"There's more to life than trying to survive"—Annie, Vanessa Carlton

SO, when D at the the CHADD meetings found out about my trip (I'm in New York at the moment) he essentially told me to blog while I was gone. The problem with that, I have found, is that while doing things worth blogging about, I am, well, busy. Doing them. And when I'm not, when I have a minute, I'm not blogging because I'm taking that minute for myself. So I haven't really managed my time well enough to blog. I've only gone online twice before this, to email my family. I haven't even texted my friend like I said I would. I need to get on that...

But I digress. The only reason I'm (the following no longer applies as it is several hours after I first put pen to paper today; right now I'm at the computer. Duh.) sitting here right now, by myself in the basement apartment of my aunt and uncle's house with a blanket wrapped around me, scribbling away in a borrowed-without-permission-but-with-FULL-intent-of-returning binder is that, for once—or rather, for the first time this trip—the words came into my head and I couldn't stop them. Clear words, when I often think initially in intentions and impressions. The words were:

"I'm so overwhelmed right now. I'm so overwhelmed..." Completely and totally overwhelmed by what is going on with/to/for me. I had to "take a minute. Just a minute. Just a minute. A minute, a minute, a minute. A minute, I need a minute. Just a minute, a minute, a minute..."

Which I did, curling up with a blanket that doesn't smell like home wrapped loosely around me.

...
...

That reads, to those who don't speak panic-attack-ese: I took a blanket off 'my' bed, wrapped it around my shoulders, debated over bringing a stuffed animal with me, walked over my suitcase very carefully wihout looking at it as tears gathered in my eyes. It means that I sat down on the part of the couch I've spent the most time on, brought my legs up, and fell slowly over into the fetal position as I adjusted the blanket so it was over my head, still muttering (maybe, I'm not sure, I may just have been thinking it with increasing anxiety and decreasing coherence, as is often the case in such circumstances, about needing a minute, just a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute.

(Sounds poetic, doesn't it? It isn't.)

It means that I gave myself over to helpless, hopeless (I wasn't sure which so I went with both) shuddering as near-scalding tears rand across my face to my temple. It means I was listening to the sporadic pouding of feet over my head as my second cousins ran around and my aunt talking to my dad  on the phone, and it means that I was hoping, vaguely but sincerely, that someone (Jen) would come downstairs and find me and hold me or something. But that, of course, didn't happen.

It hardly ever does.

And then it means, if you read very carefully and think about your own experiences in such things, that I stopped listening to them and started feeling the heat of my own frantic-ish breaths against my face, and that I realized somewhat that I did not, in fact, want to get up and walk over to my bed for my inhaler so I had to calm down. I started feeling, slightly, the pulsing pf blood through my veins as I started, perhaps,  to regulate my breathing.  Which of course got me thinking about runnings laps outside in the winter in my seventh grade  year, and the female eighth grade Phys. Ed. teacher telling me/us to breathe in through our noses and out through our mouths. I did that for a bit, then shifted slightly and the blanket moved an inch or so and I could see light, which I didn't want, and smell fresh air, which I realized I kind of did.

I moved the blanket back to darkness and realized acutely that the blanket did NOT smell like home, or dreams, or anything familiar, not even, really, the house I was staying in, so likely it was the smell of the last person to use the blanket before me, which was weird. Then I rememberd, I think, that the teacher had actually said in through the mouth, out through the nose (so as not to harm the sinuses or somesuch thing) and started doing that instead.

That was about when I realized that there wasn't much difference between having my eyes open or closed. And no, that thought didn't lead to some for of epiphany. In fact, I'm not sure what I thought about then, but it wasn't long before the tears dried on my face, at that time proving I had taken several minutes, not one, and I sat up.

And started thinking about how D had said I should keep blogging while I'm gone. That was when I got the binder off the bookshelf. Then I sat back down and started writing.

As of now I'm starting (again, not true present tense as I'm on the computer, but whatever) my fourth front-side-only sheet of paper, and my hand is cramping because I've written so much in so short a period of time.

Yay me.

And Jen has come downstairs, though that was just to find out if I would prefer she drive me to the bus stop tomorrow, or her husband, my cousin. (I picked her because we get along really well, whereas I've never been all that close to my second-eldest cousin. [Hah, funny story: my eldest cousin was born on the due date of the aforementioned second-eldest, and vice versa—one was early, the other late, just enough so they switched birthdays.] )

I'm suddenly realizing I haven't eaten yet today, and that I should try to finish the "DEEP JUNGLE" level of Kingdom Hearts today AND that I need to  pack up down here because my "jast murried" cousin and his wife are going to crash here tonight. Probably. And I'm leaving this place. Tomorrow. Not never-to-return or something—I'll be back in about two weeks—but I have to go and get on a bus at about one A.M. on Saturday to go to Maine.

Which is what started all of this, by the way. Talking about bus tickets and the buying thereof, and getting to the bus stop. And I'm proud of myself; I never once mentioned that I HATE BUSES.

I really do.

But, yeah. So, hmm, let's see... a quick (HA!) run-down of events since the night before I left.

I was supposed to have started packing the day before (Saturday) but I went and got my hair cut and then spent a few hours with my mom talking to my hairdresser, as apparently I now have one, and I'm not realy clear on what happened then, but I only got around to packing my new $60  purple suitcase on Sunday, late-afternoon at best. Then the Secoind Degree Sunburn for HELL that I got on Friday started acting up and giving me incredible amounts of pain.  At which point I became essentially uselkess in the matter of packing my own luggage. I could and did, however, prove the case I've been making agains cleaning my room: I know almost precisely where nearly everything in my room is, even if you can't find it, thankyouverymuch.

In fact, there's a Marvel Universe character, Dr. Modern (not a superheo) who deals with things so case-sensitive that he doesn't use a filing system—he names folders things like "Weird" because he thinks the contents are weird, and leaves all the oddly labeled folders stacked around his place of residence/employment, I'm not sure which. And he can find anything he needs to because he memorizes the information and where he put it. No one would ever be able to be all in-steal/copy the file in question-out  because they would have to look through everything!

So, yeah. Just because my room is terribly disorganized doesn't mean I don't know where things are. And a good portion of the tisme I can't find something it's because someone else touched it since last I did. So there! (Can't you just imagine someone stamping their foot and sticking their tongue out immediately after saying that? I can. But I didn't.)

Anyway, I proved my case, and after hours of intense discomfort I passed out on my mom's shoulder, my arms (where I was burned) wrapped in a towel or something with an ice pack and calami lotion, doped up in Benedryl. And they still hurt when I woke up.

But whatever. Dad drove me to the airport, and having already gotten special permission to come with me past security due to my anxiety issues, came in with me. He helped me with my bags, felt triumph over the fact that my larger bag weighed in at exactly 49 pounds... and got chosen for a 'random' search. Grr. And my bag was searched too, my carry-on! Apparently my tube of toothpaste was too big. I had to let them throw it away!!! I mean, this was a totally new package of Aquafresh, bought just for me, for my trip, and they threw it away! I felt horrible, terrible. That was money, that was mine, that was... in the garbage can. I could've killed somebody. I swear, if I weren't so anxious... And my arms, which had calmed down as I had? (My body has this neat history of having actual, legitimate physical problems crop up when I am uncomfortable with something. Like, I would be panicky-nervous about a class before school and I would throw up, thus ensuring I couldn't go to school for 24 hours.)

But back to my arms. Yeah, they started acting up again. Just like that. A tube of toothpaste, a theoretically "...entirely random, I promise. A lot of people think it isn't true, but the system really does just select random people..." search, and I was almost back to full-blown agony. And I still had to repack my carry-on ! Then, of course, as we were looking for my departure gate, this announcement comes on both the speakers and the TV screens that we don't pay attention to. Then we realize that it mentions my flight number and includes the words 'about to depart without you'. My dad and I looked at the nearest screen.

Yep, that's my last name, but... "Victor", it said. My first impression was more or less, I hate it when my name has too many characters. as my whole eighth grade year my name in teh school system was Victor. My second impression was more along the lines of oh my god no way.


There are four and a half more pages that I wrote earlier this afternoon, and I'll post that tommorrow or the day after, but I'm burning time and, frankly, sick of transcribing things from paper to screen right now.  I mean, I already wrote this once today! And, yeah, okay, I figured this point made a nice cliffhanger.

If your nervous, however, I suggest you go back and read the first sentence.

I obviously made it here.

But thanks for the concern.

Ja na!

"Sekai ichi no otoko to yobareru tame ni"—Character Song Carnival, One Piece

This is for people who don't really know about me or the way I think. For people who, specifically, don't understand the thought processes of someone with depression and anxiety disorder. I hope that having one specific account from one specific person helps clear up any question you may or may not have had.



Now, then. Tonight I'm auditioning for a role in a play at the semi-local community theater I've been volunteering at for.... Hmm, going on four years now (please note that I still mark years by when school starts). So yeah. I've read the play. I know the writer. I know the building like the back of my hand, even though, being a theater the exact layout changes fairly often. I've been in, what? Ten, thirteen actual plays and more skits than I could ever possibly count.
First, a bit of background: I’ve been involved with theater off and on—mostly on—since I was nine years old and eagerly participating in the after-school play. During the period of time from fourth grade to freshman year, I did just about everything there was to do, from acting to (admittedly rudimentary) set and costume design. I was in drama class for three years, first at my middle school and then my first high school. I was cast in both after-school productions during my time in middle school. I thoroughly enjoyed those three years in Drama, but decided not to continue studying theater after I transferred schools due to unfortunate circumstances... But oh wait. I can actually say this without having people freak out on my and send me in for evaluations! 

Okay, people. I had always disliked the drama teacher at my new school, from before I entered junior high. However, I loved working in theater enough to try and put that aside. I signed up for Theater II and on the first day of school walked into the auditorium with happy anticipation curling in my gut and my head held high. Class started and within five minutes of the bell ringing he called my friend a cow. A cow. One does not call troubled sixteen year old girls with body issues COWS. But he did. And he remembered me from when I had (almost) inadvertently humiliated him in from of potential students two years before. He didn't say anything, but I could tell her remembered and he could tell I did, too. Thus began my sophomore year drama class.


I didn't last three months.


In under three months, I probably missed fourteen or fifteen of his classes. Sometimes I missed a whole day, sometimes just Drama. Now, why did I not attend class, you may want to know. Well, friend, let me tell you:


I couldn't walk into the auditorium without inevitably, instinctively 
looking
for
a
way
to
kill
myself.

And there was no shortage of methods, considering the tools left scattered around by the Technical Theater class who were building the set for the upcoming play and the catwalk that I knew how to get up on and any number of other things. I remember turning in one assignment in all my time in that class: it was part of a group competition-type thing. The teacher shut me down four minutes into my presentation. "Okay, that's enough. Next, please," like it was a freaking audition. I dropped out of the class. More to the point, I attended school on a day I had that class and then sat in the waiting room of the counselor's office until I could talk to my counselor. They asked me to go to my class and told me that they would send a note to get me when he could see me. I said something along the lines of "I would, quite literally, rather die". (Not five minutes after saying that I was sitting across from my counselor. Imagine that.) By the end of the period I was all set up to go to study hall during the time I would have been in Drama, and I was happy as a clam.

The day I quit was also the day a large group presentation was due. I hadn't really known any of the people in my group. They were all older and smarter and, worse, they actually liked the teacher I was so afraid of. Regardless, the assignment was due. I didn't go to class, so I obviously did not turn anything in. As I walked across the patio to get to my friends, a girl I had known for years stood up from her table. "Ditcher," she accused. Another girl from the class looked over at me, sighed in a highly visible and dramatic fashion, then shook her head. I was frozen on the spot. It was the first time since coming to that school that anyone had drawn attention to me, that anyone had called me out, so to speak. More names were called, more accusations that I can't even remember now—something about hiding from responsibilities and being a coward who abandons people. I had no idea what to do, and I remembering being so, so, so relieved when two of my friends, one of whom was the one who had been called cow on my first day of school, seemed to see what was happening and walked over to get me, to rescue me.


Or so I thought. 'Cow' chatted happily with the drama kids who had been attacking me while the other girl took my hand and my lunch and led me over to where we were sitting. she sat me down and handed me my lunch and asked if I was okay. I told her something along the lines of "I'm sure I will be" and then 'Cow' swaggered over to us. (I didn't even know she could swagger, but she did.) She asked if I had really dropped out of class. Thinking back on it now, I can't even figure out how she knew I had been planning to drop out of class, but she did. They both did. And when I said yes and told them I would have study hall and, man, I couldn't believe that Stephenie had actually said all that. Now, both of these friends also quite liked the teacher, and knew I didn't. The one in class with me knew I was on edge when I was in class and how many days I missed, just not why. Worse yet, she has panic disorder too. And she looked at me contemptuously and sneered, 


"I can. You deserve it. What were you thinking, dropping out of class like that? You can't just do that!"


I blinked at her, astounded and very, very confused. I looked to my other friend. 


She shook her head; I was getting no help from her, apparently. "You should have gone to class," she told me. "You should have stuck it out. All you did was run away. You're supposed to face your problems, otherwise you'll never grow as a person."


Well, thank you, T., for deciding the future of my mental/emotional/social state for the rest of my life. I really appreciate it. NOT. 


I stammered a few things, something like, "But, you don't understand..."


"No, you don't understand. What you did was wrong. You shouldn't have quit class..."


On and on it went. For a week those two and a few others pestered me about dropping out of class. They accused my of cowardice, laziness, disparaged my integrity, and otherwise alienated me until I finally sent one of them an IM saying something along the lines of "You want to know why I @$#@$ dropped out of Drama!? Because I couldn't walking into the %^&* auditorium without !%&$# WANTING TO KILL MYSELF. 
"THAT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON FOR YOU????" 'Cept I didn't use symbols then. I used words. And let me tell you one thing: It was supremely satisfying after a week of putting up with their crap.


They got off my back after that, all of them, so I can only assume that she sent the IM around our group of friends despite her promise not to breathe a word of what I told her to anyone. I know for sure that she told her entire family, because her little sister came up to me and asked me if I was feeling okay just a few days later.

Fast forward a month or two. That other Drama friend, the one not in in class, asked me to be the sound technician for a play at a local community theater. I worked sound for two plays that year, and have since continued volunteering there, working primarily as an usher and, when called upon, a stand-in sound technician. I love doing that. It's nice. Nicer when I was the only one in my family who worked there because it was something all of my own that gave me a nice, golden-warm feeling in the vicinity of my heart, but there's nothing I can do about that now. And hey, at least now I don't have to feel bad for having them drive me there all the time, because now it's not just for me. I guess.