Oh that's right...I'm supposed to be keeping up a blog...

I'm having a really bad day today.

It actually started yesterday. I was twitchy all day and then it settled down into deep depression around evening time. Now I am extremely depressed and anxious. My heart is palpitating and my hands are sweating on the keys. I feel like it's all I can do to keep breathing. I feel like I want to scratch my face until it bleeds, or scratch my eyes out with my fingernails, because that would be better than feeling the way I do: like a big cramp is in my belly and there's no release for it. Or like I'm trapped in a narrow box. Or maybe it's not a narrow box at all. Maybe I feel like the world is too big and threatening. I don't know how I feel, actually. Just that it's very bad.

Maybe it started when I saw my pdoc last week. He told me straight out that there was nothing more he could do for me medically, but that I had to start challenging the strictures I've put around myself. Set myself more of a routine and follow it. Find things to get me out of the house. And I think he's right to a degree. I've been a slacker. I have sunk down into the comforting quilt of depression and let it and the anxiety rule my life. But the thought of getting out is totally overwhelming to me. The thought of running my life by some clock brings me to tears. That, says my pdoc, is what my therapy should be focusing on.

I think of the things I would want to do if I wanted to do anything and I start screaming inside. It's that terrifying. I've been burned and I'm afraid. But the pdoc says it's time to come out of the burn unit and into the recovery ward, so to speak. he says that's what normal people do. They get burned and then they move on and it's not a big deal to them. Their lives aren't destroyed if they find themselves entangled with dysfunctional people and/or groups; they just disentangle themselves.

Of course, there are complications. The first one being that I'm NOT normal. I have a mental illness. Excuses, excuses. But it's true: I do have a mental illness and sometimes things that other people take for granted are just too overwhelming to me. I think about taking a bath today and I want to burst into tears. Sometimes it's all right once I get going: once I get into the bathtub or actually start doing whatever it was that had me afraid. It's the anticipation that drives me crazy. I don't know what that's about either.

There are other complications. One being, we live in such a small town I've already tried everything there is to try here and have not come out too well doing any of it. I don't like or trust any of the people here. I have no transportation to go anywhere else. Plus, I don't want to get into situations that might put me in proximity with the Toxic One. Is that so bad?

What would I want it I wanted anything? I would want to write again. I would want to play my flute and sing and dance. The thought of all that makes me want to throw up.

I am trying. I have started by setting my alarm every morning and getting out of bed by eight, instead of sleeping until ten or eleven. It just makes me see how empty my life is. How all those hours have nothing in them. And trying to put anything in them...it makes me want to weep. i think it would be easier if I really could weep, but the drugs have taken care off that. No more tears for me.

I guess all I can say now is, I see my therapist this afternoon and I need to see what she says and what our course will be.

Got nothing more today.