Depressive thoughts have no business being in your head

Depressive thoughts have no business being in your head.You know that gun that exists in the back of your mind, taunting you? Making you feel like everything's gonna be better if you use it? Use it to shoot the thoughts instead. Imagine the phrase "I hate myself" being blown to bits by that gun. Take out every thought that brings you pain with that gun, and then get rid of the gun too, because it's still a bad reminder. And if your head feels empty now because your thoughts of worry have been there so long, you need to realize that now is your chance to fill that private space with whatever makes you happy - whatever will keep the sad thoughts away. Your brain is powerful, but it needs you to tell it what to focus on.

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa, you are probably wondering why on earth I would be writing you a letter. I have to admit, as an almost 18-year old, my belief in you is about as strong as my belief in that I'll become a Powerpuff Girl one day. But why shouldn't I believe in you just because I got older? I've outgrown you, the tooth fairy, and well I never believed in the Easter bunny to begin with. If people can still believe in God or multiple gods when I don't, or at least have faith, then why can't I have faith in something that seems a little ridiculous?

I doubt that you'll have time to read this letter - after all it's already December and you're busy making toys and iPads for the kids of the world, but I still have things I want to wish for... I know you can't grant every wish - even fairy godparents can't, but I'm hoping your magic can do something.

1. I want to come out to my family and not have them judge me. They have never been rude or anything towards homosexuality, but I feel like me being bisexual would just give them more reason to be disappointed in me. I can tell that they aren't thrilled with who I've become.
2. I want to get into UIUC. It's my dream school, and I'll cry if I don't get in.
3. I want a significant other - boy or girl. I'm nervous to try being with another guy, for reasons I've blogged about time and time again, but there is this one guy I wouldn't mind being with. He's extremely confusing and random, just like all of my friends, yet still something I haven't encountered before. I know you probably can't make people fall in love, but if you can somehow erase the nervousness or ask Cupid to push us a little closer together, that would be nice - I'll try to take it from there.
4. I want my friends to be happy. A lot of them aren't happy for different reasons. Maybe you could give them all puppies.
5. I'd like a puppy too. I might have to wait till I get my own place though - my mom isn't an animal person.
6. I want to be able to spend my life without worrying if my depression will take over me. I hate feeling suicidal. I've held off from harming myself for 8 years now - how much longer can I handle that?
7. I want my mom to be... less of a pain. She has anger issues, but I'm sure that if anyone tried to tell her that, she's bite their head off. My grandma already tried telling her about it, and my mom has little respect for her.
8. I want there to be a cure for Autism. My brothers have been affected by it for 19 years now, and it's been a burden on them, me, my mom, and my whole family. Imagine the other families struggling to stay together because of the problems Autism causes for them.
9. I want to meet my father, just so I can find out why he isn't here now.
10. I know this is a job far beyond your power, but if you ever get a chance, could you help end world suffering? You know: famine, poverty, disease, bullying, senseless murder, all of those terrible things. If Pandora held a box with all the sin and evil that would ever plague the world, then why can't someone who created them and put them in the box in the first place be able to put them back? I know you don't have all the answers, Santa - I'm just wondering.

There are plenty of other things I would love to do with my life - I have career goals and ideas and such, but I'd rather do those on my own. All I'm asking for is for you to give me a reason to keep trying to get to my future. I know suicide seems like the coward's way out, but there are so many problems and questions that I just can't deal with anymore. If you could give me at least one of the things on my list, then I'll try harder to live my life.

Love, Jerica

P.S. I try to leave some cookies out for you.

"A Steaming Cup Of S.O.S."

"A steaming cup of S.O.S."

This is a picture I drew. Notice the person standing on the spoon is holding a sign that says S.O.S. S.O.S. is my abbreviation for Stop Our Suffering, a name I came up with for an organization that I have not yet started. I wanted to start SOS for people like me and my friends who usually suffer in silence and either don't go get help or can't get help for the problems that they have no control over in life.

The idea of it being a teacup and having people trapped in a teabag, that came to me out of nowhere. I guess it's somewhat morbid, but I don't bother trying to scold my brain for what it comes up with anymore. I like my drawing - it's different from the poems I usually put in my sketchbook, which was bought for the purpose of me drawing in it.

"When life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it's going to launch you into something great."

The ups and downs of depression are entirely frustrating. It seems like every time I post on my blog, I go from a happy and hopeful post to a "woe is me" post, as if my blog itself is bipolar.

I'm not exactly sure how to phrase it, but yesterday, one of my "friends" kind of... molested me. I can't find a better word for it. All the seniors had a field trip to a movie theatre to watch a documentary b/c most of the school was taking practice tests, and I don't know, it's just, the whole time after the lights dimmed, he was... I just... okay if I don't write what happened now then I'm not helping myself at all. He was touching my breasts, and I'll explain right now that that wasn't a red flag for me b/c my friends and I have been known to do that for a while now. I know it's stupid, but I've had an apathetic attitude since 6th grade, and that includes not caring if people invade my personal space, unless they touch my stomach b/c it reminds me that I am not comfortable with my weight - I have a lot of issues. He was laying on my shoulder and kept touching me, but what raised a red flag was that he kissed my hand - numerous times. Even when I pulled my hand away, shrugged away from him, turned to face my other friend, or tried to keep him from taking my hand again by folding my arms and not letting in easily, he did not get the hint. When the movie was over and we were leaving, he kept hugging me from behind and I told him stop and moved his arms off of me, he still didn't get it. Back at school, I was still uncomfortable with him and he was still with me and my three friends, and I told two of my friends what happened, and Brandon was like "why didn't you say something?" In fact, most of my friends asked that same question when I told them - I still can't find an answer. One of my other "friends", Loretta, kept messing w/ me, sending me texts saying "He's next to you" and "Is he bothering u?" when she was right behind me. I didn't find it funny and she was getting on my nerves. Then she kept calling my name when I tried ignoring her. When we left the auditorium, I blew up and shouted.

"YOU'RE A BITCH (Loretta) AND YOU'RE A PERVERT (Andre) AND I WISH YOU WOULD JUST LEAVE ME THE F*** ALONE!!" and I stormed off. A minute later, Brandon came after me and tried to cheer me up. And then I noticed that Andre was still following.

I had just yelled at him, loud enough for others to hear, clearly voicing my disgust and anger, and yet he was still hanging around! Brandon sensed how awkward the situation was, so he continued to make things more awkward by saying random observations like "The sky is really blue today." I understand he didn't know how to fix things, and that's fine. Andre was still with us when we stopped to get food, and eventually he left on his own. Brandon was upset w/ me for not saying anything during the movie, but I really couldn't find any words. I couldn't verbally tell Andre to stop, I couldn't ask Brandon for help, I really couldn't say anything except "please sit next to me on the bus, Brandon."

I've told a few more of my friends what happened, and they were all in Anime Club, so they offered to talk to him. I just... didn't want to get involved.

The next day in Anime Club, we were watching anime... in the dark. I felt panicky and made sure I wasn't sitting near Andre, but all I could do was focus on him, and after an episode of anime, I got up and went for a walk. I couldn't handle being in the dark with him again. When I came back to the room later, he was gone, and my friend Sheridane said that she talked to him and told him it wasn't right, and he said okay. I really want this to all go away.

It just doesn't make any sense. Why do I keep having bad things happen to me? Why is it, even after all the triumphs I've made, I still find it hard to talk to people? I hate interviewing people even for a short question, and I'm a reporter, so that's a huge problem. I couldn't tell Andre to stop, or tell Brandon I needed help, and I even felt awkward telling my friends what happened. I really only told Brandon, Loretta, and Sheridane, but the group overheard me telling Sherry what happened, and so I explained it like five or six times.

What made matters worse was that I was really looking forward to getting the courage to talk to the girl I fawned over in two blog posts ago, but she wasn't even there today and I never see her around school. I felt like crying again today, but nothing actually fell. Some of my friends like Sherry and Ignacio could tell I was upset and kept bothering me to tell them why, but I just don't feel like explaining myself anymore. My best friends tried to make a joke of it, saying they would get me a mail order bride, and "kidding aside, you'll find someone some day. and they're probably battling the same demons so then you can battle demons together and be happy! right! because demons cancel out demons." I couldn't laugh, I just told them I wasn't going to talk right now. I don't think they were hurt - they just left the chat to do homework.

All I've been doing right now is listening to Coldplay and blogging my heart out. I just don't see why I keep dealing with shit like this. I'm highly unstable, and all I want to do right now is cry again, and do my homework and finish high school and finish my college applications and get accepted and go and get my career and just leave my stupid problems behind, but even if I could do that, the most random-ass new problems would pop up and next thing you know I'm gonna be found dead in my apartment.

I really don't want that to happen. I really, really, really want to live. I just don't want to live this life anymore.

Going back to the quote - the picture and the title of this post - I have to say that when I read the quote, it really filled me with hope for a minute. And I'd still like to believe that it is true - I mean I highly expect it to be true. I just wonder how long I'm going to have to keep pulling before I can finally break free.

Tired of Living The 'Charlie Brown' Life

I'm having a Charlie Brown moment. I am so stressed that I wish I had a friend that only charged a nickel for advice (even though Lucy wasn't really a licensed therapist, and wasn't very good either, but I guess that's what you get for 5 cents).

My life is me, repeatedly running up to kick the football, thinking "maybe this time will be different. Maybe I will actually get to kick it this time. Maybe I'll catch a break here." And then... Life (Lucy) snatches the ball up, and I go flying forward and crash, while she smiles smugly.

You know, I don't think Charlie Brown asked for too much. Sure sometimes he was a little too optimistic (really, the 'Little Red-Haired Girl' is not going to send you a valentine. If you don't even know her real name, chances are, she doesn't know yours either), but he really didn't expect too much. He tried to stay under the radar and live his life, but his friends always pushed him to do things he didn't really want to do. He didn't want to disappoint anybody, but his incredibly ungrateful friends criticized him time and time again.(Except for Linus, who was pretty bad-ass even though he carried a blanket and sucked his thumb, and Franklin, the only black kid on the show who made like, three appearances, yet my mom loves him anyway).

Right now, my stress has taken the form of the football, and no matter how hard I try to kick it out of sight, it just ends up leaving me on my back in defeat. I have to satisfy my friends or else I'll lose them, I have to satisfy my employers or else I have no more job, I have to satisfy my club buddies or else they feel abandoned and upset, I have to satisfy teachers or else they give me bad grades, I have to satisfy colleges and universities or else they won't have me, I have to satisfy my school (like my counselor) or else they won't help me move on to college, I have to satisfy my family for the next year or else I won't even make it out of here alive, I have to satisfy myself or else I'll never move forward, and I have to satisfy the people who believe in me by satisfying myself, which can't be done when I have to satisfy every other factor of my life!

My life really isn't any different from a cartoon, because even though you get introduced to new characters and new situations, you keep reliving the same plot, same friends and enemies, same unchanging character traits, same mishaps and letdowns, same location. Every advance in life is pretty much forgotten in the next couple of episodes. And this whole cycle keeps going until the show is finished or gets canceled.

I don't want my show to get canceled, but how come things are never really switched up every season??

I wish my cartoon version of life was more like Kim Possible instead of Charlie Brown. With Kim, "she could do anything". Like, literally - cheer-leading, world-saving, happy-family-keeping, bff-having, helpful-pet-having, friends-with-the-entire-world, college-admittance-gaining, awesome-boyfriend-getting... she could do ANYTHING, and STILL find time for high school and babysitting. Are you kidding me?!? All Charlie Brown had were annoying, unhelpful adults, bogus friends, and a bothersome dog that was somehow more popular than he was. And let me tell you, Charlie Brown had depression. I know that's a bit much for a cartoon character, but the signs were there, and considering he wasn't even in high school yet, you couldn't see things getting much better for him.

Why must I be Charlie Brown?

Anti-social

I choose to be anti-social most of the time. I won't go out unless it is mandatory. I'll hang out with friends after school just so I won't have to drive myself insane by going home. But I really don't like going to meet up with people.

Last night, I had an emotional breakdown. My two best friends are slowly becoming romantically involved with other people, and even though I am extremely excited for them, it made me feel lonely. I started to reminisce about my past boyfriends and crushes and friends (reminiscing is so very depressing sometimes). One of my best friends ended up staying up all night with me so that I could tell him a little about my past relationships with friends - romantically and strictly friendly. It reminded me of the constant pattern I have with friends = they will always leave me either because I get too clingy or because someone better comes along. I'm not exaggerating - this pattern has followed me from 6th grade and it's not stopping anytime soon.

My friend tried to cheer me up, and no matter how much my brain wanted me to stay depressed, he did end up cheering me up by telling me that he and my other friend would never leave me and that they are nothing like my previous friends. The part that had me crying was this: "U and Rowan are the group of friends i've been waiting for for my entire life of school." I had to be happy at that. After we said 'I love you' or 'EEELUUU <3' because we're weird teenagers, he then proceeded to compare our friendship to Craigslist.

... Now I can't tell you HOW that comparison works, but hey, we all decided a long time ago that if one of us says something that makes absolutely NO SENSE WHATSOEVER, you just let them explain and pretend to agree with their odd babble. This happens a lot now though, so most of the time we just retort babble with babble. I would love for us to have our own talk show one day, but I have a feeling we'd be pulled off the air.

Anywhosits, EEELLUU, you crazy people. Thank you for being there for me.

So today, I am supposed to go to the movies with friends, and I keep trying to make up excuses in my head, but I really want to make myself go out with them because they are my friends. (not my best friends, but still). I just hate losing people as friends, so I tend to not get too close to them. If I get too close to them, then they either get bored or feel suffocated. Friendship is my oxygen - I cannot help it. I thrive on it, and if it weren't for my friends, past and present, I wouldn't be able to survive my family or school or even my own brain.

So I shall ignore the fact that it's an R-rated movie. I will ignore the fact that I have no State I.D. to prove my age. I will ignore the fact that I hate spending money and buying movie tickets will make me feel pain from my wallet.

I am going to hang out with my friends.

Filled with GLEE

Just had an amazing day with my best friends where we saw GLEE! THE MOVIE. It's like, every song just started a new fire in me, totally different from how I felt when watching the TV show. Every emotional song had me feeling the same emotions, every upbeat song had me wanting to dance in the aisles (and as much as I wanted to, my friends wouldn't let me. They didn't want to embarrass themselves, but we were already embarrassing ourselves - we were singing along and dancing in our seats and acting along with the song and grabbing at the sexiness of Glee actors in 3D). Seeing the movie reminded me of why I fell in love with Glee in the first place (besides the fact that they have awesome musical numbers and juicy drama and comedy) - Glee makes a home for every outcast in high school, even the ones you don't have at your school or didn't know existed.

Mostly everyone feels like an outcast in high school - it's like a rule that there must be outcasts. And of course, if you have been reading my other blog posts, you know how much I feel like an outcast. I don't have any specific category to fall under or one regular group of friends, I can go from having a good day to having a depressing day that makes me not want to go on, I have so many problems - some others also face and some that are pretty unique for me. When I watch shows like Glee and True Life, it reminds me that reality is really what you don't normally see. It let's me know that it's okay if my life or my problems aren't normal. For a while, a few years ago, I didn't really think I was depressed or that my problems were that bad because I always think that there are people worse off than I am and that I should stop feeling sorry for myself. But that didn't help me at all.

So now, with a new school year and a lot of new perspectives in mind, I'm hoping to make my senior year the most BAD-ASSICAL year of my high school life :D

"Skip to the ending... I'd like to know. Author of the moment, can you tell me? Do I end up happy?"

"Skip to the ending... I'd like to know. Author of the moment, can you tell me? Do I end up happy?"

It's weird... as much as I love stories and happy endings, I can't really see myself wanting to know how my story will end. Mostly because I'm pretty sure it'll be the exact same way as it is now: me having everything I could possibly need, the possibility to have what I desire if I work hard for it, yet me never being truly happy. I feel spoiled and bratty, and often bitchy. I snap at people who are my friends and family and who want to help me. I can't let myself be happy because every single thought in my head just brings me down. Looking at my brothers and their autism, I wonder if I have my own mental problems. Depression never scared me. But schizophrenia? I'm not really one to self-diagnose, and I hate when people try to solve other people's problems without even knowing all the symptoms, but if I had to say what was ailing me, I'd say schizophrenia is a close one.

Right now, I am debating whether or not to break up with my boyfriend, not because he has done anything wrong because he hasn't, but because this whole thing is stressing me out to no end. He'd understand, and I know a lot of my friends have seen this coming, but I really don't know how he would react. Of course, I won't actually do this. I'll chicken out as always. I can't figure out if my chickening out of everything is a good thing or not.

Athazagoraphobia - Fear of being forgotten or ignored

Debating whether I'm afraid of being forgotten and ignored for being myself, or tired of being the center of attention because I have to be everything that I'm not.
My friend says that we all feel like that at some point. I agree, I just wish it wasn't the same feeling everyday.

Isn't it a little odd that the thing that bugs you most about being depressed is the repetition of the problem? Of course we do what we can with what we've got, but it just turns into a routine because we never actually solve the problem.
In this case, the problem is this: do I choose to continue being the girl that is great at making friends but also good at scaring them away by being clingy and depressed, or do I choose to be whatever my loved ones want me to be so that they can stay in my life because I know I'll be even more sad and lost without them?

I think I've stuck with the latter for now. At least this way, my family doesn't kill each other, I get to keep all my friends, and I even have a boyfriend. Am I happy? I don't even think that's my goal anymore. I'm content and that is where I am meant to be.