It’s been awhile again since I have last blogged. I don’t know why I never make a habit of this when I love to write so much and I know it’s a strength of mine as well. It helps me process things and it goes right in line with my introverted self and needs.

I’m totally off of Wellbutrin now. I have been off of it completely for about two months now I think. A few months before that, I had gone about a month without it then too. I went to see my psychiatrist yesterday and let her know I was totally off of it now. She knew that I was considering tapering off of it and that I had gone off of it before. It’s so nice that she didn’t guilt me at any point about doing this. So many times they panic and think it means you’re not doing well psychologically. Maybe the difference is that I chose to go onto the medication in the first place, and I sought out the help without it being forcibly done for me. My oldest brother and my father did not have the same experience. There’s quite a difference between Bipolar type 1 and Bipolar type 2 (which is what I’m pretty sure I have even though I’ve only been diagnosed with Mood Disorder Not Otherwise Specified).

I felt really liberated having that quick talk with my psychiatrist and with her seeming to believe in me being able to stay off of it. After going through what I have gone through in the past with my psych issues and worrying that I might permanently need to be on Wellbutrin, I felt so free leaving that office. Only time will tell how I will be months from now, but all I know is that I never expected that I could come off of Wellbutrin so easily and barely notice the difference. The psychological reality that I was in before I started Wellbutrin was absolute rock bottom and I honestly never thought I would be anything other than suicidally depressed after that last episode. I had never been so low for so long and I also never thought I could be happy or at least stable again without being dependent on Wellbutrin.

This whole thing has me thinking a lot about the impact that your environment has on you. It’s HUGE. My circumstances were totally different when I went on Wellbutrin. I was still living at home with my mom and felt totally and utterly hopeless about my future. So many things have changed in my life since then. I have been living with my boyfriend Zak for a little more than 3 years. We have been together almost 5 years now. He’s helped me so much in reclaiming my sense of self. He’s a staunch individualist and I have always respected him a lot for that. He’s taught me how to develop and maintain healthy boundaries and how to work on not feeling guilty about doing so.

I also have kept a solid job for almost 3 years now. I transferred to another program in October 2014 but I’m still at that job now. Before this I couldn’t hold down a job either. This company, as corrupt as I have realized it to be, at least recognizes the strengths that someone like me has and it allows you to be an individual still. I do appreciate that and I fit right in working with individuals that are complicated and strange themselves.

I’m still a very emotional person but I reign it in a lot more now. I seem to have finally learned how to channel it enough to not let my issues spew all over whoever I’m around. I have learned when to hold my tongue and how to act in certain situations. It still tires me if I ever have to perform but for the most part I can be myself where I work and that helps a lot.

I got a bit off track here. I started talking about environment. Environment is huge. Now that I no longer live with the dysfunctional people in my family and I no longer am sucked right into their issues or their boundary issues (because I rarely seem or talk to them), I’m doing so much better. I’m am Empath and so growing up in the family I did and being around them far longer than I should have been really took a toll on me. I still have some trouble balancing family with my life except now it’s the opposite of how it used to be. Now I don’t make much time for them and I chose my own needs over theirs (which is exactly what I needed to do before but honestly couldn’t physically do it while still living with them).

Living with Zak has been really nice for the most part. He’s been healthy for me to live with, in that we are both introverts and both respect each other’s needs for time and space to do our own things. He’s easy to be around, he’s level headed, he’s pretty psychologically stable, and he’s really calm most of the time. That is so the opposite of what I grew up around. I feel like I finally got to recover from my past by living with him. He’s allowed and helped me to grow more into myself and my own interests, whereas my family always kept me so absorbed in their own drama that I eventually ended up not knowing who I was anymore.

I still have high standards for myself that I’m not meeting. But I’m not quite as hard on myself as I used to be despite that fact. I want to make more of a habit out of writing, reading, and making art. I love all three and I know I am good at them. It’s just hard being an introvert because my job is something I’m constantly having to recover from. Most of the time when I come back from work I just watch TV shows I like, smoke weed, and eat food. I tend to not feel like I have the energy to do my hobbies instead, or something. I’m on a mini vacation from work right now, which is probably why I actually started writing a post. I could write so much more but I’m going to leave it at this. As always, I want to strive towards self-actualization. I just need to find a good balance between being patient with myself and pushing myself to put time into my hobbies.

I have the next three days off. I requested today off because I won’t be off on Thanksgiving and so my mom threw an early Thanksgiving today. My brother, my cousin, his wife, their kid, my aunt, my uncle, and my mom were at this. It was overall pretty nice. I still always feel a little out of place because I’m significantly different from most of them. My uncle and my aunt who were there (very affluent people), spent a lot of time telling stories of their own success but also of how to be successful. It was more about how you can achieve your dreams and live the life you want to live. I wasn’t totally receptive to it because money is a huge factor in that (something they have never struggled with) coming to fruition. They don’t seem to understand the limits of barely having any money just living in your current situation, never mind having any way of saving money in order to do something drastic like move far away to a place you want to live.

I’m a pretty idealistic person so I never really meet my own standards. I have come to love myself though and I am proud of the person that I am now. I still always want to improve myself. I do want to become more disciplined in pursuing my passions such as writing, hiking, drawing, reading, and meditating. They did make a good point about how your thoughts formulate your reality. I already knew this to be true but it was interesting to actually hear that from older adults. It’s very true that what you think about and how you feel about things completely creates your perspective on life and the choices that you make. It’s hard to try to keep away negative or self-limiting thoughts but it helps to at least become aware of them and try to reduce them.

I have always been obsessed with the idea of balance in general. In this context when they were talking about these things I agreed with their general point(s), but then my mind was kind of questioning it too. I am definitely careful to never completely open up to someone else’s advice for how I should live my life, because no one knows that better than you do.

I found myself being skeptical of the people these words of advice were coming from. The reason for that is that like I said before, they are rich and they have *never* had problems with money. Therefore, anywhere they want to live or any life they want to live is realistically available. When you don’t have to struggle to financially survive things must be really different. I found myself questioning the source because these two really have no idea what it is to have a difficult upbringing, a lack of money, a lack of income, huge amounts of debt, serious family problems or mental illness, etc. I don’t completely absorb what they say because they have never had to really overcome any serious difficulties. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want because money is not a problem for them. So when someone like that tells you that you can definitely and very quickly move far away and achieve your dreams, I can’t take it seriously. They are leaving out a lot of details and the many roadblocks that get in the way when you don’t have any money to spare.

It also makes me question their motives because they were giving this advice to my brother and I without us asking for it, and of course they are coming from a place of viewing themselves as successful and living a great life to be the ones saying these things to us. They kept referring to their own lives and the only problems they’ve had is which house to live in and what location, how to sell a few of the houses they already owned in various states, etc. Their reality is entirely different from my own. I don’t like when people preach like that extensively because it’s also assuming that you need this information and that they are above you. It’s very ego based when you analyze it, although on the surface it looks like it’s coming only from a place of caring. I’m not saying they don’t care, I’m just saying I know the real reason(s) behind their fixation on constantly talking about their successes and possessions, whenever I actually do see them.

To me honesty and being humble are qualities that I value the most in other people. Being around my aunt and uncle and listening to their stories actually made me miss my dad and my other uncle. The two of them have more obvious personality flaws and can be really harsh, but at least they are sincere people. I know without question that when I’m taking to either one of them that they are down to earth and there is no bullshit involved. They don’t fake things and are brutally honest. I prefer that because insincerity is a deceptive trait and it’s often used to manipulate others. I also know that my dad and his brother grew up in near poverty, and have had many struggles to overcome in their lives. I take their advice or words of wisdom much more seriously because I know they are street smart and know a lot about life.

I’m trying not to judge my aunt and uncle but they kind of make it easy. They are people that I’d prefer to only see once every few years like it has been. They could never truly understand me and I could never truly understand them. We’re like a different breed of people almost. I’m trying not to by cynical or skeptical. I know this post may come across that way but really I’m just highly analytical when it comes to people, their personalities, their motives, etc. I can’t really help it. It was an interesting experience none the less, and at least the content of what they were saying was very positive and encouraging.

When I left I didn’t feel energized or like I was going to be able to change my life from what they said or something, because I have my own thoughts and feelings and I trust those more than anything else. I guess what I would prefer in terms of receiving positive conversation/advice is a balanced exchange between people that talks about the good things in life and in people, and where the people would exchange their thoughts and feelings about things like philosophy, art, music, etc. That would feel honest to me and balanced because it’s not done in the attempt to “teach” someone else and it’s not coming from a place of perceived superiority. People should treat others as equals whether or not they have different circumstances, are in different economic classes, or just have different upbringings. I do believe all people and living things are of equal value and that no one is truly above or below anyone else. We all just have very different experiences and backgrounds and thus we become different people who live different lives. At the core of it all we are all the same and we are all one.

I titled this post with the words guilt and stress because that it was I just absorbed so much of yesterday at work. It was potent and overflowing. We had a staff meeting as we do every Thursday. This time the new DO (Director of Operations) was there and this was my first time meeting him. He seemed pretty rational and also more stern in his views about the residents’ behaviors. He seemed like a no bullshit type person so that’s good.

He did end up proposing that we come in on one or more days to help clean the residents’ rooms. I of course was not interested in that at all because as is I am pretty ready to leave this place. I have already helped two different residents clean their rooms for multiple hours in a row for each guy. The new DO seems to think that if we clean and organize their rooms really well that they will maintain them. That’s a load of shit because these guys are terrible with responsibilities. You clean their rooms well and within days it goes right back to the way it started. Also, all of these men are full grown adults. They are more than capable of cleaning their rooms but they choose not to.

After the DO left the site manager started to ask the employees who would be willing to do some extra hours on one of those days. I at first was confused by what the DO said and I thought he was saying it was going to be mandatory. All I did was ask her if this was mandatory and then expressed relief when she said it wasn’t. She starts freaking out on me right then. She starts raising her voice and being aggressive. She said “God forbid you do any extra hours”. I responded with “Well I’m not management. And so I haven’t signed my life away.” She responds to that with “Yes I am well aware of that”.

This whole time her eyes are practically beating out of her head and she’s responding as if I just told her I was going to do jack shit at work today. I did nothing of the sort and I work harder while I’m on shift than most staff do. The difference is I’m smart enough not to sacrifice the two days I have off each week. She and another one of my coworkers have been doing a ton of overtime. As expected the two of them are by far the most irritable and aggressive as a result.

The thing that pisses me off is that the two of them keep making passive-aggressive comments or having passive-aggressive responses to things and are becoming work martyrs. I have received more than a few passive-aggressive statements from these two, any time that I take a strong or honest stand on my need to keep my two days off and not do overtime. The two of them take on much more work than they can truly handle, yet continue to do so probably for a number of reasons. We have been somewhat short staffed recently especially with all the activities that our boss started to set up for all of the guys before he ended up being out on medical leave for the last month or so.

They sacrifice their days off to do overtime, they have a wicked short fuse and snap easily, they continuously complain about the problems in the program, they frequently mention leaving, they use their own money in larger sums to buy things for the residents or the program, etc. They do this to themselves. Yes, the program does need more staff. Yes, their are many open shifts that need covering. Yes, there are staff that do more work than other staff. I don’t care if they want to put this heavy load upon themselves and want to act as if they are responsible for filling all the open shifts.

What I do care about is the remarks they have made to me that are said with the intention of guilting me into taking on overtime myself. For the site manager to say “God forbid you ever do any extra hours”, is a clear jab made to imply that I’m selfish and that I don’t work hard. You can take on as many hours as you want until your body and mind shut down, but don’t think you have the right to expect that I take on the same thing myself.

I’m sorry but I have learned over time how stupid it is to bend over backwards for other people or for your workplace, when you are not getting anything back and all you’re doing is burning yourself out. Yes it may result in the shifts being covered more easily but you’re getting next to nothing out of this. If working extra hours actually lead to an improvement in the program, or lead to a feeling of achievement or like you made a noticeable difference in the program or the guys lives, it would make more sense to keep doing so.

I think these two are making stupid choices that negatively affect their states of mind and also their bodies because of the levels of stress they are taking on and the lack of sleep they are getting. Of course they are also getting next to no time off because they are taking on so much overtime so then they have no time to even try to recover from all the physical and mental stress. Sure this shows a willingness to sacrifice your time and it shows that you can be selfless but in reality it’s starting to become more clear that it’s not done for those reasons.

It’s done because these people do not love themselves enough to care for themselves above all, and because they have voids in their lives that they are trying to fill by working all the time. These people also clearly want recognition for all the extra time and effort they put in, so then it becomes clear that it’s not an act of selflessness. If it was truly selfless they wouldn’t go looking for compliments and they wouldn’t expect people to feel bad for them.

I think they are making choices that above all hurt them. I don’t think they are wise decisions. The difference is I don’t repeatedly get on their case for not taking time off or for choosing to take on over time. I don’t try to make them feel bad for being a workaholic. I see it clearly, but I know it’s not my place to comment on. I know this because I have developed pretty good boundaries and put my mental and physical health above the needs of other people or workplaces. What is wrong is when they try to shame me into making the same stupid choices they make. 40 hours a week is more than enough for *any* person to be working. To do more than 40 hours a week unless you absolutely have to out of some emergency or crisis situation, is taking on much more than you should.

I love to write. I need to write more than I realize. I want to work towards writing every day. It’s one of the best ways I can process my emotions and thoughts. I excel more at doing so through writing than I do through speaking, and since I’m an introvert it works better for my needs than it does through speaking. My inner life is so rich that I should definitely be writing the stuff down that goes on inside my head. My inner life is much more active than my outer life so it’s best if I make use of that through writing.

I frequently think about how I want to want to improve myself. I frequently think about how I want to get back to having good, productive daily habits that are in line with my values and strengths. I was reminded of something I learned about years ago when I went to the training I went to last week. The speaker brought up “Flow Experiences” and I was reminded of how they really do increase your happiness levels.

Flow experiences are experiences in which you are fully engaged in what you are doing because you love whatever you’re doing. You end up losing track of time and are completely in the moment. Typically flow experiences result from doing things that you are passionate about or strong in, and so they are truly fulfilling experiences. Multiple Positive Psychology books talk about how the more often you engage in Flow Experiences in your day to day life, the greater your happiness levels will become. This is one way to slightly improve your baseline happiness levels.

My flow experiences include hiking, writing, reading, creating music, making art, and meditating. If I were to do these six things regularly, or atleast a few of them every day, I know I would feel happier. I would be doing the things that I truly love and am good at, and would be living a life that’s more congruent with my values.

One good thing is that for the past several months, whenever I have a day off, going hiking is a priority of mine. I don’t always make it since the daylight is gone by about 4:30 pm lately and I have a second-shift schedule, but I atleast have the internal motivation to atleast strongly want to go hiking on my days off. I also want to get to a point where I go hiking or atleast walking before I go to work too.

I forget what year it was in college but I think it might have been my first or second year when I started to really get into meditating. What motivated me to do so was when I start to get panic attacks a lot, and I also had tripped not long before then so that reminded me of just how spiritual of a person I truly was. Before then I was an atheist. During that trip I was opened up to the spiritual plane and it was the most amazing experience of my entire life. I actually saw energy itself, in everything. I saw the energy fields around the people I was with, I saw how people had different aura colors that were more predominant than other colors. At the time I didn’t really know what energy fields or auras were but I got really into them after that.

Everything in the room I was in, which was filled with creative/abstract/psychedelic art, was alive. All of the pictures were animated. The room itself was filled with this translucent yet multi colored goo type stuff that filled the room starting from the ceiling and was formulated in large cylindrical coil shapes. I understood this as matter itself, which I then learned that matter itself was composed of energy, which is primarily spiritual. This experience felt more real to me than any other “sober” experience I had ever had before. My ego was torn away and I was exposed to the spiritual realm, which was directly in conflict with the reality that the ego had formulated and controlled for all of my life before this.

I did experience “ego death” before the highly positive/spiritual part of the trip began. The ego death was the scariest experience of my life. It was like a panic attack times 10, and when I looked in the mirror I felt completely dissociated. I was sure I was going to die, so my panic got worse and I puked a ton. I didn’t know it then but what truly died at that time was my ego, and it’s scary as fuck when it happens because it questions your entire perspective and understanding of reality. The ego convinces you that are in complete control, that you are the center of everything, and that nothing is real except for concrete/factual based information. Ego death reverses all of that programming and so your mind and emotions are given a complete shock. The ego re-gained control later on, but this trip changed my perspective on life for good.

A bit later I went to get Reiki done. Reiki is a spiritual practice in which imbalanced chakras are balanced, blockages are opened up, and repressed emotions are brought to the surface. Your spirit is interacted with in a way that can be felt strongly, even physically. During this Reiki session my Reiki practioner told me that I was an Indigo child. At the time I didn’t know what that meant but I looked it up later and it made *so* much sense. The way that I had experienced my entire life was finally clarified and so instead of feeling like an outsider/alien, I felt like I was here for a reason, for spiritual and healing based purposes, and so I felt special. Again this was a complete turn around from how I felt for all of my life until I was given this information and this experience. After this session I started to meditate daily or every other day for a few months. I felt amazing and my external circumstances didn’t control my emotional state anymore. I felt at one with everything and that was exactly what I needed.

I want to start meditating every day again. I want to start writing every day. I want to start making art every day, like I did after my trip for awhile. I want to hike as much as possible, in as many new places as I can possibly find. I want to re-remember that these are the things that I am here for, these are the things that truly matter, and these things are what make life worth living. Of course having deep connections/relationships with others and spreading as much love and understanding as possible are equally important, but the aforementioned passions are all internal/individually based things that fulfill me the most without depending on any other people to do so.

It’s been a really long time since I last posted on here. I just re-read the last one I wrote, which was half a year ago. When I read my writing sometimes it seems as if I’m reading someone else’s thoughts or something. Maybe what I’m noticing is that the way I express myself through writing is very different from the way I express myself through speaking.

I went to this two day training last Thursday and Friday. It was on Positive Psychology and a new type of therapy. I wasn’t totally on board with everything I was presented with but there were some helpful elements to it. One thing the speaker went over many times and had as do many exercises with was Gratitude. Practicing gratitude and then sharing it with other people. It does have a very different effect when you share what you are grateful for with another individual than it does when you are just keeping it to yourself. I did also really like the high amount of vulnerability that this training opened up doors for. Since I have been working in the psych field for about two and a half years, this training was still one of the only times when I could really feel genuine vulnerable emotions being shared between people. Most professional environments highly discourage that.

I guess I will start out with writing what I am grateful for. This will be a general list rather than a specific one.

1. I’m grateful to have my boyfriend. We have been together for almost 4.5 years now and he has made me feel hopeful again about healthy relationships existing. I really needed to learn that and especially needed to experience one. I think he is the first boyfriend I have actually had a healthy relationship with.
2. I’m grateful to have a roof over my head and to have my basic survival needs met. Even though I struggle financially I am still much better off financially than a lot of people. I’m grateful that I don’t have to fight to survive every single day like so many people in the world. Basically I am grateful that I am not living in poverty and that I have never lived in poverty.
3. I’m grateful to be much better off psychologically than I used to be. I’m grateful that I no longer spend each day in a pit of hopelessness and despair. I’m also grateful that I no longer regularly experience feeling numb. Feeling numb was actually worse than any other emotion, other than feel dissociated. I’m grateful I no longer spend each day feeling completely dissociated and unreal.
4. I’m grateful for the existence of Wellbutrin. Wellbutrin is the a-typical antidepressant I have been on for a little more than 4.5 years now. Before I went on Wellbutrin I was in a seemingly endless severe depressive episode (see #3).
5. I’m grateful for my best friend Aubree. I really miss her since I have not seen her in over a month. She has been in various psych hospitals/respite during this time. She’s a great person and is so enjoyable to spend time with. Whenever we hang out I feel both of our energies being lifted to a higher vibration and we really connect. She has helped me to feel understood and to feel less alone in the way that I am.
6. I’m grateful for my mother. Her and I have had a long history of a turbulent relationship, but I feel her and I have worked things out a lot in the past couple of years. Although my mother and I are very different psychologically and intellectually, she has helped me out a lot in the areas that I needed, especially considering how much my father weakened those areas. My mother helped me to become a financially independent person and individual. My father tried to completely prevent this from happening by never allowing me to get a job and never allowing me to make my own decisions. My mother bought me the car that has allowed me to hold a job for the past two and a half years (longer than I have ever held a job before and the first time I’ve had my own car and lived in my own place). I still owe her a lot of money but she continues to help me out financially whenever I have another issue in this department.
7. I’m grateful for my father. He and I have not had a real relationship in several years but it’s better that way.  I don’t know if I can every truly forgive him for the agony he subjected me to for most of my childhood and teen years, but I have been becoming more aware of the good things he taught me. I didn’t agree with his parenting methods but he did have good intentions at the core of his methods. I’m grateful that he pushed me to value physical health/exercise. I’m grateful that he pushed me to value knowledge/intelligence. I’m grateful that he pushed me to question authority and the status quo. I have realized lately that he did not raise me in a military type way for malicious reasons. When I think about it more I realize that he pushed me so hard to be as close as I could be to excellent in so many areas, because he believed in me that much. He wanted me to reach my potential. He didn’t go about it in the healthiest ways but I think he did the best that he could. I’m grateful that he has pushed me to be a perfectionist, because even though I can never meet my own standards, it still gets me closer to my potential because I am always wanting to improve myself by living a life that is in line with my values.

I had a really thorough and deep conversation with my boyfriend late last night about a number of different things. First we started off talking about our results to the Myers Briggs personality test. My result is INFP and his is INTP. He told me he took the test a few days ago. I had taken the test many times before. I told him that I knew that would be his result because we are really similar in the categories that this test covers. This test determines “preferences” for certain styles. One sub category is about how the individual prefers to process information. The preference is either for taking in information at face value only (sensing) or for using that information as only the starting point after which the individual further analyzes and adds meaning to that information (intuition). Another sub category is about the preference an individual has for how one will make the decisions that they make. This preference is either for making decisions based on logic, facts, and consistency (thinking) or for emphasizing a focus on the emotion-based particulars such as the people and subjective circumstances involved (feeling). The last sub category is about an individual’s preference in dealing with external stimuli and the external world. The preference is either towards wanting to be decisive about matters (judging) or wanting to keep things open-ended in order to leave space for other potential options or information to come into play (perceiving).

Since I had read so much about my results and about this test in general, I was able to infer what my boyfriend’s results would be. I was able to see this especially when we would have serious conversations/debates/or arguments about heavy topics. On almost every occasion, he uses the cold, hard logical lens in which to base his arguments. He has little to no tolerance for emotion-based arguments and opinions. I on the other hand do exactly that–with almost every controversial topic we discuss, I use the emotion-based lens in which to base my arguments. He wants facts, data, objective information, and linear thinking as the basis of the opinion or stance. I want a humanitarian basis, which includes focusing on the subjective information at hand. It includes the particulars, and definitely is based in my emotional response to the controversial topic. I have opinions that are mostly about the particular type of people and their subjective experiences/circumstances. Our debates turn into arguments due to our polar opposite way of creating opinions/stances. He will make implications that what I’m arguing is not backed by any proof or data, and will point out how what I’m saying becomes very abstract and emotional. I will make implications that he is being insensitive, close-minded and based in sweeping generalizations. Really what is going on here is that we are butting heads because our way of forming opinions are at two polar extremes. The Myers Briggs Test made that really clear to me.

I know that otherwise he and I share very similar morals, values, and perspectives on things. He and I clearly share the same need for down time since we are both introverted. He and I are both independent and unique in our sense of self. We both form our own opinions and never just completely go by what we’ve heard or read from somebody else–which would explain how we both share the “intuition” preference when it comes to processing information.

I was going to go into the heavy conversation that he and I had last night, but I spent so long just describing the basis of what lead to the deep conversation in such detail that I may need to just write another post up about the deep conversation. I do this every time that I write ha. I just draw so many connections to various things and they end up inspiring me to write a lot from time to time. That’s another interesting thing. I realized how much I love writing. I think being a writer is actually a potential career for me in the future. I never really considered that before. Pretty interesting since my current job and usual aspiration is to work directly with people with psychological disorders (which is rewarding but also very draining). Becoming a writer would be to do a complete 360 in a way. Being a writer is a very introverted and independent career. Writers spend hours by themselves, well writing. I don’t have a degree in writing, but I’m not sure one would be necessary depending on the type of writing I’d want to do. I can’t see myself ever being a formal writer of any sort. I’d love to write about what I’m interested in–psychology, art, philosophy, nature, and people in general. I would love to write about all of my observations and about all of the connections I’ve made between these subjects. To do that for a long-term job would be very therapeutic as well and I would finally get a break from all of the psychological energy I expend on a regular basis by doing the job that I do. I don’t know where I’d start with pursuing a career like this and it would require a lot of discipline/self-direction. Maybe I should just start by trying to re-develop the habit of writing on a regular basis.

http://borderlinepersonality.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/07/the-quiet-borde.html

I have never been diagnosed with this, I’ve only been officially diagnosed with Mood Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, but I feel like this type of Borderline is one that almost always goes undiagnosed. Of course it does, because there are no outward, in your face behaviors to be physically seen as it is all turned inwards. 

I always turn inwards. My father taught me that to cry or express emotion other than anger was to be weak, and was wrong to do. He’d actually insult me, even after knowing why I was breaking down crying, and say things like “Get over it”, “Stop being a baby”, etc. He’d essentially tell me to stop expressing my negative emotions. Yet, he was allowed to run rampant with them and spread his venomous psychological issues all over anyone he was close to. 

I very rarely cry. When I feel like I am going to, I repress it until it goes away if I am around anyone. If I’m by myself, I might let myself cry for a long time, behind doors where I won’t draw any attention or sympathy from anyone. When I get that upset, I have conflicting feelings about what I need at that time. There is a pretty tradition pattern to the way it tends to happen. Typically, I’ll get in some sort of heavy or controversial discussion with someone I’m close to, which ends up playing out just like the arguments would that I grew up around all the time. First, the argument goes on for a long time. It starts out objective, I challenge the person’s thoughts/feelings if I don’t agree with or understand them, they take offense and get defensive, they attack me and say that my reasoning is based in my negative experiences with my father when I was growing up. Ok, I keep saying they, but 9 times out of 10 this is how it goes when these conversations happen between my boyfriend and I. 

Once he brings up that he thinks I’m saying what I’m saying because of how my dad treated me in the past, this is when the downward spiral begins with my emotions. I try to explain myself over and over again, it once again goes misunderstood, then I am told that I’m making him into the “bad guy” when I point out that he is bringing up a very sensitive topic when we weren’t even talking about that in the first place. I told him it was not appropriate to bring up my most sensitive issue, since I had not offered it up for discussion in the first place. People don’t get to bring that shit up whenever they feel like, unless they are being totally insensitive and are unconsciously or consciously trying to “get revenge” for whatever it is I said to them that offended them, even if I wasn’t even talking about them personally in the first place.

So anyways, this happened last night. And unfortunately, it happens every single time him and I have a heavy discussion about something controversial. We are both stubborn, we both have strong opinions, we both have baggage from our upbringings that clouds these discussions, we are both very sensitive, we are both pretty guarded, and thus it devolves from there on. I began to get very emotional at the end of it, and since he also has this method of bringing up my baggage, then saying he is done with the argument, it gets worse. After I start breaking down and actually expressing how upset I am emotionally outwardly (something I very rarely do), he tries to break the ice and interact with me normally again, and I reject that. Then, he walks away while telling me that he will see or talk to me later. I know it’s because he doesn’t know what else to do to fix things, but it hurts ten times more for someone to leave you right when you need them the most, and right after they just finished opening up some very old, very deep wounds.

Even once I can no longer keep myself from crying, and crying hard, for a long time, I’m *still* repressing the extent of it. I’m *still* trying to cry silently and I’m still trying to hide that I’m even crying in the first place. Even when I can’t keep my emotions under wraps anymore, I am still concealing it. I was taught that emotions were wrong and a sign of weakness, and I was consistently told that I was being illogical, or not using logic, etc. I also overheard my father saying this to my mother and my brothers on so many occasions I couldn’t even count them.

Later on, my boyfriend came back over to me again to try to console me. This time, he did it right. He came up behind me, and spoke quietly into my ear. He said, “I just wan’t to tell you that I love you and that I’m sorry if what I said hurt or offended you.” I was still really upset but I accepted his consoling from that point on, because it was now being presented to me in the form that I needed. He said many more sweet things to me, and I laid down and cuddled with him until I was out of tears. It was nice. I still felt guilty about even being the center of attention and about needing this kind of consoling for this amount of time. That’s another thing I was raised to feel–that I am not worthy of this kind of attention and that I shouldn’t seek or accept it. I shouldn’t even *need* it because I’m supposed to be strong minded no matter what. My father raised my brothers and I much like a drill sargeant would. We were forced and expected to be physically fit, like as much as a soldier would be. We were criticized, insulted, screamed at, hovered over, consistently made to feel never good enough. He did this intellectually and emotionally as well. We were forced and expected to be intellectuals, to be constantly analyzing everything, to be viewing and dissecting things in a purely intellectual way. We were expected to be emotionally in control all of the time. Anything else resulted in being called a baby, a sissy, a wuss, etc.

The job that I do does bring up old baggage and that makes it hard psychologically for me, but at the same time it’s the first job that I’ve had in which my personality and experiences were needed, and appreciated. I think that sometimes I overlook the toll that it has taken on me, I guess because I’m still in the same mindset of “toughing it out”. Toughing everything out, rarely taking breaks, rarely asking for help, rarely discussing my concerns with the people that need to hear them. I will likely always be this way.

I have definitely learned to be very independent in most cases, because I’ve had to be and because that kind of thing has kept me the most balanced and the most genuine. Genuinely, I am tough, I am patient and *very* tolerant. However, I am also very sensitive, very empathetic, and very emotionally and intuitively driven. These two sides of me seem to be in somewhat of a battle with one another. I think in general I balance them out well, but I think it also confuses the fuck out of most people. They think you have to be just one way or the other. As much as my father neglected me emotionally and was very tough on me, I still grew up to be a very empathetic person and I still grew up to be very guided by my emotions. I still find them very important, and I surely did not grow up to be cold or insensitive like I easily could have were I to only be a product of my upbringing. 

I’m not sure where I got this trait from since neither of my parents demonstrated this (maybe that’s why, actually), but I have grown up to be overly considerate of other people’s needs, and to be beyond considerate of disrespecting or hurting anyone in any way. Actually I just figured out why. I became this way because this is exactly what was expected out of me. I also did it out of extreme care for my parents and my family. There was so much dysfunction and so much misunderstanding. There was so much unhappiness and stress in my family. I wanted to be there for everyone and I wanted to protect everyone. It was hard as fuck to do that for everyone because on top of that, my parents always used me a pawn to fight with each other even more by fighting to be the “favorite” parent. They both tried to get me to be “on their side”. So, I grew up unassertive and extremely self-effacing. 

I had a mandatory staff meeting today at work. This trait in myself stood out so much, likely only *to* myself, but whatever. I contributed almost nothing, because the management staff were fighting to be in control and fighting to have the dominant voice or say in things. I could feel the tension, and the topic was also something that I’m not very involved with in a way, because it had to do with a resident that is coming back to live in our residential home. She is the most difficult resident we’ve had, and this resident chose me to dislike much more than other staff, so I avoided her as much as possible. She was very mean to me, very critical, rude, insulting, etc. She even flat out refused to accept my help for things at times. The way she treated me felt just like how my father always made me feel growing up, so that’s a huge reason I avoided her as well. It was just too painful, and the other residents love me and appreciate me. The other residents actually ask for my help specifically and express that they really like me and want to be around me. 

I guess I felt awkward at the meeting because it was supposed to be one between the head of the department and the staff, it was supposed to be him “addressing” the program/us, but it was mostly just him and other management arguing for most of the meeting. The actual staff very rarely got a chance to contribute info, as the bossy/aggressive/domineering management staff were taking up all of that space. I don’t think I really like the head of the department, because he doesn’t have a real clue how these residents are, who they are, or how things have really been at the program. I’d like to see him stay at the house for even a few days, especially after the worst resident comes back, so he can get a fucking clue before he starts having so much to say about how we should be acting. I found it really presumptuous, the way he was talking to us. I get why the other management people were arguing with him, because he was being ignorant and totally defending the resident, even though he has no real fucking clue how she has treated all of us. I just wish he would’ve shut up more and asked more questions and listened more to *us*. He should’ve spent the time observing and figuring out how to approach the problem, rather than proposing what should be done without even knowing the initial conditions. It just felt like a waste of time. Whatever. These are just more issues I’m having with people that are too aggressive, too bossy, too domineering, and essentially straight up hogs of attention and all conversation space. They don’t leave any room for quieter types to contribute because they’re too busy trying to control everything in their extroverted ways.

I’ve been meaning to write for awhile. I’m going to write about the things I wanted to a week ago or so, and then just go with whatever else comes up.

I’ve been working full time at a very hard job since August now. This is the longest I have worked *anywhere* I have been working there for 5 months now. 5 months really isn’t a long time to work at one place for the average person, but for me it is. Another thing is that this job is extremely physically and emotionally taxing. Other jobs I’ve had have been one or the other, but never both, and never to this extent. However, no job has been as physically or emotionally taxing as my life was growing up. My Dad was never in the military but with the way he raised us, you’d think he was. My Mom faded into the background, even though she was the breadwinner. As far as every other kind of influence/control went, my Dad took over all of it. He forced us to run starting at age 7, and forced us to continue running for as long as he was around us. He was our cross-country coach too, and all three of us were on that team (of course). So, he continued to control us through that as well as at home. Anyways, what I’m getting at is that no job and nothing else in my life was as tough as my upbringing. I can handle a lot because of it though, so I suppose it’s overall a good thing. Even though it caused me a lot of physical and emotional pain, even though I didn’t develop on time in some important ways, even though it caused me to develop mood disorders and to have long-term physical pain, I became tough from it. Oops didn’t mean to pull the past into my current life but my past definitely had a huge influence on the present.

Somewhat recently at this job I’ve been working at, I noticed that three out of the four residents and one of my coworkers started opening up to me *a lot* over the course of like one day. It felt like I was a therapist and I provided three or four talk therapy sessions for these people. It was draining yet interesting. I was shocked at how much they were telling me, especially in relation to the happenings of their traumatic pasts. I couldn’t believe how much they were telling me. I was shocked at some of it, especially what one of the residents told me, because I had no idea she went through such a fucked up childhood. She had never really talked about it before nor did she ever tell me that many details of super personal/damaging events.

Initially I felt a bit overwhelmed by this, but then later on I started to feel good about it. It made me think about why these people all opened up to me so much. It made me think that it’s likely because they trust me, because I have made it clear that I am an open, accepting, and empathetic person. It was nice to see some clear evidence of my influence on them. I frequently tend to think I don’t make an impact on people. I tend to think that I don’t influence them in any way. I guess I still think this way because when I was growing up I felt like my family never listened to me. I felt like my voice made no difference whatsoever, and I felt inferior to them because they made it clear that they thought they were superior. This taught me to believe I was inferior, and to kind of start actually acting like I really was inferior.

I don’t think a lot of people would agree with me in saying this but, I think people are more likely to really open up to someone who does not react super emotionally to personal things that they say. When people can tell that you don’t judge them, that you aren’t going to leave even if they tell you some really crazy shit or really show you the contents of their psyche, they are likely to feel comfortable totally unloading on you. A lot of times when people tell me really intense/traumatic things, I don’t get all dramatic in response. I tend to not even let them see how I am reacting to it. I keep a straight face, and I respond in a supportive yet practical way.

Personally, that is how I want someone to respond if I tell them something really intense or traumatic that happened to me. I cannot stand when people act even more emotional than you’re being when you’re opening up to them, or if you’re crying or something. I cannot stand the fact that a lot of the time if you cry in front of someone, especially the general public, they will respond to you like you’re a wounded child. They kind of freak out, make some super emotional facial expressions, and ask you if you’re ok or say “what’s wrong?”. I hate this. It draws attention to the whole thing when you do not want everyone around you to know that you’re crying, it makes you feel like crying is unnatural, and it generally makes you feel like you’re a baby or like totally insane for crying. Personally, I do not want someone to ask me if I’m ok or to get all emotional if I’m crying, and I definitely don’t want them being anything but discreet about the fact that I’m crying. I want someone to recognize my pain, but only someone that I’m very close to. I want that person to stay with me and maybe ask if I want to talk about it, and I want them to be the supportive/level-headed person that I need at that time. 

When the residents cry in front of me, I typically just listen to what is upsetting them, and I remain calm. I talk them through whatever it is, and I only say supportive things. In addition to that, I will sometimes say something to bring up the positive part of that situation. If they are crying and talking to me about their traumatic histories, at the end I will say something like “Well it’s a good thing that’s not around anymore right? Or I’ll say “It’s a good thing that that is no longer going on” or “It’s a good thing that you’re not in that situation anymore”. I say this to try to remind them that although those traumas really messed them up, that it is in the past and essentially, cannot fully hurt them anymore. It’s a somewhat cold thing to say, but not really if you say it at the end of the interaction. To me, it’s a protective thing to say. I’m trying to let them know that they are safe now, that things are better now than they were when those things happened. It’s also a way to remind them that they are not just the product of their traumas. There is much more to them and parts of them that those traumas cannot erase or take over. 

I found this thing called Mood scope like a week ago, well actually I found out through another blogger that I follow who posted about it. It’s a really awesome tool. Basically it’s a website/scientifically based tool on day-to-day moods and tracking the changes. Every day you log on to the site and answer on a scale from 0-3 (very slightly or not at all, a little, quite a bit, extremely) how much you feel this particular emotion they have on a card. You go through 20 cards with different emotions on them, and answer this way. You’re supposed to do it at the same time every day, which I have followed mostly, but I’ve had a few days where I took the test towards the end of the day. They say it’s best to take the test a few hours or less after waking up, to get a general idea of how your moods typically are before the events of the day have a chance to alter them.

I just took the test again today. It’s the 7th day that I’ve taken it, minus two days that I didn’t take it. After three days of taking the test you get a chart of your moods. Since it’s been about a week my chart is more accurate in tracking my mood swings. You should see the fucking chart I have. It looks close to the results of a polygraph if a person keeps coming in and out of lying. In other words, it’s certainly no straight or stable line. I’m not surprised my chart looks this way, but I am a bit surprised to see just how many drastic changes there are in my moods on a daily basis. This one is more of a weekly chart right now, but it already looks like the outline of a rocky mountain. The polygraph example I just gave before is a bit dramatic I guess, but my point is that I’m really seeing just how emotional/sensitive I am.

Like I wrote the other day, I’m learning to think more positively about the fact that I’m a Highly Sensitive Person because of the book I’ve been reading. Overall I think being highly sensitive is a great trait and is something that attracts me to others if I can tell that they’re one too. It’s good overall, but it’s exhausting to deal with and to try to maintain regular responsibilities and any sort of stability when your moods are constantly fluctuating.

So here are the actual percentages I received to try to give you more of an idea of how much they’ve changed for me in just one week. These scores are out of 100, with 0 being the lowest (negative) mood and 100 being the highest (positive) mood.

Day 1: 45% Day 2: 39% Day 3: 24% Day 5: 87% Day 6: 81% Day 7: 63% Day 9: 34%

Did I mention that throughout this whole time these are my results even though I’m on 450 MG of Wellbutrin (Atypical Anti-depressant)?

I know that this test is not the word of god or something and the site even says that you should never take any test as the complete truth or to be completely accurate. But it seems pretty legitimate to me especially because it’s based in science/data (normally I’d never make this argument but in this case I am because tracking emotions is a complicated thing). I think that the fact that my moods change so much in a short period of time even though I’m a high dose of a psych med that has helped me a lot, goes to show just how sensitive I am. It’s like no matter what I will always have large changes in my moods, and I know a big part of that is because I am very reactive to changes in external stimuli. I know in general my baseline is rather low but even then it’s rarely just one way for me. If I had to guess I’d say when comparing negative to positive emotions, I experience negative emotions 60% of the time and positive emotions 40% of the time. So although I do spend more time on the low end of the emotional spectrum, I still spend a good chunk of time on the high end of the emotional spectrum. The thing is, it’s rarely in a pattern for me. The more that I think about this and my moods and about all that I’ve read in relation to the subject, the more that I believe I truly have Bipolar (2). It makes sense. I experience many depressive episodes, dispersed by periods of hypomania. Like I said before I think I have a moderate form of Borderline Personality Disorder as well. Like I also said before, I’ve never technically been diagnosed with these disorders but I did receive the diagnosis of Mood Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. It makes sense to me why I would receive that diagnosis, because psychiatrists/psychologists don’t see all of me. I often act a bit in that my presentation to them is not totally natural. Even with the therapists I’ve had, I haven’t fully expressed the depth of my emotions or what I’ve been through, and even when I do bring up these traumatic experiences I do so in a controlled manner. I never really lose control in front of others, I’m damn good at not showing it or keeping them from seeing all of me. Especially because I’m a pretty inward person in terms of actually expressing emotions in their raw form. If I feel like I have to or want to cry, I will put all of my effort into hiding that and preventing it from happening if other people are around. It’s like it doesn’t even matter if they’re really close to me, I still won’t let them see me like that unless I literally cannot keep it in any longer. But normally I’ll hold it in for awhile until I’m by myself long enough to just cry for like an hour or more straight. And this behavior of mine makes sense to me too.

In my family the only emotion that was truly allowed was irritability. If I ever cried in front of family members, especially in front of my Dad, he’d called me a baby, tell me to get over it, to stop being a wuss, to tough it out, etc. So I learned to experience the incredible amount and variety of emotions that I feel almost entirely within my own head. It’s no wonder I’ve had such severe bouts of depression and also a lot of experience with dissociation/numbness, and with extreme irritability.

Most of these emotional states are things that nobody can really feel when you keep it all inside, so then that leads to people thinking that you’re even more of a baby or being dramatic when you do talk about how shitty you feel. Because these people don’t see super obvious signs of emotional distress and because you aren’t dealing with them by attacking others and causing scenes and the like, it’s assumed that you must not be experiencing that same degree of distress. It’s fucking bullshit. People need to get better at looking beyond the surface of things because there is SO MUCH there. I think there’s even more beneath the surface than there is on the surface, it’s just that so many people don’t care enough to look or dig deeper. So many people just run away or attack you when you bring up very strong emotions or topics. It’s like almost no one knows how to work with strong emotions in themselves or others. It’s fucking weird to me. It seems more fucked up to me than the behaviors of people who are considered insane or really crazy. I think people become insane or more insane largely because of the fact that it is unacceptable in our culture to express strong emotions. So people have fucked up childhoods or go through traumas, but then are forbidden from talking about it or expressing all that they feel, so of course that just breeds more dysfunction and makes the behavior or reaction become more extreme.

I absolutely love psychology. I cannot wait until I get to actually put my BA in Psych to use. It’s exactly where I belong and it’s exactly where a mind like mine is needed.

 

So I just looked through a couple of years worth of photos I took (of myself during those times, pretty narcissistic I know), and it made me think of a lot. Thoughts that summarize what happened during those years–my 4.5 years at college. Thoughts about what changed and what didn’t. And what lead to me being the person I am now from the way I was at the beginning of my time at college, what influences and circumstances altered and molded me.

I used to be healthier, physically healthier that is. I smoked a lot of weed during those 4.5 years but I also took an entire year off and a few half-year or so breaks from it entirely as well. I experimented with acid and ecstasy. Those things altered me and also helped me to find myself a little bit more. But I won’t say that it was a smooth ride, because it sure as fuck was not.

My small experimentation with acid changed me probably the most in terms of learning the most about myself and what was at the core of me. At first I had a major panic attack/ego death at the beginning of my first trip. I ran to the bathroom when I started to feel severe panic, I puked a bunch, I stared at myself in the mirror, and I didn’t recognize the person in the reflection. I felt separate from my appearance. And I think this was also ego death. Yes it was severe dissociation but it was also the completely shocking and scary as fuck realization that my true self is not my ego. All of the defenses I had been putting up, all of what I thought was my identity, was too centered in my ego.

In a way I think dissociation is not just a response to trauma, but I think it is also a small glimpse into the truth that is: We are spirits, composed of light/love, we are simply held inside our physical bodies, our shells. The first realization of this is so scary, because our egos don’t want us to figure that out, and they fight like hell to convince you out of it, which may be the main source of severe anxiety that occurs during dissociation. Here you are, realizing the separation of your soul and your body, while you have just spent your entire life believing that you are just a physical being.

Acid didn’t make me just freak out, it made me face all that I was repressing, and all that I had repressed for many, many years, came to the surface, and reared its ugly head in the course of a few minutes. It was beyond words actually, and as much as I describe my experience, I cannot explain how exactly it uncovered all of that that quickly. Basically acid forces you to face yourself, completely, and your ego loses the intense control it usually has. The ego’s primary purpose is to keep control, to make sure you reason your way out of anything that isn’t based on reason, so that you can be safe. But this is limiting because in doing so it keeps you from truly changing, from truly viewing things in a holistic way, from letting go and realizing that you are not the center of the universe and there are forces at work that you will never be able to fully explain through reason. It’s human nature to want to explain everything and to relentlessly attempt to learn all that there is to know, thus knowing everything about everything. What people don’t want to accept is that there are so many things that we will never be able to fully figure out or have the answers to. And this scares the shit out of people so they usually avoid it all costs.

One major benefit of using psychedelics is that you can no longer hide behind your ego, you can no longer keep trying to think everything is based in science and reason and facts. It forces you to lose control and to realize that letting go and opening your arms to new experiences and even scary experiences is the key to growth.

Psychedelics are also the reason why I know for sure that at my core I am an artist, a visionary, and a highly emotional/healing type person. When I tripped, after I got past the shitty part, it started to go entirely the other direction and everything started getting mind blowingly awesome. I started to see lines of color coming in from the corners of the room that met at the middle, and these lines of color were both matter and energy, and they were made of the primary colors. They were not only in the room but stemming out of all of the people that were around, and the colors were different in terms of which ones dominated for certain people. One guy that was in the room had sooo much red in his energy field, and I remember telling him that and I think he just laughed ha.

The reason I say that I found out I’m a visionary/healing type person is that not everyone sees these kinds of things when they trip. My trip was incredibly spiritual and artistic, very visual but also very visceral. And this totally makes sense because those are the very elements of my core self. Not only did I begin to draw later on in my trip, but I also continued to draw everyday, just for myself, from then forward for a long time. My work was the most creative it has ever been, the most colorful, the most abstract and full of energy out of anything else I had previously made. I basically couldn’t stop drawing. It was like I realized that art and creating art was such a strong and important part of me, and though this wasn’t conscious, I know I did it a lot because I felt inspired *and* like I absolutely had to express these creations/visuals. I had to capture them, because in doing that I was becoming more in line with my true self. I also got very spiritual after I tripped, and I began to research chakras and meditation a lot. I bought a book on all of the chakras and it had meditations in it for every one of them. I began to meditate every day as well, and I could totally feel my spirit when I did so. I’d feel this tingling and warmth rushing to my feet, and I *felt* like I was energy. I felt like I was so much more than just my body and even my mind.

The interest in Psychology has always been there for me but even though it has to do with emotions, it is still pretty based in reason. There are so many categories and definitions in psychology, and then there are so many logic-based responses to dealing with disorders once they are diagnosed. You are to go to therapy and talk it through, you are to take medication that will chemically alter your brain. Even though Psychology is the study of the mind, it is less connected to spirit than my strong connection to art and meditation. But, psychology has the great intention of *healing* souls. The word souls isn’t used very often in psychology, but it certainly is about healing damaged emotions, and emotions are very much a part of our souls.

So during this whole time I’ve been talking about I was majoring in both Psychology and Art, and I was really getting into drawing and meditating. I didn’t choose the best period of my life to decide to take on the intense experience of tripping, as my family life was incredibly fucked at that time. So initially I had a lot of good revelations and I came more into myself, but then a few months later I began to spiral downward. I’m sure this was for a combination of reasons, but mostly I was just so exhausted, and so not prepared to take on college at that time. I could barely handle my family life. I also felt very isolated at college and at home. So basically I was left to face all of these huge changes on my own. And so I fell apart. Uncovering my artistic nature also lead to uncovering the dark side of my unconscious. There’s no way to avoid uncovering your unconscious feelings when you’re working creatively.

So I began to come down from my amazingly great feelings time to return to what my unconscious contained. There was a lot that was not dealt with well, because I had no outside emotional support and I internalized nearly everything that happened in my dysfunctional family. There was no one to tell me otherwise, and I had no real escape or way to live my own life, other than by going inward more into my imagination. So you see what I’m saying? As I learned so much about my core self and what I was here on earth to do, I also learned just how deeply I had been damaged by my family, and by my long-term feelings of being inadequate, a lone wolf, the one who doesn’t fit in with anyone or anything. So I got very very depressed and was for a long time, I stopped being able to be creative because I was so depressed that I turned numb and hollow. I couldn’t sleep like at all, I felt like I had no identity at all and I lost every single bit of that spark I had previously. I lost that confidence and enthusiasm. I never would have come out of that dark pit if it weren’t for starting Wellbutrin, which I’m still on.

So, identity. That’s what I thought a lot about looking through those pictures too. My identity is so fluid. I could be anyone or anything. I am so many different things, I have so many different interests, I have a couple different selves. Throughout that time I went from Hippie, to Indie, to Formal, to Hippie, to Nothing, to Punk/Hippie. It was pretty much in that order, though I would also change my style and interests dramatically between these various scenes. I would often take on the identity of the people around me. I think I still do that to an extent now, but not as severely as before. I know who I am a lot more now, but I don’t *feel* it as much as I did for that period after I tripped, I don’t meditate or make art everyday anymore, and I haven’t been able to put my psychological skills into use yet either.

I guess I never got to the stagnation element that I intended to write about. Basically I am a very fluid person but I am also rather stagnate. There are some things in my life and within me that have been the same for a very, very long time, and I still don’t know to change those things and struggle with doing so to this day. Then there are the other things about me that continue to change all of the time, and I am pretty fluid in thought and beliefs. I get sucked into people’s stories when I read them, I get sucked into movies when I watch them, I begin to feel like I am those people or I am also a part of those stories even though I’m not. That is part of the fluidity, but it’s also that I am very empathetic and highly sensitive.

Ok this post is way too long, but I hope some people read it. I think I will be writing in here more often.