Tag: Stephanie


I Thought Today Would Be Different

11
July

After my mom went to the hospital last night with her blood pressure (which hit 260/160 while she was there) and I sent the message to my aunt telling her to start calling my mom, I thought that today she might call.  I mean, you would think that telling a person that her sister had been sick enough to go to the hospital a week before and was back there at that moment with something as serious as her blood pressure that it might be enough to move them to do something as minor as call and check in.  I know things aren’t going to change overnight.  I know that it would be a miracle for things to dramatically change at all.  A phone call shouldn’t be a dramatic change.

Though they weren’t necessarily the best of friends growing up, as adults they were quite close.  I know that they were close because of how close my cousin was to my mom and how close I was to my aunt.  I know my mom watched him when he was young.  I remember my aunt watching me when I was young.  I know that before my mom was too sick or in too much pain to do much that my aunt would take Nana, mom, and me to the mall for a fun day.  I know that when my mom would have surgery, my aunt would be right there.  I know that my mom had told my aunt that if anything ever happened to my parents, when I was a kid, that she wanted my aunt to be my guardian.  And since I know just how protective and clingy my mom can be towards me, I knew that that fact most of all meant that my mom trusted and loved my aunt so much.

That knowledge as a child didn’t predict that our family would fall apart.  It didn’t predict that Nana and then my mom would get accused at one point or another of being a drug addict.  It didn’t predict that my aunt who always seemed to believe in me would tell my mom that there was no chance I would ever graduate from college.  It didn’t predict that a woman who traded shifts of sitting next to the hospital bed of Granddaddy with Nana and my mom wouldn’t be able to spend a day or night during a weekend with Nana in 2008 when she had a bad bout of pneumonia or that she wouldn’t be able to come check on my mom during either of her hospital stays for kidney failure or that she wouldn’t call or check on her on any of the days that she was having any of her ankle surgeries.

So why did I think it would suddenly be different?  Why did I think sending her a message would get her to call?  Why did I think it would change things?  I guess things make sense when you’re pissed off, but in the light of day you can see that it means expecting the impossible to occur.  So, now I feel like the message was a waste of time.  Now, I feel like I probably should have spent the short while that it took to write and send that message on finding another way to keep me from thinking that my mom was at the hospital dying.

I guess that if the blood pressure and kidney failure continues to get worse, I can’t expect anything from that aunt.  I guess that I should have already known that.  I just hoped for something different.  I hoped that maybe she could channel the old her.

Maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt about it.  Maybe I should think about the possibility that she just hasn’t checked her messages.  I mean, I guess that could be the case.  Of course, I used to think that was the case with why her husband didn’t add me on Facebook, until I realized that he was just as addicted to getting on it every day as many of the other 500 million or so people on the site.  I have a feeling she’s just like him in that respect.  Even if she isn’t on there every day it has to be possible that she gets messages sent to her email or to her phone, right?  Possibly.  Who knows?

I want my aunt back.  Not the one that I have written scathingly about in the past.  I don’t want her.  I want the person that she was.  I want the person who my mom trusted.  I want the one who was one of the only people from my real life who I could tell at first about cutting or about how bad my depression was or about how much I missed Stephanie or how afraid I was (at that time) of Elijah.  I miss her.  And part of me wants to believe that there is some way to get her back, but that logical part of me says that there is no way to get her back.  That part tells me that the old version of my aunt is dead and gone, and that the only aunt left is this new and definitely not improved version.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Sickness and Health, Who I Was - Past

30 Days of Truth: Day 9

21
April

Wow.  A second day in a row.  I might actually get through a week before disappearing on this meme again.  ;)

So today would be Day 9:

Day 9: Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

I’m sure there have been plenty of people that this could apply to, but there are a couple who I can think of right off.  I guess I should go with those, since my brain is having its own “Freudian slip” by me thinking about them.

I didn’t want to let go of Marakie.  She was probably my closest friend while I was at A&M, but I haven’t talked to her in over a year now.  She’s from Ethiopia and, after she graduated from A&M (and then Tulane), she went back there.  We stayed in contact while she was there, but after she moved back to the States, she seemed to disappear off my radar.  I guess that maybe real life got to be too much or something.  I don’t know.  I miss her, but I guess that (for now) our friendship is on hiatus.

I’m not as close with other people from my past, as I had been.  I think for a long time the first person who would have popped into my mind is Stephanie.  Oddly, since we reconnected on Facebook, I don’t feel that drifting feeling anymore.  I guess just knowing that she is still there, and that she still exists, gives me some level of hope that I had lost for so long.

The only other person that I can truly think of right off would be John Allen.  He was my lab partner in Chem I during my sophomore year of high school.  I had a crush on him that lasted quite a while.  I would write him notes every day that year.  If I didn’t, he would make some comment about how I hadn’t written him and he would act depressed.  (He told me at one point that he had the notes stored somewhere at home.)  He was also the only guy that I would willingly let copy my homework in the three classes we shared.  (Everyone else ended up copying off of his copy of my homework.)  I finally told him after the end of his Junior year (right after I took the GED & before I started to college) that I’d had a crush on him.  We lost touch after that until we reconnected on Facebook.  He deactivated his account around the time that our mutual friend was (accidentally) killed, and I haven’t heard from him since.  I miss having the ability to just send him a message, and I miss sometimes getting a message from him.  (He was the only person to tell me happy birthday on my 16th birthday and he was the first one to say it to me on Facebook.)  I miss him teasing me about my lack of driving skills.  I even miss him copying my homework.  So, I definitely think he belongs in this post.

And now I feel completely embarrassed at how reliant I’ve become on Facebook for my interpersonal relationships.

Comment » | 30 Days of Truth, Alabama A&M, Confessions, Facebook, Family, Foster Sibling, Friends, Geekery, memes, Pre-College Years, School

I found her…

16
July

I found Stephanie on Facebook. I know it has to be her. It’s her birthday and it’s just got to be her. I’m like so excited because I have been searching for her since we lost touch back in ’01. I know I can’t have her back as a sister in my house, but I want to be able to still be her friend. I just need it to happen. I need to know that sometimes good things can happen. Sometimes you can find people who meant the world to you. Maybe I could actually have a moment of happiness if I get to talk to her.

And you know what I found out? She graduated from the same high school in the same year as Anthony from YSA, so I decided to pester him for details about what she was like. Admittedly that was years ago, but he might still remember something, right? I mean, I haven’t seen her in 8 years, and I miss her still and would love to have just a little information so that I can know she’s okay. She was the closest thing I’ll ever have to a sister, and not being able to see her finish growing up and becoming what I hope is a wonderful young woman, it just broke my heart. So maybe, she’ll accept my friend request and maybe Anthony can tell me something while I wait.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Comments Off | Family, Foster Sibling, Friends

Application Status

23
February

I just sent an application this morning to another university in town to see if I could pursue a degree in psychology while I’m waiting on the lawsuit. I also sent it because I’m really afraid to go back to my old school because I think that people there will give me a hard time over the suit. I’m not as naive as I seem. I know that people can take it out on you when you try to prove to them that they’re wrong.

I’m going on Tuesday to see my new therapist. She isn’t completely new to my life. She’s Stephanie’s old case worker. (I can only see Licensed Clinical Social Workers because I’m on Medicare.) I think I’ll be comfortable with her, but I’m not completely sure yet. If I’m not comfortable, then after my intake, I can always request a new therapist. This will make for about 10 different therapists that I’ve seen since I was eight.

So why the new therapist? Well, I could no longer afford to see my psychiatrist, so I had to switch back to the Mental Health Center. :( It sucks. I have an intake to go through with the therapist, then a psychiatric evaluation to go through on March 21st. Not cool. They asked what my diagnoses were on the form, and I marked a few because I’ve been diagnosed with a few. Actually the only one listed that I hadn’t been diagnosed with was Schizophrenia, though it was suggested that I have it back about 4 years ago, and Schizoaffective Disorder is in that class of problems.

I had to go to crisis counseling on Tuesday when I went to sign up to go back to the Mental Health Center. Why? Well, apparently, I was deemed to be in crisis. I had marked that I had a lot of symptoms over the past 48 hours, including feeling hopeless, seeing things, and hearing things. The person scheduling me was like, “You’re not on anything for the psychotic symptoms.” I pointed on the form to the Abilify and told her I was. The thing about it is, I barely recognize that I have those symptoms most days, even when I have them. Eventually, I think you can just get used to having them.

5 comments » | Alabama A&M, General, Mental Health, UAH

Irritation

17
May

Guess who has the wonderful luck of having a hammer toe? Yes, that would be me. Apparently, I have someone “up there” in a bit of tiff to let this happen. No, I don’t really believe that. It came about last night after I got out of the shower. I sat down and my toe just kept curling up and hurting. I had no clue what was wrong, so I kept trying to straighten it. Finally, my mom got home and I asked her what was going on. She said that it sounded like a hammer toe. She said something about how it can be treated with surgery, which freaked me out, so I looked it up and it said that it can be fixed by wearing looser shoes. It can be caused by tight shoes or by arthritis. My shoes that I’ve been wearing aren’t tight, though. The other alternative is arthritis, and I hope that that isn’t true for me. Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis both run in my family, so it isn’t entirely impossible, but its just that I’m so young. I just hope its that the shoes were irritating it.

I absolutely cannot stand one of my neighbors. She’s about twelve. She doesn’t understand that when we say we have to go in the house with our dogs that that means that we have to go in the house. She assumes that when we’re out there, it’s okay for her to come across the street and stir them up. She gets them excited and then they won’t go in, which means she gets to play with them more. That means she gets to be a pain in my side a lot more. I try to avoid her, but this afternoon, she just had to come over and bring her dog, who is scared to death of other dogs, especially Xander. It’s so irritating.

I had therapy yesterday morning. It was interesting. I talked to Gulshan about my not liking to be touched. Her first question, “Were you sexually abused?” Okay, everytime I say anything to any person who is in a mental health/social services field about this problem, they want to know if I’ve been sexually abused. I understand that it is common for sexually abused and raped people to not want to be touched. I know it is pretty uncommon for non-sexually abused/raped people to not want to be touched, but obviously it happens. I told her about my theory about it being caused by Kristin C.’s torment of me. She said I was letting her have power over me and that I needed to not do that. She also said that in our sessions she’s going to touch my leg or arm to try and desensitize me. In a way, I hope that it works, but in another way, I don’t want it to work. I want the help, but I don’t want people to be able to touch me whenever they please. I know they do that anyway, but I don’t want them to have that kind of power. Gulshan told me that as long as I hold onto my fears of being touched, I won’t have intimate (friendships and romantic) relationships with anyone. In a way, I don’t mind that.

I was a bit upset after school ended this semester because I realized I had made friends. That might sound like a good thing to realize, but it upset me because I have tried so hard since Stephanie left to not get attached to anyone. When you get attached to people, they leave you and that hurts. I don’t know that I’m strong enough to lose another person I get close to.

I’ve been adding more content to the site lately. More about me, more rants, and more content (in the For You area) in general. I added 2 quizzes this afternoon–Which Buffy character are you? and Which Charmed One are you?. I want to make more quizzes, but I’m not quite sure what I want to do. So, if you have suggestions, feel free to let me know. :)

Oh, and on a happy note, it’s official that Charmed got renewed. Big yay. :)

15 comments » | General, Mental Health, Rants

Talking to Air

12
May

Let’s hope that I passed my Social Work exam today. I couldn’t study for it. I kept trying, but everytime I would read the words, they’d leave my brain the second I’d get to the next word. I tried to review the summaries of each chapter, just so I could get a gist of the stuff, and I couldn’t even concentrate to get that done. The only chapter that I could actually study was the one on mental health, which didn’t have any questions on the test. I know I got at least 35 points, though, because I KNEW the extra credit answer. I’d basically rehearsed that one, so I know I got it right. If my calculations are right, I only needed a 40-something to get an A, so I figure I probably got that many points. My mom would be happy if I just got a B because she knows how hard the whole studying thing was for me.

As I was reading the mental health chapter, I was kind of stunned when it mentioned that this one person who was placed in the hospital had hallucinations and talked to herself. Well, I have the hallucinations and I talk to myself, but I don’t consider the latter to be a problem. I like talking to myself. I like having entire conversations with no one but my imagination. I argue. I have otherwise normal talks. I like narrating my life. It’s just a part of me, and I don’t want to lose that part of me because I don’t see it as something that is detrimental to my well-being. It may be bad for my social life, but let’s face it, I don’t really have one of those anyway. So, I want to know, does anyone else talk to themself? Or is this just a me thing?

I had to get my Geodon prescription filled today. (Extremely expensive stuff.) So, starting tomorrow night, I will officially be taking 120mg. That should get me to sleep. Lately, taking 80 hasn’t been getting me to sleep very well. I stay asleep, but I don’t really get to sleep easily. I just lay in bed and think, and the thinking sometimes goes crazy. Sometimes, it doesn’t. It does lead to me thinking about sad things, like Stephanie and other things that upset me, which leads to me crying.

I haven’t heard anything back from the annoying girl, which I am so happy about. I don’t need to read anything else from her. I don’t need that kind of negativity from anyone, but especially from someone who is obviously uninformed about mental illness. Now, I just get to wait for the next rude comment about mental illness. I know it is coming, which is why I wrote this. It’s basically my responses to all the nagging things that people say. I’ve probably forgotten some things, but I can always edit the page and add more to it. I have more ideas for my Opinionated Girl section. I like ranting and speaking out about stuff. I should probably sit down and write out what I want to talk about first, though. Of course, a lot of my best opinionated stuff comes “in the moment”.

14 comments » | Alabama A&M, General, Mental Health

Pivotal

10
March

It took me about 30 minutes to write my 4 page autobiography on Tuesday. I feel like I left out a lot, but I couldn’t exactly give them my entire life story. I couldn’t even give them all the highlights/lowlights. I mentioned Dadada/emotional abuse, growing up with my mom’s depression, Stephanie, Elijah (briefly), how well I’d done in school, how I dropped out of school, my depression (briefly), why I was driven to choose Social Work, why I chose A&M (vaguely), and why I wanted to specialize in Mental Health Services. I didn’t mention psychosis, panic/anxiety attacks, paranoia, etc.

I did my two midterms yesterday and they were fairly easy. My lab midterm was interesting. We hadn’t covered the musculoskeletal system, but somehow the teacher decided to put questions related to that system on the test. Of course, these questions were part of a matching section that featured a wordbank, and many of the questions were like this:

Where two bones are joined and there is pivoting movement

The answer? Well, I figured it was probably pivot joints. I mean, that was just a guess, but I think I was probably right about it. ;)

I’ve got Celestial back up and running. Of course, now there are no pretty themes or hacks, so I doubt anyone will want to be there. I also bet there will be people going, “I don’t want to go there, it looks ugly.” I’ll install hacks and themes when I have time. They’re not things that I can just sit down and do in ten minutes. They take a while, and I’m always afraid I’ll screw everything up when I start playing around with the coding. Of course, that fear partially comes from my amazing ability to screw things up when I start messing with the coding.

I had an anxiety attack/breakdown thing last night. I had already called my mother earlier in the evening, so I decided to tough it out. When my roommate finally came in, I had been crying, but, as usual, she didn’t notice. She got on her computer at about the time I started trying to go to sleep. Sometime during the night, one of her friends dropped off their child for my roommate to babysit while she (the mother of the child) went to a club. The child was there when I woke up this morning. He’s been there before. In fact, he was there when I bruised my wrist so much banging it a while back. I don’t really feel comfortable having a child in our room, especially since there are rules against babysitting and I don’t particularly want to get in trouble for something like this.

I have two pretty major assignments to do this weekend–my presentation for Camping and a take home test for Biology. I’m more worried about the former than I am about the latter. A take home test should be pretty straight forward, especially since its multiple choice. The presentation, though, will be trying. Even if I do everything right with preparing it, I still have to do the actual presentation, which won’t be a pleasant experience.

One of my books I ordered from Amazon.com came today. It was one of the Lost Slayer books. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the second book in the series, so I still don’t get to progress from the first book (which I originally read back in 2002). I hope the other books come soon. According to Amazon, they shipped yesterday, which means they’ll be here…eventually.

Plugs: Ally, Aurora, Chelsea, Elerah, Mollydog, Pia, Robbie

9 comments » | Alabama A&M, General, Internet, Mental Health

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