Anna’s Adventures

The psych said:

• I seem calmer, more relaxed and happy
• Like I’m in a more adult relationship - something capable of equity, egality, exchange and balance
• She likes my tattoo, and the painting which I showed her

I didn’t tell her about the secret squirrel stuff yet though. Shhhhhhh!

I’m a bit weirded out by the idea of being in an adult relationship (with nf, myself and the world at large) because it means:

• I have to offer something
• I have to carve my own roles, which is harder than just accepting the ones I’ve given
• I need to fill my own time, and expand out my own desires - w00t!!

Arrrrrgh! Now after all that time - 3 weeks of excitement and flirting and loving and being radiantly floating, I’m down to earth and seriously afraid of the yoke again. Or maybe I’m just bored and look around, and its the only thing in the corner of my room.

Solution: I need to get out more.

Forever is a long, long time. I really don’t need to rush things, do I? Though at the same time, I really do need to keep focused on what is happening to me right here, right now. I need to keep having fun. I need to stay in love. I need to be with sweet people.

Kal told me that just like other people with a disability, I need to improve my other sense to function in this world. Yes, ok this is true. I told him I felt vulnerable to being high, and he invited me out drinking - twice. The first time I was very “charming” and flirtatious with everyone and it got to the brink of being socially unacceptable. The second time was much more intense.

At the end of the day, I have mild BP 2, which leaves me sometimes out of control (high or low) but usually able to ask for help (though not always to get that help).

I am able to ask for help. I asked for help, I received a rebuke. I suspect that some part of him is punishing me.

I am alone, and I am lonely. Kal’s not talking to me for various reasons (most of them being that I was pretty awful), some of them being my hypomania is something he can’t deal with, and one of them being the others and him suddenly having an other to think about.

So I’m alone. I never think I’ll feel lonely until I am alone.

However, now, the lonliness is something I’m trying to deal with by myself, not to just plug up the gaps with other people. I’m doing Anna-things that make me happy. I’m filling my days with me.

I’ve had a thought about a photographic artwork based on the tale of Bluebeard’s wife.

Ok, I’ve been going mental. I’ve known that I’ve been going mental. Here’s how I know:

• Some weeks ago, i stopped eating good food. I stopped cooking, and stopped having breakfast, I stopped eating lunch at work, I would come home and snack on a frozen yoplait. The big indicator is when I made myself some gluten-free pasta (a failsafe favourite) and just couldn’t eat more than a mouthful. When I did eat, the only things I could get through were ice cream and flavoured milk. I also started to totally ignore my gluten free diet.
• Drinking. Along with ignoring my GF diet, I’ve been ignoring the “no drinking” rule. Its OK when I can stop at one glass, its OK when I am not high, but when I am high, I just knock it back like water. This has only been for the last 2 weeks.
• I can also drink 4 cups of coffee and not feel its effect on me. Normally, I can feel one cup.
• Not sleeping much, but still being able to function. I’ve been staying up until 3am most nights reading, but then still getting up at 7am. The thing is though, that I don’t get up at 7 and wash or eat breakfast or get to work early. I just get up and start reading again.
• Showering less. Bleagh. I do it at the gym, though.
• I decided to get another tattoo as soon as possible. I don’t know what, I just want another tattoo. Luckily I’m not organised enough to act on this impulse.
• There’s this booy at work that I’m starting to like. There’s this friend of my boyfriend that I was flirting heavily with. There’s this friend of my that I slept with the other night. I’m compulsively having sex.
•  Buying things on impulse. For my birthday I got some money. I decided to save for 2 extra weeks and buy a new laptop (and give my old one to mum). But on my birthday weekend, I bought a new wireframe wardrobe. Now, I needed it, and its a very good one, but it was totally on impulse and against my plan for the money.

I can see myself doing all of these things, but I just can’t seem to stop myself. I’m running, running, running. My legs are shaking because I want to move, move, move. Now, I need to get back on my seroquel (the doctor said I should come off it, but now I’m thinking this is a mistake).

In therapy this week, we talked a lot about recognition. Its been difficult for me in my life to find recognition, to find peers, to find people who understand me and accept me.

Classic clever-child syndrome, perhaps.

Then tonight I was talking to someone else, with whom I feel a certain affinity and realized that I get a tremendous amount of recognition from Kal. He and I see eye to eye on many things. We see one another (often with painful consequences, often with delightful consequences). The first long conversation I ever had with Kate was a moment of recognition. Both Gifted children, we had lots of history in common. Thinking now, I probably held on to Souvarine and his fams so long because of that same sense of belonging and recognition.

Am I letting myself be abused unnecessarily for the sake of recognition? Currently, I think no. But I will look out for it in future.

Yeah, something else I forgot to recommend: the rough-sponge depression cure. Kal tought me this one, and it works real good.

When you are down, do the following:

• lie down, taking off as many clothes as you can
• ask your special friend to grab a clean scourer (the silver and gold ones are great)
• ask them to gently (or not so gently) rub all over you with it

The scrubbing stimulates blood flow, and the scratching actually stops your brain from focusing on how wretched you’re feeling.

Anais Nin reported when she underwent psychoanalysis that she had less of a desire to dress ostentatiously. I am feeling a similar lack of need to blog about my feelings. It always happens when I am feeling better, my diaries suddenly go unfilled and then I later find myself scouring for answers as to what went wrong. But the answers aren’t there.

I believe that I should make efforts to keep blogging. I need the record, if for nothing else, then for my memoir. Tee hee! My life, so interesting to thee.

I have betrayed my mother. I talked about her in my psych sessions. I talked about how we relate, and the mother / daughter relationship we’ve wrought. Funnily enough, these talks have made me approach our relationship in a different way, with a lighter touch, perhaps. What will I talk about next week? I think it will be love. Kalypso and Kate…Souvarine (whom I have missed terribly of late); letting go, hanging on, continuity, and platonic love of my cat. Miao.

Tonight I spent the evening snuggling, giggling and confiding with  Moonbeam, Magical Moonbeam! Life, loves, bipolar, sex, meds, community and queeritude. So nice to nibble noodles and nuzzle with a friend.

I went to the GP today, and “yay!” no STDs for Anna! She asked how my BP is going, and I was happy to say “very well”. I am finding that going to the gym is working, and I’m going to start with my sister’s personal trainer (who is a very sweet person, oh yes). I am boxing, cycling, treading on the treadmill and doing weights. I feel amazing.

It looks up.

Things are different.

I am slower, mentally. I don’t have enough room in my head for all the things that I used to have time and space for.

I’ve been worried that I don’t have the same mental capacity as I used to. I’m certainly not encouraging myself to get creative. Though I am crocheting, which probably does count as being creative. Maybe I’m being a bit hard on myself by expecting to be purely engaged in being creative and productive.

Meanwhile, my brain is on sex overdrive. My dreams are invaded by tales of handsome young fellows, and Kalypso attends my waking thoughts. I miss him terribly in many ways.

In fact, I miss several people and I’m hardly going out any making new friends. Though I am going out to the gym, which is a brilliant way to spend time.

I did make it, with Kate, to the last ever Rocky Horror Picture Show Audience Participation night at the Greater Union. It was rad. Though, it starts at 11pm, and I didn’t get to actually sleep until about 5am - just because my sleep-wake cycle was disturbed. I meant to go out this evening with S, but fell asleep at 5pm, and woke suddenly at 10:40pm. Bleagh.

My last session with my psychologist went really well. The next one should be interesting - I feel like I’ve broken through some kind of resistance or self-knowledge barrier. More news on that soon.