#i have non-psychotic people asking me wild stuff these days

[the-master-of-disaster]

"Psychosis is neither good or bad"

"Psychosis is not a crisis, it can be a positive experience!"

"In some cultures, psychosis..."

NO. Nononono. Psychosis is bad. Psychosis is scary and requires treatment, even if some forms of it make you feel euphoric or enlightened or whatever.

I can't believe we have to perpetuate the narrative that psychosis is a misunderstood otherworldly experience just for people not to hate us. Hello? Can we just... not hate people with "scary" symptoms without having to make them digestible and relatable? Can we just do that instead?

[stonertransdad]

Life Update since I hadn't been on here in forever

The pandemic was/is wild! Lockdowns started literally around the time we were going to the fertility specialist to get her pregnant. I lost my job to COVID in March shortly before we did the procedure, but we decided there's never really a good time to have a kid. Why not during a global pandemic when one of us in unemployed? (BTW, I don't recommend having a kid during a pandemic. Not being able to go to all of the appointments and having to sit in the parking lot was brutal.)

Let's talk about May friends...it was rough. (TW for mention of suicide btw. I'll post a gif where it's safe to start again if you wanna skip over it.)

So May 1st is the anniversary of my father's suicide. It had been 4 years. I found his body and since he wasn't married, I had to handle his affairs and arrange his funeral. May 1st, 2020 my wife and I had a Zoom game night with our friends and I got drunk because everyone was drinking (except my wife because she was pregnant). After our game night at like 2am, I had a psychotic break. I threatened to kill myself numerous times. My wife tried to talk me down, but eventually called the cops to take me. I thank her for that because looking back, that was the moment I knew something needed to change. I was convinced the cops were gonna kill me because I'm a trans dude in rural West Texas. I legit took the phone out of my wife's hand, hung up on 911, and yeeted her phone across the backyard and tried to hop the fence. Eventually the cops came and talked me down. They took me to the hospital an hour away in handcuffs (for their protection I did nothing wrong). They took me to the religious hospital that I was born in. So when they looked up my info by my name and date of birth from my driver's license (I only changed my middle name) literally all my paperwork and my bracelet had my deadname and wrong gender despite all of my legal stuff saying male with my new middle name. I mentioned it to them and they didn't care. They misgendered me the entire time I was there. I had hit my head hella hard on the bath tub when my wife was trying to snap me out of it, did the hospital even check me for concussion? Nope. I had punched so many things and my hand and wrist were swollen and discolored. Did they check out my hand and wrist? Nope. I was there for over 10 hours before I was able to convince them I was okay and that it was just the alcohol. Did I mention during that 10 hours I was literally out in the hall on a gurney with no mask and this was when COVID was running rampant in Texas (the first time)? I heard people die that night. I had nothing to distract me because they took away all of my personal items and clothes. My wife picked me up and we went home and I have been sober ever since. It's not the first psychotic break I've had with alcohol in my system. Alcohol just doesn't agree with me, but I'm finding new things to replace it with.

TW has been lifted...it's safe now.

A couple of weeks after that I began teletherapy because I had been on the same mood stabilizer and anti-depressant for almost a decade. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that I felt like it hadn't been working for at least a year. This is a reminder to check in with your doctor if you feel like your meds aren't working. You may just need a different dose or a new med. There's no shame in that. I bounced around on various medications trying to find the right combo, some side effects scarier than others, but we got there. Before this, I had been diagnosed with ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. My therapist threw out my Borderline diagnosis and said it was CPTSD instead, which made sense.

Fast forward to December because my wife was pregnant, I was unemployed still, and we did absolutely fuck-all because the global panini was still raging.

Our son was born on December 3, 2020. He weighed 5lbs 9oz and scared the ever loving shit out of us. He wasn't breathing when he was born so they called NICU in ASAP. I'm freaking out because I can hear and see what's going on while my wife was asking if he was okay as they put her guts back in place to sew her up. 5 or so minutes pass and a nurse asks if I want her to take some pictures. I'm like is he okay, he still hasn't cried. She's like "oh yeah, he's chillin." This goon was being held by a nurse and was just looking around not crying or anything. Chillest baby ever (he still is btw). I held him next to my wife's head until it was time to go back to the room. Little dude did have to spend 4 nights in the NICU because he couldn't keep his sugars or temperature regulated, but he was healthy otherwise. He's now 4 months old and is starting to sit up on his own a little bit and he's OBSESSED with standing. He's still a little guy, but very healthy and growing like a weed. He saves my life daily.

So after being unemployed for over 9 months, I started a new job working in a call center. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. It gives me anxiety and throws me into panic attacks, but I had been putting out hundreds of job applications since I lost my last job and this was the first offer I got. I wasn't really in a position to turn it down since my unemployment had ran out 2 months prior. It was 2 months of training, then we'd be on our own. I got thru the training and thought I could handle it...until they started putting us on live calls with someone helping us if we got stuck. My mental health hit the lowest point it had in a few years and my wife was terrified she was going to lose me. She convinced me to quit on February 28th (not because I didn't want to, but because I'm a stubborn ass who felt guilty). My meds got tweaked a little bit more dosage wise during this mess.

Starting about mid-February, I was experiencing severe shakiness, tremors, and spasms. I've always been a shaky person and never really thought too much about it, but at some points I could barely feed myself, or get a drink, or hold my son. On March 7th, I tried to make an appointment with my doctor about the weird symptoms I was experiencing, but she was out of town and her next opening wasn't until the 31st. My body said that won't work and my wife rushed me to the ER on the 9th...I had begun having seizures that day. I had no previous history of seizures. Got to the ER and had a seizure literally as I was walking thru the door, so they rushed me straight back. They took some blood and that was literally it. No MRI. No CT. They pumped me full of Ativan and said it was just a panic attack and to go home and chill.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't just anxiety. I was having 20+ seizures a day. On the 10th, my wife rushed me to a different hospital...the good hospital over an hour away. First we had to drop off our gremlin with my mom to make things a little easier. Yet again, I had a seizure as I walked in the door and was taken back immediately. I don't really remember much because they kept pumping me full of Ativan and morphine because I had been in excruciating pain from the number of seizures I'd had. I do remember them doing a CT pretty quickly after I got there. Then they weren't happy with the results of the CT, so they took me to get an MRI, which showed possible signs of Multiple Sclerosis (but I didn't find that out until AFTER the notes showed up in my patient portal after being home a few days, so I raised hell...more on that later.) They did a 24 hour EEG on me and it showed nothing abnormal. Also, EEG glue is a bitch on your hair and scalp. After looking at everything and given my previous mental health history, they diagnosed me with Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, or PNES. It is a subset of Functional Neurologic Disorder, or FND. I couldn't walk well anymore and had to use a walker when I was discharged. I was in the hospital for 3 days.

When I had my follow-up appointment on the 23rd, I asked why the possibility of MS was never mentioned to me since it was very clearly in the notes. The doctor didn't have an explanation. He called in a referral to neurology so I could get a 2nd MRI to confirm MS and marked it as high priority. He also didn't take my pain seriously. My pain levels had been at a 5 or higher every single minute since they took me off of the morphine in the hospital. He told me to keep taking prescription strength doses of ibuprofen and Tylenol, which I had been. I let him know I had been and it didn't even take the edge off the pain. He ignored me. Leading up to this appointment, I had also added urinary incontinence to my growing list of symptoms and was forced to wear diapers so I didn't have to do laundry all the time. The doctor also took me off my ADHD meds because they were lowering my seizure threshold. He also took me off of my sleeping meds and nightmare meds for the same reason I'm assuming.

I kept my appointment on the 31st with my primary doctor because she's been my doctor for 5 years now and I knew she'd take my pain seriously. She did. She immediately wrote me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and Tylenol 4. She also told me that my referral had been rejected by neuro. She said my case wasn't a good one for what she called a "wallet biopsy" and the doctors in neurology could be real assholes. She immediately sent the referral to other locations to get an approval. I am still waiting on that despite it being marked as high priority. She wrote me a prescription for a wheelchair because we both agreed my wheelchair was not enough for particular days.

Yesterday my wheelchair was finally ready for pickup, so my wife drove me to go get it. I'm still unable to drive due to my seizures and my tremors and twitches as it's predominantly in my legs and arms. I am an ambulatory wheelchair user now. Some days I can go short distances without my walker, some days I can't go without my walker, some days I can't even get out of bed, and some days I will be using my wheelchair. Don't judge a book by its cover, not all disabilities are visible. I have managed to keep my daily seizure count down in single digits and have even had a few seizure free days. They are still incredibly taxing on my body. I feel like I can't ever replenish my spoons fast enough to keep up with anything in my life.

So all in all, life has been chaotic. We are moving from Texas to New Mexico in the next few weeks, which should be interesting considering I can't overdo it without throwing myself into seizures. We will be closer to my mother-in-law so she can help us with our son and I can start resting a bit more on the more difficult days. Being a stay-at-home dad with an invisible illness has been one of the most challenging things I've done in my life, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Sorry this is so long. I just wanted to update my followers since it's been over a year since I posted before a few days ago.

[nostalgic-blood]

so i went to california a few weeks ago and...

No, I didn’t go ham. I had friends who were like “HERE HAVE THIS” and then I had this thing, and later went to a convention and THEN I went ham. 

Also this was my first non-family trip so I sort of bought a souvenir anywhere I deemed important enough to do so... America, you took a lot of my money. Oh and Disneyland too. 

...also I couldn’t fit some things and forgot others in that top pic.

this wall scroll my cat is trying to destroy

a backpack I bought solely so I was able to even bring all this back, and the posters/prints I STILL needed a friend to ship back anyway...

and this cute koishi i bought, all of three of which were from fanime, yes...

Disneyland souvenirs! A friend (Souless) bought the one of the left. You may have noticed Minnie Mouse ears on the first photo! I didn’t actually get them from Disneyland itself, t’was a gift from our Disneyland veteran who led us to many-a-ride and the least amount of waittime possible, Souless’ fiance Kat. :)

And yes Inside Out is my favourite Pixar movie. Watched Coco recently which was really good, but it’s only second to Inside Out. P:

Let’s start off with my ridiculous friends who decided I needed to own more merch:

All of this was bought by my friend Cannibalfood AKA Akira who went to cons and saw stuff I might like but never got around to actually shipping them to me.. and then, came with me to California and brought this stuff. This is why Negima is on there. It’s been that long.

Oh the non-weeb stuff is souvenirs I got with her while we were in San Fran, including Alcatraz touristy photos since we have few pictures together, a taxidermy place where we each got matching stingray barbs, how romantic. The rock was my very first souvenir. I wasn’t expecting on buying anything else in that shop, so it is the most boring thing here.

Here’s a look at the Touhou artbooks!

One of two CDs, this one with best 2hu on it. I recall from reading the back that one of these has some TAMUSIC on it, which has lovely classical pieces. 

Here’s a semi-random page with some artwork. I recognize some of the artists!

The other one! I cannot read anything in these books, and yes there’s plenty of text as well as the art.

Some sample of the art! I’ll have to revisit these books later but from first glance I think I prefer the art of the first book? Idk.

Next is stuff given to me by various people. The gacha is from Magus, the guy who I stayed at for about half the trip and spent the entire trip WITH since he also went down to SLO and I also shared hotels with him for Fanime. Awesome host, will do again. 10/10. I have another button from someone else but I accidentally included it wit my fanime merch pile photos, so it’ll be along shortly.

The dreamcatcher was made by SlimeMush’s friend who I paid $10 for, and for some mysterious reason it kept being returned to him every time he tried to send it to me. I couldn’t get a good pic of it alone because my cat kept attacking the feathers. SlimeMush also gave me the Flareon button! Apparently all the Eeveelutions he had went to those whose favourite was so-and-so, and apparently there’s equal amounts of love for all of them except for the two he kept himself because he loved them the most. Yes. Flareon is my favourite. :D

The gacha is a ditto + a ditto version of Sableye. 

This Monster Hunter blindbox was given to me by Wolfe, whom I’ve had a few MonHun merch exchanges with so far. I also gave him a MonHun figure from another line, which I’ll elaborate further (because I gave them all out similar to SlimeMush giving out the Eeveelution buttons) and kept whichever was left behind. This is Monoblos! I didn’t fight him all too often so I don’t have much impression of it as a monster, also I thought he was white but w/e, still very cool looking to add to my collection!

Now of all my loot THIS is the stuff I really could have done without in terms of when and where I spent my money. I bought that Incineroar evolution line figure sort of on a whim at a random city in the middle of nowhere, California while on the long drive down to SLO. The Touhou blindboxes, Digimon CD, and RWBY manga came from Kinokuniya in Japantown. Just wanted to buy them because. Even if the Tri series was mediocre in the end the nostalgia still has a strong grip on my heart, especially that music with Kouji Wada. ;_;

And the most touristy thing was buying this wind chime at a gift shop in a spa that I really didn’t need but it was pretty so w/e.

See? Pretty.

The results of the blindboxes. Not the luckiest result as I wanted other characters but you CANNOT SAY NO TO WEEB MERCH!

As much as I have been distancing myself from the show, RWBY’s manga has wondrous art. It also decided to focus on some random unknown side character named Ruby instead of the main characters, which I thought while was quite the bold move, was rather refreshing. 

DELICIOUS WEISS BACKSTORY. I recall posting something about this particular chapter on here before. YEEEEE!

So yeah I went to the island prison in San Francisco where AAAAAALL the tourists go. In my defence I have a genuine interest in prisons. Just ask my 300k RWBY fanfiction in which the first quarter of it is set in a prison. It is also not my first prison fic. I put lots of research in that setting to write that kind of shit. 

Also all the souvenirs were the most gimmicky things possible that I didn’t think I’d ever use or would just be paperweight. Except this bag! I may actually use this bag! I know!

And excluding the stuff that is too big or I forgot to take a pic of near the beginning of the post, THIS was the Fanime loot! Magus got me the Monokuma onesie which was extremely nice of him and now I am no longer perpetually cold. Ah yes the warmth of the hide of a psychotic bear. So good.

I could not believe the artist who made one of my favourite Aya pics EVER was at the artist alley. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. Obviously this was an instant purchase. This was my phone background for the longest of times. She had Touhou artbooks too but they sold in the first twenty minutes of the first day of the artist alley. Wow. My friend may try to snag me some at AX in July, so here’s hoping!

I didn’t see a lot of specifically Weiss prints there, and this was the best of the lot IMO. My only wish was that it was a brighter print, or that Weiss herself being so white would stand out more because it’s the least noticeable thing on my wall atm, which is a shame. 

I say this when I saw precisely ONE Aya print (jackpot) and one of another coming up in this bombardment of pics.

THIS IS PERHAPS THE MOST PROVOCATIVE ONE HERE LOL. But it was the only Tenko, and DRV3 merch was the most difficult of everything I was looking for to find. Unlike 95% of Tenko art SHE ACTUALLY HAS VISIBLE ABS HERE, which according to the official artbooks she’s supposed to have, so bonus points for that. I had a brief discussion with the artist too and we both agreed Tenko was the best and Ouma was overrated. He has great taste.

Overwatch on the other hand was all over the place in this con, from merch to art, to cosplayers. There were so many cosplayers they didn’t even have enough time to run through half of the tanks and all the supports at the shoot! So sad, so sad. This piece of Widowmaker is beautiful though, so I had to have it.

I saw this online a while back and really loved this image of all the Overwatch ladies being formal. There was a suit-version too, but for whatever reason I preferred this one. Sadly this print is quite small, as it probably would have benefited the most in being larger what with the many characters and thus detail.

Out of all this mess the one thing I wanted the most and hunted for the most was charms. I found NO GOOD CHARMS that fitted my taste and interest, and the closest were these buttons. Oh, and I met my good friend Raphyninja at Fanime and he gave me EXCLUSIVE RAPHYNINA MERCH! Thus that button being here and not in the friendo pile. ANYWAY. There was a deal, 3 for 5, so aside from the obvious ones I grabbed Kork. I love Kork. I didn’t think I would for that type of character, but somehow DRV3 managed it. He will of course be very far away from Tenko and Himiko though. >_>

Here’s a page from one of the Touhou doujins I got, which in hindsight I maybe should not have got? Way too late I noticed that I recognized the seller who I think showed up on a Tumblr post warning of a creeper at the Touhou shoots. He’d try to take pics of cosplayers in a private hotel room at weird, uncomfortable angles as far as I remember, so uh, oops? I was just so excited at finding Touhou doujin for the first time ever that I paid zero attention to the person selling so hopefully I am wrong and they were just someone that resembled that person.

Also I recognized this artist for their cute Satori Koishi content, but could not find any of their Koishi doujins. Sadness.

I bought two Monster Hunter blindboxes at Fanime because CLEARLY I need more, right. I got a Nargacuga, including the box left remaining in the pile I gave away and the one I already have...  I now have three Nargacugas. That’s quite a lot for something I never fought before...

I also got this tiny Zinogre. If we include my buttons I have FOUR Nargacugas now and FOUR Zinogres. The difference is I have fought Zinogre multiple times (I have no idea exactly because I have 600 hours in 4U >_>) and actually really like him! Sadly, in grand tradition like the last time I visited San Francisco (when I was five) I lost something, that being my favourite MonHun button, Zinogre. It is now in the wild with my teddy bear and my hat, forever gone in the California abyss. ):

I got this at the swap meet for 6 dollars. It may not have a stand and is rather dusty, but damn is that a bargain. My only regret is not having the GIGA DRILL BREAKAAAA model instead. I also got that Monokuma bag there too, but that was just because I went there and couldn’t find a single thing I wanted until I saw the bag, which I was on the fence on but wanted to buy SOMETHING from there and got it, thinking that was it ... but then this and the Touhou doujins showed up, soooooo...

Finally this other Nargacuga that was left behind became my monster in that line of figures, the rest in the hands of my friends. It’s actually cuter than I expected, and barely fit in this cheap crappy display case I bought at a Daiso. I moved my dresser a nudge and the Pokemon fell over, so yeah. 

You may have noticed a drop in quality in the photos and that’s because I cannot be bothered to touch up such a gargantuan amount of images anymore, not with the time I have. Would be nice tho. SO, THAT IS THE GIANT POST OF SPOTTO’S MERCH, NOW WITH 100% MORE QUANTITY THAN BEFORE! I spent too much money so I might as well get something out of it by BRAGGING about it! Right? 

Ye.

[the-firebird69]

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[aftermyshahada-blog]

The Jitters

A few days ago, I wrote a post explaining why I think dating is halal for Muslims (click here). Yesterday, I talked about my own experience, particularly with online dating recently (click here). And although in my second article I talked about everything that is going well, this post today is going to talk about my concerns with my current situation's potential. 

Maybe you guys have some thoughts, advice, or words of support.

A FEW CONCERNS

My first concern is regarding the distance between J and I, which was partially addressed In the article I wrote yesterday (click here). I will be moving to California in about 22 days, but once I do, J and I will be located 400 miles away from each other (6-7 hours).

We have plan for our first date and he does not appear to be too concerned about the distance, but it doesn't thrill me that this is going to be a long-distance thing right off the bat, especially because I will rely on public transportation, whereas he will have his own vehicle.

It's not that I am not willing to try this and it's not that I couldn't handle the distance. But it does present some challenges. It's important for relationships to have balance. And even though he has no problem coming to see me, I know that he can't always be the one to commute. We aren't even dating yet and I know that it would be unfair for me to expect him to do all the work. How would I go see him? I'm not sure. It's going to take a bit for me to get on my feet and I'm afraid it might end up being super expensive for me to travel to see him often.

And then I began thinking: what if things do work out? What if things get serious? Then what? The future is what concerns me. If I fall in love with this guy and we are talking about major long-term commitment, then what? One or both of us is gonna have to compromise if we want to be closer to one another. Would I have to move? Give up my job? Would he? The last thing I want is to fall in love and then not have it work out because of this situation.

Another concern I have is balancing the rest of my life. When I relocate to California, I am going to be in a new place, on my own, being independent, and working hard to succeed at my job. I also want to foster a happy environment for self-growth. And Ramadan is fast-approaching and it will be the holy month of Ramadan when I move to California at the beginning of June. On top of all that, I have J: an amazing guy that I like. I am worried that I won't be able to balance all aspects of my life with everything on my plate.

My last concern is that everything has been going well between J and I, and I am a very truthful/straightforward person...but I accidentally told a lie a few weeks ago without meaning to.

J is Egyptian-American and we often bond over my knowledge and experience of his home country, culture, food, and other middle eastern traditions and aspect of daily living. Part of this is because I have many Middle Eastern friends, especially friends from Egypt and have had much contact and experience with the culture over the past 6 or 7 years.

However...he became excited and surprised when I could name Egyptian pop artists like Amr Diab, among many other things. He jokingly asked, "Are you sure that you never had an Arab boyfriend before?" This is where I lied.

I didn't mean to lie, though. It just popped out.

And I hate myself for it.

About 4-5 years ago, I did date an Atheist Saudi man for almost a year; he was an exchange student a few years older than myself. I left as soon as I realized that he was verbally, emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive and manipulative. (And yes, I know the stereotypes that exist about Middle Eastern men, but I know that there are far more non-abusive men than abusive ones.)

I don't like to think about that part of my life and I rarely talk about it. So when J jokingly asked if I had ever had an Arab boyfriend (due to me being to knowledgeable about things), I accidentally messaged him back and said no. I told him that I have learn many things over the years from my Muslim and Middle Eastern friends. And that part is very true. But the other part is a lie.

I am so angry with myself.

I wonder if J will be upset later if he finds out that I told a little lie. I think he will be understanding. But at the same time, lies don't help build a foundation of trust. And the guilt of my tiny lie has been eating away at me.

Those cover basically all my concerns. Many of you read my articles and probably think that I am so confident. I am confident in many ways, yes. But I also have insecurities. And regarding this new dating stuff with J, my insecurities cause me much anxiety.

FEELINGS OF INSECURITY

For example, J is not aware that I am Deaf. And this is a big part of my identity. In previous articles, I have talked about and explained my deafness; it is not something that I am ashamed about. Click here, here, here, and here to read related articles.

Deafness and hearing loss has a lot of stigma and there are many assumptions and misconceptions floating around about the Deaf community. Many times, I might avoid telling someone I am Deaf until I have time and an opportunity to properly explain my situation. I speak clearly, I don't have a deaf accent, I can lipread, and I use hearing aids, as well as sign language. But, there is so much that people must understand about my world. It is much easier to explain things in person and while interacting with them, rather than discussing it through text messages and allowing their mind to jump to wild conclusions.

I hope that J won't be turned off by my deafness; I hope that he will accept me for who I am and not be upset that I kept such a crucial piece of information about myself from him. I hope that he will understand why I want to explain in person when we finally meet. I hope that he does not see me as disabled. I hope that he does not pity me.

The second thing that I am very insecure about is my weight. In this article (here) I talk about the issues I have with my weight. I gained a lot of weight over the past 2 years and I am working to fix that. The weight I am at now is the heaviest I have ever been and I am self-conscious about the way I look.

My worst fear is that first impression when he sees me. When we finally meet in person, I wonder what he will think. He knows I value health and fitness. He knows that I am in the process of losing weight. But he doesn't know what I look like right now. I don't want him to find me unattractive because I am a little pudgy right now.

On top of my main concerns and my insecurities, I also have been thinking a lot about my flaws.

I AM NOT PERFECT: I HAVE FLAWS

First of all, I have a history of being impulsive. As I explained in this article here, I am a true romantic at heart. Actions speak louder than words and I love romantic gestures, no matter how small. But I also love words and expressions of love. I like being texted "Good morning, Modhesha". I love cute emoji smooches. Thoughtful things like this just make me swoon. Simple things like this make me so happy.

I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching their highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a person, rather than with the person themselves, and I have hung on to relationships for a long time (sometimes for too long) waiting for the person to ascend to their own greatness. Many times in romance, I have been a victim of my own optimism. And this time, I am trying to go slow and attempt to shield myself from having my heart broken, yet again.

Another one of my flaws, especially at the beginning of relationships, is that I overthink everything. The uncertainty of everything is exciting, but also anxiety-inducing. Am I texting too much? Did I sound dumb when I said that? Why hasn't he texted back? Should I wait for him to contact me instead? The new-ness of it all is exhilarating, but I want it to go well, so I start to second guess myself and overthink things.

My third major flaw is that I am needy and crave attention! I don't mean this in a revolting, psychotic way. I am just someone who loves to be texted at least once a day. I love sweet forehead kisses and I love hugs and cuddles. I need validation. Sometimes I don't want to be alone. I need attention and I want to feel special.

In the past, I usually have to make all the effort. I am a thoughtful person by nature; I like making surprise breakfasts, making art projects for my significant other, writing cute cards or sweet notes and leaving them to be found in the bathroom or kitchen. I try to do little things every day to show my love and appreciation. And I guess all I want in return is the other person to make that same effort. Is that too much to ask? I'm not sure.

So, basically, I am afraid that my neediness will scare J or end up pushing him away. It doesn't take much to make me happy, but I like to talk every day and I want to feel needed, appreciated, I want my jokes to be laughed at, and I want to be wanted.

I have concerns, insecurities, flaws, and now I want to talk about my fears.

MY FEARS

My first fear has to do with my parents. They are protective and already worried about the fact that I am moving from Wisconsin to California. And they are not very supportive about me having reverted (converted) to Islam. So, I can't imagine if they knew I signed up for an online Muslim dating website and I like someone I met online. They would lose their minds if they knew I had plans to meet him in person in June. And if things get serious, I think they will be upset that I found someone to date, especially if that person is Muslim. I imagine they would tell me that they are helping me to get on my feet and make a life for myself, not chase after boys.

I love my parents and I know they want they best for me. I wouldn't be where I am today without their love and guidance. However, they can be a bit closed-minded and overly controlling. I don't want a potentially good thing with J to be spoiled, so I have decided not to tell my parents about J until I know whether this thing is serious or not.  

REJECTION

I think there is an overarching theme here. Can you see what it is?

With what I said about my concerns, my insecurities, my flaws, and everything else, I am starting to think that maybe my #1 biggest fear is the fear of rejection.

I want to be accepted and appreciated. The prospect of being cut off, demeaned, or isolated makes me anxious. I sometimes fear that I am unloveable or I worry that I will never find true love. I have been in a few relationships were my needs were not met or where I wasn't valued. I have dated people who did not love me for me. That is why stuff like this is hard for me. All I want is to find The One. And I have had many failed attempts.

If I open my heart to someone who ends up rejecting me, I know that it doesn't have to be the end of the world. I know that it is ok to feel sorrow, loss, fear, loneliness, anger, or whatever other feelings that come up during the grieving process. And I am working on believing that whatever experiences that arise as a result of connecting with people, I can initiate, deepen, and enjoy relationships in a more relaxed and fulfilling way.

I think that if I can become less afraid of what I am experiencing inside, and less afraid of myself, I can become less intimidated and more empowered to love and be loved.

ALL IN ALL

I know this post seems really negative, but there are many wonderful things about this situation between me and J. I talked about a lot of the positives here, in this article. But, well, I am a hopeless romantic and I tend to feel deeply and love fearlessly and I want so strongly for this to work. I know that I can come across as a bit neurotic sometimes.

That's ok. It's one of my more endearing qualities, right? Haha

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Any thoughts? Questions? Advice? Suggestions?

(If you haven’t read this article here and this article here, then please do so before responding with advice. I want you to have all the information before making suggestions. Thank you so much! I love you all!)

[butwhatistrue]

The past two days have been wild. yesterday i went to have all four of my wisdom teeth removed, I’m not gonna go into detail, but it wasn’t pretty or comfortable at all, and I have a lot of stitches in my mouth now - yay!

Today i went to the psych department. i tried calling them yesterday and asking if i could move the time because of widom teeth removal, but it turned out I was seeing their senior doctor, not a nurse, and that shw wouldn’t have time to see me again before in a long time. so i had little choice but to go.

I talked to her for two hours. First she asked a bit about my history, not really family history, more like, when did i start school, what have i been doing with my life so far -ish questions. After that we moved on to the checklists for things, mostly psychotic stuff. She was ~very~ interested in my hallucinatory stuff. I tried to be pretty conservative about it. Surprisingly she didn’t really ask about delusional stuff beyond the classics, though i assume she read the notes from the other people i talked to. 

In the end she gave me a preliminary diagnosis along the lines of “non-organic psychosis unspecified”. She said she felt like my issues were a mix of autistic traits, psychotic features and lots of anxiety + history related stuff, and that I didn’t fit well into any category. 

I asked her what she thought about schizotypal since I’ve been looking into that, and she said her instinct wasn’t to go for that because my psychotic symptoms were beyond quasipsychosis, and she didn’t think i exhibited a good deal of the symptoms (particularly those related to negative symptoms of the schizo-spectrum, i think.) She did say that there was a likelihood I’d get that as part of an official diagnosis at some point, since it would convey some of the more atustic-spectrum issues along with the more psychotic stuff. 

I’m going to be called in for conversations with a nurse, and she made a prescription which I’m not yet sure if I will use.

It’s for risperdal, which is one of the new-generation antipsychotics. though, it’s not very broad-spectrum compared to most other new-gen. it should be fairly non-sedative as far as antipsychotics go.. She told me they usually use 0.5-1 mg for anxiety, and 3-4 mg for psychosis, and she suggested I try just 1 mg and see how that treats me. It should be fairly kind in regards to sideeffects at that level.

I have no idea what to do actually. I guess part of me is just like fuck it, let’s take their damn medication. while another part is too afraid to lose my edge and become unable to deal with these symptoms if i start relying on a drug to do the legwork. 

The thing is, i don’t think they are going to try and help me with other types of drugs before I’ve given this a chance. She seemed to believe that a lot of my general issues, including spaciness and the like, might be a bi-product of these symptoms, and that it made most sense to attempt to treat this first. 

She suggested i apply for a mentor at university, to help me structure my time and get my work done, and she also suggested getting a “bostøtte”, which is like.. “external living support?” Basically they’re people who drive around and come by maybe once a week and help you straighten out your home. That sounds really humiliating and anxiety-provoking tbh, but what do i know.

Anyways do i know anyone who tried risperdal (risperidone)? I’m really unsure how to proceed. I’m kind of considering just never showing up for an appointment there again.

I may have made some type of mistake smh. I’m still super confused about the line between psychosis and quasipsychosis but she seemed so sure that I belonged in the first category :/

Well the good news was that she wasn’t particularly worried that I was going to get a lot worse (aka she didn’t see me as being at particular risk for schizophrenia f.ex.), likely since my symptoms hav been a constant my whole life. On the other hand she also didn’t believe I was ever going to be “healthy/sane/neurotypical”, basically for the same reason.

I feel like this still leaves me with no words to describe myself. I was starting to like stpd too. I don’t feel like it’s completely out of the game anyways, we’ll see about it all.

In any case I’m feeling fairly chill. My only issue is that my mother is going to call me tonight and I haven’t made up my mind about what to tell her. I am not going to tell my father or stepfather anything - which kind of pushes me towards wanting to disclose a bit more to my mum.

She was very set on the idea that I needed to try medication for adhd, but now that they’ve diagnosed me with psychosis they’re probably going to be careful with stimulants? She has a lot of users who are really not digging their antipsychotics, and I’ve been feeding her anti-anti-psychotic notions as well, so I’m not sure it will go over well if I present that aspect.

I could present it more as an anxiety-med, but I know that she is going to ask for the name and research the hell out of it. I told her I wasn’t going to accept anti-psychotics and she is likely to remind me of that.

At this point I honestly don’t know what I want for myself. Still, I worry about alienating my mom. If i had just not told her about the whole asessment in the first place, but I did, and I kind of sold her on the idea of stpd, but this is maybe something else..

Anyways, sorry about this excessively long post! EDIT: I just talked to my mum, and to my surprise she thought i ought to give the medicine a chance. interesting. im still thinking it over