Working on it...

I keep trying to get caught up, but as soon as I start, something seems to come up. Here goes nothing.

Nov. 16 - On Friday, I was thankful for...

My hubby. 

Lately I seem to have been encountering more and more people my age getting divorced (hell, I even know someone who's been divorced twice already). I mean, yeah, I know it makes sense and that as I get older, even more people I know will get divorced. But it's surprising to me that it's happening at such a young age. When I was younger, I didn't even figure I'd be married yet at 28, so the thought of divorce at this age (or there about) hadn't ever crossed my mind.

I'm sure I've been over the story of me and Hubby several times already, so I'll try to summarize for y'all.

Girl meets boy in middle school and has massive crush.
Girl "dates" boy briefly at the end of high school, then forgets about him.
Girl finds boy on Facebook 3-4 years later.
Girl "dates" boy again.
Girl talks to boy's best friend, who makes her realize that things are not working with boy.
Girl breaks things off with boy.
Girl dates, and eventually marries, boy's best friend.

There, now you're caught up.

Until I met Hubby, I had a "type" that I was drawn to. Typically, I liked tall, skinny guys. Usually with bad attitudes. Usually underachievers or troublemakers. It was kind of my thing. (Note that not all of my boyfriends fit all of these, but most fit at least half. Oh, and I had a different "type" when it came to girls, too. Shorter than me, for sure. And no twigs; I didn't want to break anyone. Anyway, I digress.) So when I realized that I liked Hubby - who is the same height as me, super sweet, and not just a skeleton with skin and hair - no one was more surprised than I was. But, as people so often say, it just felt right.

With anyone else, I was constantly trying to gain approval and affection. I was always trying to be what I thought they wanted and would give everything I had to get to that point. With Hubby, it's always just been about being myself. I don't know anyone I can relax with and be silly with better than I can with him. That means more to me than just about anything.

So, yes, I'm thankful for my husband (and all the events that led me to him, even if they weren't always the most pleasant experiences). I'm thankful that he loves me, that he asked me to marry him, that we enjoy being together and that he doesn't give up on me (even when I'm a huge pain in the ass). 

I love you, Roozles. :-*

Nov. 17 - On Saturday, I was thankful for...

Good news.

Good news can make a good day better and a bad day tolerable (or close to). At the very least, at least it isn't another thing to rain on your parade. Huzzah!

On Saturday, my good news was that my Mam-maw (my dad's mom) is coming to Wisconsin for Christmas!! She's going to be at my parents' for 3 whole weeks, because (the second part of the good news) she's moving back to the state!! YAY!!! That was definitely a welcomed break in my day. :)

Trust me. If you knew my Mam-maw, you'd be excited, too. She's definitely not your typical grandma. (For that I had my mom's mom. But I won't get into that right now. Best left for another time.) This is the woman who wanted to visit a brothel (she lived in Nevada at the time, so there were some near her) just to talk with the women who worked there. This is the woman who wants to visit a psychic, who insisted she and I take an old timey photo together in Virginia City, and who isn't afraid to approach anyone at anytime (if you know me, just ask about the time we were at the mall and she got her nails polished; or about when she got her medical marijuana prescription... that one's just great).

So, yeah. Good news. Definitely thankful for it! More to come...

Riki's History Part 4: Depressed & Desperate

Even after the past three entries, I know this one is going to be the worst.  I'm reliving some seriously messed up stuff and I honestly look back at my life and wonder how I let it get to that point.  The best I can do is try to learn from the past and keep moving forward.

So, when we left off, I was about to leave college for the second time and had met Shane.  Shane was a 19 year old guy I met online.  He was from Missouri, and we had a few things in common.  At college, I didn't date much (or really at all; I was seeing one girl for awhile, but nothing really came of it), so the attention I got online (AOL, baby... I'm that cool) made me feel special.  There were a few guys I IM'd with frequently, but Shane was my favorite.

After I had gone home, my parents insisted I get a job.  I half-heartedly looked, thinking I'd be back for the spring semester, but it wasn't to be.  For a couple of weeks, I lived with my best friend L and her family because I just couldn't take my own family anymore.  "You're breaking your mother's heart, you know," my dad told me.  I knew.  But at the time, I just needed to get out.  On top of this, I had stopped taking my anti-depressants.

The first time we talked on the phone (January 2005), Shane had told me he would sound funny, something about altering his voice.  It should've been a ginormous flag, but I just figured he was being goofy.  That's what we did!  We had fun and flirted and laughed.  Shortly thereafter, I finally got a part-time job.  A few weeks in, I bought my very first cell phone so I could talk to Shane any time I wanted.  By that summer, I was racking up some hefty phone bills (mostly because of texting).

I considered Shane my boyfriend.  I talked to him more than anyone else I knew, and we had such great conversations.  Most of the time.  Sometimes it felt like he wanted me to do nothing but sit around at home and talk to him or (in his absence) think about him or just do nothing.  One time that bothered me in particular was my 21st birthday.  He didn't want me to go out to drink, but there was no way I was missing out on hitting the bars for the first time.  Between texts and phone calls, he kept bugging me all night until I finally stopped responding.

A few times we had broken up (the first time having been a few weeks before my 21st birthday) and then gotten back together.  We were in love, and someday we would get to be together in person.  The drama kept mounting, though.  Hindsight, of course, is 20/20, and looking back, I can't believe how gullible I let myself be.  I believed all kinds of things. 

Want an example?  Once, I believed that he was at a water park and hit his head, giving him some form of amnesia.  I learned this through texts that were supposed to be from his friend telling me this, and warning me that Shane might not remember me.  I was devastated (K probably remembers this; we were over at D's for movie night, I think) and didn't know what to do.  Miraculously enough, everything ended up OK and Shane was fine.

Every day, every week it got harder and harder.  One day we'd be happy and all would be well.  The next we'd be fighting or breaking up and I'd be sure my life was over.  For awhile, we were "engaged" and were planning to get married in a few years.  I even started picking out dresses and rings online (it's the closest I ever got to dreaming of my wedding before I got engaged to Hubby).

For a year this all went on.  My friends thought I would be better off without him.  I know my parents thought so.  But he was the only person I was certain loved me at that point in my life.  I didn't get to go back to school that fall (I hadn't earned enough money for my parents to give the OK), and soon I found out that my sister (K) was moving across the country.  Nothing felt right except for Shane.

So, naturally, that's when my world came crashing down.

In November 2005, more than a year after I'd first "met" him, Shane called to say there was something important we had to talk about.  20-year-old Shane was in fact a 15-year-old girl (we'll call her Girl X).  Her parents had found out about how she had been lying to me (and them) and made her own up to things.  As I talked to her mom and things unraveled, everything started making sense.

The reason "Shane" was always at the local high school ("he" told me he worked there, but Girl X was really a student there).  All the times I heard people call her by her real name (a unisex name).  The extravagant stories meant to force us to break up because she couldn't simply do it.  The excuses for why we couldn't meet (because she wasn't who I thought), and the "altered" voice (in my defense, she had a very gender-neutral sounding voice over the phone). 

Girl X wasn't to contact me anymore, but she did.  She apologized and told me that she really did love me.  And being as depressed and desperate as I was, I kept talking to her because I loved her, too.  I don't care about gender (it's one of the perks to being bisexual, I guess).  A body is just a body; I was in love with the person inside and the body wasn't even a factor.  We secretly kept talking for a day or two until her dad found out.  At that point, it came down to this: Either I stopped contacting Girl X, or they were going to essentially flag me as a child predator and things would've gotten U-G-L-Y.  I opted for the former.

She kept trying, though.  I'd get texts, but I kept ignoring them.  Her or her friends would keep emailing me or IM'ing me.  Within a week, I changed my phone number.  I had blocked her on AOL, along with all her "friends."  At least once she tried to trick me into talking to her.  I had gotten an IM and was chatting with some guy when things started getting weird.  It dawned on me that it must've been her, and I said goodbye and blocked that name, too.  A few years later, I think she might have tried again, but I can't say for sure.  The last time I know I talked to her was 6 and a half years ago.  

This whole thing sounds insane.  I'm aware.  It's hard to believe that I didn't see the signs, right?  You only see what you want to see sometimes, and all I wanted was someone who loved me and made me feel worthwhile.  I sometimes suspected that maybe "Shane" was in high school, but I figured maybe he was a senior and just didn't want me to write him off as being too young.  Never did I suspect he was female, nor that she was only 15. 

At first, I missed her.  Terribly.  My best friend/sister was moving away, I'd lost the person I loved, and I was feeling utterly alone.  But as time went on, I realized that she had lied to me for a year, and instead of being sad, I was just plain old pissed off.  Mostly, I think, at myself for being so trusting, so blind to everything.  I was embarrassed and hurt, and I told very, very few people the truth about what happened.  Now you all know the truth.

My depression and low self-esteem can't take all of the blame for what happened, I know, but they played a pretty major role in things.  Had I been a happier, more confident person, I wouldn't have been spending my entire life online talking to strangers who (at least seemingly) accepted me without question.  I probably would have found more joy in the world around me, I might not have felt like the only way someone could love me was without having to be physically with me, and maybe I could have found happiness in loving myself instead of seeking someone else's love.

Riki's History Part 3: Ups & Downs

Well, like I said, the rest of high school was fairly uneventful.  Toward the end of my sophomore year I started dating a great guy (thanks to my old camp friends, we already have a nickname for him - Beefy).  We were together for a year and a half (until I inevitably messed things up), and he treated me like a princess.  

My mom's side of the family has a history of severe headaches and migraines, and sadly, I didn't escape this fate.  Sometime during my junior year, Mom took me to the doctor to see what they could prescribe for my headaches.  At one point the doctor asked, "Do you have any symptoms of depression?"  Without hesitation, Mom and I both answered yes.  Based on that and a few other questions, I was prescribed Celexa.  

To this day, one of the most meaningful gestures a significant other has made for me was shortly after this.  I had told Beefy about the appointment and the name of the medication, and told him I'd be starting it soon.  The next day when he picked me up for school, he handed me a bunch of paper.  He had gone online and researched Celexa to learn more about it and gave me the results.  He wasn't exactly someone who goes out of their way to read a lot, so it was pretty amazing to know he cared so much.  I'll never forget that.

Eventually, my dosage got bumped up.  And again.  And again.  It would help for awhile, and then slowly taper off.  Beefy stuck with me through a lot of ups and downs, as did a few really amazing friends.  The real problem came if I didn't get the pills refilled quickly enough (and, being a teenager, I was terrible at being on top of things).  The results weren't pretty.  At one point I went three days without my meds and found myself curled up under a desk in an empty classroom, crying and talking to my friend's mom on the phone because my own mom wasn't being any help (so I thought).  Part of it was anxiety about getting things back in line, and part of it was my system being fairly dependent on the Celexa to function.  

I was on Celexa for a few years.  Before I started college in fall of 2002, I went to see my first proper psychiatrist, who threw some wellbutrin in there as well.  Even with that added in, things didn't go so well.  

I don't want to bore anyone with all the details, so I'll just hit on a few things.  The first is that I became an insomniac.  I would be awake for 22 or 23 hours of the day, crashing just long enough to get wired up again.  I was always online, and as much as my roommate tried to involve me, I preferred the world wide web to the actual world around me.  I was dating First again, but he never came to visit and around October I broke things off for good.  (When I broke up with him, he said he had been trying to find a bus out to see me before getting the crap beaten out of him.  I do know that he was severely hurt for awhile, but in my eyes, it was still too little too late.)

Worst of all was the suicidal thoughts.  You know that disclaimer on commercials?  The one that says children and young adults are susceptible to worsening depression and thoughts of suicide?  Yeah, they're not kidding.  There were times I would find myself sitting on the floor in the showers, holding my razor and thinking about how easy it would be.  There were other times when I would lay in bed for hours, missing class, not eating, not sleeping, just crying or aching.  I started burning myself with my lighter (I had recently started smoking at that point).  Things were bad.

They reached a peak in late October when I decided it was just time to do it.  Bestie (who was at college about an hour away) had been wonderful to me, and I felt I owed it to her to say goodbye and to let my boyfriend (who went to her school) know what was going on.  I don't know if I was hoping she could talk me out of it or if I just wanted to talk to someone who loved me or what, but I pretty much scared the ever-loving life out of her.  She told her mom, and they were telling me they would call the police if I didn't stop talking like that.  So, on Bestie's advice, I took my knife to my downstairs neighbor and told him to hold onto it for awhile.

I was too late, though.  Her mom (I think) had already called the police, and soon they showed up at my dorm.  An officer peaked into our room (our door was usually open) and said, "Do you know where I can find Emily?"  Since we actually had an Emily on our floor, I pointed him down the hall.  I was trying to decide if I should make a run for it when two more officers came into my room, asking if I was Erika.  Within 10 minutes there were 4 officers (with 3 squad cars; don't you people carpool or work in partners?) and an assistant dean in my room, all asking me questions.  They almost took my scissors away (until I showed them just how dull they were), and then asked if they should take my pills away.

"My antidepressants?  Uh, I need those so I DON'T hurt myself..."  They weren't thrilled with my response, but they let me keep them anyway.  As the crowd was tapering down, my RA showed up.  He'd been at the library studying, and noticed the cop cars.  He was just curious until he realized they were parked in front of his dorm; then he was alarmed.  He was a great guy, and he made me laugh when he came in and we had this exchange:

RA: I saw all those cops and you know who I thought they were here for?

Me: [Insert other resident's name here.]

RA: Yep.  And for what?

Me: Drugs.

RA: Yep.  

When my roommate came back, she guessed the same things I had, and we joked about it, saying next time they'd be here for the other resident.  After reassuring him that the night's events were over, my RA told me to watch The Muppet Movie (I did) and that the next day he'd take me for ice cream (he did).  Best RA ever.  

The very next night a friend committed suicide.

All I could think was, "That could've been me."  My world was shaken and I finally realized that I didn't actually want to die.  A few weeks later, my roommate helped me tell my parents what was going on and that we thought I could use some time in the hospital.  Mom and Dad didn't agree, but they did agree that I should come home.  They took me to a new psychiatrist, who tried a few different meds with me and referred me to a therapist.

The combination of behavioral therapy and Fluoxetine (generic Prozac) were good to me, and in January 2003 I went back to school.  I kept going through fall of 2004, at which point, I started falling apart again.  This time, my major problems were migraines and falling asleep at the drop of a hat.  I honestly couldn't stay awake, and would find myself sleeping while sitting up with my laptop trying to do homework.  (Eventually, we found out I had sleep apnea, and that was a big part of the problem.)  I was missing classes left and right, and in late November, I decided that it was time to leave again.

But just before this happened, I met Shane.  And that, my dears, is for next time.