What the Hell Am I Doing Here?!?

I've never done this before. I don't even know if I'll be able to do it or not.  But I'm going to give it a shot.  I've recently joined the Twitter craze, or at least I've only recently followed and been followed by people. Before that I was just too paranoid to expose myself to anyone.  (I'm actually afraid someone who knows me in real life will be able to find my Twitter page and discover my dirty secrets, even though I've not used my name or location.)  I guess I've been Tweeting to "me" for awhile now.  That doesn't make any sense, but neither do I most of the time.  I have to vent in some way, and if I can't talk to my psychiatrist then I tend to look for other outlets, not all of them positive.  Translation:  There's so much going on inside my head that it has to come out of me or I will explode-or implode!-and if a therapy session is not available then I will turn to other means of self-expression, and some of these are damaging. I self-harm, I self-medicate, I engage in risky behavior.  I'm searching for a healthy alternative.  Tweets are great for venting, but I often have more to say than a mere 140 characters will allow.  Hence, this blog.


 The first thing you need to understand is that I am so OCD that it literally takes me hours to write a single paragraph.  I edit, rewrite, redo things over and over again, in an attempt to get it PERFECT, which of course is not possible.  This means that I'm setting myself up for failure before I've even started.  The rational part of my brain realizes this, but it's usually overruled by the rest of me.  No matter how hard I try, I can never get it right.  I can never be satisfied with anything I do, because it's never good enough.  I've had this problem my whole life.  I was a straight-A student in school, because I had to be the best, and once in 5th grade a teacher was going to give me an 89-which is a B-and I was so distraught I became suicidal and ended up going to the principal about it and getting that grade changed to a 90, an A.  So this is not a new thing for me-I am a perfectionist through and through.  It sucks.  Nothing is ever the way I want it.

Next, you need to understand that I am many people, many personalities, many "ME's".  I was once diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, but that's incorrect, as most of my personalities are fully aware of the others.  I have been in situations in which people I didn't recognize knew me by a different name and knew personal details about me, so I can see where that diagnosis came from.  But the next doctor got to know me better, and my diagnosis changed to Dissociative Identity Disorder. This is believed to stem from my being molested as a small girl.  If things are stressful, if things get to be too much for me, I will dissociate....I will leave my mind behind me and go someplace else and/or become someone else. This is hard to explain to people who've never experienced it.  Basically, it just means I'm not there anymore.  I may be sitting beside you, but my mind is off on its own and I'm oblivious to my surroundings. This can go on for minutes or even days.  I lose time.  What this means is, sometimes I will "wake up", become aware, and realize that I have no memory of what I've been doing up to that point.  I may not know where I am or how I got there.  In extreme cases, I may not even know who I am. Times like that scare the shit out of me.  My point is, I don't know exactly who will be writing this blog.  The me I am today may not be the me I am tomorrow.  So my writing style changes.  Also, I often speak in third person, talking about myself as though I'm a separate individual and calling myself by name, and I unconsciously switch from "I" to "we" during conversation. Please excuse the improper grammar. (It drives me crazy too)


I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to write now...but my mind is getting tired.  I have more to say than I could ever possibly type, and I suppose all the crap in my head will make its way to this blog eventually.  Or not.  I probably won't even remember this tomorrow.  That's the third thing you need to know.  Because of my mental illness, and because of the large quantities of medications which I take, I have serious memory problems.  I practically have NO short-term memory.  I will walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, and by that time I'll forget why I was going there.  It's also quite embarrassing for me; I will introduce myself to the same people repeatedly, having no memory of having met them before.  It makes me look really stupid,  and that is something I am not.  Yes, I am bonkers, but I am not an idiot! LOL  I don't know if anyone out there will find anything entertaining in this blog, hell I don't know if anyone but me will ever read it...but I was thinking that perhaps I might help someone who's mentally ill by letting them know that they are not alone.