Chachachachaaaanges

Changes are so stressful! I've had a ... not good, but not very bad summer. I've felt lonely and isolated. I've missed Sweden. I've dealt with psychiatrists that did not give a flying flunk about me, my feelings, my experiences and my thoughts. I've mostly been indoors. But I've been with my darling. I've been in love. I've been carefully dreaming a little about the future instead of only trying to shut all thoughts up. I've been feeling hopefull. Now fall is here and it brings storms of change, good change but still stressful because it's change.

It's difficult when you have a lot to do and remember, and your brain just sort of shuts down. I get to keep some functions. I can cook, even though I get really stressed if there's anything that doesn't go according to plan. I can worry about stuff. I can make stuff even though I also make a mess. I've been patching my infinity skirt the last couple of days, at the moment I'm on patch number 20 for this specific round and there's still a ways to go. It makes my back ache but I want to get it done. I've been making some cards and spinning some yarn and carving some stamps.

And I've started thinking about Christmas! Mmmm Christmas. I still love Christmas. Even though I've experienced some shitty ones.

More specifically I've started to think about what I should get for Chris. He's a super tricky guy to shop for.

And of course having several panic or anxiety attacks every day! Woop! Fun stuff!

Anyway, I'm going to bed.

good news everyone

It's ten thirty and I'm feeling tired.

Feeling tired is pretty unusual for me and feeling tired before midnight... I can't remember the last time that happened. I can't explain how good it feels to quit my meds. I'm not saying anyone else should but being medicated has not really been helpful for me lately. Since three years or so I've been super depressed and super medicated. I have no idea how this will play out, but this completely unexpected tiredness is nice. I also don't feel scared of going to bed, which I usually do. (Because of the anxiety you know? Lying in bed, in the dark, trying to turn off the chaos inside, trying to ignore the black sticky tentacles around my neck, trying not to think, not to feel...)

I'm pretty sure it should be the other way around, placebo or not. I wonder if Iv'e been nocebo-ing the negative effects of the medication, just as I might now be placebo-ing the positive effects of not being medicated? I still feel a little bit of abstinence dizziness and stuff from the old meds, the new ones probably didn't have time to start working properly. But I've taken so many different pills and I really need to know how I work without them. My life has changed dramatically many times since I started taking them... (checks back in the blog archive) since march 2011 I think? Or was it later? April?

That's not three years. That's four. I might have been saying "three years" without actually counting for almost a year. Huh.

Gods it's depressing to check my blog archive. I was so hopeful. Everything was dark and horrible but I honestly believed that it was passing, waiting for it to pass, believing that every day that was not horrible was the start of getting better. Every time.

I still do. I wonder if this insane, unfounded optimism is the core of my problem?

Det blir inte bättre. Varför blir det inte bättre? Varför mår jag sämre och sämre? Det skulle ju bli bättre? Alla lovade att det skulle bli bättre?

"It doesn't get better. Why isn't it getting better? Why am I feeling worse and worse? It was supposed to get better? Everyone promised that it would get better?" - june 2011

Okay. I started taking anti anxiety meds in july 2011. After months of waiting to even see a doctor. I didn't get any regular contact with any doctor, I didn't get any therapy, I didn't get SHIT until... Today? Maybe? I had my second meeting with my new shrink today and the first one doesn't count so yeah, I crashed in march 2011, got medicated after four months of pure fucking horror and since then there's been a whole lot of pure fucking horror.

I've always been sensitive. I pressed myself beyond my limits back then. I tried to be a good girlfriend and boss and those things are probably - maybe - possible to be but it's hard to be a good girlfriend to someone who hates you and a good boss when your own bosses expect you to do impossible things just because they can't be assed to handle the sales department... It's a long story, feel free to go back in the blog archives to around june 2008, or actually even further, to august 2007. That's when a very strange night ended in broken bones. There was two nights, almost a year apart, that still affect my life. I used to joke about tequila shaping my life but I don't really do that anymore...

If it hadn't been for that broken collar bone, if it hadn't been for not being able to work, if it hadn't been for what I did instead and who I met, if it hadn't been for the job I got and the person who inspired me to leave Sweden, if it hadn't been for Ireland, if it hadn't been for that party at my house in Cork, if it hadn't been for that t-shirt, if it hadn't been for that night and all the insane stuff it lead to later, if it hadn't been for those stolen moments in the elevator at work and all the lies, if it hadn't been for that empty year, if it hadn't been for that unexpected email, if it hadn't been for my hopeless optimism and trusting nature, if it hadn't been for the economic collapse and what it meant to me professionally, if it hadn't been for so many small, separately meaningless details coming together and making my bad decisions seem so right... If it hadn't been for everything going to hell at once! And then just never getting better. Then... I don't know. If one of those things had been a little bit different. Then maybe my life would be too. If he had left the party early. If I had remembered my bike. If...

Iv'e been down this road so many times. Too many times.

Now it's an hour since I started writing this and I'm even more tired. I don't feel bitter. Everything that happened happened. No reason, no fate. It just happened. And now I'm here, back where I started, broke in the south of Sweden. But older and in a really nice apartment where I get to paint a landscape on my wall.

With a lot of important people still in my life. And a lot of new important people also in my life. And I have no idea how I feel or who I am anymore.

Whatever. I'm pretty sure no one has the time or energy to read all of my insanely long rants from the last few weeks and this is definitely one of them. So I'm writing for myself now. I must be going through stuff or whatever. Ugh. Who cares.

I think it's time for bed.

What a weekend

On Friday I think I partied for 11 or 12 straight hours which is unusual for me! At least the last few years. I was at a mingle event and met an old friend, ate amazing sushi at izakaya koi, drank wine and irish coffee and weird grogs at Kalle's place and went to a party where I met a lot of new and exciting people! Some of whom I later had a fantastic night with.

On Saturday I was pretty hung over but it was a good day anyway. Today is my mother's birthday and we went to a viking market with Robin, who bought me a necklace that I fell so madly in love with. It's made of black oak with a bronze bead. I can't really say what I love so much about it but I never want to take it off. I think I'm going to make it my turn around symbol. Years of pressure and hardship has made me stronger and wiser and better. Black oak is mostly reclaimed wood from old sunken ships. (Robin has a peice found in an old well, and one found deep underground while making the city tunnel in Malmö.) I recognized it immediately and the man who sold it said that I was the first who did. I wish I had asked where this particular wood is from.

Anyway; my turn around symbol because I am getting stronger and things are turning around. I feel better and better. When stuff is difficult I think that I'm one of billions of people on a small rock hurtling through space. And as such I have everything I need. So the black oak, from a tree that grew over hundreds of years and then, after that, was probably felled and made into something by someone, and then, after that, waited for hundreds of years more before coming to me, will remind me of a lot of things.

Everthing passes. Everthing has an end. Good and bad.
Life is amazing and filled with surprises and love and beauty.
I, too, am made stronger from my experiences.
My whole existence - from womb to tomb - is nothing compared to this tiny peice of wood, once a living thing. And THAT in turn is nothing compared to the silly little rock it once grew on. This silly beautiful rock hurtling through space.
Stuff is going to get better from now on.

I also bought a small pot of smoked salt and some other small trinkets. And I finally did the vacuuming.

Now I think I'll watch a horror movie before bed.

Stockholm

I miss coffee.

Last few days has been intense and hectic and a bit nuts. Right now I'm standing outside SIBA waiting for them to open so I can give them my laptop and then get to the train, which is an hour late. 

I miss Ben. 

We had a bachelorette party for Tindra on Saturday. It was great fun but my recent mental plummet into depression made it a bit strange. I get weird when I'm sad. 

SIBA should open now. Please?!?

19 days left. Almost nothing.

And now they're letting me in! 

fear

So quickly. Everything changes so quickly. I change, and the situation changes. When everything is crappy and I have nothing to be happy about, and have to fight through every day, then I know exactly who I am and what I'm doing. But when everything is fucking magically wondergreat I have no fucking clue what the fuck is going on.

I like the saying "attitude is everything" because I fully believe that you create your own life. With a positive attitude life is easier and problems seem smaller. I met a man once who enjoyed pain - not in the kinky way, but emotionally. It made him feel alive, human. His life was easy and nice and when his emotions where hurt is was... an interesting experience for him. Everything is what you make it. Painful situations are only painful because you perceive them as painful. It's all in your mind.

I really do believe in this, but still I can't control myself. Life is good now. There are always shadows and less than perfect aspects in life but you choose how much you want them to affect you. Fights with family members are hard to just ignore but it doesn't have to affect other aspects of life. I can still feel happy and safe. That particular situation makes me sad but not depressed - I'm sad about that, but not sad in general. In general everything is extremely fucking sweet. And I am doing my best to fuck up.

Fear is the path that leads to the dark side. And fear is the mind killer. It's the truth, really. And when I feel strong I can look at my fear and see that it is only a mind ghost, nothing real, nothing relevant. I can focus on all that is beautiful in my life and feel calm and happy. But then sometimes I am weak and I can't fight back and the fear grows into horror and I panic and I fear my fears most of all, and they take over, and I hate myself for being weak and it makes me weaker.

I don't want it to be this way. I don't want to have to carry this weight. I don't want to have to fight, I don't want the darkness in my life. I don't want to ruin everything good.

Some days I don't have to fight, some days I fight and win, but sometimes I can't find that ray of light to hold on to even if it's shining really strong and some times it's not really shining at all and then I'm lost in the dark. I need to find the light in me I guess. The belief in myself, not in anyone else. The knowledge that I'll make it through whatever happens, that I deserve goodness in my life and that it's not going to go away just because of some small thing that isn't even real.

I know what I have is the best I could ever dream of.

serious bizznizz

So! I feel that it's time to tell the world!

I have a new job, I'm moving to Sweden in 18 days. I have an apartment and my flight tickets and everything. I have said it before but this is the official post about it.

I have so much to be happy for right now. My life is really awesome.

And I keep on pressing 4.

differences

It's friday night and I'm doing nothing... Exept staying up a bit late. Crazy.

Thinking a lot about people that mean much to me. Wondering how old friends are doing. 

It's a weird feeling... The night is silent, dark and still. Words are few and far apart. Things change somewhere else, somwhere else life goes on. I feel like I'm underwater, looking up - everything is distorted. Far away. 

Out of reach.

I still don't think I could have done anything differently. I regret nothing. 

Only... I have changed too. My dreams have changed. I have realized what really matters.

It's not blinding passion. It's not suffering, consumed by fire. It's something else. Something in the shadows. Something that grows slowly. Something strong, forever lost.

Enjoying the silence. Breathing. Calm.

home

...is where the heart is.

I've spent eight hours a day, every weekday, in the same place for a little more than a year now. I could imagine moving, although I really don't want to, but I cannot imagine quitting here. Seriously. I'm moving to another department - sooner than expected, even - but in reality it's not many metres away. Five, maybe. The same room, the same co-workers, a different job.

But as I leave my old department, it will shut down.

It feels nothing less than strange. It has been my base since I came here. It's a releif to understand why things have been the way they have lately, but... I really don't want the people that I have been working with untill now to leave. Many will be transferring to other accounts I'm sure. All of them I hope. With all my heart.

Change is life. That does noot mean that it always feels good.