..Since I've been able to write anything. And I figured that it was about damn time that I took a moment to post an update, just to let the world know that I AM, in fact, alive. At least somewhat.
How have things been? Strangely turbulent.
I hit a bad spot. My health was really not all that great, and it just kept getting worse, breaking my body down, and it took its toll on my head and my mood. Slowly, that old depression of mine was starting to rear its ugly head, which made it rather hard for me to function properly, and I had to focus all my strength and attention on trying to fight it. This was sometime this spring/early summer. I was barely getting by, and it took pretty much all I had to keep my head above water. The fibromyalgia is hard to live with, and I'm still learning to adjust to it, and the way it just kept destroying my ability to be me was... Well, horrible. Everything in my life got put on hold, all the work on my apartment had stopped - which left me living in the middle of absolute chaos, due to the apartment being half-way under a complete renovation - and I basically stopped living for a while. I didn't go out, I didn't have any contact with people, and even my online life started to dwindle away. It was hard, but I was managing.
Then something happened. An old friend of mine that I've known for years, and whom I've always cared about despite him having moved away from town so I rarely got to see him, just suddenly disappeared. I had no idea, cause none of his friends or family thought to let me know, so about a week after his disappearance, I got a text from a friend we had in common, telling me that he was missing and asking me to share a link on facebook that she had posted. I went into complete shock, and of course I immediately went to share that link (it was one of those "this person is missing please share this link to help find him/her" links). After sharing it, it didn't pop up in my news feed, and I got this weird panic, so I called my mum to ask her if she could see the link I shared, and as soon as she answered her phone and I attempted to talk, I just broke apart. I cried that entire day. It's odd, though, cause I never thought I'd react like that, but I suppose you never really know how much you care about someone until they're not there anymore. Him disappearing really made me realize how much I treasured his friendship, and the talks we used to have on the facebook chat, and the way he seemed to understand me in a way few - if any - did.
I suppose his disappearance was just the last straw or something, cause I just tripped over myself and fell down, and I just couldn't get up again. I started falling apart, and no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't seem to repair myself. It was a really rough period for me, dealing with my health - both mentally and physically - and constantly checking the news to see if my friend had been found, while trying to appear at least somewhat normal to the world around me. The only thing that kept me going at all was an online RP I was in with a friend of mine from the US, and just generally chatting and plotting with her while RPing. Without that to focus on - and obsess over - I'm not so sure I would've managed to stay alive, to be honest. I fell into a pit I haven't been in for years, where I caught myself wanting to leave this world, and it was scary. Really scary. And it scared me so much that all I could do was obsess over a simple RP, to the point where the rest of the world just kind of disappeared, and I refused to pay attention to anything else. It became my lifeline.
Eventually, I got the message that my friend's body had been found, and that someone had been arrested in relation to that, and that there was suspicions that he had been murdered. Which, of course, was another blow, and I fell even more apart. Not only was he dead - gone, and with no chance of me ever seeing him again - but his death hadn't been an accident. It was really hard to swallow, and in the end it had me fleeing even deeper down into my obsession for the RP and my own little world in general, just to try and keep myself alive.
I'm trying to think back on it now, and I can really see that it was a really bad period, cause right now I can barely even remember those months, and I tend to do that when I'm in a bad place - I make the memories go away. It's all just a blurr, really. A lot of things happened this summer, and most of it is just gone from my head. I know I went down south with my brother to attend a convention called Desucon (that was an amazing weekend, by the way, and one I'm gonna treasure for a long time), but that's about it. Most of my summer is just gone.
Then, after changing doctors for the nth time, I finally got the help I needed, and I got started on some medication for the fibromyalgia that was going to take some of the pain. Which it did, actually. Just after a couple of days I noticed the difference - in a lot of ways. I finally slept at night - the meds doubles as sleeping pills - so I woke up earlier than usual, feeling rested and strong, and the pain was almost gone. Suddenly I had energy again, and things were really looking up. I had an amazing vacation in late June where I went down to Barcelona in Spain to visit one of my absolute bestest friends, and it was an amazing vacation that I really, really needed. Just being away from my life, taking it easy and not worrying about things for once, it really did me a lot of good. It was also really great to be able to spend time with an amazing woman, and her fantastic husband, and the two of them are without a doubt two of the most fantastic people in the world.
However, while I was away, I came to realize something about my life that just really hit me pretty hard; I'm not happy anymore. Something's wrong, and it's causing me to be unhappy, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. I found myself not wanting to go back home to my life again, and I considered just taking off and disappear somewhere instead of getting on that plane when I left Barcelona, and I considered this more than just once. That's not a good sign.
But I went back home, and luckily, my amazing family had some pretty awesome surprises for me regarding the apartment that really cheered me up, so the thoughts about leaving vanished. And with some help, I got around to continuing the work on the apartment again, and I made a very significant improvement on it. Focusing on the apartment helped distract me from the negative thoughts I was having, so for a short while I was doing okay again.
And now we're moving into autumn. The weather's getting colder and more wet, and it's getting darker out, and it's affecting me in some bad ways. It knocked out my body again, and started eating on my mood, and things stopped again. Which is where I am now. I've just had the meds doubled the other day, so hopefully that'll pick up my body again so I can start sleeping better again and the pain will go away. I've gotten a lot done in the apartment, but at the moment things are on hold for various reasons, and I'm trying to focus on nice things that can keep me distracted. I was in the middle of moving my computer into the bedroom, but things stopped in the middle of that, so right now I've got this temporary solution where it's been placed on the livingroom table. It's not ideal, cause this means I can't spend a lot of time on the computer, since I'm sitting in a position that makes my body hurt a lot, but I have nothing else I can do. I need some electric work done in the bedroom (so the computer actually has power), and I need to get some cables so the computer can actually have interwebs (and I can't afford that right now), so until those issues have been solved, the computer is stuck where it is.
This means no computer-related work, and no real online life, and it also means that I'm not able to focus on the RP that has been my lifeline for so long. I'm basically stuck in a bad place where my health - both physically and mentally - isn't doing all that well, and I don't really have anything to distract me. So, what I've been doing lately is getting lost within a series I fell in love with, called Fringe, as well as doing some work on my project by doing some minor sketches every day. It's not much, but it keeps me floating. And that's pretty important right now, cause I'm close to sinking. Way too close.
I'm slightly depressed, I can feel it, and my head's being weird with me again. I've had a couple of episodes where I've forgotten where I was, or who I was, and the world suddenly became strange and alien, and unreal, and I've seen things I shouldn't be seeing, cause they're not real, and it's frustrating. I'm not scared, like I used to be, cause I'm used to this now, and I know what's happening, but it's annoying. And frustrating. Especially since I've started feeling that pull again. That annoying pull, like something or someone's calling me, and I have this really strong urge to do something - but I don't know what. It feels like I have to find something, or someone, or some place. I don't know. I can't really explain it, cause there's just this weird feeling that I have, but it's really strong, and it's getting stronger, and it's bothering me. Mainly because I don't really understand what it is. Either way, I'm realizing that I'm not doing so well. It's not like what it used to be, all those years ago when I was at my sickest, and I doubt I'll ever end up back there again, but it's still iffy. I know I'll get through it, and that I'll be okay once I do, but right now I'm still in the middle of it, and it's hard.
Have I talked to anyone about this? No, not really. I don't think anyone even knows that things are bad, cause I've kept more or less quiet about it. It's not that I want to hide things from people, or that I'm ashamed, or too scared to get help, or anything like that. It may sound weird, but I really feel like this is something I need to handle on my own. And if I tell people, they'll meddle and try to help - which is nice, of course, and I'm grateful, don't get me wrong! - but right now I don't want anyone to help me. I don't want anyone to meddle, cause I think that might just confuse me instead of help me. Whatever's going on inside me right now, I need to figure it out on my own.
I'm working my way through a dungeon of some sorts, and I need to keep the controller in my own hands while I'm playing through this. Even though it would've been nice with a walkthrough, or having someone else give me some tips, or even taking the controller and helping me passed some points, I really feel like that would do more harm than good in the end. I mean, if I can't manage to fight these smaller enemies I'm struggling with on my own, then how the hell am I gonna make it passed the boss and get out of the dungeon? It's as simple as that.
I guess the point of it all is that yes, I'm not doing okay. I'm in a bad spot, and I'm somewhat stuck. But I'm working on it, on my own, and it has caused me to step back a bit, and not take part of the world, and I'll keep it like that for a while. I'm still alive, I'm still here, and there's no real need to worry about me, but I need time. Time to myself. Time to figure out how to nagivate through this dungeon of mine. Just give me that time, and I'm sure I'll be fine.
That's all.
