when the time comes to plan for a baby do i slowly ease my way of meds be4 getting pregnant or can i stay on them or setin ones. i know i will have to tell my gp doctor obvusly when the time comes. but im just curias to now how it all works. has any one gone through this already had to come of meds or stay on why pregnant. and dose it afect baby. do they come out as adicts. whats the go. im cyclythymic bp. any one have there stories that would help me pleaseeee.

Imagine yourself on the side of a road, your car broken down. A man stops to offer you a ride to the next town. You agree due to lack of choices. You don't have a phone, no one knows where you are, no one is expecting you, there is no one that can help. You sit there and look at the man, wondering if he's going to rape you or help you, and you prepare yourself for both, playing nonchalant while aware of every little gesture or tone that might signal danger. Frightened, alert, alone and not safe. Always not safe. That is how it feels for me in every human interaction.

Lack of trust, and lack of a sense of safety, this is why it is easy for me to hitchhike through foreign lands (and one violently disputed territory), I'm used that level of vulnerability.

When I was 15 I ran away from home. I took clothes and money, left a note not to worry, off for an adventure. I ended up at the runaway centre for youths. I spent a few hours there before my mum came to take me home. I sat on an empty bed and saw the other girls, my age and a little older, crass, blunt, angry, hurting. I felt safer there than I did at home. I wanted to stay the night.

I dont feel safe because there is no real safety. That sense people have of safety 'it won't happen to me', under representing and under valuing the dangers of their actions and a general air of -it'll be ok, what's the worse that can happen?
That sense- is a lie. Parents lie to their children in order to build and maintain that sense of safety. Hide the realities of life, their own helplessness and the dangers around. I was not lied to. I was told the ugly truth from the get go with vivid details. Life is full of pain, misery, disease and cruelty. People kill each other, beat each other, use each other as objects for their own satisfaction. People cheat, betray, lie, hide and hurt each other. And on top of it all- there is random pain, suffering, loss. Bad things happen all the time. Maybe if I wasn't alone it wouldn't be such a burden, but how can I trust anybody enough to be able to go to sleep next to them and not prepare an exit plan just in case?

The dangers of life are even more pronounced for someone as volatile and as sensitive as I am. Sitting across from someone angry on the bus can feel like being screamed at non stop. That ticking hand and the clenched jaw, the angry shouts and accusations are almost audible. Having someone stare me up and down in a sexual manner can physically feel like being groped by a stranger.
People cannot be blamed for their emotions and experiences, nor is it their fault I am so sensitive. All I can do is try to protect myself as best I can and treat everyone as potential abusers. Because they all are, whether they want to be or not.

Let's start this story from the beginning, shall we?

The very beginning, then. Way back. Back before this body was even born. Even before our parents were born. Let's talk genetics.

I don't like to blame heredity, but I have to at least acknowledge it. My living blood relations number in the single digits. When asked to do a family tree for school in order to point out who had a genetic tendency towards certain things- like heart disease, or liver failure- I discovered for the first time that it was rife with a generous helping of sordid details. Addict died of overdose. Psychotic stabbed in the throat by another patient in the psych ward of the hospital. Bipolar drank herself to an early grave. Successful suicide. Both sides of my family were soaked in mental disorders.

At the time we had to present our findings in class, we had five living blood relatives, our family tree just cut off after three generations due to adoption, and I dryly told the class that I had discovered a preponderance of 'Chronic Early Dying Syndrome' in my family. Nobody in those three generations- on either side of our family- had lived past sixty.

Since the time I gave that presentation, that number's gone down to four. Grandpa shot himself in the head a couple years ago. What a fun summer that was.

So, just to start, let it be known that while I'm more generally on the side of the 'nurture' debate than the 'nature' one- that is to say, I'd like to believe that there aren't people born into this world that are just 'born bad' or 'wrong', that there's more to it than that- I am still forced to admit that we might have been passed down a slightly structurally flawed box of building blocks to work with when piecing ourselves together.

But we did. We pieced ourself together, the result of a one-in-a-million chance that that one sperm hit that one egg just right, and fused and came together, and then there was this. This person, this me, instead of any one of countless other possibilities. And we were born, and the world was so big and bright and fascinating, and we loved life. We really did.

But then the nurture side of the debate kicks in, and from day one, we were screwed. We were screwed because our father was a genuine, grade-A psychopath, and our mother was his submissive-codependent, and even if you ignore the genetics of that it still doesn't sound exactly encouraging when you're just this new little life come onto the face of the planet and you're oh so soft and oh so trusting.

Let me tell you a story. A story about a little girl. I'll call this girl Ellie, for the sake of the story. It's as good a name as any other.

When Ellie was little, she didn't know she wasn't like the other children, because she'd never seen any other children. She didn't know that walking around naked was a strange thing, or that other children did things like complain about what they were fed, or that begging for toys and candy was normal. Her daddy didn't like her going outside of the house, because inside was safety and outside was hell. It was bad outside. It was evil outside. And if you went outside, you could get infected by the evil, so good girls didn't go outside. Daddy knew how to protect himself from the evil, so he could go outside to work and bring back the shopping, but Ellie couldn't. Not until she knew how to protect herself, too. When Ellie asked why mommy stayed inside, too, and whether or not she could protect herself, daddy just said that she had to stay because she was a good mommy, and Ellie needed someone to stay and look out for her and watch her, and a really, truly good mommy would be there to look after her daughter's every need, so she had to be there all the time.

Ellie didn't know there was anything wrong with that, because she had never been outside, so she didn't know any better. Daddy was the one that she and mommy depended on, in order to protect them from the evil outside, and go to work and bring back food, and she loved him....

[ Continued ]

I had to go to the doc for the scorpion sting :\ It became swollen and crap, even after 2 weeks, and it was getting worse. They gave me antibiotics and prednisone. The swelling is gone. It is getting better, but that stuff has turned a previously semi-stable emotional state into a roller-coaster. I am having to take a lot of it, 5 pills, and I guess that is why. My mood has just been swinging so much, like it does in past situations, except there isn't even any cause for it, it just swings rapidly and randomly, and it sucks.

I have been thinking back about the prom-girl a lot, and feeling like crying, etc. Nothing has been able to counter it, and it sucks.

Anyway, I know I have said something about going to a psych soon for basically the whole time I have been on this site, but I actually have convinced my mom to let me go to one soon. We agreed I will go sometime this month or next, depending on working around finals/class and everything.

I have been taking ritalin for the past week and a half, and it is great. A really great thing. I can't explain how great it it. It is like total control over my mind. I love it. There was some really good feeling at first, but it has worn off. The control still remains, without the euphoria, and I am glad since the control is the main thing. It is like complete internal peace, I can do and think whatever I want. I am running out, though, so I am going to have to stop taking it every day, didn't take it today. I am not noticing a withdrawal, although there is normally a rebound right after it wears off for about an hour.

I am being careful not to take much at one time, trying to avoid the 'high' feeling. The results have been great, a large reduction of stress. I can come home, get done what I need to do, and then actually just relax and play some games or something, and I never have to worry about if I will be able to get my work done, and I am able to enjoy things I do for fun without the constant thinking/worrying about other things.

It is also helpful for social anxiety.

I went to eat lunch with my chem class after lab the thursday before last I also had some conversations, like without any kind of nervousness or anything. It makes it a lot easier to just stand up to my fears, almost to the point where I don't understand why I was so unable to before.

Still, it doesn't really make me any more extroverted. I am so entrenched as being "quiet" that if I were to suddenly start talking to people, I think it would look strange. It is hard to tell exactly if it is fully solving the problem because of this.

I feel really uncomfortable about taking something without prescription, though, and I hope that the psych will give me something equally effective (I will try anything but a SSRI, not going to go in fishing for ritalin, just try to be honest and see what they think I should have).

I am really excited.

The phenibut does nothing useful for my anxiety. I tried up to 2.5g, and all it does is make me go to sleep for a long time or feel dizzy if I stay up. Didn't do anything at college except make me feel like the world was spinning the whole day. Good for if I want to sleep for 18 hours with crazy dreams, I guess. I wish I could feel what everyone always talks about where it is so great, but I guess I am kinda glad so that I don't become addicted.

I have been watching a lot of Hitchcock movies recently. I am on the last few episodes of Monk, and I don't want to watch the last ones because I don't want it to be over. I have started watching the Walking Dead at my Dad's house, and it is pretty good.

I am excited about next semester: Calc II and Calc based Physics. I hope it will be interesting. Right now I have statistics, and it is so, so boring. I guess I shouldn't complain since it is easy, but I am ready to have something challenging, even though it will require a lot of work/though....

[ Continued ]

All of my other social networks have been compromised. It's not fun. It is because I simply can't remember all of their friends. I should never have agreed to share a facebook with them. But silly me. It isn't that I am mad at them, of course. I am just, regretting that I placed so much love into that facebook. It locked us out, because we friended so many people who did not know the Host. Silly people. Oh well...

Not that I am going to begin to use this site as a social network. Only for relaxation for the time being. This site is mainly for medical aid. Just, posting things that I would not normally be able to say, well, that's my medicine. It calms me.