You know what I fucking hate about mental illness? It doesn’t go away. It’s chronic, but we aren’t really brought up to process mental illness as a chronic problem. We don’t think of mental illness as a condition, but rather an infection -- temporary and easily remedied. Get ‘em to the shrink and in one inspirational-movie’s length of time you’ll have a shiny new human, equipped with a zest for life and love interest to boot!

Like, people with allergies don’t pine for The Day when suddenly their epi-pen will cure them of their allergic reaction to peanut butter. So why do I pine for the day when my depression will be a thing of the past? Why am I convinced that one day I can live a life without the ebb and flow of the bullshit I’ve been saddled with rearing its ugly head. I once had a dietitian tell me she believed people could “fully recover” from their Eating Disorders -- that these disorders would never again poke their heads from the ground. I laughed in her face. You can’t cure it. You can’t make my brain not be broken. You can only manage expectations. You can treat symptoms and learn coping skills and protect yourself, but you can’t get over it. You can’t have surgery or do a round of chemo or cut off a necrotic limb and be done with it. And if you fall down on the job, think maybe you’re good for once, it will sneak up behind you and claw at your heart. 

I have probably been through thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars worth of treatment in my 23 years on this god forsaken hell hole of a planet. I have taken anti-depressant after anti-depressant, seen therapist after therapist, gone to two separate clinics, and I am Still Fucked Up. 

One of the best pieces of advice I can give the mentally ill is this:

You are never getting cured. Own it. Own that shit. Because only when you stop pretending this is all gonna go away some day can you begin to fight it. Know it will always be waiting to gain the upper hand. You can’t drop your guard for even a second. You are going to have to work twice as hard to do anything in this world and there is no fucking use wishing things were different. They aren’t. This is what you have and you better make the fucking most of it. 

Take the medication. See the doctors. Keep up with your recovery plan. If you don’t, get ready for the backslide or the relapse or whatever you want to call it. No matter how assertively you communicate your triggers to others, you are going to get triggered. You are going to have panic attacks. You are going to be told there’s nothing wrong with you. You are going to be fucked over by jobs and by the healthcare system. There isn’t anything you can do about that. Campaign for a better system. Raise awareness. Do whatever you gotta do, but know in the end? It’s on you. Whether you function in this society or not is on you. Nobody can do it for you. No amount of accommodations, money, medication, or support can change the work ahead of you.   

Don’t be like me. Don’t get caught in the pipe dream of a perfect life. Life is bullshit. Perfect is bullshit. Embrace it. 

Couldn’t get to sleep so I watched a bunch of grainy psych fanvids I made literally back in 2008. I actually did a pretty decent editing job for being 14 and having only windows movie maker at my disposal. Like there are a lot of really great music beats and stuff. They’re super cheesy of course, which is the best.

I’ve thought about trying to get back into that stuff. I’d try to make mostly goofy shit though. I think crack is a lot easier to pull off with my limited skill set than actual serious fanvids. They get melodramatic really easily. 

As my angsty paramore psych fanvid displays fucking beautifully. 

Idk. Sometimes it’s nice to revisit the past, especially now. My self esteem is a lot higher than it was six months ago. I’m trying to be patient with myself and accept who I am. I was listening to a podcast today and the guys on it were talking about the fine line between giving too many shits and giving not enough shits. They posited that you needed the confidence and ease in one’s own skin that giving no shits provides you. However, if you give too few shits, you don’t have the drive to continue learning and getting better. But, giving too many shits is just as bad. Not only does trying so fucking hard often lead to perfectionism and a disconnect from those around you, but if you care too much you often don’t have the guts to take leaps and chances -- try scary new things just to try them. 

I’ve struggled with this very conundrum my whole life. 

The thing that I love the most about myself is my hunger for adventure. I love being spontaneous. I love doing things just for the experience -- just to do them. Mental illness is so fucking terrible for a lot reasons, but also because it sucks away at the things you actually enjoy about being you. I’ve been scared in recent years, terrified, to go outside of my comfort zone. I lamented that I “used” to be so fun-loving. I “used” to just sign up for shit or start bands or go off on adventures without warning.

I saw my new found lack of interest in life as just another one of my many weaknesses and proof that my best days were behind me. 

I now see all of that for what it really was -- a deep depression, amongst other things.

I forgot that in those carefree moments was an internal violence I held close to my chest. Oh I went and tried out for the school plays, sure. And when I didn’t get the ingenue, I berated myself. I was never pretty enough, never thin enough, never good enough for the ingenue role, I told myself. Something was wrong with me and I would have to work twice as hard as the other girls. Instead of celebrating leading roles in productions (even if I was in old age makeup) I tore myself to shreds over not getting a specific part. I put myself on strict diets. I got angry and irrational if anyone tried to suggest that I could have a little ice cream. I snapped at a girl once for suggesting I eat pizza -- the only thing we’d been given all day -- ordered for us at a competition. Instead I neurotically picked nuts and raisins out of trail mix and threw the M&Ms away. 

I tried so fucking hard to be perfect and “desirable.” My old scripts are filled with notes scribbled down after run-throughs. They’re rich with venom. I called myself a fucking idiot, a stupid bitch. “YOUR’E TOO FUCKING RIGID.” “DON’T PAUSE AFTER EVERY COMMA. YOU’RE EMBARRASSING.” All my inner abuse written out for others to glance at worriedly over their shoulders. 

I had break downs twice a month. I would go crying to my mother about how I was unlovable and fat and ugly. She didn’t know what to do. I was on anti-depressants. I had done therapy. She had gotten me help at an early age. She didn’t know what was happening. I did well in school -- amazing even -- for the first time in my life. I had a goal. I had standards. And I ripped myself to shreds until I met them. And then when I met them I realized that the standards were, of course, too low to begin with and raised them again. It was never enough and consequently I was never enough. 

The moments when I threw caution to the wind -- took friends out to TP houses, showed up for my first school audition in a jean skirt knowing nothing about acting, drove to deep ellum to see a band play alone on a school night against my mother’s orders, stayed up all night crafting Chris Hardwick’s face out of dried fruit for a scavenger hunt and then went to work the next day, those were the moments when I was acting from a place of honesty. I am the woman who takes risks and puts herself out there. 

The hesitation and the self doubt is an obstacle to that truth, not some new truth. 

The part that cares too much manifests itself in the compulsions, food rules, bingeing, restricting, purging, shaming, doubting, and anxiety.

The part that doesn’t care enough gorges on the depression and the isolation.

But the part that cares just enough, the part that gives the ideal number of shits, that part is me. I have that. It’s always been there and this elusive search for what “used” to make me so bold has been a goose chase. I never lost that. I just lost sight of it. 

I feel that itch for the first time in a long time to do something. Start a shitty podcast or send horribly overconfident emails to blogs I want to write for. I want to paint and drive out to haunted places and go on terrible dates with people I might end up loathing. I want to be free from the shit I’ve bogged myself down in for so long. And I can feel myself wrenching my ankles from the mud. I feel it coming in waves and it’s not always so present. Sometimes I’m still sad and the old habits still tug at my sleeves. Sometimes they still win out, but they don’t own me. They aren’t who I am anymore. 

They never were in the first place.

Today's mantra is: Cried but did it anyway.

Needed to wake up at 6:30 AM to drive from Arlington to Austin and be at UT for my first class. 

Cried but did it anyway. 

Needed to sit through said class despite the fact that I've missed it a bunch and it's German and I barely understood a word of it and apparently we have a test tomorrow. 

Cried but did it anyway.

Needed to haul ass over to my second class and hyperventilate about the paper I have to write four pages of by Wednesday and finish by Thursday. 

Cried but did it anyway. 

Needed to eat something to up my energy levels without bingeing on junk food. Even though when I'm anxious my first instinct is to fast so I can binge later, because I tell myself I'm not worthy of food until I complete all of my tasks. 

Cried but ate some sushi anyway. 

I am anxious and shaky and exhausted and terrified and I am still wearing pants and am relatively clean (shit I forgot to brush my teeth) and get to go to choir later today and sing and have a break from this stress for two hours before going home and studying like mad for my German test and my Chemistry test and doing homework and crying some more. 

Today is the day of crying and hyperventilating and shaking and doing shit anyway because sometimes what feels immediately horrible is worth it in the end and what feels immediately good will eventually lead to this kind of anxiety as I struggle to catch up. 

So here's to not succumbing to the urge to curl up in a ball and pretend the world doesn't exist and beg for someone to stuff me into an asylum. 

Here's for crying but doing it anyway. 

Having a spazzy "how do i people" moment.

I get really anxious when I'm anticipating an encounter with another person, but for the most part I tend to be fine during the encounter. Like, toss me in with the wolves, I'll be fine. Keep me captive outside the door to the wolves's enclosure? I'll probably have a heart attack. I also have a lot of trouble not over thinking things. Because I'll think I want to do something or talk to somebody and then I'll tell myself "no" for some reason. So instead of just doing the thing I want to do, I sit there and think about the thing I want to do. And analyze why I want to do the thing. And ask myself if me doing the thing means something. And I get so worked up about it that when I finally actually do the thing, I'm sick to my stomach over it. 

I guess the moral of this blog entry is just do the thing. Think it through ONCE and if you still want to do it? Do it. Don't be a pussy. 

I tried to play The Sims once

but there were so many choices and the days weren't long enough to accomplish everything I wanted and still have time to do things like eat and bathe and it felt like I was never pleasing my Sims or meeting their goals and I just got super overwhelmed and turned it off and never played it again. 

because it's just the real world

except you can fast forward through sleeping

WHICH IS THE BEST PART OF REAL LIFE ANYWAY.

My family could not have picked a worse time to freak out on me. 

I'm having a serious panic attack and I need to get my shit together

and rather than SUPPORT me which would be the HEALTHY FAMILIAL THING TO DO

They decide to ATTACK ME for not being open enough. They say they're so "concerned" about me and "worried for health" and I just want to punch them in the teeth because if they really wanted to help me, they wouldn't put the added pressure on me of having to deal with establishing closer relationships with all of them. Like, that's the last thing I need right now. Get the fuck off my back. 

Okay

My life is this weird combination of not feeling good enough and feeling thoroughly and utterly equipped to handle what's ahead of me. 

I've started to feel a lot better about myself lately. I'm beginning to like and accept the way I look. Some days are better than others, obviously. I don't doubt my abilities or fear failure in quite the same way I used to. I'm defining my own successes. I'm celebrating when I meet my own expectations. I'm living each day as it comes to me.

I am comfortable being on my own - running errands, eating, shopping, studying. I don't cry about needing to be loved or validated constantly. I'm admitting things to myself and to others that I never realized I needed to admit. I'm realizing that more than wanting affection, I want to give it. I don't long for someone to think of me when they hear a love song. I hear a love song, I play Frank Sinatra, and I can't wait to feel that way about someone else. I'm not lying to myself. I feel so freed, as if the weight of the past and high school and the opinions of my "peers" have suddenly lost all importance. 

I don't think I ever imagined that I could be like this. I'm almost happy. I'm living with depression and anxiety and an ED, but I am living with those things. I function and I move forward. Thing's aren't a straight line. This is isn't a roller coaster that only goes up. It's a swooping sort of journey but I always level out in the end. 

Things are okay. 

Okay is so goddamn wonderful. 

Oh lord the melodrama. My period really SERIOUSLY must be on the horizon.

I genuinely have anxiety about not getting to see everything that's posted to my dash. 

Conversation I Had With Myself This Morning

Tori Randall, On Writing

(If anyone, at all, gets the reference in the title, I will kiss you on the mouth. And by "kiss" I mean slap. And by "mouth" I mean hand... so a high five. I will give you a high five.)

I've really become interested in horror as a fiction genre. Maybe that's because of the dark place I'm in right now, but regardless I seem quite drawn to it. I'm very much so a person who believes that there isn't a precedent for how much action should take place in a story. Some of the most successful things I've ever written have been minimalist in their structure and horror gives you such an ability to play around in that range of action vs. thought and reflection.

I think horror, much like YA fiction, gets a very bad rap. It is shuttled off to the side as a lesser form of fiction. I certainly always prescribed to this thought. Partially, because as a young child, I was fascinated and simultaneously petrified by the macabre. I had a love/hate relationship with horror due to my, then un-managed, anxiety issues. I was intrigued by scary stories, but would lose weeks of sleep by reading them. In fact, I slept with a light on until I was 13 because of my intense fears and I'm not talking about a night light. My bedside lamp was perpetually on. I had to tell myself that horror stories weren't worthy of my time to keep myself from perusing them and the world of "litra-ture" made it easy to put stock in this assessment. 

Imagine my surprise when, upon reading Stephen King's Carrie, I found that horror could be just as nuanced and literary as any other contemporary fiction novel. I love that story. I love the symbolism, the blood! And I don't mean in the tortureporn sense of the word. Stephen King uses blood in that novel in an incredibly moving way by involving, of all things, the menstrual cycle. It's not just an omen, or a symbol for death, or lust, or what-have-you. It's fully represented as a system paralleling the systems of bullying, and life, and tragedy and violence in youth. It's mysterious, not fully understood, and human in a way so many horror authors can't represent it. I know that many aren't a fan of Stephen King's prose, and I admit I can tire of it after a while, but you can't deny that the man is a literary genius. 

And don't even get me STARTED on The Silence of The Lambs, which is downright  gorgeous. I didn't think I could possibly love the story more after seeing the film, but I'm so glad I read the novel and proved myself wrong. 

There's just a very basic way of connecting to horror stories. Fear is something that even the bravest of us experience, and tapping into that human weakness is exciting and terrifying in it's own right. I come from a generation of images. We don't believe unless we see. So, finding written word that can literally cause my heart to race is so incredibly thrilling! It takes skill and timing to create that kind of intense emotional reaction. These skills go back to the very essence of story telling, which is all that writing is. I have to remind myself of that far too frequently these days. 

I think I might try my hand at a horror story or two. I certainly have the imagination for it. While often crippling in social situations, and at theme parks (I absolutely cannot handle roller coasters in any capacity), my anxiety endows me a certain set of skills. The most relevant of which, allows me to dream up numerous horrifying situations that could be waiting around the bend. Now, I'm not totally sure that I'll be able to craft those thoughts into anything remotely as haunting as Carrie, but you never know until you try.

Here's trying.

-Tori

P.S. during the time I spent writing this I kept hearing this awful scratching noise. I thought it might have been an animal that had gotten into the house somehow and my cat was deep in a REM cycle, so she didn't even notice. I was kind of freaking out, expecting a rabid raccoon to jump up and claw my eyes out at any second, until I realized it was the HUGE FUCKING FISH BALLOON, that my parents bought for my niece, scratching against the wall. I am moving it away from the wall. It also doesn't help that this is a particularly dark and stormy night. 

Social Anxiety: What a Bitch

I haven't done a text post in a while so I thought I'd give that a try. 

Friends haven't been very easy to make here in Houston. Now I have made SOME friends but not nearly the level that I thought I'd be making. It's just hard to find people here that are interested in the same things I am. I love film and writing and reading and youtube and thinking critically about things. Intellectual conversation is some of the only conversation I enjoy and maybe that's my problem. 

I detest small talk in pretty much all forms. I'm bad at it. I'm awkward. Most of the time when I'm engaging in small talk, I'm thinking of nothing but how desperately I don't want to be engaging in small talk. In fact, this is what I look like in most social situations:

I've gotten better at "talking small" as time has gone on here, but it's still not something that I enjoy. 

And don't think I haven't tried the nerdfighter angle. I've met two people at this university who even know what nerdfighting IS. One is a friend of mine now. The other is some random nerdfighter who flitted through my life and I've never seen her again! I practically scream about being a nerdfighter. 

I wear an Esther bracelet. (given to me by my lovely friend Ally! HEY GURL!!!) I now have a PIZZA JOHN SHIRT that I've worn to class. I have seriously considered never taking that shirt off. I bring up the vlogbrothers and or John Green in conversation as OFTEN AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. I doodle vlogbrother related doodles in class in the hopes that someone will look over and see. I'M WRITING AN ENGLISH PAPER ABOUT THE VISUAL RHETORIC INVOLVED IN THE MARKETING AND COVER DESIGN OF PAPER TOWNS. 

The nerdfighter angle I have pretty much COVERED. 

I know that making friends isn't something that comes naturally to me and I'm trying really hard to be sociable. It's hard to deny my identity though. A lot of the time I would prefer to be alone than in the company of others. I NEED that alone time desperately. That's not to say however that I need to be alone all of the time. 

Just like all introverts, I too secretly long for the company of other introverts. 

Because when you add two introverts together they can become quite extroverted. 

-Tori

P.S. IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE A NERDFIGHTER AND YOU ATTEND THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON AND YOU SEE THIS WE CAN BE FRIENDS.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now I seem creepy. :P

But seriously we should talk and hang out sometime.

"And in today already walks tomorrow."

Sometimes I have these days where it seems like everything in the universe is allowed to pile up in my mind. So many thoughts are whirring around and, because they are all so overwhelming, I can't seem to get any of them down with any clarity.

So in an attempt to rid myself of this problem, I'm gonna lay down another "parts" blog. 

Part I: FRIENDSHIP

Lately I have come to truly understand the frailty of friendship. It's a concept based on reciprocated trust. In other words it's having someone's best interest at heart and hoping they have yours. It's a very unreliable system.

In fact, I can't see how a system like that could ever work without total and complete honesty. If two people can share the truth with each other maybe then an unbreakable friendship could be made. 

However until people forget how to lie, I can't see that happening.  Friendships are always doomed. They die. I don't see the harm in that. Sure it's hard to let go of people you've grown fond of but it's not impossible. It's certainly survivable. 

Humans are not static creatures. We are ever growing and ever changing. Our needs and wants and desires come and go our entire lives and only the ignorant ignore that fact. The enlightened embrace it. They wait for the tides to come and then they adapt. We are meant to adapt. That means friendships have to adapt too, or else they get lost out to sea. 

It's cruel but I wouldn't say it's unfair. 

Part II: SEX 

I'm a teenager. Obviously sex is something I think a lot about. With college on the horizon sex is a particularly hot subject for me at the moment. No pun intended. There's this huge doubt in me that I'll ever find someone who'll want to date me in college. I know that's silly because it's useless to worry about those kind of things, but I worry anyway. 

I don't think I'm un-pretty. I have clear skin and nice hair and a fairly symmetrical face. I'm a little heavy but not uncommonly so. I have very balanced curves, a smaller waist, and huge boobs. Obviously I'm only listing the positives. If I were to list the negatives I could get carried a way.

My point is that I don't believe myself to be unusually ugly. I also don't believe myself to be unusually unpleasant to be around. I don't know why I've had very few encounters with dating. 

It bothers me to a certain extent because I start to think something's wrong with me. It also bothers me because I feel as if in college one of two things could happen. One: things could not change at all and I could be alone for another four years, or Two: I will come off as desperate and inexperienced and guys will take advantage of that fact. 

The prospect of finding a nice caring guy to be with is not one I generally consider. 

I'm trying not to put as much importance on dating as I did in high school, but still the thoughts cross my mind. 

Part III: REACHING THE LIMIT OF YOUR POTENTIAL

It scares me to think that some day I may stop improving. I'm not sure if this is even possible. It goes against my view of the world. Still it terrifies me. I want to improve. I want to get better at writing and relating and just being human. I don't want to reach this level of stagnancy where I churn out the same old crap over and over again. 

Is there such a thing as a creative limit? Can I hit the top of my chart and have no where to go? I'm so worried that I haven't had the proper training in my life to function in college classes. Advanced Placement didn't want me and I didn't want it. For so much of my life I rejected school. Don't get me wrong I was very very good at school when I tried. It's just for the most part I didn't try. I didn't start caring until my sophomore year of high school. Until that point I had skirted by on my talent. I now know there's a point where talent runs out.

You can't survive on pure ability. You need skill. I don't have many skills. I want them so bad I can feel it in my teeth. I grind them and the energy wells up in the bone. I'm not good with grammar. I'm not an adept speller. I understand bits and pieces of rhetorical strategy but not all of it. I'm behind.

I just hope I can catch up. 

-Tori

P.S. The quote from the title is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He's one of the few Romantic poets I quite like.