I which I basically complain a lot.

So, I know I don't put anything up in here, ever, it seems- and honestly, I wouldn't be posting now if my phone hadn't gotten turned off- but as it is, I really feel the need to vent and this is where I've got to do it. I apologize in advance.

First things first though- Jade, if you are reading this, wanna send me an email at some point and let me know how you are? I was going to call you Thursday morning, but that's when my phone went off, and my internet has been spotty so AIM is sort of out. o_0 Sorry.

Ok, now, on to the bitching. Feel free to stop reading now.

My brother moved in with us. It's been much better than I feared it would be, but it's still hard. He's much more restrained than he was a year ago- which is very good- and I know he's trying very hard, but the stress of him being here is starting to get to me. I worry a lot about when he is going to finally go off because I really don't think I could deal with it, but I try so hard to make it seem like I'm not worrying about it because I don't want him to think that I am constantly doubting him. The strain of finding the right balance with him to avoid a blow up is starting to wear me thin. I'm trying so hard to be pleasant with him and yet not come off like I am placating him. He doesn't like it when people don't do as he says, but he doesn't like it if you come off apathetic and he feels like he's the only one who cares one way or the other. He doesn't like it when people seem to wary around him, but he doesn't like it when people challenge him, and again he doesn't like it when people come off as not caring one way or the other. Since he's been here I feel like I am walking a very thin plank, praying that I don't step too far in either direction lest I fall.

I also think it's been a bit difficult for him to accept the things about me that are different than he seems to remember- which must seem like a lot since he didn't really know me before I moved anyway. He hasn't really known me since high school. From little things like my lack of finickiness with food- he just cannot wrap his mind around the idea that I will eat anything, even if I don't like it- to my open approach to sexuality and my sarcastic/innuendo-ridden sense of humor. I had a conversation about my social anxiety problems with him when he first got here, and while I don't think he fully understands how bad they are, I don't think understands me having them at all. In many ways I think he still sees me as the unshakable kid I used to be, the one who could take anything you threw at her, let any caustic remark roll right off her back, always willing to step in and make peace often at my own expense, and always willing to put other people and their needs before my own. These days, I simply do not have the mental or emotional energy for that sort of thing, and I think that bothers him. He gives me weird looks a lot when something comes up and I react differently than he expects.

I think the hardest thing, though, has been that when he's around I feel... less worthy? That's not really the right phrase for it, but it's the best I've got. I don't complain about anything anymore because I don't feel like I have a place to be complaining. My phone is off for the second time this month, effectively cutting me off from just about everyone, but as I don't have a job, and hence no money I don't feel like I ought to complain about it. I do anything anyone asks of me because I suddenly feel like I'm just not doing enough around here. I spent the last three days cleaning the house just because Michael made mention that the floor needed a vacuuming. If my brother or father do something to hurt my feelings, I just let it go because I feel like I don't deserve better. And if Michael has gotten gas, smokes, and money to go out while I have been cooped up at home, alone, with half as many smokes as I would normally have, I've not said a thing because if I want to be able to go out, if I want smokes, if I want anything, then I should figure out how to get it for myself like a normal, functioning human being.

I know what my faults are, and I know that sometimes I am harder on myself than is really healthy, but since my brother has been here it feels like both those things are tripled. I need a job. I know I need a job, and a month ago a felt like I was really working on getting myself prepared for one. Now, I feel like I'm just not doing enough. I feel like I need to bite the bullet, be a big girl and just go fucking get one. I can't use any of these 'excuses' any more. If I can't get a ride to work, then I'll just have to walk, no matter how long it is or how long it takes me. If I have anxiety attacks, even panic attacks, then I just need to learn to deal and work through them. My father can't afford for me to go to a shrink, let alone for anxiety medication for me, so until I get my own job and can pay for them myself I'm just going to have to deal. And if I loose my job because I can't deal, then I'll just have to get another one. And another after that, no matter how bad it may look on my resume. At least I'll be working, contributing something, anything, to my own situation.

That's how most of me feels right now, but part of me, one little part that I had finally started to learn to listen to, that part is screaming at me that all of that is desperately wrong. That one little voice in the back of my head is telling me that if I couldn't even deal with going to school for a full day with out having a panic attack I am not going to be able deal with the pressures of working. Sarcastically sneering at me that of course I should push all of my issues to the back burner and just push and push and push through them because that has worked so well for me in the past. Begging me not to do it it because when it all starts out swimmingly, as it always does, and then I finally crash and burn, as I always do, there won't be anyone there to pull me back and save me from myself, and lord knows I've never been good at saving myself.

But I just- I feel like none of that matters. I feel like I'm just plain wrong, that I'm obviously just not trying hard enough, that at 22, almost 23, I should be able to fix all these things and the fact that I haven't been able to just shows that I'm weak, lazy, unworthy.

And I'm scared because I really, really, really don't want to end up where I was an year ago, two years ago, hell even three years ago. My father kept telling me, and I just didn't see it until I started to back slide when my brother got here, but I really have made a lot of progress in the last year. I never want to feel like I did a year ago again. To be honest, I don't know if I would survive it. I'm not suicidal, not at all, but when you wake up every morning feeling like you honestly have nothing to live for it's really hard to find the strength to do anything to keep yourself alive. I just don't know that if I reach that cold dark place I lived in for nearly three years that I would be able to crawl my way back out. It was so hard the first time- so very very hard. Painful and terrifying and it took all my strength to do it. I just don't know if I could do it again. I'm desperately afraid that I couldn't. A person can't live like that, they just can't. Eventually their soul will just give up and they'll... just cease to live, and soon there after, so will their body. I know, I was almost there the last time.

It's going to sound really really stupid when I say it, but what finally had me fighting back last time, what got me to decide to move out here and fight tooth and nail to get my life, a life, any life back, was just that- fear that if my soul gave out one more inch, my body would follow. Laying on the floor of my room, too tired to care that my stomach was cramping too much for me to stand because I hadn't eaten barely anything in over two weeks, light headed and the room spinning around me, and knowing that if I just closed my eyes and went to sleep I could just die like that, and not even caring. I almost did. I almost gave up right then, focusing only on my breathing and thinking that it might not be that bad to just go to sleep and let what would happen happen. I honestly didn't care- I didn't want to give up, I didn't want to stop trying and die, but I didn't care if it happened either. At that point I didn't have any attachment to my life- my life wasn't mine anyway. And you know what? It's wasn't the not caring if I lived or died that scared me into doing something. It was when my stomach a gave another painful lurch and I whimpered, but it wasn't my voice. It didn't sound anything like me, and I suddenly remembered that I hadn't spoken a single word in over a month. That's what did it, knowing that my voice sounded like that from disuse. Knowing that I could change that, that I could get my own voice back, and if I could get my voice back, then god fucking damn it, I could get my life back, too.

That was in August. By the end of September I had found my voice again, and was doing everything in my power to find my life again. By January I was moving 1300 miles away from everything I had ever known, trying to find myself again. But it was so hard. It was so very very hard. And I can feel it brewing again. Over the past year I've learned what to look out for as I've tried to fight it back time and time again. It's like this dark, cold cloud in the back of my brain, just waiting for the right moment to wrap me up in it again. I don't want that to happen, and I don't know if I could stop it if it did.

I know that pushing it all aside and trying to steamroll through these things isn't going to work, but I don;t know what else to do, and the longer I stay like this, the more I feel like I'm just falling into one more trap in my mind.

And today, today I feel like crying- and for the stupidest reason, too. I feel like crying over the god damned Super Bowl. I had thought, stupidly, that my father, brother and I were going to watch the game this Sunday together. Nothing special really, just the three of us watching a stupid football game, eating munchies and most-likely, generally being bored and boring. Sadly, I was kinda looking forward to it. And then today my father told me that he and Mike had been invited to one of my father's friends' houses and that it was a 'guy only' thing. They didn't even bother to ask me before agreeing to go. And my father had such a fakely-apologetic look on his face when he told me and I could tell that he really wanted to go, to do something just him and Mike, guy time or something, that I just smiled, nodded, and said pleasantly "No worries". I told him that it was fine, that I didn't mind at all, laughed and said that as long as he got me some munchies for the game I would be fine. Basically, I bald-faced lied to him. And with my phone out, and having to pay for the house phone minute by minute (and not having a job to pay for the minutes myself), I can't even call around to find something else to do that day. So I'll be sitting at home, possibly munching on so Tostidos and drinking cream soda, watching a football game I really have little interest in if I have to watch it alone, while everyone I know is doing something fun. Or at least, something not alone.

This is the fifth time something like this has happened since the year began- that I got my hopes up even just a little about something so small and mundane, only to have them dashed at the last moment. And it shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but it does. It hurts, and it makes me not want to get my hopes up about anything at all because even these simple little things tend to go wrong and leave me feeling like crap. It makes me want to cry, which makes me want to read a lot of fanfic, which scares me because I know where that leads, and it's never good. And there's not a god damned thing I can do about it right now. All I can do is smile and nod and repeat what seems to have become my mantra- "No worries"- and hope that no one sees past that. Because no matter how far I have come over the past year, emotions still feel like weaknesses, and weakness scares the hell out of me because with my mind and my life I really can't afford any more than I already have.

I'm really tired now, and I really can't think about all this anymore tonight, so I'm going to go to bed. I was going to apologize for bitching so much, but I know who does and doesn't read this blog, so I'm not going to bother, because I know that however much Jade may worry about this entry- which was not my intention at all- she'll be happy to see anything at all from me.