'm angry. Not angry enough to cut, not angry at anyone or anything, bust just angry at the world. But I don't want to have to be angry or asleep to feel alive. I just feel safer when I'm angry, I guess. When I'm sad so much can hurt me.

Am I sad? Not in the conventional way. But yes, I am sad, horrible sad. So sad that everything is melting away.

cacoon

I'm getting in that mood again. I always think there's something wrong with me when I'm like this. This tingling spreads inside of me and the whole world seems to swirl and slip a notch, and float away. I think it is Josh. I think it is what happens when I think of him. I know I am not supposed to have my life connected to him at all, but everything in me revolves around my memories of the way he laughs, the way his hair sticks up when it's not perfect and he's too distracted to care, the way I fit into this perfect pocket next to him in the night.
It makes everything surreal...
I took the SAT's today. I tried to focus on reality, on the calculator beneath me, see-through and laced with electronics, on the people around me, chewing on pencil erasers and glaring at me when I dropped things. It couldn't be real. And neither could Josh.
They told me he's out of the hospital. Is he really out there, somewhere, breathing and wearing socks and pants and sitting on a couch? Is he thinking of me? Why didn't his parents tell me he was out of the hospital? I know that I'm supposed to be letting go of him. But do they assume it happens automatically like that, like somehow I can stop myself from thinking about him several times every day?
Everything clashes like that. I went out to lunch and I ate a lot and I laughed a lot and I tried to connect myself to all that is real, but I got really confused about what's real and what's in my head, what's allowed to exist and what I have got to destroy.
Fuzz creates this little package around all of the objects, the staplers, the keyboard, the wood paneling on the walls, like I couldn't handle the edges without the softness, like the splinters would somehow tear me apart. The stitches on my wrist pull, desperately trying to remind me of the reason for all of this loss.
If I could touch you, I would. I sit here, reading, clutching the phone. When the reality of the world around me becomes redoubtable, I pull myself into a small envelope of confused philosophies and I read until the world in my book and the world of softened edges become so close that the similarities overwhelm the differences with their calming washes of real and unreal light. Yesterday in English class my teacher gave away books, and I collected them like tickets to a place where there is no fear. I stacked them up on my desk in stolid towers and worshipped their indifference. They were the catalyst, the final key to the reaction, carrying me from the lucidity I fought for last week to the daze I sink into now.

I don't know what's real anymore. All I know is that I love him, and it's not the way I thought love would be. I thought love would be this amazing fusion of passion between two people, this never ending fountain of connections too thick to sever with small annoyances. Now, though, love is something animal, something uncontrollable that perforates my defenses and allows the emotion to seep out the cracks. However, even if I could choose to control it I wouldn't, just for the instants that make it real, just for the moments in which life is chaotic yet complete.

My phone just rang, vibrating against my fist, and there was Stevie inviting me to a party. I laughed and said I might be there. Now, however, I think about what it would be like, the boys laughing and joking, boys I don't know or don't like, the girls acting that way they do around boys they think are hot, the glacial surface that melts underneath, warping reality with fakeness, and I just don't think I can handle it. I might get in bed, grab my book, and sink a little farther into this cacoon. As confused and fuzzy it is in here, as striped with guilt and pain and loss, it is warm.

I don't want to feel empty anymore. I don't want to feel alone. I don't want to feel vulnerable, helpless, and lost. I don't want a cavity in my chest. I don't want to cry about how beautiful a pink flower is against the sky.

There is something missing here. There is more to life.

I want to do something about the world. Having thought about it a lot lately, I might join the peace corps for a year after college. I need to at least try to make a difference.

*still shaking fist at College Board, but more happily now*

At the risk of opening myself up to a few "I-told-you-so's"...

MIT undergrad statistics: (from www.mit.edu)

Acceptance rate= about 13-14% (And I think everyone that applies has either a 4.0 gpa or close, and high SAT's... so it takes something extra)
Middle 50% score range of admitted students:

SAT I Verbal		[690, 770]
SAT I Math		[740, 800]
ACT Composite		[31, 34]
SAT II Math		[740, 800]
SAT II Science		[710, 790]
SAT II Humanities		[700, 780]

So... my SAT scores came back, and I got a 770 on the SAT II Math and a 760 on the SAT II Science (biology), and a 670 on the SAT II Humanities (US history).
So I have to drop the history score and take reading in the fall, which I'm sure I can get at least a 750 on, and which I should have taken in the first place... And I have to take the SAT's this weekend and get over a 1500 preferrably, and I need to take the ACT's in two weeks and get a 34 or above preferrably (as opposed to my current 32) (which I can if I raise my math score by at least two points). I think those things are possible.
And...

MY SAT II MATH AND BIOLOGY SCORES ARE HIGH ENOUGH FOR MIT!!!! I felt so bad about those tests, and I was so nervous about the scores... I thought there was no way I scored high enough. I could always retake the math, but retaking the bio wasn't really an option, so I only had one chance. (Dropping the history and taking the reading is not going to be a problem.) And I did it!!!

My bio score bodes well for my AP bio test, but it must be noted that my low history score does not bode well for my AP US history test. Oh well, no use in worrying until the middle of July (when AP scores come).

All of this means my grades and test scores are high enough to get into MIT, Caltech, etc. But... so are everyone else's that applies, I think. It's going to take more. I've got the leadership as down as I'm going to get it... I'm church class president (soon) and key club vice president. I have the out of school activities (I'm going to be very successful at debate I hope this year, and I play all of the string instruments and piano and have been in the city symphony). I have the service (I'm in National Honors Society and I volunteer weekly at the Humane Society). I have the phony prestige (National Honor Roll).

What matters the most is whether my father can get his stupid hospital to let me work in his genetics lab this summer. I honestly believe that will make the difference. I suppose if they won't let me work in the lab I can do paperwork and research papers and get something published, but that's not as exciting as actually doing the PCR and running the gels. I think that if I do that this summer, I actually have a good chance of getting in.

But I can't get my hopes up!

One more bit of good news before I sink back into depression: this past week my eating has gone really well. I haven't binged or purged, I've eaten a reasonable amount, and I've been steady at 109 pounds. Which I guess I can live with. I've felt pretty good about eating too. I think for some crazy reason I feel more in control of my life now... No, don't try it at home, cutting your wrist probably does not generally aid people in beating eating disorders. But it has helped me a lot. I'm starting to believe that maybe, with a lot of work, I can live without all of these horrible aspects of bulimia.

Finally, Josh left two messages on my cellphone. He called during money management actually, and I didn't know my phone was on, so I had to sprawl all over my backpack and talk loudly to keep Mrs. Chamberlin from noticing when it rang.
He read two poems to me. Just the sound of his voice was enough to melt every single resolve in me to not come running straight back into the relationship we had. Him reading the poems was more than enough. Also, I got our prom pictures today, and we look really good, and I remember how happy I was that night, and the night before... (I WILL post pictures soon, I promise).
I don't know if I can do this.

Life is crazy. Today I sat in front of the television, watching this cartoon Erin loves, Avatar (it is pretty sweet), reading kids' books, feeling angry angry angry, eating 94% fat-free popcorn, thinking constantly of Josh.
"Move on," my mom says, "let go."
Ha.
I wrote a poem, anyway, and I like it, the first poem I've liked in a while. It's about confusion. It's about life when it falls apart and the laws of time disintegrate and everything coexists in your mind, past, present, and future.

ADD

would you like to care?

...like to care...

FOCUS
the way your mother drinks coffee on monday mornings with tired eyes

do you want to be like that?

death is waiting in its homespun lair.........................you see it now......

there is no evasion

would you like the world to make sense?
oh, sense...
what is sense?

it is the broken leg of the spider,
so inticrately painful even though it has seven more;
greed is the phantom limb

[[you see your father in the night with his hands cupping pills]]

'let me see your tattoos' they ask
do you feel that momentary panic?
do you feel the bluejay wings scraping for an instant
at your past?

do you want to scream,

IT'S NOT A ((TATTOO))! I CUT MY WRIST!!!

oh, but you're okay, aren't you?

your mother, she talks about it

yesterday:
my daughter, she's fine, she's happy, she has good grades...

what? is there more than that to life?

your father, standing in the dark, your mother, drinking coffee...

wouldn't you like to care?

I went to X-Men 3 yesterday and cried the whole way through, safe in a cacoon of anonymity in the dark theater full of people focusing on everything but me. All that love... and that painful truth that Wolverine couldn't have the one person he loved, he had to lose her because he loved her... sounded a bit familiar. Then Erin drove me around town and we talked about the future, how I am going to change, how I am going to get better...

And today, I watched Pay it Forward. Many people have told me they don't like this movie, but I don't care what anyone says. Every time I see it I am reminded of why it's my favorite movie. So much of my life philosophy is embedded in it. And don't tell me it's stupid that he dies in the end... what greater love hath a man than this, that he lay down his life for his brother? Also, the first time I saw that movie I was twelve, Haley Joel Osment's age, and I thought he was so hot. To tell the truth, watching it today at 17, five years older than he is in that movie, I still thought he was hot. Hmm... maybe, in addition to every other problem I have at the moment, I am becoming a pedophile.

Actually I asked Shauna once why I am sometimes so attracted to guys with bodies that look young (or just young guys) and she thinks it's because of the innocense; they can't hurt me. I don't know.

Anyway, I am just trying to leech this pain out in healthy ways. It's so much pain, so hard to deal with it. I can do it; I keep telling myself this; I can do it. I feel like cutting, but the idea of cutting is so repugnant to me. It's definitely not what I want right now, and I have enough control to keep myself from resorting to it.

OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH

That is how I feel right now... Just... OUCH.

one step forward, two steps back

My wrist got infected, got cured again. I wear a scrunchie around it and nobody asks. Nobody but Shauna and Erin. So I told them. The rest of the world will never know, will never care, what happened to me on Wednesday.

Today in my therapist's office was a nightmare. She stuck a wedge in me and pried me apart. All the DID came back. I felt so crazy. There were so many voices screaming inside of me... I kept seeing everything in odd angles. I imagined myself small enough to crawl around in the sphere of the lightbulb, safe, away from all of the nightmares... it all crawled in my skin and I sounded crazy, so many people, too many conflicting emotions... she pried and I split, shamefully, crying all the way, but I split and she knew... I'm not healed yet.

I wanted to scream and break the ceiling bulb even as I ran inside it.

And my parents came and told her about Josh, what he's done to me. All of these months he's put so much pressure on me. I'm the reason he lives. I'm the reason he dies. He told his therapist I'm the reason he OD'd. I'm the reason he wants to get better. I'm the reason he can't. I've been so scared that if I left him he'd kill himself. My parents and counselor says he's abused me unconsciously, and manipulated me, made me bear more than any human can bear. I'm finally broken. He finally crashed and I broke with him, broke into all of these personalities that are still inside of me.

AM I CRAZY? Because I feel crazy... I thought the other personalities were gone, but then on monday and tuesday they were materializing due to sexual abuse stuff, and on Wednesday they all came back. When I'm with people it's usually okay, I can focus myself into one person. But it was apparent today that they are all still there inside of me, fractured bits of me, pieces of a broken past, waiting for something. It felt horrible... like alcohol in a raw wound.

I can't talk to Josh anymore, not for a long time, not until he gets better and can be with me without worshipping me, without making me all of his reasons, without expecting me to be more than I can be. I'm so mad at him. Not only has he turned his life upside down, but he has turned mine upside down.

I can't explain how it feels to lose him for now. I can't really tell you how much it hurts, because when I think about it my mind starts to shut down and drift apart again, and I don't want that. But I can tell you I'll surive. I'll survive because that's what I do. People hurt me. Love hurts me. All of the people I love leave me. Every time it hurts just as badly as the last. But I get up again, and I keep living. I keep surviving. And I will survive this. Although some part of me will always been inside Josh, and I won't ever get it back.

I had my birthday party tonight. It was girls only. We are all so used to parties with guys where everyone plays football and wanders around feeling awkward. I wanted to be young again, and I wanted them to be young again. It was a survivor party. Everyone came and drew tribe names and painted their faces. There was about thirteen people there. We played team games, and then we played individual games to see who won the gift certificate. I had to eat a cup of pig intestines. The final challenge was holding a live cricket in my mouth for three minutes. That cricket was jumping around in my mouth, scrabbling its legs and tail against my tongue and the walls of my cheeks, but I did it. I spit that thing out and it was still alive. It hopped off, drenched in saliva. I won the survivor game.

We played party games, told stories about our most embarrassing moments and our first kisses. There was pizza and ice cream and presents. I had a hard time believing that there could be that many people that really cared about me in the world, but there were, and I knew that everyone there loved me a lot. The panic from everything- going crazy again, losing the boy I love more than anyone- subsided just a little, and I did feel young again, and alive.

But I am hurting, very, very badly right now. I love Josh. I love Josh in ways I could not begin to explain. I know, now, that I have to lose him. And I know that I have to move on, because it wouldnt' be good for me to remain trapped in the past with him. But it feels... it feels like living without a heartbeat... like somehow the blood is washing through me, filtering through my kidneys, feeding all my cells with oxygen and glucose so they can respire happily, but I'm not really alive, and my heart isn't really moving.

Things aren't really okay. I'm not sure if they ever will be truly okay again. But I believe in life still. And I believe in myself. And I believe in surviving and moving on, even if for a while I am not whole. I can be happy. I can be healthy. I can do this, with or without a beating heart.

I'm so used to losing the things I love most.

urgent care

What do I write? How do I explain? I almost died tonight, I guess, according to my father and urgent care.

Shortly after writing my last entry, I completely lost control. I dissociated. It was a knee-jerk reaction. I couldn't stop it. One second I was here, in the world, and then I was gone. I wasn't suicidal. You know that. I don't even remember cutting my wrist. But I guess I did. When I woke up, the cut was deep and blood was everywhere. I was still cutting. It was bleeding so much I was worried about the artery. My father said I almost cut it. He said I'm really lucky I'm not dead.

I threw out all the razorblades. My mom drove into the driveway. I stood there, dripping blood, and I said I needed stitches, quickly. My dad drove up and I got in the car and we went to urgent care. They gaved me five (or six can't remember) stitches across my wrist, told me I'm lucky I didn't nick any tendons because they were all exposed.

Oh yeah, that was what woke me up. I felt a tendon with the razorblade and it sent a tingling shot up into my hand.

They wanted to admit me to the same psychiatric hospital I was at in eigth grade, but my parents called my counselor and my psychiatrist and I explained to them that I wasn't suicidal. Hearing about Josh triggered that horrible dissociative reflex. I don't know what happened after that because I don't remember it, but I must have pried some new blades out of a razor and sat on my bedroom floor and sobbed as I cut my wrist. I woke up with tears on my face. I explained all this to them, and they said I didn't have to go to the hospital. I have to sleep in my parents' room for a few nights. I have to see my psychiatrist tomorrow and my counselor on friday. I have to figure out how to make it so this never happens again.

They all kept saying how lucky I was that I didn't die...

I am angry that I did this. It won't help anything. How am I going to explain six stitches on my wrist for two weeks? What will I tell people? People don't just accidentally cut their wrists.

My hand is still numb from the anasthetic (maybe the same kind they sent in massive overdoses into my Sandy a week ago). They injected it directly into the wound because the nerves were exposed.

I'm such a failure. I was supposed to be strong for Josh... I didn't want this to happen. I wanted to be steady for him. Apparently ibuprofin can cause serious liver damage, so I'm a bit worried about him...

When he most needed me I went and almost killed myself. Now my parents aren't sure if I'll be allowed to see him next month. But I'll fight for it. It's so hard to be so far away and to be so worried...

It feels unreal. I feel so weird. The cut was a quarter of an inch deep. I had to explain to all the nurses and doctors that I did it to myself but I didn't mean to.

I just want to sleep and sleep until this all goes away.

I HATE YOU STUPID FREAKING WORLD!

I got the message on my cell phone. He took the ibuprofin on Monday night. They took him to the emergency room. He's been in the hospital since then, and will be there a few more days. I don't know what kind of hospital. But he told me he could hear the birds singing outside his room, and I told him a week ago that even when it was the dark I was the singing of the birds, not the sunlight. I am the constant thing.

I don't feel constant now. I feel intensely suicidal. It is odd how that works, how he can OD on so many pills and nearly kill himself and when I find out it is such a blow to everything that the first thing I imagine is doing the same thing, cutting my wrist, dying somehow. But I won't kill myself. I have to be here for him. That's what's so hard... I have to be here for him right now but I don't feel like I can be there for anyone. I feel like I'm falling apart. Sexual abuse memories keep tearing me away from the world. The need to jump off of the roof is almost uncontrollable inside of me right now. I can't OD... I can't do that to him, can't end up in the hospital like him. I have to be strong. How? How can I be strong right now? How could he do this to himself?

I'll have to cut... deep... I'll have to cut until I feel strong enough to live...

BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN LIFE, GOSH DA**IT! I BELIEVE IN LOVE!!! I BELIEVE IN TOMORROW! YOU STUPID F-ING WORLD, YOU'RE TRYING TO BREAK US, YOU'RE TRYING TO TEAR US APART, YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE US BELIEVE THAT DEATH IS THE ONLY OPTION. BUT I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!!! I REFUSE TO!!! THERE IS SOMETHING BETTER THAN THIS!!!!!!!!!!

oh, God, please... it can't end like this.

the past

They don't die, do they? They are slithering inside of me, they are washing into the axons, washing through the synapses, inundating the paths of my nerves until they are all I think about, the memories.

The membrane around me is thick enough, an endometrium, to make me believe in the days of light that there really is no darkness, that the past is dead and gone. It is so easy for a small being in a tiny globe of light in the darkened universe to believe that the light is all that is real, and the darkness is but a dream of less-informed men. It is easy to lie to ourselves like this. But in a lie, in a lie of light in a world of darkness, imagine what a pinhole would do to the sheltered person's morale. Imagine the darkness, amorphous, ooazing in and filling the widening cracks of the weakening sphere. What is there to believe in, then, when ones resistance has always been anchored in ones own perceptions? How do we survive when those perceptions are devoured by impenetrable darkness?

Do you know what's even more sad? I bet you didn't have to imagine that. I bet all you had to do was remember.

Today was birth day in biology. Siobhan put the scissors in the horns of the uteris and cut a slit down the pale gray. There was no obvious kitten inside, but yet another sack, sacks within sacks, zones of placenta, until finally- a cat with small paws, an open mouth, and a tiny tail, three inches long.

It was amazing, the fury I felt in that moment. This would be cessarian section of life, not death, if we weren't tearing these cats apart. These kittens missed their chance to breathe; the alveoli in their lungs collapse wetly against their sunken chests. Why would a humane society euthanize a pregnant cat? Kittens sell quickly. I know that. I go to the Humane Society every week, and the kittens are always gone in less than two.

It made me so angry, that unmistakably human inclination to squash life before it begins.

And then there was the reproductive system. In our cat there was only an emptiness, and we held injecting fluid under our probes and prodded at spayed tissue, pretending fallopian tubes into existance by yanking on the femeral area.

I feel like a kindergartner saying this. I feel young. But maybe there is something important in that hesitation of youth. And I can't handle those words. I was clinging, in biology, on the edge of PTSD, struggling to breathe to remain conscience, to escape dissociation. There is no control, really, over the dynamic spiralling of emotion, though, in a triggered mind. I fell back into the memories with nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep me down but the smell of long-dead cats and the obscenity of dissected kittens.

I've been lying to myself. It doesn't go away, does it? The past? I always think I've worked through these memories, and then I trip and fall into that same old pit. They are as fresh as ever. They sink into me like lead, too heavy for my arms (too small for adult blood pressure cuffs) to lift.

Do I square my shoulders, peek out of the imploding globe of light into the darkness? Do I accept a future perforated by these miserable days? Do I turn and run, run and run and run until the day it catches up with me again? Do I go through the unspeakable pain of facing it one more time?

But it's not one more time, is it? It's today, and then a year, and the year after that, and all the years. It's the pressure of diffusion... all that darkness is pressing, pressing, and there are only two plausible scenarios: either my ball of comfort will be completely destroyed, shattered into infinite pieces, or I will be compressed by the darkness, slowly and then faster, until I am ensconced as deeply in that lie of light, as airlessly, as those kittens in the womb.

terrible day... mi vida corre siempre

I don't know how to start about today. I'm not censoring anything. This is my blog. No matter who reads it, I need that honesty still, I need that realness... So those of you that don't me, just don't read it if you're down. I'll still be honest.

This morning Shauna told me about Stuart (her old boyfriend) fingerbanging her and her giving him a handjob. She is definitely not my first friend to do anything sexual (a lot of mine have, and a few have had sex), but she is the closest. It felt a bit painful for some reason, hearing her recount it. And also some part of me (which I wanted to suffocate) wondered what it was like and was aroused slightly by the conversation. I don't know why I believed in middle school that my friends would stick to what they said back then, that they would have sex until college, wouldn't smoke pot, wouldn't drink. Maybe because I believed I would. And I have, with everything except drinking obviously, and I think the way I drank is a little different than the way my friends do, except maybe JoAnna.
And Shauna only said she wouldn't have sex... she said this handjob stuff is her boundary. I don't know why it hurts so bad to hear about it; I don't understand how it screwed with my heart/mind, but it did. Oh my gosh I love that girl. I wish her innocense had remained. She was always so innocent, until this year I think. What she did with Stuart doesn't really shatter that innocense, but the awareness with which she did it does. At least she does not regret it. For my sake I wish she did, but for her health I'm glad she doesn't.
Also, thinking about sex today, I know that saving it until marriage (not counting the sex when I was little) won't be hard for me, because it's what I really want, and as long as I stay out of problem situations (Shauna confirmed my experiences, saying there was no point at which time stopped and asked her whether she wanted to continue, it just happened) like that one with Matt in September (curses on him always) I'll be fine, but it does make me curious of this world all around me that my friends exist in that I promise I will not touch.

I also found out my Jo Jo has a restraining order against her boyfriend Mat today, which upset me because it guarentees that my suspicions that he was hitting her, besides telling her he'd kill himself if she left him and coercing her into having sex and pulling her into the nightmares of alcohol, are probably correct. I can't imagine anyone hurting JoAnna... she lives to please others. And I know she needs his abuse in the same way I need abuse, but I would do anything to save her from it, if I thought it would work. I hope she honors the restraining order her parents fought for, but I don't think she will. She's too lost in that stupid boy (who has plenty of problems of his own, so I can't hate him really for hurting her, although I hate that he's hurting her).

(Brief inerlude in my depression... I thought Siobhan and JoAnna had forgotten my birthday, but they came over last night while Erin and I were watching The Land Before Time, which is an awesome movie, with flowers and a Barry Trotter parody, and I haven't felt that loved in a week since Josh was here, and from them in forever, just by that simple action of remembering my birthday. It made me so, so happy.)

Also I was trying to talk to my mom tonight and somehow we got around to 'what happened' and she said that most parents hit their seventeen-year-old kids in the face if they do something wrong, which sounded a bit off to me, so I said so, but she then started on how she didn't do anything wrong to me until I was fourteen, and that I exaggerated everything. I know she'll never believe that she did anything, but I need that vindication so much... and then she started yelling at my dad that he should be taken away by child protective services because he threw that thing yesterday and actually hit her, with the intent of proving that what she did wasn't any worse and her having to leave the home was ridiculous.

Oh my gosh, I always forget that can of worms... I was so, so angry at my mom, so of course I immediately thought of hurting myself. I cut my hand a little, but then I decided that instead of turning all of my anger inward, I should reach out to people that cared about me. So I wrote Josh an email which will probably depress him even more as he is currently on the verge of OD-ing on ibuprofin, and I can't get ahold of him, and I talked to Ariel, which helped a lot, and I called Erin and talked to her for over an hour.

Oh Erin... she is an amazing person. She listened to me... somehow, with the physical abuse and Shauna going on about that handjob this morning all the sexual abuse came out too... is it wrong to masturbate in front of a three year old? Is sex bad if a four year old asks for it? Is it bad for a babysitter to reenact it? Is fingerbanging a three-year-old bad?
People keep answering those and all the others, and I keep forgetting... I can't hold it in my head long enough, I can't believe in myself enough to believe it. I can find guilt in that three-year-old and four-year-old, and I latch on to that guilt in a way I can never hold on to the innocense.

It helped a lot, to talk to people, to reach out (see, I AM changing, I'm not just imploding nowadays, I'm seeking help), but I still feel mildly suicidal. No, suicidal is not really the word, as I'm not actually considering killing myself. It's just suicide ideation. It sounds nice right now, being dead. All the pain gone. The cutting doesn't really work. The bulimia is a nightmare. The inhalents only created an ethereal fog. The alcohol only built more guilt. Nothing on this earth can take me away from the pain, so death is appealing.

I won't kill myself. I still believe too much in life. I'm not desperate like I was in November when I cut my wrist. No, I'm just so tired of hurting. So tired of living. So tired of the world being just this big construct of pain.

More than me hurting, I'm tired of watching other people hurt. More than helping myself, I want to help them. But I just can't figure out how.

I have been a hundred times on the point of killing myself, but still was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts. What can be more absurd than choosing to carry a burden that one really wants to throw to the ground? To detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? To caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms til he has gnawed into our hearts?
-Candide, Volataire

I am really enjoying this book, as it is hilariously cynical and satirical of many forms of ridiculous optimism, but this fragment, although embedded of course in the sarcastically horrible story of an old woman, sort of grabbed me. I wonder if it really is the worst of our instincts, or the best?

I wish sometimes that I could just be stone, just sink to the bottom and settle there to grow a film of dust; the resillience in me is annoying; something in me always bounces. I'm bipolar. I can be depressed for days, weeks, months, but there are always bounces, always moments when I am flung back into the sky.

My parents have been yelling all day at each other and me. My father threw something at my mom and she told him that if she gotten take out of the home for being abusive then we needed to accuse him of being abusive too. It wasn't quite the ideal birthday. I don't want my family to be like this when I'm older.

I am happy, but in a cynical, lost way. I find a horrible emptiness in happiness, a void that depression fills but happiness ignores. But I'm taking the pills again, prescribed and others... I do care about life, still. Even if it is the worst of instincts and the serpent devours me, you are all right, there is hope, there is a way.

seventeen...

Wow. Seventeen won't seem old when I'm forty, but it seems old now. I could go watch an R-rated movie right now if I watched them and if I went to movies on Sundays.
My mom's being really mean today. I guess it's not some rule that people should be nice to you on your birthday, but it would be nice.

Look at me, alive, seventeen. Wow. Some cicadas stay underground for seventeen years before they crawl to the surface to live for a day in the sun, and then die.

I need to be a teenager more often

Today I went to my counselor, ready for her brilliant solution, and she told me there wasn't one. Apparently she 'staffed' my case, which means she told the other counselors in her office about my problems and they talked about it (no specifics), and they all told her that the eating disorder was a big deal, and ingrained, and that it was too big to have an easy solution.

It's horrible, to have hope, and to hear that, to hear it's going to be just as hard as I've always feared, to hear there's no fixing something that started so unobtrusively with one fell swoop. I wanted to hear that there was some place I would go and they would fix it for me. I suppose residential treatment is a really plausible option right now, but I don't want that, and my counselor is willing to continue trying to work with me as an outpatient. And we have no other resources in my semi-small town.

So I was a little depressed, and I wanted to shake it off. After school Erin and I went to Dairy Queen and I got my sugar-free fat-free orange concoction, not guilt-free, but not binging. We went to a park, and there were all these people running around in this fountains, you know those squares of ground with all the holes that water comes shooting out of, teenagers and adults and little kids all running around in their clothes in the heat. People... looked so happy, it hurt. Happiness always seems to hurt me in some profound way. Anyway, Erin and I went on the climbing wall, the monkey bars. It was raining and I went down the slide and the butt of my jeans got all wet and I didn't care. That's being a teenager... that, the return to innocense, to childhood. People think that being a teenager means responsibility, busyness, homework, making out, sex, swearing, depression, emo-existence. But... they're so wrong. That's not being a teenager. Being a teenager is going back and being young again, laughing, running through fountains, going down slides. Being a teenager is recovering all the screwed up parts of your childhood that never quite worked out, and relinquishing them at an age when you're more equipped to appreciate them.
"Never too late for a happy childhood."

Tonight I went to a baseball game with Stevie. The weather was so perfect, and the grass was so green, and summer was descending slowly, its parachute encompassing the warm air. We talked as the teenage boys slid around the bases, as our hometown lost spectacularly. We cheered for the other team, sometimes on accident, sometimes on purpose. We laughed, joked, etc.

I was young. There wasn't the seriousness, the fear, the guilt, the hatred. I'm so used to social situations being like feeding frenzies. I'm constantly panicked about being judged. I'm always worried that I'm annoying. I'm always telling myself to shut up. I hate that sinking feeling when one of my friends puts me down (which Siobhan does a lot). Sometimes all the heaviness of it collapses so much inside of me that I lose all the joy of my friends. Today was good, playing on the equipment, watching the fountains and the baseball game. I remembered that the panic isn't what it's supposed to be about. Friendhips are supposed to be about more than that...

I'm so frustrated, angry, upset, lost in this eating disorder. I would like to kill it, if it was something I could kill. I am more angry at it than I am at my mom, when I am in that blind rage. But I'm still human... I can still be young... I can still go back and live in the ways I missed before.