March 24 - A long time coming...   Well it's been a very long time since my last journal entry.  Things have been pretty rough for me since then.  The death of my friend, as well as a number of life stressors sent me back to rock bottom.  I had my longest hospital stay, of over a month.  Where they treated me by finding the right cocktail of medications to basically tone my emotions down so I could just cope.  Obviously popping five different types of pills 3 times a day is not a long term solution, I hope. But in the meantime it helps squelch the self damaging impulses I get when I get really emotionally confused and down.  I had one of those episodes while in hospital, and actually went AWOL, I told them I was going out for a 5 minute fresh air break, which they allow, and with just the clothes on my back, I hitch-hiked away.  I was on the road for 12 hours solid, most of it  with a truck driver in an 18 wheeler, and went to Calgary, which is a ways away (12 hour drive!) by Calgary I came to my senses, and checked myself in hospital there, and they sent me back the next day by plane.  It's hard to believe that I actually do things like that. Things that are so contrary to my 'regular' self.  Mental Illness/Mood disorders can make you do the craziest things.   Letting go of the shame and pain around those things alone is very hard, knowing that my erratic and self damaging behavior hurts the people I love so very much, I think I would give away an arm or a leg if someone could promise me I would never be depressed again.  Or my sight, or my hearing even.  Or just about any physical condition.  It's hard not to feel guilty, like I should be able to just try harder and 'fix' myself, that I should just feel, think, act, differently.  Though as hard as I try, sometimes I can't.  It's a horrible feeling.    One of the hardest things during my hospital stay was ending my relationship with barbie, which just added another layer of grief and mourning to my list of pain, but unfortunately it was a break that I felt I needed in order to heal myself.  Not that she's a bad person in any way, she's a wonderful woman that deserves the best the world can give her, she's been through so much pain of her own.  It's just that together with our combined emotional intensity, our combined baggage from our pasts and my extreme vulnerability to be easily overwhelmed right now, it was simply too much.  I truly wish it could be otherwise, but I know in my heart, in order to take care of me, it was a decision I had to make.  Part of me hopes that her and I can have a future again together, but I know if that were to happen, there would need to be a lot of changes in who I am, and likely in who she is, so that we can both stop our patterns of destructive relationships. It's not a 'blame' situation, it's just the way it is.   I think breaking up with her, was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my entire life.  She's in my heart and my mind constantly, and I hope always for her well being and her happiness.  I can't write/think too much about her, or I get too upset, right now Doctors orders are to try to manage the intensity of my emotions to keep them in a normal range.  Yes, grieving and emotional pain or normal and healthy, and believe I'm still feeling those things, but without working on tempering them down and taking medication to help me do that, I end up a little ball of hysterical crying sitting in a dark closet or some other hiding place weeping uncontrollably for hours - that, is not so good, especially when it's often followed by thoughts of suicide or running away from everything. So I'm home from hospital now, and have been for three days, and I seem to be coping alright.  We're moving back into our little condo, because our renter skipped out on us, and that means we have to get rid of oodles of stuff, not just because it won't all fit in the condo, but because we have to make the money to cover our losses from our renegade tenant.  It's hard to do, sell things you love.  One of things I'm going to sell is a gold pocket watch my parents gave me for graduation, its worth a few hundred dollars, and it has a fair bit of meaning for me, but, If we're going to keep a rough over our heads and food in the cupboards, it, like many other things, have to go.   One of the other losses in this move is going to be one of our cats, Zuzu.  When Mishima, our 13 year old cat passed away in the summer, she missed him so much, we thought we would get another cat to be her companion, even though it's been many months now, she still doesn't tolerate him at all, they fight constantly.  Then when my friend who passed away, bought me a puppy for Christmas, well, Iggy pup got along fabulously with the new cat, and they became best buddies, and my old girl, Zuzu, will have nothing to do with either of them, and the squabbling is constant.   So, she needs to go to a home where she'll be the only pet, or at least the only cat (she just seems to ignore dogs).  Unfortunately, we have only until our moving date to find her a home, or we have to relinquish her to the SPCA, our condo's current regulations only allow 2 pets per suite.  So the pressures on there.  If only people looking for a cat would meet her, she'd be scooped up in an instant, she loves people, and is very cuddly and very talkative, but with a nice 'voice'.  I'm going to miss her, another on the mourning list. Well, there is so much more I could say and do, and I should give you new daily pics, and new weekly recommends, and all that kind of thing, but it took me three days to get up the motivation to sit and write an entry.  Right now most any available energy and motivation for me needs to go towards organizing what to sell and what to keep, and to try and get the basics done, you know shower, eat, dress, play computer games (good tuning out therapy time waster there). No one has of yet ever given me any money through pay pal, but I'm going to enter another plea here today anyways.  We are really really in dire financial need (we had to sell one of our computers even though that's going to make site work more difficult) We're visiting the food bank for food, and we're dumpster diving the pet supermarket dumpster for pet food (they throw out damaged bags even though there is nothing wrong with the product inside, one rip in the packaging and in the bin it goes!) We want to keep our sites up and running, and we really really need money to pay our mortgage so we can keep our home.  If you can spare even the smallest amount, please please click on the 'paypal please' at the bottom of this entry, every little bit is making a huge difference right now.  Anything you can spare we'd be very very grateful for. XO Katt  previous/next e-mail me! clix here to vote for my journal please  Recommended this week :   Come on.... just a little something, money for tea? for Christmas dinner? for toilet paper? for shaving cream? for a puppy? for oranges? for tampons? for paper? for Mr. Noodle? hooked on phonics lessons? for anti-depressants? For puppy food? For puppy kindergarten? For bankruptcy fees? for neutering costs?