Tempered Fragility

I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I’m a quiet, introverted person.

Something I’ve noticed this year, though, is that I’m much quieter in class. I’m not sure exactly why. Different teachers? New classmates? No idea. What I do know, is that I’m back to blushing every time someone looks at me, and stammering when the teacher asks me a question.

It’s frustrating, considering how confident I was last year. And although I’m not stressing more than usual, the panic is crowding me a little now. I can feel myself slipping backwards, slowly. Just a little at a time, but isn’t that how it starts? Two steps backwards.

Maybe being aware of it isn’t enough.

I know how to go about getting support. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that I’ve been drug-free for two years now, and maybe this has been an eventual decline. Maybe this has been happening slowly for the last two years, and I’m only just now catching on.

My doctor warned me that not having the medication would be difficult. She thought I could do it, though. So did I. From where I’m standing right now, though, facing the rest of the year and then the years after that? It doesn’t seem so easy. The end result doesn’t seem worth the struggle.

Sometimes it’s easier to give up.

There’s something wrong with Rissa.

I changed her litter last night, and this morning it was flooded with pee again. I originally thought that Rylee had used it, but she wasn’t in last night, so. There’s definitely something wrong with her. According to the internet, it could be feline diabetes.

She could also be in season, I suppose, but she isn’t displaying any of the other symptoms. I knew as soon as Jazz was in season; she yowled, she rubbed up against us all the time, she tried desperately to get outside. Rissa is acting completely normal, aside from the excessive peeing.

I’m trying not to think about what that might mean.

Her appointment is at 4pm. I’m hoping to find out more then, but the vet will probably want to do (very expensive) tests before he can tell me anything. Which means I’m free to stress about this for a few days at least. I hate waiting. Seriously.

UPDATE:

The vet told me that Rissa is probably upset because there were six extra people in her ‘pack’ for three months. And now they’re gone, so she’s stressing about that. The peeing on my bed is her trying to re-affirm that the bedroom is our territory. She thinks she’s helping, heh.

I have no idea how to fix this problem, but I’m going to start by keeping her relatively contained and changing her litter regularly. I’ll watch her, and try to spend a little more time with her. Plus, I’ll keep Shadow away from her, so she doesn’t have the chance to attack her.

Last night, it took me two and a half hours to get home.

After spending the evening wheezing and drowsy, my nose running and my eyes puffing up, all I wanted to do was get home and collapse into bed. Instead, I got to the train station just in time to hear the first announcement of DOOM:

“Excuse me passengers, the Epping train has been delayed by thirteen minutes.”

I sighed, I rolled my eyes, and I got over it. Delays are common, and I didn’t expect it to turn into anything more. So, I pulled out my book, turned up the music on my iPhone and waited. Just before the train arrived, the speakers crackled with another announcement:

“All Epping trains will be terminating at Clifton Hill. Connex apologises for any inconvenience.”

And that’s when I knew I’d be getting home later than usual.

They put us on the train, took us off the train. Put us on a bus, took us off the bus. Then they put us back on the train. No one had any idea what was going on, or why the train wasn’t running. There was some talk of construction gone wrong, or a suicide attempt, or even a car accident. I’m usually supportive of Connex and their efforts to keep people informed, but last night was a complete shambles.

The replacement buses were only running from one side of the train station, yet there were no signs or employees to point people in the right direction. The employees waiting on the other side were rude, and completely unhelpful when asked about what was going on. We were pushed onto buses until we were practically in each other’s laps, and even then they yelled at us to move further back.

I was disappointed, since the last time there were issues when I was travelling, the updates and service provided were absolutely brilliant. Connex really dropped the ball on this one. I mean, I get it. They were cold, and tired, and probably pissed off about working so late. So were we, though, and we weren’t being paid to stand there and shiver.

Thanks for the night out, Connex. Let’s not do it again.

(I’m pretty sure that my stuffed up nose, puffy eyes and drowsiness are related to whatever perfumes my classmates were wearing. But if I disappear after this and you can’t get in touch with me then I probably have swine flu. And since I don’t know anyone who has swine flu, you might want to stay away from my website, because seriously? No one has any idea how that shit could be transmitted.)

I saw Kimberly Ruskin today.

We were waiting in line at McDonalds, and I saw her glance at me, quickly. I swallowed, a lump suddenly in my throat, thinking she had recognised me. Suddenly I remembered her throwing a rounders bat at me in primary school. She had thrown it at me with all the force her skinny arm could muster, furious with me, but I can’t remember why.

I turned to her, cautiously - though not because of the bat; how stupid would I be, to be scared of someone who lost their temper once, when we were twelve? - but there was no recognition in her eyes. I looked away just as quickly, thankful for the chance to forget again.

I’m certain it’s just coincidence, the fact that I saw her the day before my mother goes to hospital.

Twelve months ago today, I wrote out a list of things that I wanted to accomplish and sealed it in an envelope. On the back, I wrote: ‘I am going to change my life.’ Why did I choose Halloween to make my own personal statement about where I wanted my life to go? I have no idea; the action just struck me as a good idea. The most important things that I wrote down, in my opinion, were the following:

• I have the power to change things in my life.
• I am going to change the things in my life that I am not happy with.
• I will start living the life I want to live.

In the last twelve months, my life has changed in a number of ways. No matter how hard those ways seemed at the time, I believe now that they were for the best. I am physically healthy, and reasonably happy with my face, my body, my fitness. My mind is clear and sharp; I’m organised, more efficient than I was before. I’m learning to balance work and play, learning to work within a timeframe and to a deadline.

Emotionally, too, I am changed. Despite the recent months of - to put it bluntly - bullshit, I have managed to bounce back and get on top of things once again. My moods remain more or less stable, I’m finishing up the school year with good grades, and I only feel like crying all day sometimes. Definitely an improvement. And, just to put the cherry on top, I’m doing it unmedicated.

I didn’t mention it earlier (in part because I didn’t want to jinx it, and in in part because I just wasn’t blogging that often), but since early March, I’ve been off my anti-depressant medication. I’ve never been happy about being reliant on a little pill everyday. I didn’t think it made me weak, but I did feel as though it left me less in control of my life. I liked being able to live, but I wanted to do so independently.

It wasn’t explicitly stated in my Halloween wish-list, but it was there: learn to control my social phobia (which has always been a trigger for my depression) without the drugs. I’m not jumping to conclusions yet, but so far? So good. I’m not struggling to get through each day; I’m waking up with a list of things to do, an organised plan for the day and an optimism that surprises even myself.

Of course, I still have a million (okay, five) assignments to get done in an impossibly short amount of time. The difference is that this year I’m (over)confident in my ability to finish it all. I’m looking forward to next year, enjoying life as it happens and really settling into my skin, into who I am. I’m lucky, I know; some people take years longer than I have to reach this point in their lives.

I’m grateful for the last year, and hope the next is just as productive.

My life? It’s a great (if slightly nerdy) place to be.

I don’t know if I mentioned this elsewhere, but my mother was scheduled for surgery this afternoon. We took her to the hospital at 12:30pm, and left about an hour later. As I write this, it is 7:00pm, and we still haven’t heard anything back.

I really wanted to be there when she woke up, but the staff won’t allow you in until the patient is ready to go, which sucks. It’s scary waking up from a general anaesthetic by yourself, and I’m going out of my mind without news.

Also, I have about a million pieces of homework to complete. As I’m sure you can guess, progress on work is going along fantastically, what with the worry and all. This post, really, is just to vent a little bit. And to ask a small favour.

Send good thoughts my Mum’s way, please.

Or not, because I feel bad about disappearing on certain people.

(This post deals with vomit, and may offend those with weak stomachs.)

Basically, I’ve been sick this week. Really, horribly sick, with some sort of virus that not only made me want to sleep all day and night, but gave me such a horrible headache when I was awake that I had to eat Advil like lollies. On top of the virus and all the sleeping, my asthma played up and I had a few attacks.

My family will probably be thinking right about now, that it was only ONE asthma attack, but they’re wrong. See, this virus thing has been threatening for over two weeks now, and that’s why I was taking my Ventolin – because I had already experienced a minor asthma attack, along with some shortness of breath.

Anyway. At first, I figured it was the awesomely cold weather we’d been having, and I just ignored it. Apparently that pissed the virus thing off, because last week it got a lot worse. I made it to one class, maybe two, and I had a bad night with my asthma, but I thought I’d be better by the weekend. Boy, was I wrong.

Although, honestly? The weekend wasn’t actually a problem. I just didn’t blog during that time because I was playing WoW pretty much constantly, and I COULDN’T log off for unimportant stuff like eating and blogging when I could level instead! Yeah. I play WoW, now. I know; I said I never would, but I have been converted.

That previous sentence really deserves it’s own post.

Anyway, it was Monday when I started to feel sick again. And then, basically, I got into my mother’s bed on Tuesday morning – when I came downstairs to say hello and let her know I was awake – and I climbed out on Friday afternoon. In between, well. I slept. I took unhealthy – for me - amounts of Advil. Also? I nearly died.

Late on Wednesday or Thursday night, I woke up and realised that I couldn’t breathe properly, or really at all. I was taking in short gulps of air, so I sounded like a dog panting. My head was throbbing, aching so badly that I wanted to cry, and no one else was awake. Fantastic. Luckily, I had an asthma pump right next to me.

I turned on the machine and held the mask to my face, and about five minutes later I could breathe somewhat easier. I was also coughing – or trying not to – and every time I shook, the pain in my head would shoot into my eyes. Ouch, in other words. So, I went to take some Advil. No hesitation, you notice; I was pretty damn sick.

In retrospect, I should have made sure that I was awake before I attempted to take it. I probably should have used the pump until I could actually breath properly, too. But, whatever. I didn’t, and so I staggered out of bed, grabbed the Advil and tossed one in my mouth. Then I took a swig of Powerade and swallowed.

And wouldn’t you know it? The little shit of a pill got STUCK.

As an aside, before we get to the funny part of this entry, I don’t like taking pills. Ignoring my dislike of medication itself for a minute, I physically despise swallowing pills, capsules, whatever. I actually gag and feel sick when I think about taking them, and afterwards I shudder. So, yep. Keep THAT in mind.

What happened, you see, is that I had a Powerade bottle. They have that stupid pop cap thing on the end, so my ‘swig’ ended up being less than a mouthful. The pill got stuck halfway down, and I started gagging, but I was also trying to swallow at the same time, until – of course – I lost the battle, and spewed. Everywhere.

As another aside, I had goulash and rice for dinner.

I projectile vomited across the floor at the foot of Mum’s bed. I actually managed to get some on my laptop, which was on the OTHER SIDE. Crap. I freaked out, because I couldn’t breathe already thanks to the asthma, and- SHIT. As I was looking around frantically for something to clean it up with, I vomited AGAIN.

God. I whimpered a bit, trying to wake Mum up, because I was sure that I was going to choke on my own vomit, or need to go to the hospital, but she snored away, blissfully unaware of my predicament. And that’s when my body decided to really go wild. I had just grabbed a towel to clean up when it happened.

My stomach revolted, and instead of holding on to the towel, and trying to catch the spew or something, I dropped it and cupped my hands together. And somewhere between then and vomiting, my body had tricked me, because I didn’t just throw up, oh no. It came out of my mouth AND my nose – straight into my hands.

I kid you not. I was so worried about getting it everywhere that I actually cupped my hands together, threw up, and then ran into the bathroom. Anyway, I spewed into the sink, and I was running the tap and trying to get my hands clean, and my hair out of my face, all the while gasping for breath. Classy, eh?

When I was finally done, I started blowing my nose, trying to clear it of the nasty crap that had gotten up there. I couldn’t even believe that vomit had come out of my nose; I was still trying to figure out HOW it had happened. Anyway, I was blowing my nose and suddenly I heard a little ‘POP!’ inside my head.

And when I looked down, there was rice in the tissue.

Doesn’t that make being horrendously sick for a week worth it? I laugh every time I remember the rice, really. Although, my Mum telling me there “should be someone in the dwarven city” to clean up my vomit was also a bright spot. Thankfully, I am no longer sick – and as you can see, NOT DEAD – and so I can laugh about it.