Jealous
[jel-uh s]

adjective:feeling resentment because of another's success, advantage, etc. (often followed by of): 

 

I guess this is best way to sum up my feelings the past little while - and I hate it.
I've never been a jealous person. I've always appreciated what I have/had and made it work. I always understood, coming from a lesser fortunate family, that some people have more than others. I also understood that that not necessarily meant that those who had more worked harder or earned it any more easily than those who worked hard and had little.


It's always something that's in the back of my mind when I'm with co workers [especially in my current profession] - that they tend to understand very little of what they say and perhaps don't even understand what the world "entitled" means. They complain about things that I find laughable["I hate this. I'm going to die. My dad won't get me the new iphone!"]. I'm counting change to see if I can afford groceries for the next week.

If these people were under the age of 18, then I would be more sympathetic to their plight, however, at their ages, they should have a better grip on the world. I certainly know life had kicked the shit out of me by then.  But it's not their fault necessarily if they have never had to fend for themselves.
I am currently the ONLY individual out of 52 people who currently provide for themselves. 100%.
I have no significant other to lean on, no one to ask for help [though, I know my friends would be there in a moments notice if I needed them - but I would never ask].

Normally I can shake my head sadly and leave the room but the holidays bring out a whole new beast.
Today was the 26th. Despite being extremely ill, I would never let me co workers down and took to work the best I could muster despite it killing me. I tried to smile and be happy and ask about everyone's holidays. I heard the phrases "I got so spoiled!" numerous times and then a list of what they obtained from family.
I try to avoid those types of questions since I know the natural question for them to ask me is: "How was yours?! What did you get?!"
The answer?
I was bed ridden with the flu for 48 hours straight.
As for what I got?
Nothing but the roof over my head and the bed I slept on that I worked for.
I don't NEED things from people; nor do I want them.
I would never accept something from my family because I know how hard they work to make every single penny they have. I can't imagine wanting them to spend it on silly things I can easily get along without.
I love them enough to NOT want anything from them.

Of course, you do know my answer is always: "It was okay" in reality, I smile and proceed with my day.
Because that's who I am.


There is another sore spot in my side [aside from all my muscles being pulled due to vomiting] and that's hearing about everyone's amazing relationships.
It's not their fault and I will fain interest until the end of time because it makes them smile to talk about it. To share all the greatness that they have in their hearts.
I don't know if I can feel that anymore.
I'm trying.
I am actually dating someone at the moment...or at least I think we're dating? Are we?
It's hard to tell.
I was excited to spend the holidays with him since I had never spent the holidays with a boyfriend ever in my entire life [I've always been dumped pre holidays].
I was even excited when he informed me that his family is Jewish. There's a bit I need to learn about that.
That aside, he informs me that he's made plans to leave for the holidays. I kinda felt a pang in my chest but it was to be expected.
He also made these plans way way prior to meeting me, so that, again, is not his fault by any means.
it just meant that it was another holiday alone where my tree sits presentless.
I saw all the cute photos and things that my fellow co workers and friends recieved from their others for the holidays today. Some of it would make you want to vomit in your mouth and other things were just....okay.

NYE is next on the list of big fucking deals of 2014.
Mine? Well, it appears that it will be alone this year again - but not entirely since if I follow through with my plans, I'll be in the company of good friends. For once, I just want to dress up pretty in a nice dress, nails...hair...the works! And dance until the countdown starts where I can look that person in the eye and kiss them at the count of 1.
That's never happened. Ever.
Last year I was close...I really was.
Until the fellow I was dating left me waiting with NYE tickets, all dressed up out in the snow for 2 hours and never showed.
Never called.
Never texted.
Just abandoned me there.
If you knew me, you'd know that me and abandonment are pretty good friends.
But that's a whole other story.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I hate this feeling.
I don't like not feeling happy for what other people have - to not share in their happiness. It's unlike me.  I really need to take time to reflect and find out what it is that's REALLY bothering me. It's not them. I know it's not. It's something in me. 

 

Lets hope for good things ahead...I'm pulling my optimism and making a list of things I'd like to do and see in 2015. And by god, I"m gonna check off every single one of em!

Amanda Palmer: The art of asking

When I first heard about this book being released I was beside my self with excitment.
I have been a fan of Amanda Palmer for years and have adored everything she's released. I have followed her through controversy and even had a friend try to spot together enough to afford one of her parties on kickstarter [poor folk can't easily pull together $5000]

I always listened to her songs, loved her lyrics and felt that there was a connection.
A solidarity in our understanding even though we have never met. There there was an understanding among the ideals of dealing with depression, being medicated, self harm and even as far as body image struggles.
I felt a sense of being not so alone when I was physically completely alone in my struggles.

I was excited to read this book hoping for insight into her song writing, the stories and experiences that created the words that made me feel like they were written FOR me. As I'm sure so many other people around the globe have felt.

The book opened with the Amanda Palmer I know - blasting into the face of the norm and screaming for a tampon in a bathroom.
I enjoyed her fearless nature and always suspected it came from a place of hardship where she had been force to overcome.
And I read on....

The initial point of the book is talking about love and about asking for what you need - that the universe will provide. All you have to do is ask for help and accept the help that is offered.
Great, that can be summed up in pretty much less than 100 words.
But I read on and was even more excited when I flipped quickly through and saw certain song lyrics had been included...she MUST discuss them...right?

As I read I started to see something.
She was not, in fact, from a broken or abusive home as I had felt she may be.
No, quite the opposite from my understanding while reading. I was starting to become worried.

I read on.

Here's where it actually started to fall apart.

Pg.93
"You probably don't know who Edward Ka-Spel is. Edward Ka-Spel is the singer of my favorite band, the Legendary Pink Dots"

There was something about this tiny bit of wording that made me close the book and just stare out the window of the public transit. Wait. Did she just talk down at me? Assuming I must be some moron kid who isnt' involved in music? A bit of rewording could've changed how insulted I felt..like "Ever heard of Edward Ka-Spel?" and then going from there.
Maybe I was being sensitive.

I read on.






There's a lot of blah blah blah about Neil Gaiman [who is an author I quite enjoy but care very little to know about]. 
How fortunate she must be to have NEVER been alone in the entire span of her life -unless it was her choosing. To ALWAYS have another person to fall back on, to lean on, to ASK for a embrace when needed. Someone to cry with and share with.
She has NEVER experienced what being alone is really like - but maybe I'm judging too harshly.

I read on.

Pg.124
"...my relationship with my body is pretty healthy. I've never been massively overweight or underweight. I've never had an eating disorder or any kind of body dis-morphia. I'm pretty comfortable with myself."




I'm about to throw this book right into the fucking traffic and be done with it.
Who the fuck IS this person?!
I have that mini paragraph floating through my head as I walk through the mall doing early xmas shopping. Looking at all the images in the stores, the size 0-6 only places and can't help but realize that I have never been able to fit in any of them.
Realizing that being 100% comfortable in my skin has never been an option. That living with a mother who suffers from severe anorexia has left me a self hating mess in the ideal that "fat" people are "lazy, worthless" and undeserving of love.
So you hide and you eat more.
It's the one thing that makes you feel normal - that you can do that doesn't make you weird.
Being full also makes you feel a sense of being almost "hugged" from the inside. You're still alone - but at least you're kinda normal - even if you do eat your lunch in the washroom stall at school.
Or if you feel embarrassed grocery shopping because you always believe people are judging you and thinking "she doesn't need to be eating that!"

But no, no...not Amanda Palmer.
Nope. Never felt physically judged.....

She's losing me.

I read on...reluctantly. I just want this over.

Pg.280-281
[regarding a fan named Yana]

"...I'd spent time with her, true, but I'd never walked around with her in public where people stared.  I noticed the way people looked at her & her four-foot-six stature as she moved through the world. I wondered what it must feel like to have the gaze of the world fixated on you because of the shape of your body. Inescapable."





"I thought about all the shit this girl had had to go through in her life, the ten operations, the stretched bones, the medications, the people staring in the park, the bosses and coworkers....

...You and I have one giant thing in common, Yana, and I just noticed it.  Have I ever told you about my marriage problems? Or how I refused to take money from Neil until Anthony got sick and I had to cancel this years tour?" [I'm going to give you some reference background. Firstly, Yana is a fan that Amanda got to know early in her career who followed her from show to show. In this situation, Yana is in a fucking emotional breakdown over losing her job because of her obvious physical limitations and how she's refusing to accept welfare because she considers herself an educated and capable person]

This ENRAGED me.
Ever know that person who has to fucking one up everyone all the goddamn time?
That's Amanda Palmer.
She's the friend that you dont' really want to go to because they'll always hit you back with "that's great, but listen to this thing that happened to me...."
All of her "I love everyone" ideal that she's shared in this book and with the media is as transparent as fuck.
How can you even equate a fucking issue about taking money from your rich husband to a girl who's done nothing but spent her life suffering and surviving and trying.  Who is strong and will to keep pushing?
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

I bit the inside of my mouth and make the decision that I should just put this away before I get angrier with the person she's turning out to be.
That my disappointment was gaining on the situation and even though it's just a book written by someone who doesn't know [nor doesn't care] about me; I started to really feel alone.
I started to realize that all the lyrics are fiction.
That I'm actually not relatable to anyone.


I read on.

It's 1am.
It's almost over.
I feel pretty shitty actually and think that all the reviews that I read by "fans" claiming this was a "positive life changing" book and rated it a 5-star were written by people who just looked at the pictures.
Did any of them actually read this?


Pg.282
"...I had a hard time look at at it without remembering that each bag, according to the doctor, cost $10,000. It always made me think about my friends without health insurance, and how hard I'd fought my parents when, just getting out of college and broke, I hadn't wanted to pay for my own. The battle lasted months. They wound up offering to pay half of it. I resented it but paid for the other half. God, I was so cavalier when I was 22...."
That's it.
I need to burn and rip this book apart.
Let me understand this; your mommy and daddy were still paying your fucking health care when you were 22?!?!!? When I was 22, I had moved across the country with a duffel bag on a fucking greyhound alone to pursue my dream. I wasn't sponging off my parent [notice that's not plural?]


The majority of this book is simply her talking about how great she is.
What an amazing trailblazer she is.
What a feminist she is.
What she really is is insecure.

She tries to make you feel empathy for her by talking about her supposed "heartache" over situations that she has created in the media.
Yeah, writing a poem about the Boston Marathon is in poor taste - especially when the wound is that fresh.
Yeah, you made over a million dollars on a kickstarter. People are going to be skeptical about the money - especially when you dont' pay "volunteer" musicians. What did you think the media was going to do with that?
And she keeps wondering why people are seeing an issue with her utilizing the kickstarter platform. Well, she is correct in her statement that everyone has the right to use it.
True.
But normally it's reserved for people who don't have another option to reach out and ask for help.
She COULD have a label...if she wanted. She's CHOOSING not to.
Those other artists aren't making that choice to be independent in most cases.

Regardless, all this aside; I finished it.
I sat it on the floor and kicked it hard under the bed.
It will stay there.
It will collect dust there.
I put away her CD's, her LPs and all the things I have purchased over the years.
I even deleted her from my itunes. Including even Eveyln Evelyn.
The connection is gone.

I'm breaking up with you Amanda Palmer.
We're just from different worlds & you can't relate to mine.

My life & Cipralex

Let’s start by starting at the beginning of how a medication came into my life and why.
For the majority of my life I have suffered with depression. It was only until about 2-3 years ago that Anxiety joined the team.
I’ve always been a social person and crowds were often were I felt most comfortable.
I loved being surrounded – the hustle and bustle.
But it seemed that everyday boarding the train at the station was harder and harder.
I found myself breathing faster, I found my heart racing and perspiration pushing its way across my forehead. I would start to go into a full blown panic.
And, I’d have to get off.
I would do this sometimes up to 5 times before I was able to “suck it up” and push through the train ride to work.
It started to take over everything I did.
Simple things like getting in an elevator were nearing impossible for me. It came to a head in the summer when I was visiting San Francisco. A beautiful city that I fell in love with instantly. Most of my time was spent alone, and I went adventuring. I was enthralled by the idea of the aquarium and made my way there.
Everything was fine until I was met with the elevator and the fact that most of the interesting exhibits were on the bottom floor…below the sea….in the dark. No escape.
I really thought I could handle it.
I got on the elevator. Started to breath quickly and the panic didn’t fully set in until I was on the bottom floor, and simply could NOT get off the elevator. I was trapped.
It was by far, my most embarrassing attack. In front of staff and 100s of visitors including children.

Couple my anxiety with the thought that perhaps I had no purpose in life – and you have a disaster.
I found myself fantasizing about death constantly. I had no sense of fear and secretly hoped that maybe I would merely fall off into the tracks one morning. It almost seemed better than trying to actually board it since I knew my anxiety had other plans.
Oddly, anxiety is about fear – and when you hit depression like I had, you really have none. So it causes quite a problem in your brain.

After years of struggling and trying alternative methods, I sought help from my doctor.
She asked the question – “On a level of 1-10, where would you place yourself with regards to your depression?”
I sat at a pretty steady 3 most days.
Which, isn’t good.

I left the office with a 3 month prescription for Cipralex and a variety of pamphlets telling me that killing myself is a bad idea. Something I was already fully aware of.

So there’s where it started – my journey on Cipralex.

For the first bit I felt amazing. It was great to not feel entirely like shit every day and it was nice to be able to board the train calm. If I had to rate myself out of 10, I was an 11.
I was doing AMAZING.

But there’s something else that started creeping up.
What happens when you don’t feel anything? Nothing at all? No excitement. Nothing.
It starts to get weird.
Part of me was enjoying my new sense of not giving a shit about anything at all. The other part was scared that it might have an adverse effect.

After 3 months at 10mg I was still doing well.
There were a couple of things that were bothering me but the side effects at that time were nothing compared to what I was experiencing prior to the medication.

During the time I was fortunate enough to meet an amazing man. He was everything I had been searching for and more. Entering into a relationship while on Cipralex was different than anything I had experienced before. I knew I was excited and I knew I had feelings but it was so hard to actually FEEL them.  It was starting to become a problem.
I then found out another startling side effect.
To anyone else who is on this medication, I know this is an issue for you. I read 100s of forums about it.   Sex drive? Orgasm? What’s that?!
Questions I’ve never had to ask myself before.  He started to get frustrated and I could sense it. Almost as if he was trying and trying and feeling that maybe it was his fault that nothing was happening for me.
I had to reassure him, but the damage was still lingering in the back of his mind.
He’s not good at hiding things like that.

Another thing that started to play a role was how tired I was all the time.
I mean, I could sleep for 15 hours, wake up and need to go back to bed. Getting up for work was becoming more a hassle than it was for me even on my most severe days of depression.
I found myself canceling social engagements – one after another just because I simply didn’t have the energy. I wanted to feel badly – but well, my medication was making sure I wasn’t feeling anything at all.

It all came to a head this past Monday.
I had just spent an evening with my boyfriend [who works out of the city so I only get to see him every 3 weeks or so] of which he left for work feeling like I was losing interest in him. He tried having a conversation with me about it, but felt awkward. It was hurtful to see him feeling that maybe I wasn’t as involved in this relationship as he had hoped since it’s the complete opposite.
I'm crazy about him, in every way. Why do I feel like I can't show it sincerely? Where's that glow in my cheeks? That spring in my step that I was feeling in my heart?

I weighted all the pros and cons of both being on and off Cipralex.
I found myself almost fearful of going off of it since I had read that there were people who suffered severe withdraw symptoms. I often wonder if perhaps they were on a larger dosage.
I also found myself feeling afraid of my anxiety returning but I had to think about the trigger to my anxiety to begin with.
The thing that initially started that spiral was no longer an aspect of my life. That part was long gone now and I can't help but wonder if that situation hadn't occurred if maybe I might not have had an anxiety issue develop. But that's an entirely different story.

At the end of my list, I came to the conclusion that I would rather feel something than nothing at all. And I started cutting my dosage down from 10mg to 5mg.
Today is my 5th day at 5mg.
Honestly? I feel great.
I feel that I have more energy - that I'm more productive. I got more done yesterday, that I did for an entire two weeks prior.

I'm considering stopping taking it altogether starting Monday - that's in 2 days.

The point of me writing this is to share my journey and my thoughts and also to get some feedback on your experiences on the medication.
I put out a call to see how many people I know who are also currently taking this medication and I was shocked by the number. At least 1 out of 4 people I know are currently prescribed Cipralex.
That's a scary number.

I'd love to hear about your experiences, both good and bad.


UPDATE:
Figured this was worthy of an update.
With regards to the medication, I am still on it. And back to 10mg.
My doctor was disappointed with my choice to lower my dosage without consultation.
Not much longer after this was written, my BF came to visit from work. Things weren't the same and I had been informed that much dishonesty and possibly infidelity was taking place.
After he returned home from out weekend, I never heard from him again.
No returned texts.
No phone calls [answered or phoned]
Facebook disabled.
He simply disappeared.
I was left here empty, confused and alone.
Of course, I will forever blame myself for some wrong doing.
I'm sure I deserved it somehow.