I'm Scared.

Okay, being scared is a hard thing for me to admit. This time though, it's different.

I went to the gynecologist this morning and had a routine checkup and some blood work done. That all sounds pretty normal, right? Well that's what I thought it was going to be until the doctor actually started talking to me. I went in for a complaint about my menstrual cycle, and he told me about all of these tests he wanted to run because he thinks one of the biggest factors contributing to this problem I'm having is my weight. He told me all of the risks that come from this.

He told me that because of my irregularity, I might not be able to have children someday. He told me something might be wrong with my adrenal gland. He told me all of these tests he wanted to run and the things he wants to do to rule the more serious problems out. When he was saying this, I nodded along and thought "Okay, this will be good, we're going to figure out what's wrong with me."

Nothing really hit me until I got home and had the chance to sit down and think about what this could mean. If something were seriously wrong with me, it would mean emotional and financial strain on my family, and of course it would affect me emotionally. I mean, what if I'm never able to have kids?? I so want to have children someday, but what if my stupid weight prevents me from doing that?

I'm so scared. I'm scared of what the future might hold. I mean, with everything the doctor said to me, how am I supposed to NOT be scared? If something is seriously wrong with me, it could quite possibly change my life forever. I know this may seem like I'm overreacting, but I'm really not. I've had problems with irregularity for about 8 years and have been worried for a long time.

Just... In general I'm scared.

Unsure

For some reason it doesn't feel like Christmas is coming. Yes our tree is up and the holiday movies have been playing and Christmas music has been playing and most of the presents are wrapped and it's cold and all that, but it doesn't feel like Christmas. I think it's because my mom isn't here to celebrate it with us.

A friend told me that whatever I feel having to do with my mom and this time of year, be it happy or sad, is okay.. so.. I feel sad and like no one understands what I feel. I don't want to sound mean, but whenever I see people talk about their moms and how amazing they are, it makes me sad because I can't share anything new with my mom. Not saying that people don't have a right to say whatever they want, I'm just saying this the only way I know how.

I have a feeling that I'll always miss my mom for the rest of my life, and nothing will ever feel the same, especially the holidays. My mom always loved Christmas too. I remember last year, she was in either a hospital or nursing home (I can't remember which it was, she went to so many of both) around this time, but the doctors thought she was well enough to come home for Christmas. I was thrilled, as was my family. I wish she could be here for this Christmas, I miss her so much. It doesn't feel right to celebrate it without her.

In fact, nothing feels right without her. Going about my daily life and tasks doesn't feel right. On the other hand though, what else am I supposed to do? I couldn't possibly lay in bed, dwell on this tragedy, and cry all day. I know my mom wouldn't want that, I know she would want me to be happy. It's just hard to be happy around Christmas because she loved it so much.

Even when she got sicker, her face would light up and she would smile all morning as she watched me and my siblings rip into the bows and colored wrapping paper on the gifts that she and my older sister had so carefully picked out for each of us. She lightened the room with her smile and laughter. That's one of the things I loved most about her.

I guess all I can do is try to be as happy as I can and remember that my mom is here with me in spirit, she's always in my heart, and I still have my memories of and with her. I will hold her close to my heart and pray and ask the Lord to give my mom a hug in Heaven for me on Christmas for me, since I can't. Without my faith I don't know where I'd be, but that's a whole other story.

Can't break free until I let it go.

Yesterday, as some of you know, I went to Six Flags. It was my second time to go in my whole life (the first was when I was a baby, so I don't remember it) so of course I was excited. Our youth pastor (I went with my youth group) passed out our tickets and said we were going on the Titan first.

We walked to it and waited in line for probably about an hour or more, then it was FINALLY time to get on! I was so excited. I'd never ridden a roller coaster before, and I was going to ride in the front two seats of the Titan with my friend Laura. I was pretty pumped, but my heart was racing. Laura told me that was normal, so I wasn't too worried.

I sat down in the seat, put the bar down, and realized it wouldn't go down all the way. I adjusted myself a little, and it still wouldn't. The lady that was helping out walked over and told me I couldn't ride because the restraint wasn't down far enough. I don't think anyone can imagine the embarrassment I felt when I had to climb out of the ride and go wait for my friends to finish riding.

I put my hood up over my head (it was cold so I had my hoodie on), stood in the corner outside the gate, and did my best to not break down crying, although it didn't work out so well since within minutes I had tears streaming down my face and my breath was getting shaky. My mood darkened. I immediately started feeling sad, depressed, angry, embarrassed, and paranoid.

Mostly though, I was feeling embarrassed. I couldn't believe that, to be blunt, I'm too big to ride the freaking Titan. After Laura finished riding, she came over to find me and tried her best to make me feel better, but it didn't work that well. I love her for trying, but I sunk into a dark mood, and once I'm in a dark mood, it's very, very hard to get me out of it.

What is the reason for this, you may ask? Well, that's simple. I'm bipolar, which means I'm either very happy or very depressed. Nothing sets these mood swings off really, and they can last anywhere from 5 minutes to a whole day or longer (for me at least). It sucks, but there isn't anything at this moment that I can do about it. I feel helpless.

It seems like lately, my moods are mostly dark and sad. It could be because I'm not happy with myself, it could be because of my home situation, I don't really know. It seems like as time goes on, I get sadder and sadder, and it's not fair. I just want to be happy, but it's almost as if I don't know how to be.

I don't know what else to say really, just that I hate being sad.

Crimson Regret and Betrayal.

**Warning** The content of this is not for someone of a queasy stomach.

She knows she's made a mistake,
One she can't take back.
As she watches the trickle of blood
Following the curves of her arm downward,
She feels so guilty she can't stand it.

She grabs a ball of tissue
And quickly wipes away the blood.
She cuts again and tries her best
To not cry out from the pain it brings.
She cuts again and again and again.

Tears slowly fall down her pale cheeks,
Tears of sadness, pain, guilt, and regret.
She hates herself for doing this to herself
But knows that with everything she has,
She can not and will not and dare not stop.

The next cut brings a whimper and more tears.
She bites her lip to keep from screaming
As she takes the blade away and once again
Watches the trickle of blood down her arm.
Again, she feels so guilty, but can't stop.

Eventually, there's so much blood
That she can barely see the cuts.
She instantly regrets what she's done
And wishes she could take it back
But she knows it's too late.

She starts sobbing and clutches her arm
Wishing with all her heart
That it didn't have to come to this.
She knows it didn't have to; but sadly
She felt she had no other choice.

She drops to the smooth tile floor,
Her body growing weaker, her eyes closing.
She hates herself so much for what she's done
And as a last attempt to punish herself,
She digs her nails into her arm and screams quietly.

The blood doesn't stop, it just flows faster.
She limply falls to the floor, her eyes half open,
Tears still streaming down her face.
Her cries get softer, and she grows weaker.
Her body lies cold and limp on the smooth tiled floor.

Suddenly, the pain stops. She's free from her sadness.
The blood keeps flowing, yet she doesn't feel it.
She watches her body laying limp and dead
As she blows herself a kiss and disappears
Into the early morning air.

She is finally free.


You probably don't have to guess what song goes with this.

I tried to kill my pain, but only brought more...

This might be slightly disturbing to some people, and it's a little graphic, so this is a warning if you can't handle it.

It happened technically last year, but it still haunts me now. During July of last year, I for some reason got really depressed. I can't remember now because I've chosen to block that fateful day from my mind.

Anyway... I got depressed, so I found one of my old razors, took the blade out, and I cut my wrist with it. It hurt a lot, but for some reason I did it again... and again... and again. I don't remember how many times I did it in that short time period, but afterwards I felt so guilty for doing it.

I don't remember the next time I did it, because as I stated before, I have chosen to block it out. It might have been September or October, but yeah, it was at least a few months after the first time I did it. At that time in my life, my mom had gotten sicker, and I fell into such a deep depression because I'd lost hope she would ever get better. For some reason I thought I had to punish myself for everything that was going wrong in my life. Cutting myself was the way I did that. It hurt, and I bled, I can't say it felt good to do it because it didn't. It was a seemingly endless cycle; I would cut myself, then I would feel so guilty for doing it that I would wait until I stopped bleeding for the moment and cut myself all over again. I don't know what made me stop every time; it might have been because I ran out of places to cut and wanted to wait for them to heal a little before I did it again. It might be because someone called my name and snapped me out of it.

This went on for a few months, and the point that I hit rock bottom was, ironically, on January 13th of this year. It's ironic because January 13th is my mother's birthday. It was sometime in the evening, and I had cut myself then remembered it was my mom's birthday, and I felt so guilty for doing it on that specific day that I got wrapped up in my depression and anger that I cut myself across my wrist on the inside of my arm, which I knew was the worst place to cut it since there are a lot of blood vessels there. I ended up bleeding for an hour and a half on and off; when I stopped bleeding I would cut again. It hurt so much that it was all I could do to not scream from the pain.

The pain wasn't just physical. It was emotional pain, spiritual pain, and mental pain. At that time in my life I was suicidal. I wanted to die. So many things had happened and I blamed it all on myself. Anyway, after I finally stopped bleeding, my sister knocked on my door (which was locked, for obvious reasons) and told me we were going out to dinner, so I put on a watch to cover the cuts I'd just made and didn't participate in any of my family's conversation. I put my iPod on Evanescence and let myself feel depressed. I got so wrapped up in it. When I got home later, I laid in bed because I was feeling kind of dizzy. Later on I started seeing spots and it felt like the room was spinning. When this happened it was about 1:00 in the morning, and I thought I was going to literally pass out. Not from being tired, but from blood loss. I was so scared and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to wake anyone in my house up and worry them, so I laid in bed and worried and panicked and almost threw up, taking sips from the water bottle that was beside me every once in awhile until I fell asleep.

The next morning, I decided that I would never cut myself again. I wanted to, oh believe me I wanted to. It took literally EVERYTHING I had to throw my old razor blade away. It took all of my willpower to not find a new one and do it again. It was an addiction, and it was so hard to stop.

If I said I still didn't want to cut, I would be lying. If I told you I thought I was stronger from going through this, it would be a lie. I still suffer from what I believe to be depression, I'm sad all the time and I've become unfortunately good at hiding my sadness and putting on a happy face. I act strong and happy on the outside, when on the inside I feel like I'm dying from the crushing emotional pain I'm going through.

I know how selfish this may seem, because I have a family who loves me, friends who care about me, a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food to eat. I still feel this way however; and I can't tell you why because I don't know. I wish I knew, because I feel depressed, sad, angry, lost, guilty, helpless, and hopeless. I think the last time I was actually happy was before my mom got sick in 2001. That's over 9 years of being depressed like this.

Anyway... Yesterday actually marked 11 months since the last time I cut myself. It's quite a milestone, at least I think it is. I let it take over my life, and I shouldn't have. Am I stronger after going through this experience? I'll let you know when I figure that one out.

I want my momma back.

I know a lot of my posts recently have been about missing my mom, but this is how I try to deal with things.

I miss my mom. I feel guilty for not spending enough time with her when she was alive. I'm angry, not sure at what, because she's gone and was taken away from me and my family. I'm sad and often myself crying because I miss her and I need her back. It's just not fair that she's just gone, and she can never come back. Nothing can bring her back. Her stupid illness took her away from me. I have absolutely no faith in America's health system or in scientists and doctors anymore because nothing could cure her. She was a prisoner in her own body and nobody was trying to heal her. They gave up on her. It's not fair. I would have done everything I could to try to make her better.

Before my grampa (my mom's dad) died, he would always come over to our house and talk with my mom and read Scripture to her and pray over her. I know God was listening, it's just hard to see it since my mom is gone. My grampa also told her about a vision he had. He was sitting in church, and my mom was healed and she was so beautiful, and she would walk in and come up to him from behind, with a smile on her face. He had faith that she was going to be healed. Now she can walk to him in Heaven. She can walk everywhere. I just wish she could be doing all of those things here.

I need my mom here. I so wish I could hear her voice, and see her smile, and from that I'd know everything is going to be alright. I don't see any of that now. My biggest fear is that I'll forget her. Some days I forget that she's gone, and I think "Oh, I should go call her" then, literally the second after that, my heart sinks and I remember. I really hate times like that. All it does is remind me that as long as I live, I can never hear her voice or hear her laugh or hug her or see her smile or look into her eyes ever again.

Every time I get into one of these moods, it's something different that triggers these emotions. Today, it was a song; I'll Wait For You by Joe Nichols. If you've never heard it, it's about a husband trying to do his best to get home to his wife. They're both elderly, and she's very sick. They talk on the phone as much as they can while he's trying to get home, and she shares memories with him about how she's had to wait for him before, but it didn't matter how long it took because she loved him so so much. Then, the last verse says she dies before he can get home.

The whole idea of the song makes me think of my mom and dad. Whenever he would call home from work and say he was going to be late or something, my mom was always so patient with him. She was always so loving and understanding because she knew he was providing for our family to make sure we had a good life. I could tell she was sad that he was working later, but she knew working was important to my dad. Even when she got sicker, she had such a sense of grace and dignity about her that I truly admire. My mom was my role model. She never gave up.

Some days, she would have an "MS attack" where she got confused and, for lack of a better term, not completely there. She had times when she thought she was still 19, or when she thought I was my older sister. It was always different, and none of us knew when or how it was going to happen. One night she was screaming and not making any sense at all, she was in pain but medicine couldn't help her, she would repeat the same phrase over and over. I've chosen to block out that terrible night because it hurts to remember it. Every time she had an attack it was so hard to deal with it, but we had to for her sake.

I will always, ALWAYS miss my mom. I know I'll always have my memories of her, but sometimes those memories bring pain because it makes me think I can never make new memories with her again. She's in Heaven, and she's not in pain anymore. I try so hard to cling to that fact, but I can't help but wish she were here to help me through this pain. She was always so good at that; she knew how to lift me out of my worst moods and she was so patient while I talked everything out, and she would smile her comforting, perfect smile as she helped me feel better. She will always be my momma. She'll always watch over me, and she'll always be in my heart and in my mind. I do know that, but I wish she were still alive because this is truly the hardest thing my family and I have ever had to go through.

The last chorus of the song I mentioned earlier makes me cry...

I'll wait for you at Heaven's gates
Oh I don't care how long it takes
I'll tell St. Pete I can't come in
Without my Love and my best friend
Oh this ain't nothing new
Sweetheart I'll wait for you.

I can totally hear my mom singing this to my dad. He was the love of her life, and she was the love of his life.