A year to forget in hindsight

On December 12 I finished my extended nine month Roaccutane sentence. It grieves me to see how optimistic I was about this treatment at the end of last year. I thought I was ready. But I quickly found that my extensive research was inadequate in protecting me or even readying me from the deathly call it unleashed. Further to my mounting grief was the necessity of an elongation of the treatment. In the time where my body should have been free and healing as I prepared for exams, I was still wilfully poisoning it for sheer vanity.

This year has been one of real hardship for me. My final year of school, confounded doctors, mystery illness, quitting my job and roaccutane. If this year had forced me to deal only with the first three issues then I think, no, truly believe that this would have been a different story. But I gambled with roaccutane at the wrong moment. Quitting my job was one of many harsh side affects that I grudgingly accepted. I danced with a killer and it nearly cost me everything.

I wanted to achieve in school this year. I did. Never before had achieving been so important, in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately this desire ebbed away until it was a mere trickle that occasionally sparked to life, but only ever briefly. I was consistently battered by roaccutane who, as I now understand, threw the book at me. No other roaccutane patient that I know personally suffered as I did. I was in constant pain. New constant pain. And I was forced to learn to live with it; except I couldn't. It frightened and tortured me at the same time and my mind began to rot. I got handballed from specialist doctor to specialist doctor and ultimately received no answers and many years I will never get back and my mind continued to rot. I fed myself despair and anger, hurt and resentment, fear and pain. Happiness didn't come easy anymore. It was forced or faked. Who wants to achieve when their daily victory is dragging a broken body out of bed? My academic year, on the whole, was overtly average for me. My marks occasionally slipped here and there. On more than one occasion I saw fit to end it all. In term three it was very much over in my mind. Scarily, it was very much planned and only a matter of time because I couldn't repair the rot in my head and I was tired of living with it. So very close.

Then my only lifelong dream was realised and I forced myself to make it for this wonderful horse, and for this wonderful horse alone. I even rallied for exams throwing myself into study with a final almighty effort.

And though I had no real business setting expectations, I failed to meet them. I know that I am my harshest critic, but if I'm not kicking my butt then who is? And I was so disappointed with my end result. To sit here and know that the potential to be better is very much there is haunting. And I know it's just a number. I know no one really cares. I know that I have a long line of reasons and excuses for not achieving my best. But I do care and it doesn't lessen the sting of falling so far short. Nor the sting of fighting on for what is, in my mind, inadequacy.

Life can and will go on. But I don't know where to go from here. Roaccutane finally finished, but it's yet to fully leave me and won't for sometime yet. Truthfully I am no better now than I was in school. My mental serenity is so precarious and unpredictable that I know I won't be this level for long. The rot in my head is still very much there. The pain still sounds it's voice. The sleeplessness still rears it's ugly head. I am, at the end of the day, nothing that I wanted to be. Only I now have clear skin.

- Sky

The first mistake

I looked in the mirror today. That was the first mistake. I'm wearing this cast that weighs half a tonne. I have two bags under my eyes. I have red, flaky skin. I am covered in a red, itchy rash. I am carrying painfully obvious extra kilos. I have bertocchi ham thighs. One breast is bigger than the other. And there's nothing I can do about these things; not even accept them.

Part of me is actually astounded that I could still be so unhappy in the now. The very same now that should be blissful and free. This other part of me is not surprised at all and consoles me with the dark fact that it was only a matter of time until I reached this place again. And how could I not when the only circumstance that changed was my going to school? Roaccutane still ruins my life on a day to day basis. My return to the Alfred hangs gloomily over my head. My body still punishes me for every movement in every moment in every day. Life is practically the same, despite the promise of it all.

Suicide does still cross my mind, but far less frequently than the thought and need to cut. I am surprised by how much I think of it now. Especially given how much time had passed between cuts; though I do currently wear one proud red mark. And I'm far less upset about this than I should be. Show me an alternative that 'works' and I'll show you one that doesn't. I'll even go so far as to admit that I like the scars. I like the blood, the more the better. I like the sharp foreign feeling of the act that is so different to any other pain I'm feeling. I like being able to see and touch them and feel visible. I like the idea that I can raze the pain away and I would quarter myself if it made the difference between happiness and what I have. I probably won't ever really stop.

But still, the most distressing circumstance remains my ongoing depression and wondering for the first time, just how much of this is a product of school? And now without it there is no reason, no motivation, to continue this dogged forward march towards the light I can say with confidence does not exist. Why should I get up in the morning? Why should I eat? Why should I get dressed? Why should I make the effort to keep up with people? I can count on one hand the people who consistently make the effort to say 'hi' to me now. I'm tired of chasing. These people don't care. And that's okay now. I'm not going to try anymore.

I am tired of hating me though. I'm over the mistakes. I wish these things wouldn't happen to me anymore.
- Sky

A time to try again, perhaps

On Tuesday I will sit my final exam and then I will be free. To me, this is one exam too many and the thought of cramming in a year's worth of knowledge that I know will still not be enough is still too daunting a task to begin. So, almost paralysed, I practice my well worn technique of avoidance. Because, after all, I have learnt to expect results from a minimum effort. Though deep down I acknowledge that I cannot possibly achieve this time.

I am not sad. Leaving school, has been a long time coming. I have withered, and struggled, and fought in that hostile environment for too many years to feel any sadness or sentimentality. I have lost too much to ever want it. And in return I have learnt very little in terms of things that are useful for trying to survive outside of the bubble that will shortly be burst.

All I really have is the knowledge that it is unwise to hope. It is unwise to hope for better things to come because they simply will not. Time and time again I hoped and was cut down by a different catastrophic disaster that dashed them even more callously than the time before. This year alone I was forced to quit my job because my body - brain and joints - began to fall apart. I have staggered down this never ending tunnel chasing a light that is simply an illusion. I have contemplated suicide (it's time I manned up and used the word) and every time I cycle back there, the compulsion to follow through is that much stronger; the look over the edge that much longer. I have contemplated hacking off my own limbs as they kept me awake night after night; collapsing beneath me and damaging me beyond repair with every single step. I have suffered insufferable doctors who in their own shortcomings and failing of knowledge refuse to acknowledge simple facts; blaming what is not at fault, seeking the easy way out.

So it seems wrong to hope now. The word feels wrong on my tongue. I don't seek a better tomorrow, I seek to save myself from further disappointment. And it's exhausting, living this way. Someone who doesn't share my head space cannot understand the mammoth undertaking that is each day. How meaningless each pat on the back for 'turning up to school today' was. It's unimaginable what I have survived. Continue to survive. Won't survive forever.

School will end, and not a moment too soon, and I will not look back. Nor will I look too far forward. Or be content with the now. I decided to live for a bit, vaguely and poorly convinced that things cannot possibly stay this way, but I cannot live forever this way.

This black despair is after all, incorrigible.

- Sky

A time to forget

I realise now that I was both stupid and wrong.

I was stupid to think that I could handle roaccutane in yr12. I was stupid to think it wouldn't hurt me. I was stupid to think I wouldn't feel the pain. I was stupid to think I'd be able to ignore it. I was stupid to think that it wouldn't hurt my fragile sanity. I was even stupider yet to remain silent up until this point. And now for six weeks I have to suck it up and pretend its okay. Pretend I don't hurt as much as I do. That I'm not battling as hard as I am, that I don't think about cutting, that I don't cut, that I don't think about dying, that my thoughts don't invariably end in suicide, that I don't question my existence, that I don't feel outcasted, that I don't wonder who I am let alone who my friends are, that I'm going to be okay because I got this fucking far and as a consequence it'll be automatically assumed that I'll get a little bit further. That'll I'll survive because my 'pattern' is surviving.

I should feel better being away from school. But the truth is, school cut my two week break in half. And I haven't slept well in weeks. I haven't slept well and I'm sure its making everything worse than it actually is, but who is to know with me anyway because I'm fucking insane. I should be locked up for insanity. And I would be too if I did something. If I reached out. Took cutting too far. Attempted suicide. But because I remain in a state of either indecision or comatose, I don't do anything and no one cares. So what if I have nine days of classes left. That's nine days for things to go wrong. Then another nine days for me to fuck up study and a whole 20 days to pretend I can do exams.

Well I can't do this stuff.

I was wrong. I am wrong because I have overestimated my strength, my courage and my capacity to handle the constant curveballls my bullshit existence throws at me. I am a universal joke. I don't understand any purpose in any of this because I just hurt. I was wrong about roaccutane. I was so wrong. And I was wrong about me. And I was wrong about this year and I'm just wrong. I'm so very wrong.

And there's naught for it is there. Absolutely naught. Just plugging on for another day under the pretence that it's okay, that somebody cares, that there is a light at the end of this never ending tunnel, that the sun will shine and I'll be okay.

I'm tired of this blindness. I'm tired of the lies. I'm tired of the pain.

Maybe the sun isn't in this world.

- Sky

A Symphony of Pain

I think that I've reached a point in my life where I've completely lost hope in a future that will ever be happy for me. Every single day is a struggle, and no direction seems to be right. Around every corner is suffering and pain. And as I've come to realise, most unhappily, is that this promised light at the end of this long, dark tunnel does not exist.

I have simply reached the conclusion that the sun will never shine. My lonely final soundtrack will just be my symphony of pain.

No one reads this stuff, so I'm going to write a list

1. Today I was told that I don't tell people that I like them. And I feel like it shouldn't matter this much, but today has not been the same since this was said. And I'm sure it was in jest, but I can't help but feel numb. And I'm sitting here feeling pretty bad and trying not to cry and it's because I'm fairly certain that I just don't say these things. I'm just thinking about it and I must be a bad person.

2. There are lots of people I like, but I guess I can't articulate just how much I appreciate them. I think I'm scared. But I'm not sure what of. People have a nasty habit of leaving me so maybe I'm trying to protect myself from further harm by keeping these particular cards close to my chest. I don't really know. There's someone I like quite a lot who doesn't talk to me much anymore. I asked them a few weeks ago if we were drifting apart and they said they were just busy. But I think we are drifting apart, or have. It just hasn't been the same for a long time now.

3. People must think I don't like them because I choose the company of myself a lot of the time now. I don't know why it is that I do this, but it's not because I don't like people as such. I'm just finding larger groups irritating and hard to deal with at the moment. It's not that I particularly enjoy the company of myself, or even that I like my own thoughts - because I don't - I just don't want to have to think, or take in any more problems because I'm drowning in everything I've already got.

4. I don't want to move house. Aside from just generally hating change, I've lived in this house for seventeen of my eighteen years. I realise now that much of my comfort is derived from feeling safe within these walls and it's going to be extremely different when we leave. I like living here. I like the wildlife and I suddenly like that my room gets oven hot in summer because our house is brick and my room faces west.

5. I started cutting, yet again. Though I am restricted to only when my family isn't at home. I can't afford to be caught in the act. I want to feel things, because I'm lost in sadness or no feeling at all. I want to prove that I'm real because sometimes I worry that I might be a paper person in her paper world. I want to be happy, even though I know cutting won't ever give me that.

6. I really miss you and how things were. And it hurts me that you chose her. Everyone chooses her. She's exciting and I'm depressed and boring. I don't deserve friends. Even you realised that in the end.

7. I'm in so much pain. And I feel really useless. I took my wrist brace off early today and then I couldn't open my jar of lip balm and I realised my hand was much weaker than I thought and I found that quietly distressing. I pretended it was funny, but really is was very sad because I'm tired of the pain and reliance on other things to help me function. I don't want to move and feel pain anymore. It isn't right for anyone to be like this.

8. I'm tired of being tired and yet I cannot sleep. Despite battling through school today I'm quite awake now that it's after 9pm. I'm just sad. And riddled with roaccutane. And I want to do nothing all day and all night. And just be me. Whoever that is.

9. I hate school so much. It makes me feel so many awful things that I die a little inside each day I wake up. I do this thing now where I sit on my bed for twenty minutes and absentmindedly listen to the radio while I wonder why I insist on torturing myself. I don't do much school related stuff anymore, only the bare minimum - less if I can manage it. I have no desire for it, no motivation, no care. And I know this is bad, it is so bad. And yet, this is where I am and what I am doing.

10. I can't do this anymore.

- Sky

Life and death are balanced on the edge of a razor

I'm so tired.

I am just so tired.

My body literally aches, and I can't tell whether it's exhaustion or just wear and tear.

Perhaps its both.

I've reached this point where I just don't know what I'm fighting for. A long, long, long time ago I was promised a light at the end of the tunnel. Years and years and years later, I don't see it. I just don't see it. It is so hard to force myself through each day knowing, yes knowing, that it won't get better. That I won't be healthy, that it will hurt to walk, that I will go to the doctors, that I won't ever be good enough, that I will never be happy.

So what am I fighting for?

Am I fighting to always be sick? To always be in pain? To never be good enough?

I don't understand why any of this is.

This is much more than battling with school, this is so much more. This is me unable to see the why in what I am doing, out of routine, each day.

I have run out of things to throw at life. I have run out of things to say.

There is no comfort for this.

- Sky

Staring at a wall of Memories does terrible things to one's self

Mum asked me today, rather out of the blue, if I'd been cutting lately. The answer was 'no', and it was the truth. It's been some time (the exact details of said time I cannot recount) since I last did that. It didn't bother me that she asked. The fact that she asked is particularly inconsequential, because I wouldn't have answered truthfully had I been going through a cycle, but it was more the ideas that stemmed from it. Specifically the circumstances in which I do get sucked into a cycle. It always struck me as odd, my reasons for it. Physical things, such as ongoing doctor appointments or knee pain, never drew such a reaction. It was the emotional distress that always inevitably threw me off. I couldn't deal with it when I first started cutting. And over time as I've better learnt to deal and compartmentalise, I've better been able to cope. And consequently, my desire to cut has backed off. Sometimes I think I'll be free of it forever, but I've learnt over time how ridiculous a hope that is. Addiction is not so easily shed. This one is here for the long haul. As long as I am suffering I will inevitably relapse.

I recently experienced two emotional events that, had they happened earlier in my life, would have all but killed me. I have definitely lost one friend and almost certainly lost another. Neither of which I am particularly vexed about. The first, who is definitively gone, was very dear to me and had been there for me for a long time. He then disappeared without warning. He literally cut me off, deleting my from every avenue we'd previously used to communicate. So I made a friendly attempt at conversation - which was ignored - and then sent a far less friendly note basically telling him he was a dick. And that was that. I'm not even really all that upset about this. I was angry for about two days (hence the angry letter), but that's it. I properly let go. Damn, I've got to properly let go of things more often. But the latter friend, that's weird. I pined for his friendship when he left me at first, a long time ago. I really pined. And then, after a ridiculously long time, I let go. Not even worried anymore. I'm even less worried now that he's all but declared his undying love for me. I still cringe and shudder when I reflect on that conversation we were having a week ago today, at this time. God. It was dramatic and awkward and just cannot be unseen. Ever. It's the teen drama I thought I'd escaped unscathed from.

I will not be disappointed if he fails to come back into my life. I won't miss him this time

Something I am missing terribly, today more than ever, is the horses. May doesn't seem all that long ago, but it's been two months since I quit my job. Two months since I had contact with the horses that I adored and who (mostly) adored me in return. It's fine to spend a few minutes greeting our horse at the races, or visiting the horses a friend works with briefly, but its another to work with them and know they know you. I was working a long time and I miss them. I miss that they don't judge. I miss the way the communicated. I miss the way they talked to me. I miss the contact. I just miss them. I've sat in my room for long afternoons facing, inadvertently, the wall filled with photos of the horses I've worked with and it kind of kills me inside to have had to let all that go. I want it back now more than ever. I spend much of my spare time looking for a horse of my own and I don't know. They're something I'm starting to really pine for. Worthy of tears now. And it takes something big to dissolve me into tears.

I just miss them so much.

One thing I haven't missed is school. I hate what school life does to me. The battle with sleep that I can't rectify by sleeping through the morning. The stress of trying to constantly achieve a level of unattainable perfection. Perfection that is not normally required only by yourself, but those around you. Those who don't understand the consequences of the chase. The way I'm pitted against my classmates only to see who is the best. The way I'm pressured in ways I will never be pressured in again. And for what? I don't understand what they set out to achieve, what they are trying to teach us. Are they trying to break me? Is that it? They want to break my spirit and send me out into the world completely unprepared for future struggles that require the spirit and resolve they so callously shattered? I find it hard to reconcile these things. School is three quarters of my grief at this time of my life. I'm am never so stressed as when I am at school. I am never so sullen, lost, agitated, aggravated, and many more things than when I am at school. Outside of school life never brought these things out in me. But school, school saps my strength. Makes me struggle. Forces me to do things I would not otherwise push myself to do. Causes me physical pain I do not feel in any other aspect of my life.

School is a bad place. I don't miss it when I'm not there. I don't miss the crush of people. The whisper of their judgements. I don't miss the work. The given deadlines I continuously ignore. I don't miss the expectations. The belief that I'm the next Einstein. The struggle to meet the expectations so carelessly placed upon me. School is rigid and tough. It doesn't care about who you are. You learn that as soon as your given you're number. A number. That's all you are. Not a person, a number. And in the end, at the end of all that torture that teaches you nothing in life skills; in the end you're merely a statistic.

As the holidays have erased my general school anxieties I have cared less about the medical afflictions. The right heart catheterisation spun me out dramatically. I could not get my head around it. I probably blew it out of proportion because it sounded so awful and traumatising and scary. It wasn't so bad when I averted my gaze. Repeated to myself that the tube up my arm did not in fact hurt. Of course my arm is still sore three, four days later. But really, that's okay. And now that I've passed that traumatic event, I don't care. There is no feeling left for what these doctors, all of them, have done to me. I am not angry, I am not upset. I wouldn't say I'm accepting though either. I am though, quite indifferent at this tranquil time. I've come to realise that not all that much hangs on Friday's appointment. I have been conditioned to accept the possibility of having this condition for well over a year now. Telling me I definitively have it is of little consequence to me now. It's annoying, sure. But I can't change that now. If they tell me I don't have it, then great. I'll be blasé, but pleased. And predictably, my life will go on, as it would have had I been sick.

It's a bit cruel really, how the world refuses to stop for you when you want a break. When I want to curl up in a ball and for everything to end I expect it to stop, but it does not. It doesn't allow for that. It expects you to man up and keep going. All I can ask is how?

It's fine to be nonchalant outwardly, but the raging internal monologue of doom doesn't cease. It numbs me to certain things while killing me with others. Nonchalance only covers the scent of destruction.

- Sky

Stop telling me blindly how strong I am

I want to hurt things. I want to break them. I want them to look the way I feel. I want to see the destruction that is constantly occurring within me. I want it to be physical. I want it to be tangible. I want to be able to touch it. I want it to be real in places other than my head. I want it to be there for people to see. I want them to get it. I want them to understand. I want them to understand so they'll stop telling me blindly how strong I am.

You can't judge my "strength" on the joke I turn my life into.

That is weakness. A sure sign that I can't deal with the things that are happening. My defence is to laugh. That's woeful, disgraceful. I'm not armed with anything. Just humour. What is that? That won't solve anything, not by a long shot. All that humour is doing is ensuring that I survive. All that humour does not give a shit either way how I come out of the things that insist upon happening to me. I just have to survive.

And that's not okay. I don't want to just survive. I want to live. Is that so much to ask, that I get a chance to really live? To be happy and feel joy. Not sit in my bed fearful of moving due to aching muscles and shot tendons. The strands of my hair stop coming out so excessively. I know this is your doing Roaccutane and you need to stop. I'll not be bullied by your medicinal rampage. The rash covering my limbs needs to leave. The exhaustion that depletes me and yet will not let me sleep needs to go and harass someone else.

For seventeen years I have been harassed constantly by things that are out of my control. And I am done. I am done having my life dictated by these things that are not me and yet are me. I can't find the lines between self and pain because it is so damn ingrained it might as well be me. How is that even fair? To be happy, and to be pain free. That is the real joke.

I don't know how to explain the things that are happening to me. They tumble out jumbled in factual description said with such sarcasm people listening can only laugh. I'm making the real unreal. How can that be? I insist that "if you don't laugh you cry" but I couldn't cry if I wanted to anyway. I only get mad. I get really mad. I get snappy and hurtful and the hate exudes from each movement. My other great state is "normality". The blissful pretence of control, of happiness, of a pain free existence. But it is only a pretence of things I dearly wish I was in possession of.

Things that continue to elude me, and I'm sure will continue to do so for the remainder of my life. That is how my script has been written after all. No simplicity, no joy, just trauma, one after the other until I don't know what to do, who to trust, how to explain, when to feel, why comfort does nothing.

I want it to end. It's madness this internal chaos. It's mad at me. I'm mad at everyone else. Everyone else gets mad at me because I'm mad at them for no good reason and suddenly I'm in the centre of this madness and I don't even know what I'm doing.

I'm getting panicky, that much is evident in my writing. Panic comes with helplessness. Helplessness is what I have. All I have is disjointed thoughts. Disjointed thoughts that have dictated this blog.

Yes, my hair is coming out excessively, I notice it more and more every day. Just over two months to go. Three if you count the month of grace Roaccutane requires to leave my body completely.

Yes, people don't understand. And how can they? Everything that happens to me should be in a soap opera or in a bad novel. Writers could not make better fiction if they tried. And how do you then explain to someone who doesn't understand what you don't understand yourself?

You don't.

That's the point. You just don't. You use as few words at possible, you shield the lack of knowledge in sarcasm and shit, the world is none the wiser and you look like Iron Man. Infallible. A genius. The way you should be.

- Sky

Resignation

This whole week so far I have battled with sleep. I'm not even sure why, but there's this storm of raging crap revolving around my head every time I lapse into solitude. And I suppose the other thing is the outrageous amount of pain my right knee insists on putting me in. I'm starting to think that the time may have come to see a doctor. But I can already see how that will end up. And I really, honestly, cannot be bothered with that dreadful and dreary cycle of doctors, scans, surgeons and physiotherapy. I just don't care that much, I'd rather be in pain.

Not really actually, I just feel like this is the less painful alternative. If you hadn't got this feeling from my previous post, I've had a gutful of doctors. So congratulations if you managed to miss that, that's pretty damn impressive and totally irrelevant.

Anyway, it's now 12.30, still in pain, still thinking, not so surprisingly, still awake. I want to be asleep, I really do. I'm two days into this week and already I've burst into tears more times than is ever necessary. They're not full on breakdowns, just little burst of "Omg, what am I doing?!" Part of this is being overtired (as if that wasn't already obvious) and part of it is my life being crap and I want a better one. And I feel like that in my nice and developed country with the modern miracle of medicine, I should be able to have it -- and not the other way round, which has ended up being the case for me. It's challenging for one to consider medicine as being something that causes illness. Medicine is synonymous with healing and I suppose at a much more subconscious level, that's the part I'm finding hardest. Medicine should have and should be helping me, and yet all it's done is made things worse to the point where I'm going through all the delightful tests I outline in somewhat colourful language in the below post.

So yes, it is very, very challenging to consider that something that should be helpful should be so damn unhelpful to the point its creating permanent damage. Not only is the condition I have, more likely than not, been afflicted with so foreign and rare that I'm educating counsellors and not the other way round, the general idea of medicine being responsible for my current state is foreign enough to people on that subconscious level that they don't know what to say or do and I just don't know how to accept it and move on with my life. I just can't. I just cannot make any sort of peace with any of this. It's so distracting because it's always there. I haven't done any helpful work for school since last Wednesday and I don't know when I'll be able to do anything helpful for school again. This period of indecision, where nothing is confirmed, lasts until July 20th. Yes, the day before my birthday. I'm being set up for a lovely early birthday present here. Perhaps I'll just have to ensure that I don't make it to that day. At any rate, until I reach July 20th, I'm liable to be distracted and agitated and wound up and just generally confused and upset. I've already had one school SAC pushed back. And I did a really bad job of that because now I've got three in one day so I'm half convinced I'm going to have to change more. Focusing for eighty minutes on a good day is an effort, fancy focussing dead on for three times eighty minute classes to complete all the SACs. This can't end well.

So why am I still awake? Because I'm constantly thinking. I was told to write down all the 'what if's' so I could quiz the specialist, but I don't think it's a 'what if' situation at this point. I was conditioned more than a year ago to accept that I had this "disease" (because that is what he called it). Being told I didn't actually have it was fantastic. Then being told I had it again? Absolutely debilitating. But still, not a case of the 'what ifs'. I know full well what will happen if I am officially diagnosed. I know what treatments will be offered, I know I'll be rejecting them, I know that regular testing will be a must, I know that I will be stuck like this forever, I know that I'll never use any kind of hormone contraceptive ever again. I know all there is to know. And that isn't much because my specialist doesn't know all that much either. Medicine hasn't advanced as far as we'd think and liked it to have. Yep, we can get fantastic awesome images of any part of our body. Doesn't mean we know what irregular readings and images mean. And that's what makes this so hard. The period of indecision is long, and there's no real guarantee we'll know what to do even when we know what's wrong.

I so want them to say that I'm not sick, that I don't have this disease. But suffering the debilitating effects of having my world crushed, again, I'm not prepared to allow myself that hope and optimism again.

All the dates for now are set. Part of me wants them to hurry, part of me does not. Most of me just wants this whole thing to be over, even though it won't be. It will probably never be. This waking existence is like a permanent nightmare and causing myself pain simply cannot wake me up.

I'm so tired of leaving people speechless. I'm so tired of being speechless myself. I miss my sharpness of mind and my ability to get things done. I miss certainty and I miss being pain free. Not that I'm entirely clear on what being pain free is like, because it's been an absurdly long time since I've been pain free. I'm not even sure that state actually exists.

I don't think I swore once in this post tonight, shows you how drained I am once the anger dissipates. All that's really left at this point is sadness and resignation. Swap the cussing for tears. Sealed my fate.

- Sky

You're going to life a happy, healthy life... LOL jokes, you're actually still sick

That's pretty much the essence of my last cardio appointment into Wednesday's appointment with the new respiratory specialist.

Lol, jokes. You're still sick.

What the actual fuck.

When the cardio told me that it didn't really look like the pressure had risen anymore, I was pretty much ecstatic (in my quiet blasé way) because that meant it was over. It meant that all of this crap was over and that after a year and a half I would be getting my stupid life back and I could forget the whole thing had ever happened and everything would be fine.

The cardio organised this secondary appointment with the respiratory specialist as a precautionary measure. In the same way the doctors who are responsible for this current scenario did not exercise enough caution, it is entirely possible that this particular cardio exercised too much. At any rate, it was probably needless to point out that I wandered through the hospital walls feeling overly optimistic about my chances of leaving that place completely unscathed. As per usual, I was very wrong. The initial consultation went on for sixty mintues. Yes, sixty minutes. I have no idea how that happened and it didn't feel that long and it definitely was not filled with happy news.

It was all basically "blah blah blah rare condition blah blah blah disease blah blah blah effects of oestrogen on respiratory system not well understood blah blah blah" aka "we don't really know much about whatever is going on" and then "but we're going to poke and prod you and do a billion diagnostic tests until we work it out anyway".

No. Fuck the lot of you. I'm tired of this bullshit and your mind games. I don't want to partake anymore. No more needles. I'm fucking over that shit. Stop taking my blood you vampires. We've established about a bagillion times now that there is nothing wrong with my blood count or my kidneys. So I'll thank you not to excessively bruise my arm again because that was an unnecessarily painful three days. So fuck you. Not to mention all the stupid lung capacity bullshit breathe out as far as you can -- sorry, that's not far enough keep breathing out tests. I FUCKING HATE THOSE! I'm terrible at them. I feel fucking retarded when it takes a  million goes to get it right meanwhile the technician is totally thinking "omfg, what a retard". And a CAT scan of my lungs because the injecting of radioactive dye to check for clots was apparently not invasive enough. No, I actually have to do another scan so we can check for smaller clots. Well fuck that! If I find out there are clots in my lungs I might hit someone. Or what about this lets open up your neck and punch a hole in the major artery so we can stick a catheter in there so we can deal with the right side of your heart and work out the actual cause and effect while you're still awake and cycling. WHAT?! Did I hear that correctly? You are cutting me open, while I'm awake, and sticking a catheter in my neck. Excuse me?! I don't fucking think so. But no one even asked my opinion, I just got told. I always get told. And you know what? I've fucking had enough of this bullshit. The simple fact of this situation is that it should not even be fucking happening. But no. It happened. And I have to suffer through all this shit and all this uncertainty with doctors who don't even know what they're fucking dealing with even though they created the original fucking problem

ALL I WANTED WAS CLEAR SKIN! I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS BULLSHIT "DISEASE"! THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED! SO FUCK YOU ALL. ESPECIALLY YOU LIFE BECAUSE I REALLY FUCKING HATE YOU AND YOUR GUTS AT THE MOMENT. I HOPE YOU ROT IN THE DEEPEST CHAMBER OF HELL FOREVER.

And I fucking hate all the doctors. Fuck you all for being so nice. I can't even hate you for telling me how fucked up I am because you're all so fucking nice. This is not okay. I really fucking hate that. Fuck the lot of you.

I'm so mad and angry and paralysed and confused and sad all at the same time. I don't even know how this happened and I don't really understand and no one can help me understand because they're don't *really* understand either! I'm stuck in this cycle of permanent confusion and meanwhile in the real world I'm supposed to be aceing school and being an awesome happy child with the world at her feet.

HOW THE FUCK DO I BALANCE MY LIFE WHEN I'M LIKE THIS

I'm so uncertain. My life is uncertain. There is too much uncertainty for me to be able to function. And have the expectations shifted? No, not at all. Life continues to go on and I just have to be normal. I have to function. I have to achieve.

And I can't. I don't want to be strong anymore. I shamelessly ended up on KHL just for need of someone to talk to and I ended up educating the fucking counsellor. What kind of bullshit is that anyway. It's so hard suffering things that people can't understand. No one can comfort you because they don't know what's going to happen. There's too much uncertainty for that. Every time I'm left with an ounce of solitude I end up in this internal shitstorm monologue scaring myself into tears and/or blind rage because I can't fix myself this time. This time it's fucked. I'm in pain all the time, but compared to this bullshit, it's a fucking itch! You talk to people and all they can offer you is pity. Pity for the uncertain. Pity for what they don't understand. Pity because you're a pitiful human being who drew the really fucking short straw.

I'm just waiting for the goddamn lecture about how I don't have cancer or how I'm not starving in a third world country and that I should just be thinking that it could be so much worse. IS THAT EVEN SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER! It doesn't, in case you're wondering. It just makes me feel even more useless because I'm sitting here crying over fucking nothing. Every time people do things like that I feel totally belittled and insignificant like what I'm dealing with is trivial.

IF IT WAS FUCKING TRIVIAL IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FIXED A YEAR AND A HALF AGO AND I WOULD NOT BE SITTING HERE SCREAMING VIA THE KEYBOARD IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT.

So I don't have cancer and I'm not starving due to circumstance. That doesn't mean my apparent condition won't kill me. Google tells me it can be fatal. SO FUCK YOU.

I'm really just tired. I am so tired. This rage of emotion is exhausting. Every time I start to get on top something like this happens, but this, this has totally taken the cake. I'm not just unsettled this time, it's like I've been thrown at the wall. It's times like this I actually cuss myself out for teaching myself to hold it in and pretend it's not happening. Even now when I consciously want it to come out, I can't let it. I can't even make it. Emotion no longer bends to my will. Fuck you brain, you dirty troll. All my life you have done me a disservice and now you've convinced the rest of my body to hate me too. I hate you with a passion. You are the sole cause of my grief. My body is breaking down and it's all your fault because you're useless. All you're doing is understanding. And understanding too well at that. I totally get everything that is said to me and I tuck it away to torture myself with later. You're a fucking terrible mate. So fuck you. I'm so done.

I'm so fucking done.

- Sky

What the hell is wrong with me?

I had some other stuff written, but right now in this moment, it's not even important.

I'm just not happy. There's no one emotion to describe how exactly I am these days but happy is definitely not a word I would be using in any attempt to describe my feelings. Sad isn't right either, but it's far closer to the mark. I honestly feel quite defeated, like it won't ever be fine and/or good. My days are mostly consumed by pain. The last week has been the worst week, painwise, that I have endured for around two years. The last memorable pain week was when I strained my ACL, but thinking more this past week might even be worse, or at least on par. It's just so different to the other pains I've experienced because it's so variable. It's in my knees, it's in my ankles, its in my hips, its in my thighs, its in my elbow, its in my shoulders, its in my wrist, its like its everywhere. People talk about ways of reducing it, but all the reducing boils down to another long list of things I simply can't do. And I'm just so not okay with that. I can't be. It's so defeating. I can't go for walks without tape, and even then I'm pushing my luck. I can't write without the aids of support braces/bandages whatever they are. I've long given up protecting my ankles. You can't dull long set in aches -- aches you thought you'd left in your past. The general muscle soreness is the worst part though. You can't support that. I sit on my floor because I like the space and the way I can spread things out, but I can't do that either. When I do that, my knees protest violently about holding my weight.

And I can't relieve it with drugs because I'd have to use them dangerously and the temptation to go too far with that is only too real. It's hard to understand why someone would ever find that a temptation, but trust me, when ibuprofen doesn't work anyway and you're indecisive about your place, it's pretty damn appealing. I'm not witholding drugs from myself solely for that reason either, it's the minor concern. Knowing that I'll have to double and even triple the dose to help myself puts more pressure on my liver. I don't know what kind of stress my liver is already under -- courtesy of roaccutane -- and I'm not keen to test my luck. Unless I actually decided I wanted to die.

I also think there's a difference between having the thought and planning it out. I'm in a dark place. But that's not new news. I don't think I ever truly moved out of it. I'm just tired, exhausted even. The physical pain is but a portion of why I sometimes think that it's not worth it. And I do think that it's somewhat reasonable to wonder the worth in that respect. To be in pain all day is something I do not wish to experience in the long term. I'm tired of it. As far as pain goes, my body is only a prison. It no longer works the way it should, if it ever did at all.

The lung doctors are pretty high on the list of people I don't want to hear from anymore. I don't talk to physios, I rarely talk to the GP, I talk to the dermatologist because I have to at this point -- thank you roaccutane --, the cardio let me slide and you couldn't pay me to deal with that anymore anyway. But the lung doctors? I'm so, so over this. No one even knows whats wrong, and I want to be left alone.

Being left alone. I feel so alone at the moment, words cannot explain. I know people are trying to help, trying to understand, trying to make my life as easy as possible, and yet, I can't understand why I feel so alone. Because I'm not. I often say that "this isn't as bad as 2008", but I worry its getting there, if it hasn't already. There's a poison in my mind and I can't fight it anymore. It's bigger and it's meaner than I am. It has more strength. It will always win. And who do you tell this to without scaring people? I'm in too precarious a position for the help I seem to need at this point. If it comes out how badly I'm struggling, then I might lose the drugs. And if I lose the drugs I lose the last shreds of my self esteem and I might as well have given up anyway.

I strayed a long way from being alone then. I know that I'm not the first to be like this and I certainly won't be the last. Some of my friends know more than others, you're pretty privvy if you're reading now and you know exactly who I am. But this intense loneliness I feel right now, and have felt for much of this week, has been overwhelming. I resorted to cutting, I think about it a lot. It's no longer just a simple cross of the mind on occassion and either act or dismiss. It's an aching need to engage in a behaviour that I'm not even sure helps. I've resorted to solitutude in the past and that only makes me feel worse. I'm feeling nauseous like my stomach is churning for great portions of the day and I'm eating less and less. Roaccutane's first saving grace is that it forces me to eat twice a day. I want to sleep all day, but this need to have this facade is too great, even for that.

I just don't know how to say "it's all too hard", face to face. I don't know how to admit I'm reaching the end of my tether. I don't know how to ask for help. And above all else I don't want the choice of help taken from me either.

I thought going away this weekend would kickstart a rise in my overall mood, but so far I have been very wrong. I planned to be in bed nearly half an hour ago and I'm only sitting here crying now because I'm so lost, confused and hurt. I just can't see a way out and it's terrifying. I don't think it's worth it anymore. There is no great enough end to justify what I have survived and am still surviving up until this point. When I stand up to move from couch to bed I will fight the urge to limp once more. Tomorrow I might cry again. But what of my life? I just can't definitively say that it's worth it.

And the worst part is knowing its so self inflicted.

- Sky

Helpless to Defy this Fate

I'm feeling a lot of things at the moment, none of them good. I can't comprehensively say that I want to do this anymore, because I really just don't. This life I have feels more like a half life. I'm only there half the time. And further to that it's a painful existence. It's one thing for the pain to be mental, but it's another thing entirely for it to be physical. And different even again when its both. Because there is no relief. Not even cutting takes me far enough away.

I'm hurting, all the time. And I just don't know what to do. I let school escape and swamp me and I'm drowning and I have no one to blame but myself. I'm trying to rectify this, I am. Twelve hours of homework over the last three days and there is still oh so much to do. And it's not even an issue of organisation, it's an issue of time and motivation. Time is fast escaping and my motivation is too closely tied to my mood. And my mood is out of control. As with most cases, I can control my mood when necessary but I'm letting it go again. Why hold on? It's inevitable that it'll slip again, why stand in it's way? I feel like I'm fighting for nothing. I'm always fighting for nothing.

I'll wake up tomorrow and there'll just be more hurt, more pain. More hours of homework. It's wrong, it's so wrong. I cannot comprehend any of this anymore because it just doesn't make sense. It never did, and it probably never will. Life answers to no one but its own whim. I just feel its wrath, regularly. It's punishing, like I've committed some great crime. And honestly, I believe that. The pain makes me believe I'm a bad person. That I somehow deserve to feel this way. Because I've done something bad. I'm a terrible, awful, horrible person. But how much punishment can one bear? How much more do I have to wear before I've paid off my crimes? What crime could be so bad that I have to suffer like this? 

I have a new specialist appointment on the 13th of June, right in the middle of exam week. I've mapped June out. It's the month from hell. SACs, exams, doctors. Everything is happening in that month. It starts in six days. Six days. Six days until thirty days of terror. Of hate. Of self loathing. Of torture. Of loss. I'm so exhausted. Yet I cannot rest. I have to work. Work harder. I won't ever catch up if I don't. And if I don't catch up then I won't ever be good enough. I must be good enough. But how? All I feel is inadequate, like my best isn't enough. It isn't. Those looks I get when my best hasn't been enough. The accusation in their eyes. The cover-up. Then the "it's okay". But we all know that it's not. If it happens again, well. Lets hope it does not. My best is not good enough. I'm not good enough. I can't be good enough.

I'm just too imperfect. These imperfections, these doubts. They're so accompanied by school these days, partnered by roaccutane, married to my illness and pains. Depression's queen. They're all anchoring into the ground, holding me back, holding me fast. I'm struggling to break the chains, and even when I do they all come along for the ride. Dark passengers, lurking in the shadows, always ready to have their say. Drowning out all reason and logic with their awful screams of hate and resentment demanding the full attention of my mind all the time. It's one thing to say I need to shut them out, but it's another to actually do it. Not when they multiply, gain new friends and strike up a chord so much louder than when the depression first arrived.

There is no solitude in cutting. None in silence. None in distraction. Only in sleep. And only then when my sleep is dead, blanked of cryptic dreams that are asking the very same questions I ask myself all day, but also warning me and underscoring the trauma I'm shouldering bravely. Too bravely. There is far too much pride. It's a funny thing to suggest that one has too much pride. I know I do. It's hard to ask for help. Even when you know, without any doubt, that you need it. Is it a product of going it alone for too long, or not even knowing how. For me it is both. And when I do ask for help, I negate the issues that worry me the most. They are private somehow. Like it's my own personal battle. Only I can know them, their secrets. The things they are whispering to lead me astray.

No one knows what to say anyway. A sympathetic look. The pity. The silence. They're not sure how to help. I may not be a starving, homeless child in the developing world, but the trauma of my seventeen years is certainly in a league of its own. People tell me how strong I am, how brave. But it's not strength, I'm not brave. I just don't have a choice. Well I do, that choice is living or dying. But that's a big choice. The choice to stop or go forward does not exist. I can only go forward. There is no other way to do this. It's not even that it would be all over if I stopped, stopping is just not possible. It's not feasible. It cannot be done. Certainly not now that June is only six days away. Six days. I will get to June 1st, I will get out at June 30th. The variable is what state I find myself in. I can't predict, cannot foresee. It will just happen.

I'm utterly terrified. I've lost it now. How can it get any worse? I know it can get worse. It's been worse. This is nothing. I'm still talking. It could be, can be, will be, worse. And I am powerless to change the course of my journey. My delightful fate. 

- Sky 

Predetermined and Convenient

Was reading CFJ the other night. A couple of things occurred to me: 1) Geez I can be a whingy, mopey kid and 2) Damn I was thin. So many entries posting weights in the 65-70kg range... which is exactly where I want to be. None of this 70-75kg bullshit. It's slightly obsessive, but I don't even care. I have this picture in my head of the ideal me and I really just want to be that person. Every day the scales show me 73kg, I feel a tiny bit sadder inside. Sick, sad Sky. Wanting stupid things.

Got sick. With a virus. Possibly the best thing that's happened to me in some weeks -- despite the terrible dry throat, squeaky, raw voice and violent cough, as well as the headaches and blocked nose, not to mention all the snot. I was forced to stay home and do nothing. And it was great. No school, no homework, no people, just the company of my now preoccupied brain and endless hours of Gossip Girl. Soothing and distracting. So yes, getting sick was the best thing that had happened to me in quite some time. I needed a time out and I needed it badly. And I got it and it was awesome.

Except I'm still sick. Dammit.

I do, however, swear that I've got half the world worrying about me. I continue to assure everyone that it's under control. But the thing is that the reality of the situation is that it's not really. It's actually totally unpredictable and the best I can do is run with it and hope for the best. Luckily for me, I am in control 95%. Pre sickness, that excellent strike rate was slipping a bit. Well a lot, really. My resolve was not standing the tests of life so well pre sickness. All that relaxing now being done, it's not like I got any extra sleep -- which was the only bummer. On Saturday morning the bags under my eyes were nearly gone but now, they're back in force. Mostly because my insane brain insists on waking at 6am every morning, like clockwork. I don't understand. I'm not even trying to. There's just no point trying to decipher some, well most, of the occurrences in my life. Best just to let things roll on, I suspect.

So I just have to get that resolve up and keep plugging away. It's all just so variable these days that it's hard to know what to do. And it's hard to know what to do because I don't know what's going to come next. I know that that's just how life works, but why? Why am I not in more control of what is happening to me? So much of me has been stolen from my grasp that I can't trust anymore. Sometimes I can't even trust myself. Well that's most of the time because it seems to me that I'm rather untrustworthy where self is concerned. Not that that is at all surprising, I think.

It's easy to pretend everything is okay when it's not. I'm just an actress on life's stage. The roles have been chosen and the best I can do is play along -- as fate intended. It was never in my hands, after all. I think that that simple fact has been proven enough times in my years for that to be indisputable.

- Sky

I want a refund on my brain.

I suppose it wouldn't be a week of school if I didn't break down into tears at some stage throughout the week.

Yesterday, as you could all obviously see, I was quite angry. I'm angry at life for putting me where I am at the moment. And I know that roaccutane is, to a degree, my decision, but what else was I supposed to do? There's no better time than this, that's the simple reality.

So I'm just drowning anyway. And things are just too hard to deal with. I wrote down all the things I had to do/hand in for school yesterday, and writing it down in due date order made it look a hell of a lot less scary. I even stared at the page I had written it all out and and questioned why I found myself in the position I was in. But of course I know the answer. If it were just the school work, I would still be stressed, but not the way I am now. Or if it were just one, maybe two, of my medical problems then I would still be stressed, but it would be more manageable by a tenfold. So its obviously a culmination of many, many things that is accentuated by my currently not-so-manageable and concurrently fragile mental state. So the relatively small list of school related things that I had to do, once broken down, did not deserve the drowning feeling it is causing me. And then as my year level coordinator grouped things that were happening between today and the end of this term it became scary again. And I'm staring at this new list going "oh my God" and all I can think is how is this fair?

And that's when I burst into tears. And then a lot of things poured out of my mouth. And then I answered questions. And then I somehow got a handle on my emotion [because I always win that fight in the end] and I went to class [like a boss] like nothing had happened. This whole just everything, it seems to me that I've bitten off far more than I can chew -- and not even by conscious decision. That's the kicker.

While I was battling my surge of emotion at lunch today, I was asked about my family relationship. Now, obviously I can consider myself lucky because there are a number of things that are not wrong with my family. But by the same token, my family isn't exactly right either. A lot of that is, naturally, the fault of my own. I have a poor relationship with my parents as far as trust and sharing goes. I have a number of blacklisted subjects that I will not discuss. For example: how I'm feeling and self harm. I tend to combat such enquiries with evasive answers or just flat out lies. I am excellent at both areas, most of the time. My Mum has, lately, become quite protective of my sister. My sister, who is the youngest, experiences much anxiety and grinds her teeth. And this is all I hear about. It's all about how horrible my brother and I are. Or how we're going to give her depression and anorexia. I hate to be the one to point this out but like, I'm not the only who hurls abuse at her. This isn't my fault and I won't wear it. I'm wearing enough. I don't need this shit too. You're the mother. You're the father. You fix it. Preferably without the yelling -- which is evidently the cause of the problem, as you both have pointed out multiple times yourselves.

My brother and I learnt this behaviour somewhere. Time to take a good hard look at yourselves before you play the blame game. I'm so tired of being accused. And people wonder why I don't talk to my parents.

I don't like to talk about my family situation much. But I'm always conscious of how much grief I'm causing. It's quite disheartening really, to think about how much I cost. And we don't have that much money anyway. Budgeting and the like. See, can't even get it out now.

I just, I just hate my life. Clearly, it's not the heads of others that need tearing off. Just my own. Because I want a refund on my brain. And on life in general. So then I can be peaceful and happy and it can be all lollipops and rainbows.

- Sky

The problem is

Largely, that I woke up this morning. That I got out of bed this morning. That I got dressed this morning. That I made breakfast and had roaccutane this morning. That I went to school this morning and left at some point today. That I came home and studied [but never for long enough] today. That I'm now sitting here writing this blog because I'm that unhappy.

And I still don't know what to say. Because the words to discuss my life have continued to elude me in the most frustrating of manners. I want to talk, I do. But I cannot. It's almost like this deep hurt has paralysed me, in many respects. And I'm out of ideas, I'm out of solutions. I've actually come up with nothing. I feel like I'm done. I've been well and truly floored and that's all there is to it.

And I swear to God if one person even tries to pull any kind of roaccutane blaming line on me, I will personally see to it that their head is removed. You think that I don't realise. That I don't know what's happening. That I can't see it happening. That it doesn't upset me. That it doesn't make me mad while I sit here in pain, aching muscles, damaged limbs, completely exhausted. You think that I'm not aware of any of this, that I'm lost in the depression haze!? Well you are wrong. Because I do see it. I see it every waking second of every waking day. I know what its doing, what its done. I know what it will keep doing. I know that it may leave me with problems that I will never be able to fix. But it has thus far, more than two months in, given me absolutely no indication that it will do anything more than what its done up until this point. And you know what, I didn't get this far, to see some progress - despite everything this crazy drug has thrown at me - to pull the plug. Self esteem is a big problem for me and for many other people, whether anyone is prepared to acknowledge that or not. And I tried to beat the acne with every other imaginable treatment and it simply did not abate. Not even one little bit. And it brought me down. People bullied me endlessly. For seven fucking years. I tried to avoid roaccutane. I really did, but it became inevitable. And the sooner everyone gets that, the better.

Yes, I want to cry a lot. Yes, I want to rip the heads off a lot of people. Yes, I'm drowning in my school work. Yes, I hate my job. Yes, I'm ridiculously tired given the amount of sleep I get. But I'm going to say this definitively, and you are all going to hear me. I AM NOT GOING TO STOP. Pending some unforeseen circumstance, I will be seeing this course out. Nothing has ever come easy to me, that's the reality of the situation. We were all deluded if we thought my roaccutane course would be any different. Deluded indeed. This is the last time I will be justifying my decision to take on roaccutane to any one of the multitude of people who continue to express their distaste at my decision. My life, my body, my call.

Get over it. Or lose your head. The choice is yours. The above indicates that I have heard your calls - again and again and again - and have taken on board everything that anyone has said and I'm doing the best I can. So BITE ME for wanting nice skin like most of the fucking population. That is all.

I didn't mean for that to turn into a three paragraph speech denouncing everyone who has expressed concern but shit, I get it! Anyway.

I'm really just angry with life. And I'm somehow managing to take it out on people who are really not to blame. People I like too. This is probably because life, as a concept, is intangible. I'm also wound up really tight, due to the stresses caused by all aspects of my life - job included. So I'm prone to snapping, and for little or no reason at that. When you're hurt, you're hurt I guess. I mean, think about it this way: when your shoulders, knees and ankles ache for most, if not all of, the day you're going to be grumpy. And then you've got this annoying rash. And then you just can't manage to sleep enough -- and not for a lack of trying. And then your boss still hasn't mentioned that he's moving out of the city in June, you had to hear it from other people. And your friends annoy you for no reason at all because you're mad about all these other things. And then you decide to sit on your own to avoid any permanent severing of friendships. But this makes you feel worse because you've isolated yourself. And then you come home and you're like OMFG FAMILY GRR. So you sit in your room all night, or in a room separate to everyone else. So you're still feeling isolated. And you're even more grumpy. And as if you aren't struggling enough troll school turns up all like HERE'S A MILLION THINGS YOU SHOULD BE TONIGHT AND FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR, and you pretty much just want to bang your head against a wall continuously until you knock yourself out.

You know stuff has gotten bad when you hate your job, by the way. I know a lot of people aren't huge fans of their jobs, but I adored mine. I even pretty much ran the place over summer. But lately, I'm having a hard time convincing myself to go -- even though I've got limited time left. It's all a bit much really. I can barely find the time to deal with all my school work without paralysing myself, let alone process all this emotion and problems and circumstances, and well, reality.

It's cruel, and unfortunately for me, is fast becoming uncontrollable. It either comes out as anger/rage or tears. So, isolation is my extreme emotion control, except that I know continued isolation will prove detrimental in the long run. And then of course, by not allowing all this emotion to leave its packed away, where it will inevitably burst free. Today I had the overwhelming urge to cut, and I risked being caught to do so. I had to do it. And I'm not even ashamed of myself. Not at all. Pretty disturbing, isn't it. And I want to do it again.

I said I didn't have the words, but I got angry again and I found them. At least there's some order and sense in this post. At least I can say I'm avoiding the roaccutane/depression cloud for the time being.

- Sky

Reality continues to ruin my life.

For everyday that I survive, I find a new synonym of sad to mark it with. Today, that synonym is melancholy. Each new synonym is a sign of my continuing despair. This despair is measured by the rate at which I'm either treading or drowning in life.

Reality is awful. If it were my choice I would not partake in it any longer. It's drained me of all enthusiasm and energy. My body hurts. I'm mad at people I actually like for no reason at all. And I know why, and I guess that's the really awful part. Knowing. And knowing its mostly out of vanity that you torture yourself in this way.

Yet funnily enough, I'm starting to see a lot of people starting to get down about their own skin. I've done acne for more than seven years. Nothing made it better, and if it did, it made me worse. So I took a leap of faith, and this leap of faith is kicking my arse. Snapping at people, hating life, failing under the pressure of school, shying away from pain, sleeping when I should be facing the day. But I want to see this out. And I will. This leap of faith is kicking my arse, but I'm still here.

For now.

Aside from that, I don't have a lot else to say. Everything is so jumbled and back to front in my mind. Mostly because I'm exhausted, I think. Took me half the day to wake up. Ask me a simple questions, takes me five minutes to produce a reasonable answer. So much cloud, jumble and vagueness. Aided by pain. Nothing's quite straight at the moment.

Side effects.

Like me really.

I don't want to go to work. I reasoned with myself that I only have a few weeks left, but that was poor motivation when your mind, body and soul are crying for rest. Boss gave me silence when I asked, so I'm not setting an alarm. Poor logic maybe, or it will be when he rings me at 3.15am, but I don't care right at this moment. I don't care at all.

I try to tell myself that I don't care about anything, but the reality is that I do. Else I wouldn't be trying this hard to succeed. To win. To beat it.

Why else? Reality ruins my life and I just come back for more. I've consequently reached the conclusion that my logic is weird.

See, told you everything was jumbled. This is utterly incoherent. At least I got some of it all. Will try for more incoherence another time. Maybe. Might take another month, so don't practice holding your breath. My humour is terrible.

- Sky

I never grieved you... and I'm sorry

I remember when we used to do puzzles. They were extremely cool puzzles too. They were the old style Donald Duck and Coyote and Road Runner ones, and they never got old. We did them every time I came over and we spent hours on them. You taught me the best way to do puzzles. You made sure we organised all the pieces of the same colour into groups. And after that we’d find the four corner pieces. And then it would begin. We’d be there all day, but we always finished. You were always to patient.

But then I grew up. We didn’t do puzzles anymore. We’d sometimes go to the park with my brother and later my sister too. But I continued to grow. And pretty soon I just stopped visiting as frequently as I used to. I thought I was too old for puzzles, too cool. And I never really thought about how that made you feel. But you seemed happy as long as I came to visit every so often.

Then one day you got sick. Except no one noticed at first. It wasn’t the kind of sick that antibiotics made better, it was the kind of sick the kills, the kind there is no cure for. You were slowly being taken over by both Alzheimer’s and dementia. You were forgetting little things at first. Little things that no one thought anything of. You misplaced your glasses, occasionally forgot your hat. Just little things. But then it got worse. It got noticeable. You couldn’t do puzzles anymore, you wouldn’t eat, you couldn’t go anywhere on your own and you’d get lost in your own home at night. One day you even forgot your wife, and you just kept forgetting things.

They hospitalised you on and off in the Austin. I still hate floor seven. I only visited you once there, but I don’t think you recognised me or even remembered. I don’t know how often you remembered anyone. Then you nearly died of pneumonia. The doctors brought you back to us in the ER, except they didn’t really, because you were already gone.

You spent your last weeks in the outside world in a nursing home that didn’t look after you. They didn’t make sure you ate or drank. And so, you returned to the Austin once more. The last time I saw you was in that nursing home. I wasn’t strong enough to visit you anymore after that. And that’s something I’m regretting more than four years too late.

You had a particularly vicious form of dementia, and it took you quickly – within four years. The nurses said you were young to be an advanced dementia patient, just seventy-four. It’s only saving grace is that you didn’t know. You didn’t know what was happening to you. You were suspended between earth and sky. You weren’t here with us, but you weren’t gone either. Your failing brain your jailer as we watched and waited from afar.

I can only imagine what it was like you for you, slowly losing yourself. But I lost a piece of me too. I’m sorry I didn’t visit you more while you were still all on earth. I’m sorry we didn’t go to the park again, that you had to stop pushing me on the swings. I’m sorry I didn’t visit you in the hospital, I’m sorry I wasn’t strong. The nurses said you spoke of your grandchildren often, saying how proud you were. I like to think that you’re still proud of me now.

You died on March the seventh 2008. You are no longer suspended between two existences. Now you are free. There was a funeral at St Gregory’s. You’re buried at Heidelberg. We visit on your birthday.

I’m not sure if I believe in God anymore, but I hope there’s a heaven for you. You deserve it. Life was cruel. You escaped Croatia illegally, escaping from the German occupation and against all odds you made it to Australia where you worked in construction. You helped build the Monash Hospital. Mum still points out the buildings in the city that you helped build. You worked hard your whole life, and your mind turned on you. I hope there is a heaven, for you.

This was supposed to be a speech, but instead I’m writing to you. I didn’t grieve properly when you died, I just wanted to forget. And now I’m crying as I write this because I’m remembering all the little things and missing them, missing you. I’m sorry I don’t visit more. I mean to, but it’s hard. I didn’t tell you that I loved you enough either. I’m sorry for that too. I love you Nonno, always have, always will.

I do puzzles on my own now, the way you showed me. 

All I want in Life is for this Pain to seem Purposeful

Today, just like yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that and all the days before that since my last post, I just can't write. It seems that this time there really are no words. And if there are no words, then there's no longer anything to say.

I've been comprehensively defeated.

Roaccutane is causing me enough physical pain to make me squirm. Roaccutane has literally exhausted me. The bags under my eyes are close to, if not actually, three different colours. There is no such thing as enough sleep. The cardio stuffed me round, for lack of a greater explanation, and I still have no answers. Just hand-balled to the next specialist, to see if I have another possible condition. Just to add to the trauma of course. My teachers all basically want me to be more awesome, all the time. I can't do this anymore.

I'm done.

It's over.

No more.

I'm just so wrapped up in my marathon pity party, my own self loathing, hate and madness, and deep sadness and hurt that I can't see the light of day anymore. Just a pitiful gloom.

And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've wasted everyone's time.

- Sky

Not all scars show, Not all wounds heal...

I'm having a real bi-polar night. I'd forgotten what an effort it is to keep happy during the hours where I'm confronted with a constant stream of people. I came home tonight feeling pretty good, I did some drawing and I'm liking it so far. Liking it I'm afraid I'll ruin it. But there's hours to be invested in this drawing yet. And I got on the internet, same as always. Had some chats with some of my favourite people, bummed around on my favourite websites and then out of the blue I feel like absolute crap. I feel like I've been hit by a train. I'll sleep tonight and I'll struggle to open my eyes, let alone get out of bed, in the morning. I'm feeling the familiar desire to cut. I haven't yet. But from experience I know that its only a matter of time. The latter is the most disturbing of the lot. It's been a long time since I've cut over a medical problem. A long, long time. But with a week to go I'm getting nervous. More than nervous. I think about it constantly. I'm terrified.

I'm still stuck on the what ifs. And it's killing me. The desire to know is killing me. If I'm right, then the answer won't change much in the short term -- in terms of appointments and monitoring and check ups -- but its a label. And I don't want it! I don't want to hear that I'm sick. I feel like I am. But there's a difference between feeling and knowing. And I don't want to know. But I do. That doesn't even make sense. I have to know but I'm scared. What if its bad? There's nothing they can do if it is. How did this even happen?

And you know, I'm freaking out about this and roaccutane is wreaking its own havoc and I'm scared of that. And I'm in pain. I don't understand. All my already sore joints hurt. I know its a side effect, but I don't really understand. My achilles tendon hasn't hurt in two years, possibly longer, and yet when I sit for a long period of time or get up in the morning its stiff and it aches and you know, it hurts. And I don't understand. And I'm not happy. TWO YEARS! And my knees are dreadful, they are so dreadful. There's constantly heat in them. No crouching, no stomping, tape them up if I want to to excessive walking. And my hand/wrist... omg. I'm using a hardier brace these days. So I'm sure that's partially why I had such a dreadful time with my hand over the holidays. But its never been so bad. It hurts when the horses pressure my write arm, it hurts to text, it hurts to type and use the computer in general. And you know what, what the hell is that?! It's bullshit, that's what is is. I knew this could happen, but I didn't see it coming. And I'm wearing it, but I'm not happy. It's torture.

All of this is torture. The pain, not knowing, trying to pretend I'm okay with all of this when I'm not, dealing with everyone else, being upbeat and with it. !@)($#*@)($(@#*^$(#@*$&!)@#*_!@)$%#@)(%&

Can't do it, too hard. I want a raincheck on my body and then my brain. Any takers? I'm agitated and wound up and... ugh. I don't know. I really just do not know. I want to know but I don't. I don't want acne, but I don't really want the pain. I want to live, but I want to be happy. I want to love, but I'm not sure I can trust.

All of this, just hit me. Out of the blue. I'm down. I'm trying to talk it out. My chest is a little tight -- and that's anxiety, that I know -- but wow. Want to cut. Want to sleep forever. Want to be okay.

Hello, happiness? I'm waiting. Not so patiently anymore.

- Sky

Just Who did You think You were?

I don't know where to begin to be honest. The last few weeks have consisted of me putting the feelings of someone else above my own. And to put it simply, it went on for too long. I wish, I really wish, that I'd had the foresight and the guts to end that toxic relationship much sooner than I eventually did. I tried so hard to balance it. I really did. Bloody hell, listen to me justifying my actions already... I tried to balance the unbalanceable. That's the reality of the situation. And predictably, it teetered and crashed to the ground.

I didn't know what I was getting into when I went BLAH THIS IS EVERYTHING THAT'S WRONG IN MY LIFE at this person. But they got attached so, so quickly when they saw what they were getting. They'd found someone who was like them. The dove in head first, and I erred on the side of caution. They got more and more attached and I'll not lie, the more attached they became the more I wanted to turn away. And I did. And I, by my own admission, was quite rude at times but I was able to justify that in my own mind and I'm okay with that. No guilty conscience here.

I lost 25kg in about a month is not okay. I can't eat or sleep because I'm worried about what I've done to make your ignore me is not okay. I miss you after a few short weeks of friendship is not okay. Playing on my trust issue with I'll never leave you is not okay. Who did you think you were? You don't get to say those things to me. I can't carry you and your multitude of problems when I'm grappling with my own. I may be the strongest person you know, but I worked on that. I worked fucking hard. You don't just steel yourself against the things life throws at you by chance. And as strong as I may be, I cannot and I will not carry two people. Specially not someone who is more fucked up than I am, when I can't decipher their intentions. Not for me.

So what really tipped me over the edge? Picking up my trust issue. I was happy to regard them with silence for the rest of eternity after that. I cannot explain the mix of horror, anger and disbelief as I read those words. I cannot explain it. How dare you! You are the prime example of why I don't trust people. And even better yet, you didn't even see what you'd done. And to this day, you do not get it. And then you wrote this pukeworthy status, and I had several people tell me not to comment on it... but fuck man, I was all for puking, commenting on it, whatever. You crossed the line a second time and yes, I did the only thing I could. Sever all ties 100%. I asked you not to talk to me. No, I warned you off. And I'm glad you listened because I would not have remained checked. And then your little mate got onto me about it and you know what, I'll repeat myself, just this once. I do not owe any kind of explanation to anyone. This blog is not an explanation, its an exploration of my opulent anger and frustration. And to suggest that someone else made this decision for me? REALLY?! Are you legitimately that dense? My feelings towards this third party are mixed at best, but that doesn't mean you get to blame them for your shortcomings. That's weak.

It's also very dense and I still don't understand how anyone could have missed the actual point there. But congratulations, you managed it! Go grab a medal, seriously...

In closing, you can never be sure of what you're dealing with. And I'll never again launch into anything with anyone I don't know ever again. Even if it is 1am and I'm literally falling to pieces. I'd rather be silent. Silence is solitude. I'm living and I'm learning. Two things you are not.

Am currently imagining a range of personalised insults to finish this off... none of which should be said aloud or written out.

- Sky 

One Morning you Wake Up afraid to Live

And then it doesn't end.

You tell yourself again and again that you can do this. You tell yourself you have to get up and do things because the world isn't going to stop turning just because you've had enough. Life isn't going to just wait for you to be good and ready. You tell yourself that the only realistic direction is forward and because going forward is so logical you're just going to go right ahead and do it.

So I went forward. And I've been going forward my whole life. Because I never really considered properly what would happen if I didn't and what would happen if I did. And in hindsight, I'm starting to wish I'd stopped. Because going forward has only ushered me into a life that I don't understand. It's given me trial after trial and in terms of respite, very little. I wake up everyday with the "I can do this" attitude and every single day is a dodgy surprise. Some days my moods a surprise, some days this rash is a surprise, some days my tendons and ligaments are a surprise, some days my latest illness is a surprise. Every day I lose, and not for a lack of trying.

So over the course of the past few years, I think I've come to fear living. It doesn't often show, but I've realised yesterday and today that this is almost certainly the case. Every night when I go to bed I'm still awake, sometimes for hours, no matter how tired I am. And I'm processing all the horror of the day just gone by. Sometimes its bad enough that I want to ring someone, but 1) I'm not sure who and 2) 2-4am seems like a dodgy time to be ringing anyone. And when I wake up the next morning, I'm scared. And I'm worried. And I'm downright afraid. Even though some of the things I'm worried about aren't necessarily tomorrow.

One thing that's really starting to get me is the pulmonary hypertension. This time in two weeks, I will know whether I'll be sick forever or not. And I want to think positively and believe that it'll all be fine, but in my heart of hearts it just seems so unlikely. In a perfect world I'm just unfit. But the reality of the situation is, I just can't be. I do enough exercise that it simply cannot be the case. So yes, in my heart of hearts, I'm preparing for the worst. I'm preparing to be sick.

It's the worst kind of sick too. The sick the has no treatment at its current level, just regular monitoring. I hate being monitored, as you may or may not have noticed. My intense dislike of monitoring has lead me far from sitting down with any kind of therapist on a weekly basis to talk this out. I avoid therapists because I feel they have nothing -- except drugs -- to offer me. And I do not want their drugs. Drugs are dangerous. Even the helpful ones can and will scar you, if they don't kill you first.

I learnt that the hard way.

So yes, April 24th is two weeks away. But I'm still scared. And even when April 24th is over, no matter the news, I still have months of roaccutane. And beyond that a dysfunctional brain and body that likes to surprise me. And I have friends that leave and ones I wish I'd never met to begin with. So of course I find it hard to trust people. Some people even like to exploit these weaknesses. And I don't want them exploited. So I wake up in the morning and I'm a bit worried, a little afraid.

Because I don't know what's out there. And what I do know repeatedly tells me its not worth knowing. I'm in pain. Something is constantly hurting. Today my muscular pain from a riding fall is sitting prominently on my collarbone making moving my right arm and breathing painful. My wrist is straining to type this, I had a hell of a time completing a practice exam today. I'm exhausted. No amount of sleep is ever enough, I just want and need more constantly. My mind hurts. It makes me unhappy. It makes me grumpy and I don't even know why sometimes. And when I do know I feel its so trivial that I don't want to bother anyone with it because I feel stupid. And I hate feeling stupid. I really just do not want to be this way anymore. I don't want to be afraid. I don't want to fear life, nor do I want to fear people. But I don't know how to change that.

And I suppose, that the thing/s I do to change this will define me, in a way. They will tell me whether I intend to be strong or whether I'll expose my weaknesses once and for all. And, I won't lie, I'm not sure I'm ready to see which direction I'll choose yet either. There's just so many things that are unsure in my future, both near and distant, that I don't know... I don't know whether I want any of it, anymore.

I once made the decision to live. But that was before I woke up one morning and realised I was afraid. I don't know that I want to revoke that decision just yet, but I don't know that I don't either. In the same way I'm afraid to live, I'm afraid to die. There could be nothing out there. And that'd be poor reward for what I've suffered over the past seventeen years. I'm far from having a "life come at me" attitude. And I will be for a very long time. But I'm not happy with where I am either.

I'm not happy with fear.

- Sky

%*&@#$*&^&@!^%!@%#$&$^*&#%@

I've had a very stressful few weeks for varying reasons, some of which I'll not go into on this blog for reasons which will only be known to myself. And all this stress and emotional trauma has led to a constant stream of keyboard mash running through my head. I use this mash in general conversation, that's how prevalent it is. And I still don't have clarity. And though I've made decisions relevant to each point of stress I still feel bad about it. And I shouldn't have to! I did the right things.

I know I did.

It's just a lot to think about. I finally get away from school for a few weeks, but nothing really stops. Same stuff rolling around my mind. Every time I take a step in what I perceive to be the right direction, a whole new batch of questions and problems come to the forefront of my mind and along with them lately, more keyboard mash.

And I'm over it.

I just want clarity. I want to see things clearly. I want to be able to breath. I want to be able to function without counting to ten. I hate counting to ten. I hate that it's necessary. I hate that it works. I shouldn't hate that it works. I don't know why I do. Maybe its the simplicity of the solution. It seems to me that something so trivial doesn't deserve to be so effective. But it is. It works. I can do things that cause keyboard mash to stream in mass proportion when I do it. I hate counting to ten. It's only a temporary fix.

Temporary isn't good enough.

I'm so exhausted. I've been so flattened by the last few weeks and all that they've encompassed that I'm just so tired. And it won't go away. And my mind won't let me rest. These last few days I've struggled to sleep much before 4am and then I don't sleep in much -- the curse of the light sleeper -- and its catching me faster than school did. I can't do this. I'm exhausted. I don't even want to go to work.

And that's serious.

And there's only one week of sleep left. And that's not enough. And there's just so many 'and's' I don't know where they're going to end. I just don't know anything. Though, I do know that my moods have evened out. But when I say evened out, they've evened out into a not-so-happy range. I'm trying, I am, but I'm just not happy. I don't know why and I won't admit its med influenced, but in my heart of hearts I think it might be. And that's a little bit scary. But its not too bad. I mean its not good, but its not bad. That doesn't make sense and I don't really care. My mood is obviously not helped by the constant dry state of my skin. I'm sure I'm defeating the purpose of the med by moisturising, but it really is feral and gross and I'm not leaving the house looking like that. And it itches!

Always at stupid hours like 2am.

The rash has been nothing short of frustrating. The itching, the dryness, the redness. I tell some people that its leprosy for a laugh. Reactions are priceless, every single time. And then there's the joint pain. My knees are being difficult. Very difficult. Very stiff. Mildly painful. But its not good. Not good at all. I'm hurting from minimal activity. So its not what I'm doing and therefore I can't fix it. I hate it when I can't control things.

Roaccutane has stripped me of control. It's stressed me and that constant stress is robbing me of control of everything else. I'm so done with this crap.

I'm surprised this came out as ordered as it did. Feeling like a bit of a boss... take that mind, I can order my thoughts.

- Sky

And lie? I said never.

Lies are funny things, I think. So often we shun lies, but what if our lives are lies? I feel like mine is to a certain extent. I lie to people a lot. I tell them I'm fine when I'm not. I tell them I'm not cutting when I am. I tell them nothing is wrong when my world is falling apart. I say I'm tired when I'm really just sad. I tell people I'm not going to die, when secretly, I've been thinking about it for days. So in short, I lie. A lot.

If I was to justify my lies, I would say that I'm trying to protect myself. And not just myself, but others too. Because sometimes I think there are some things people just shouldn't know. And I know I'm right because people think I'm weird and that other people shouldn't be involved in me.

I laughed, a lot, when I was told this. And I know where it came from too. But if I'm to be honest, sitting here thinking about it, yeah it hurts a bit. In fact it hurts a bit more every time I reflect upon it. For all my apparent weirdness, I am still a human. I still have feelings. I too, want to have friends and be happy and feel like I belong. Who are these people to influence others on issues they don't understand? They must be perfect, unlike me, of course. And this is why I will continue to lie. I will continue to lie because people don't understand and they judge. So my continued tendency to lie comes from my constant need for self preservation. And the reality of the situation is, that if I'm not protecting myself then who is?

So I lie to protect myself. And in my mind I can justify this and its okay, to me. You may feel differently, but that's how I feel. So then what of people who lie to seek attention? Well, I just can't stand them. You have no right to lie. There is no reason for it. You are out to hurt people and that is not okay.

And that is the essential difference between the two. I lie to protect myself. The only person who will be hurt is me. However, the group who do the aforementioned are lying maliciously.

Lies are dangerous things. They spread like wildfire.

But who is to say the truth is any better in some cases? It too can spread like wildfire if people think its good gossip. And then its distorted into lies and people treat you like you belong in a mental asylum. And maybe I do, but that is not for you to decide when you've only heard lies. The truth has proven, on several occasions, to be just as hurtful as lies. So I don't know what to do with that. If both are equally as bad as each other, then what do you say?

I don't have the answers, so I'll not pretend that I do. But I think that my lies are the best protection I have, and as such I think I'll continue. Especially given the quality of character I encounter on a daily basis.

- Sky

Red Sky

Today I opened up my eyes,

To see the lies that were disguised.

The sky dawned red above my head,

And I realised I didn't want to leave my bed.

The urgent whispers from below,

The thuds, the bangs, it's time to go.

I take one final look around,

Before I head down to the ground.

The urgency is greater now,

I feel the evil all around.

Now there's banging on the door,

I feel myself hit the floor.

The ensuing silence is oddly eerie,

But suddenly I see it clearly.

The door burst open with powerful force,

The man is holding a gun of course.

He points it straight down at my head,

Mummy leaps before in a haze of red.

Her lifeless body hits the floor,

As more men rush in through the door.

The screams, the howls,

The fear, the yowls.

My family is cut down all around,

And then my hands are simply bound.

They march me swiftly through the door,

I've been shaken to my core.

But I puff my chest and scream and yell,

And that is exactly where I fell.

The streets are lined with people now,

Who call and shout and I wonder how?

I feebly try to rise once more,

But once again I hit the floor.

I look up at the sky one last time,

Remembering how the wind did chime.

And in my dying moments I find,

I feel sorry for their kind.

A stout young man takes aim at my head,

I close my eyes and wish for my bed.

I hear the bang and that was all,

Oh how the red sky should suddenly fall.

Found this recently. Was a little surprised as I barely remember it, but I thought I'd share it -- just for you blog starved people out there while I fiddle with my latest post.

- Sky