Tag: blogs

I am sad. Sad I am.

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Depressed again.  It comes and goes as it pleases and I hate it.

I tell myself I am only ruining my own day (my mothers words actually), but sometimes I just get in a rut and I need to be left alone… At least by certain people.  Also, I have now learned that when one is loathing one’s living arrangements, it can really weigh on one’s mind.  “One” being me.

I so desperately want to move out (of my mothers basement) with my boyfriend.  Just the thought of not living at home feels SO GOOD.  I want out so bad.  Due to unforeseen crappy jobs and [until recently] planning on paying for everything myself kind of put me 10 years behind schedule in the moving-out department.  Right now I am on a short term disability which hardly provides enough to pay my bills, never mind cover my therapy appointments.  Though this is temporary the lack of jobs in my area combined with my severe anxiety towards leaving the house for 6-12 hours a day does not help the situation.  I have no idea what the hell I am going to do when I am off disability.

I love people that tell me I need to move – Ya, because I don’t know that.  You need money to move and I have no money.  I have tried many little projects to generate money on the side; eBay, Etsy, YouTube, Storenvy; after 3 years none are worth my time.  I either have what nobody wants or I am just making and selling what everyone else is.  It is very discouraging.  I would love to work from home somehow, in some way.  I would work SO MUCH if I could do it from the comfort of my own home.  I have tried a few online jobs too- Swagbacks, Megatypers, Surveys … again NONE are worth my time, or yours for that matter.  I’m NEVER eligible to take a damn survey, oh the frustration.

I still love Youtube thought lately my viewing and interest has been dwindling.  I don’t know if this is something to do with therapy or perhaps my extreme disappointment in myself regarding my own Youtube channel.  I want(ed) to film regularly, if not daily.  I want(ed) to talk about therapy and anxiety and all the lovely things that go along with that.  I want(ed) to create [more] outfit videos and get back into one of my first loves – fashion.  But then part of me doesn’t care.  I hate that part of me doesn’t care. Who am I if I don’t love these things anymore?

Then again… back to moving out – I feel like I would feel more inclined to do these aforementioned things if I was not here (sitting in my mothers basement, fracking FREEZING from the a/c).  I stay down here because well, there is no room for me anywhere else in the house and I feel comfortable here, its my comfy cave, but at the same time I hate it.  I am grateful- don’t get me wrong- but just because I am grateful [to my mom for putting up with me and my mental instability] does not mean I am happy.  It could be worse but it could also be better.  I am trying to seek out the positivity in life and ignore the negative.  That is very hard here.  Good test I must say, but hard.

I actually worry that I might die before I get to move out and live independently.  Who knows what could happen between now and whenever the hell we manage to get outta here.  I’m 32, another 5 years and I’ll be 37, if I am still here at 37 I really don’t know what I will do with myself.  I didn’t even want to start working again while living here (unless online/from home).  We live SO FAR from everything.  Just driving to a town where there might be work will take over half an hour AT LEAST.  I hate it.  I am stating to see how condo living in a town or city can be appealing.  I want to be able to walk places for crying out loud.  The only place I can walk here is to the end of the driveway to the mailbox which at times CAN be exciting not gonna lie, but only when I am expecting something and thats never these days.

Sometimes I wonder if its just me.  Maybe I was just born this way.  I was born in February of 1984, 3 months earlier then I was due.  I spent the first weeks of my life in an incubator and I feel lucky to have not only survived but to have been blessed with no physical or mental damage.  Then I got Kawasaki Disease when I was 2.  Very rare, can be deadly but thanks to Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto I lived.  Again, without physical or mental damage.  I cheated death at least twice now and sometimes it makes me wonder.  Maybe I am having a hard time finding my place in the world because I wasn’t suppose to be here.

I plan to stay and see what happens.  I like to hope I am here for a reason.

i, Carla

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i, Carla live with mental illness.

At this current date and time I am working through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I get nervous easily, am prone to panic attacks at any given moment in time, I don’t like to go out a lot, sometimes I don’t get dressed for days… the list goes on and on.

i, Carla am not my metal illness.

Sometimes I struggle to realize this but it is true.  Mental illness is a part of me but it is not who I am.  I have goals and dreams and though it is a struggle I am trying to work towards them.

i, Carla will succeed.

I want to be successful and happy in my own mind, body and life.  I don’t want to worry what other people think because those are other people.  I am me, not them.

i, Carla understand.

I understand the struggles and limitations mental illness can present in one’s life.  The frustration that daily tasks can present.  The outright loathing of one’s self for not being able to do what “everyone else” does.  I understand because I know what it’s like.

i, Carla will try.

I will genuinely TRY to keep up with blog posts, therapy days and whatever happens in between. I will try to post “Therapy Vlogs” on my Youtube Channel on a regular basis.  I will not let myself be my own worst enemy.

i, Carla am in transition.

Currently in therapy and working on myself I am in the “transition” phase.  As I am transitioning and transforming so are things around me.  I am currently working on splitting my Youtube channel in 2 aka having 2 channels.  This is so (theoretically) one can be for vlogs and daily life posts (iCarla) and the other for fashion and beauty (iDREAMinVINTAGE).  I am currently working on changing and tweaking things online and offline.  I don’t know what I am doing or where I will end up but I will try.

I want to help and I want to heal.  I want to help other people realize they are not alone in their struggle.  I also want to heal myself.  I feel that in sharing some of my struggle I am not only healing myself but hopefully also helping someone out there to find healing in themselves.

What am I doing? … I have NO IDEA

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Here’s the thing… I do LOVE fashion, makeup, and hair related anything but I am also suffering from Complex PTSD.  This is something I have been trying to sort out how to write about, how to approach writing about it and I came to the conclusion that I’d just dive right into it.

I have Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and I am prone to sleepless nights, panic attacks, and worrying about everything. All. The. Time.  My PSTD is complex because there is not just ONE trauma that affects me but many traumas all on top of each other.

For YEARS I was misdiagnosed as Mild Bi-Polar which never really made a lot of sense to me but at the time, being desperate for an answer,  I just went with it.  I have tried so many antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications – at one point I was taking something in the morning, something in the evening, and I had Ativan “just in case”.  I hated them all, none of them (EXCEPT the Ativan which I  do still use on occasion), helped me at at all.  I was a zombie.  I had no personality.  Nothing mattered.  For me it just wasn’t working and wasn’t worth sacrificing what little part of me I enjoy.  Over the course of 3 years I was on and off more meds then I can remember and one day I just decided enough was enough.  I wanted to regain SOME control over myself.

I ended up just completely stopping taking my medication which I KNOW is not a good idea. I am fully aware that one is supposed to “ween off” of antidepressants and such but in my defence I was to a point where I was forgetting to take my AM pill or my PM pill on a regular basis, I’d miss a day or two routinely so just stopping just kind of happened.  Luckily I didn’t have any issues with going off of medication and I am happy to be off- NOT that medication is bad, it does work for some people just not for me (and I do not recommend my method of just stopping meds).

After going off meds and alerting my doc to my decision, I decided to pursue therapy (again). I had tried therapy before but I never really found anybody I felt comfortable talking to nor did I find it ever helped.  I’d leave my appointments feeling worse then when I went in.  That didn’t seem right.

I began doing some research and I came across a treatment called eye movement and desensitization and reprocessing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing) or EMDR for short.  I did not know much about this treatment but I knew I wanted it.  My search for this treatment led me to the therapist I see now and have been seeing for a few years now.  She is amazing.  I feel comfortable, safe, and not judged when I talk to her (which is how you SHOULD feel in a therapeutic environment).

At the time I first started this round of therapy I still thought I was Bi-Polar.  Not only did I question this diagnosis but eventually so did my therapist.  Over time and through a lot of discussions and activities such as mood charting and other things I won’t get into at the moment (because this blog is long enough ALREADY…), I was re diagnosed as PTSD.  That made a lot more sense.  I didn’t have many of the symptoms of Bi-Polar when it came down to it but I did have EVERY SYMPTOM of someone suffering from PTSD.  Not only was this a huge answer to the big blank I’ve been drawing for years but it also explained why medication did not benefit me.  In taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication I was only treating the symptoms of my illness, not the root of the problem.  As irony would have it, the EMDR therapy I so desperately want(ed) is exactly what (I feel) I need.

Currently I am in therapy and I am pursueing/getting EMDR treatment.  I have officially just started reprocessing and feel the need to share/vent about therapy or life in general…. What is my point? What am I doing? I have no idea really but I felt the need to write about it.  I can’t sleep and this is some what productive.  Also, I have been trying to vlog my therapy days and I thought a blog would be a nice piece to add to the puzzle.  I recently had someone comment and thank me because it helps them feel better and it was such an amazing feeling I have been inspired to start trying to write about this.  If I can not only help myself but potentially help other people then its worth more then I thought it could be.

Also please note this is my personal opinion/experience, I am not a professional.

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At this current time (MARCH 2016) I have deleted most of my “Therapy Vlogs” from YouTube as I have decided that for now I would prefer to keep some things off camera (this post was written a few months ago).  I have, however, started this blog in hopes that I can potentially talk about therapy and mental health related topics.  It is something I want to talk about.  I still vlog on occasion but I am trying to focus on making happy vlogs I will want to watch years from now and am not embarrassed to share with friends.  It is all a work in progress.  Let’s see what happens and where I go.