Sometimes I get to thinking about how long I’ve lived in this apartment building, I didn’t see this as a place that I‘d be stopping over in for long. I have lived in two different suites but it isn’t like that changed the day to day happenings of the residence.

When I moved in here, I was only 22 and already had so much furniture the place almost didn’t fit it all. The landlady was old and creepy, already in her 70s. She’s still alive, but barely, she isn’t the landlady anymore and she needed to be put in a home ages ago but she wasn’t, she still lives next door. She falls a lot, I helped get keys one day when she was trapped in her place. I thought she was going to pass over Christmas; they had to bust her door down to rush her to the hospital. When I got back from Bali at the end of last month, she was still going.

We’ve had the strangest relationship, myself and Mrs. E. We went from despising each other to the point that I used to write hilarious blog posts about her, to realizing that I’m actually closer to this woman than I have ever been [was] to any of my grandmothers. I see how sad that is; it isn’t like we’re all Tuesdays with Morrie close, but when you consider the fact that I have lived in this building for twelve years, longer than I have lived anywhere in my entire life and have spent little time with any of my family outside of my parents, to me, it makes perfect sense.

I can hear loud, strange sounds and coughing coming from her place, nights are the worst, listening to someone slowly dying. I don’t know what normal numbers would be but a number of residents have died since I’ve lived in here including one Gus Greeper and another of them being Mrs. E’s husband. He used to smoke out near the hallway, tucked away in the stairwell, where the smoke would billow, it couldn’t escape properly and it would hang in the air and seep under my door. Many tenants tried to have it stopped over the years but you just didn’t mess with Mrs. E when she was landlady, oddly you still don’t mess with her and she hasn’t been the landlady for a couple of years. Sometimes the smell of cigarette smoke will wake me up out of a dead sleep and I will swear it’s his ghost. Sure, my bed is directly under the window but I smell it when I’m awake in other parts of the apartment at random times as well.

This is a woman who came into my locked apartment when I was literally naked from the waist up, uninvited, and WOULD NOT LEAVE and now I’m SAD she’s dying. I would say that her NOT having keys to the suites anymore with her retirement has strengthened our relationship. I don’t think I will ever understand the majority of her behaviour but the life progression that she has seen me make from 22 to almost 35, well shit, I’ve gone from cops at my door to so calm it can be creepy. Let’s not fool ourselves of course I still have a temper. I remember one day years ago after we’d had a row, her muttering under her breath, “not a nice girl, not a nice girl.” That is a post for a different day, but even little things like that, when at the time she was just as evil, make me sit back and actually take a moment to be proud of myself.

I’m not even the longest standing occupant, there is a dude down the hall who lives next door to my old suite and I know for sure he has been in here longer than me, he gave me a book on farts one time, and my neighbours on the other side of the suite I’m in now out resident me as well; their bed hits my bedroom wall while they’re having sex. There might be one tenant on the first floor as well but I’m not 100% sure. A few people have come and gone that I’m still in contact with but for the most part, as with almost everything else in life, I keep to myself.

Of course I don’t know whether Mrs. E will die alone in her apartment or whether someone will put her in a home, where I suppose she could also die alone. There is no happy ending there. But I remember being upset in Bali that I might not get to say goodbye. I’ve gone through so much living in this building that my shrink doesn’t even think living in here is healthy for me and even though Adam and I outgrew this suite before we even became an Adam and I, I’ll always have devastatingly fond memories of my extended stay in The Mansion.

We just got a rent increase, it’s balls.

Other than the fact that I felt like I was going to burst into tears over the cat looking at me sideways it turned out to be one of those days where everything sent me into hysterics, which was good and bad. I already had a massive headache and was bloated and felt disgusting overall and wouldn’t shut up about it, but that is still better than it going the way of feeling like my blood is going to boil out of my body.

It isn’t uncommon for us to spend large amounts of time laughing but I was still thinking – “what the fuck is up with me, I almost never get this hyper.” When I went to bed I figured I’d sleep like a log, I hadn’t napped that day and was tired; having felt like crap all day sucked and I was in no mood to accept that laughing is good.

Sleep didn’t come, night sweats on the other hand came with a fucking vengeance, I deduced that it was still payback for forgetting my medication, although in my not fully sleeping but sort of dreaming enough that I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the soaked sheets and clothes haze, I could tell that there was something else wrong. I was feeling numb in my hands and I wasn’t so much dizzy as it just felt like every time I moved I could hear and feel everything around me moving with me. I ass-umed it was related to the migraine side of it all and went back to tossing and turning in the damp gross sheets. As IF I would ever do it, but Adam has always said that I can wake him up and that he will sleep in my night sweat area, fucking disgusting but sweetest shit ever.

When I got up in the morning I felt horrible. The numbness was still coming and going from my hands and I was finding myself pretty creeped out by the whole moving my head and then hearing almost a whooshing sound going by, not to mention anxiety shakes central. I can’t remember what clued me in, but I jumped off the couch, grabbed my granny style pill holder and let out a nice loud FUCK ME when I discovered that my pills for Sunday were still sitting in the wee compartment. No wonder it felt like my fucking head was going to fly off my shoulders which would have at least cleared up the problem I was experiencing with my lips going numb.

I instantly started to tweet my disdain for myself and my carelessness whilst trying not to freak out because I was feeling seriously ill and other than taking more than one extra milligram of clonazepam, I did not want to mess with anything. I figured it was better to suffer it out than to take two or three milligrams only to have a longer recovery period.

I was basically a walking public service announcement for what not to do; I’m still quite frankly floored that not only did I forget my meds twice in one week but within that proximity. I’m not a defiant person with my medication, I will go off medication that my shrink puts me on if I don’t like it, but I have never ever just stopped taking anything cold turkey.

I felt so bad I was worried it would carry over into Tuesday and I’d have to miss a gym session, missing my workout on Monday was piss off enough but my equilibrium was fucked. I did chuckle over the one part of the email my shrink sent me which said: “Problem with effexor is when you miss doses you can feel extremely unwell.” That much I had fully figured out. Got it.

Thankfully, the really nasty side affects only lasted into the evening, Tuesday I was still a bit off balance and we did have to modify my workout but I was still able to go, and today I’m pretty tired but back on track. At least I didn’t go nuts. I have to admit I was a little worried about that, I thought I would be super depressed today actually but other than napping for a few hours I still feel alright.

This little fuck-up made it pretty clear to me that I am doing the right thing coming off all of this shit, granted I wasn’t trying to rush it, the next official drop isn’t until my next refill but whoa man holy shit I hope in the mean time that I don’t do that again.

Doesn’t so much matter what happened but for the first time ever on Friday evening I admitted on Twitter that not only had Adam and I had a fight but that he wouldn’t be coming home that night. Many people were very quickly very supportive and I can’t thank you enough we are both very lucky to have the friends we do. Sometimes I just get to a point where I don’t care, if people want to pretend their marriages and relationships are perfect fine so be it that works for them but I think it is unrealistic to think that an eight year relationship / [almost] five year marriage wouldn’t have a few hick-ups. Since last July, we’ve been going through the first real rough patch in our marriage and I’m quite frankly tired of pretending everything is fine. I don’t feel the need to elaborate further but I do feeI that I needed to be honest with myself about it. At this point all that really matters is that we want our marriage to work.

Friday evening also brought the horrible news that a friend had again tried to take his life. This is a friend who I’ve visited in hospital before, someone we both care for deeply, but for me when they get to the point of hospitalization there is a part of me that sometimes shuts down, I simply cannot handle it and I feel physically ill. When you are dealing with friends who suffer from depression and you yourself suffer from depression and have tried to take your own life on multiple occasions, in some cases you have no choice but to protect yourself first and immediately pull down the oxygen mask, but in others you have to put the triggers and nausea aside and step up to the plate walk into the fucking ward and visit or in this case you and your husband who you’re not really talking to spend the day following day with them.

It took a few hours for my body to relax on Saturday, for me when I hear someone say something to the affect of “a few people would’ve missed me, some I’d really hurt, most not.” I can’t deal because already losing someone to suicide was by far the worst pain I have to this day ever felt in my life, I know for a fact that any variation of that statement is bullshit. And from the most selfish place in me I won’t lose another person that way, I fucking won’t. But I also won’t not be friends with someone or abandon them because they suffer from something outside of their control.

And so today I’m freaking out a tad and feeling yet again unaccepted for my depression because I tweeted my feelings today and was instantly unfollowed by someone I’ve met so yes, I take it personally. Now, let me be clear, if someone doesn’t want to follow me on Twitter I’m fine with that, long gone are the days I’d freak out, I didn’t even understand social media back then, but fuck it, whatever, that was until today because you know what? If you know the person, even if you don’t like the person show some fucking tact, wait a few hours, don’t make it so glaringly obvious how big of an asshole you are. I get it, not everyone wants to see people who suffer from depression talk about their depression but that’s actually kinda funny too, because most people will keep following the person who suffers from Cancer and support their battle but unfollow the person struggling with depression. I’m trying to calm down and relax I obviously know I’m not in this bad of a rant mood over Twitter, I’m honestly sort of amazed I cracked this soon, normally I can hold shit it and make it a fuck lot worse before I explode so I guess I’ll call that a baby step in the right direction of feeling the feelings.

I know that I have mentioned how I’ve been spending a lot of time this year learning how to feel for real again and sit in my feelings and that my medication(s) were being dropped, but I’ve never said how much or what exactly, for some reason that is one of the areas I do find myself keeping close is how much medication I take. But I feel that I’m working so hard at present yet fucking up left, right and centre, I’m feeling discouraged but I’m not ready to give up on myself, I dropped a lot and it took a long time and I need to give this a shot. It is clearly affecting me right now and in some ways I’m really struggling to find out who I am and what the fuck I’m doing. This does make perfect sense to me though, it just doesn’t make figuring shit out any easier.

I was taking:

Seroquel 275 mgs – 200 at night, 75 in the morning with the rest below
Effexor 150 mgs
Clonazepam 4 mgs
Gabapentin 500 mgs

What I’m taking now:

Effexor 150 mgs
Clonazepam 2 mgs

I look at that and don’t even know how I functioned, it is no wonder I’m having some issues getting myself on track, and feeling overwhelmed by feelings. On one hand I know I’m being too hard on myself even in the areas where I’ve made a complete fool of myself but on the other hand, shit seeing it in writing I still can’t not be proud. It was at the end of May that I took the last of the gabapentin, I can’t remember when I took the very last 25 mgs of seroquel but it was this year, my last prescription [beginning June] of clonazepam was the first one filled at 2 mgs.

Even when I was on that extreme amount of medication I would still get depressed and I’ve been trying different combinations for years and nothing was working, I was tired and sleeping all the time so it was time for a big change and that change was basically attempting to take life by the balls. In some ways I’ve become more reclusive and closed off than ever and in some I’ve opened myself up too much and gotten myself smashed in the face with short lived friendships where there seemed to be potential but in trying to navigate new situations in my life I’ve found I’m getting carried away easily and where I have completely learned how to not over share in certain areas I’ve now found myself still pushing people away by simply over sharing in new previously not over shared areas. Right, that wasn’t the point of that exercise, I’m re-evaluating and starting over on that one.

Given that I’ve always cherished my alone time I also didn’t realize until very recently that spending so much time alone with Adam having been away working for months now [only home on weekends] and the fact the he will be gone for a few more that spending THIS much time alone is starting to bring out behaviours I’ve never even seen in myself before and they are proving to be extremely unhealthy and damaging to me. It isn’t that I don’t have people to spend time with, I have loads of things I could be doing but being on less medication hasn’t really changed my leaving the house problems and that has unfortunately always been one of the harder things for friends to be supportive of.

I’m thankful that I make a point not to regret things in life even with the fuck-ups I’ve made that I can’t yet laugh at, they do make me wanna hide in here, but even on the really really bad days I know how hard I’m working even if it feels like I’m losing more than I’m gaining right now. I told myself I was going be to be gentle with myself today when I went to bed last night because I deserve it and woke up kicking the shit out of myself, it has taken me most of the day to calm myself down but I did it. I haven’t ended up being that gentle with myself today, but I still set the intent and I will set it again for tomorrow.

I feel locked up inside. I feel like over the years I’ve been able to put a positive spin on most of the really dark periods that I have shared but I’m just not seeing the lights or feeling the positives at this very moment. I haven’t lately and I’ve been sinking into a deeper and darker place. Pulling the same shit I always do, letting people know I’m hurting but not letting them actually near me but of course completely over-sharing just how fucked up I am right now with at least one almost stranger who is only putting up with me because they are paid to.

I get that I’m in a transitional place right now and that those are never easy but I still feel so far behind on everything too old to be having the problems I do in life. I’m tired of being afraid all the time but I don’t know how not to be. I don’t know how not to fear success. I don’t know how to not sabotage every single possible good thing and or person that could and does come into my life. I don’t understand why anyone would want to be around THIS. This unpredictable, socially awkward, and currently, lately crying mess.

I know that some people do understand and do care about me, but at times I still feel like I am simply too much for everything and everyone. I thought that after eight full years of psychotherapy that I was ready, how could I not be, but it feels like I will never get better or be ready for anything. It isn’t like I haven’t been doing the fucking work and sure I get it, things don’t happen over night, but this is ridiculous. I’ve made it to eighteen sessions with an athletic therapist / personal trainer, taken yoga back up, been riding a bike in and out of the gym, been working out in the apartment and I don’t feel any better. In fact, I fucking feel worse about myself and where I am and who I am, and I’m extremely confused by this. What the fuck is wrong with me. I’m just about ready to give up, investing in myself doesn’t seem to be working, it seems to be sending me a message that I’m not worth it. I should have known, the truth about me is written in my blog, in my own comments right there for the world to see by my own family.

When I think about the fact that Adam and I have been together [including the dating years] for almost eight years and that he has never seen me run a race it triggers more than just not having been able to run, it also triggers the loss of a person I miss. It is one thing that I have always struggled with depression, it’s another that since developing anxiety back in 2002 I became a person I despise sometimes when I really let myself go there. And given that my brain feels like it is in an emotional firing range right now I suddenly feel like I have absolutely no idea who I am. I find that I am thankfully able to draw from the eight years of psychotherapy that has brought me to this place where I can attempt this reemergence to a life outside of my apartment. But I use draw from lightly, I couldn’t have imagined if I’d tried just how emotionally challenging taking on a few new life goals was going to be – ready or not.

I was prepared to deal with a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, I have major daddy issues wrapped up in running. Pushing my fathers voice trying to remind me that I can’t do it and that I’m not good enough out of my head during my sessions at the gym, during yoga or sitting on my ass thinking about this process isn’t nearly as easy as pretending I don’t have to get over it.

When I’m allowed to run again, I will be running through all of those issues and I know it’s going to be painful but I also know it’s coming. What I wasn’t prepared for was to be plummeted into relentless anxiety, some days it feels like too much is being triggered by this. I’m acting irrationally but at the same time not, a lot of shit has been happening in the last while that I have no control over. I have control over how I react to it, and I have let my emotions get away from me a few times, but I’m also realizing I’m dealing with so much more than I originally thought I was. I did not realize just how true it is that muscles don’t just hold many memories but that they hold them in the most hermetic of places.

I’m going to stay on this journey even though it is currently kicking my ass because I believe I made the right decision in starting it, I believe that all the tears and painful memories that are surfacing will only make me wiser, stronger and faster when I do hit the pavement and race again. I’m simply struggling with how big of a tempest it has brewing with my emotions, the fact that working out and working with an athletic therapist isn’t currently transferring over in a positive way in regards to my depression or my anxiety is also causing me a great deal of stress. I’m trying to remember that right now I’m in therapy and that therapy on any injury is painful but I feel unmotivated and depressed and getting to the gym is a workout in itself and some days other than proving my father wrong, I don’t know what the fuck is keeping me doing this.

Last night my friend Airdrie lost her best friend and her husband while the Vancouver blogging / social media community also lost the same great man, Derek Miller passed away after a valiant fight with Cancer.

Today is one of those days where I grapple with the magnitude of blogging and just how much someone can touch you via words on a screen. Nothing tangible, no pages to turn.

Before 2008, I knew of Derek, I read his blog I followed him on Twitter, I admired him greatly; it was hard not to given how open he was about his battles with Cancer. #fuckcancer

At the beginning of March ‘08 I took a lot of pills and went across the street for an off-sales bottle of wine and downed it which sealed my lackluster attempt at a suicide and I found myself in the hospital. I’ve never denied how selfish of a disorder depression is. And although I received a great deal of support, more than I could have hoped for given some of the circumstances, when I came upon this post written for me by this man that I respected for his strength, courage and his fighting spirit – trying to put into words what it meant to me is almost impossible. Someone who knew they were going to die, someone facing eminent death took the time to reach out and publicly support me. I found it to be and still do consider it one of the most selfless things anyone has ever done for me.

I met Derek that following December, I b-lined for him when I saw him so I could finally thank him in person. I’m glad I have this photo below, my social anxiety kept me from most events where I would have had an opportunity to have gotten to know him better.

photo courtesy of Raul on Flickr

I end this with great sadness he is gone, with sincerest condolences to Airdrie and to the rest of his family and friends but also from a place of peace knowing that he touched so many people.

You can read Derek’s last words here, if you experience technical difficulties due to traffic there is a cached version of it located here instead.

And last but not least #FUCKCANCER.