SI II

it's almost one in the morning.
i lie in bed and hurt.
the unfortunate thing about not needing
a knife, scissor, razor or match
to hurt myself
is that i can do it
almost any time
almost any place.
because my "weapons"
are always with me.
no one can take away
my hands
my teeth
my cut short fingernails.
i stare at the birthday poster
from my "little sisters"...
and i hurt.
i flip over to see all my
signs, quotes, and pictures from my friends...
and i hurt.
i look at the signs above my head
telling me to "have faith," reminding me of my value...
and i hurt.
i think about how dumb it is
that i cause myself more pain,
as though i don't have enough already...
and i hurt.

does it ever end?

Question of the Day

no, don't expect one every single day! but anyway, here's my question...

what does it feel like to be happy? not a minute here and there. happy like usually your happy, but sometimes something gets you down, rather than the other way around.

abraham lincoln once said "most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." which technically speaking is probably true. and it makes a nice quote and a pretty poster (thanks mary engelbreit and TCM!). but if one makes up her mind to be happy, and doesn't really know what happiness feels like, how can she be happy?

man, way too analytical for this hour of the night...er, morning! but i do really want answers, kinda...

?

why

___

___

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shouldn't i

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wanna die?

questionnaire...

well, this questionnaire is teaching me something new...

i'm so good! see, all those questions about when i was a kid...out of 15 questions, only 2 were "yes!"

so why do i feel so stupid, instead of good? maybe because i think it's the dumbest thing in the universe to torture me with all of this...i mean, was i supposed to be a terrible person? was i supposed to be mean, and nasty, and destructive?

first, i circled "no" by the question "did you lie a lot or con other people?" but then my friend told me that my lying couldn't have started just now, so if i'm a liar now, i was a liar then. thanks...thanks a lot. so i changed my answer.

i'm finally almost done. i'm left with 2 questions. well, on paper anyhow. 2 questions and at least one more hour of evaluation. which means at least another 3 hours travelling time, before they even decide if i fit the criteria for the study. i've already spent 16 hours on it-and that's without counting the time i spent on the questionnaire, or the time i spent worrying, and panicking...

and they can still say no.

second evaluation

so i just read my emails asking how today went...thanks everyone!
here's what it was like:

(bear in mind though, that this thing was three hours long, i was on less than 5 hours of sleep, and i have a poor short term memory!)

dr. b: zo, i vill esk you kveshtins, and you vill try to enser. first, vee vill talk a leetle ebout ze trama, and zen vee vill talk ebout every ozer mental hells problem you and your entire femily ever hed.

me: (whispering) um...ok.

dr. b: zo, you ver molested. vood you prefer i say "ze molestation" or "ze event?" oh, you don't know? ok, zo vee vill say "ze event." how old you ver ven "ze event" heppened?

me: um...nobody knows for sure when it started. it stopped when i was twelve. (see what nice big sentences i used?)

dr. b: ok. try to remember for me ven you ferst started heving symptoms.

me: (blank look. shrug.) dunno

dr. b: vell, did you ever go for ze treatment for zees problem.

me: yeah. a lot.

dr b: ok, vell, ven did you go and vat heppened? (flips a few pages in the booklet she's been reading out of. finds the page that has lots of long and short lines for recording all this info...)

me: first i went to _____ when i was ten, then i went to dr. _____, also when i was ten. then i stopped going to her when i was thirteen, and when i was.... (i'll spare you the details. i'm sure you don't want to know about all 8 therapists and 2 pdocs and my hospitalization)

dr. b: ok. now i vill esk you some kveshtins ebout how you reacted to "ze event." (this part was a general repeat of last weeks evaluation. of course, she doesn't ask me "do you have OCD? do you have schizophrenia?" or anything like that. only round-about questions to make me crazy. for some examples, see last weeks post about my first evaluation. the only basic difference was that she asked me about dying a few less times. and...)

dr. b: vy do you speak in such a kvy-it voice? did you alvays speak so kvy-it? vat vould heppen if i pressure you to raise you voice?

me: dunno. dunno. dunno.

dr. b: don't vorry. i vill not pressure you. ok, all ze kveshtins i esked you before vas ebout ze lest veek. next vee vill do ze kveshtins ebout zee lest mons, end ze rest of your history from ze day you vere born until today. if you feel uncomfortable, you vill tell me.

me: hesitant nod. (oh man. i am SUCH a liar!!)

dr. b: (asks a million in depth questions, reading from a three inch booklet and taking notes. the only thing i can really see, due to my poor vision, is that the upper left corner of each page says DSM-IV (two unknown letters). and that every time she flips around, it's cuz i answered a "kveshtin" in a way that makes her beloved booklet tell her to ask me an extra dozen questions.)

me: dunno. um...possibly. nod. shake head. basically. a little. sometimes. a lot. maybe. dunno. i don't know. um...shake shake shiver.

(finally, it's 1:00!)
dr. b: ok. vee ar done vis dis booklet. next veek vee vill feeneesh. eet vill be for von ahver. ok. you vill please fill out dis kveshtin booklet, end bring eet vis you ven you vill come bek. if you not sure ebout zee kveshtin, you vill circle eet.

obviously, this is not the complete event...i couldn't remember half of it. but now i have this dumb booklet full of analyzing questions to fill out...and most of it sounds exactly like what she asked me today...some examples:

are you often grumpy and likely to get into arguments?
have other people told you that you are stubborn or rigid?
do you often feel guilty about things you have or haven't done?
do you often put yourself down?
dyo you keep thinking about bad things that have happened in the past or worry about bad things that might happen in the future?
have you had personal experiences with the supernatural?
is it NOT important to you whether you have any close relationships? (what kind of question is that? do they mean 'is it important to you whethere you have any close relationships?' and they just wanna confuse me by asking it backwards, or there is something to it that i'm missing?)
do you often think that object or shadows are really people or animals or that noises are actually peoples voices?
have you been told that you have too high an opinion of yourself?
could you be content without ever being sexually involved with anyone?
do you flirt a lot?
are you not really interested in other peoples problems or feelings?
have you often become frantic when you thought that someone you really cared about is was going to leave you?
have you tried to hurt or kill yourself or threatened to do so?
have you ever cut, burned, or scratched yourself on purpose?

ok, here's the part that is the most fun:

before you were 15, would you/did you...

rob, mug or forcibly take something from someone by threatening him/her?
torture or hurt animals on purpose?
start fights?
deliberately torture someone or cause someone physical pain and suffering?
set fires?
force someone to have sex with you, get undressed, or touch you sexually?
threaten someone with a weapon?
destroy things that weren't yours?
break into houses, buildings, or cars?
lie a lot or con other people?
sometimes steal or shoplift things, or forge someones signature?
run away and stay away overnight?

honestly, who in their right minds would answer half those questions honestly? not that i did any of those things...but still!!