Didn't I say I was a bad blogger? I did, didn't I? Well, yeah. I'm just not very consistent, am I? Maybe inconsistency is my consistency, if that makes any sense! Ha! Life intervenes, usually. I seldom participate in my hobbies anymore, but a lot of why I think I CAN'T is probably in my head. I could if I made the time somehow. I think I usually think I SHOULD be doing something else, so I don't do the things I enjoy. I often feel guilt when I make time for myself. I'm not trying to rant and berate myself, it's just something I've been working on, to realize when my feelings are justified and when they are not.
At the moment, I've been fighting depression. I am starting to wonder, however, if it is more than that, or an entirely different problem altogether. I just assumed it was depression, since the worst part of it all was the sadness, the unyielding unhappiness . . . But as I think back to my childhood, and then to my adolescence, I remember being more than just sad. I was . . . quirky, even WEIRD. What if it's a personality disorder I've been fighting all these years, and I just didn't know it?
I've been reading about schizotypal personality disorder recently, mostly trying to see if I could find a label for what my sibling's problems might be, but even though I didn't exactly identify with the symptoms, I wondered if some of my behaviors and personality quirks from prior to my "medicated life" might have been more markedly schizotypal or related to another disorder. I stop short of saying my belief in the paranormal is a symptom, mostly because I am so extremely skeptical. I believe in the possibility that energy can exist in some form after death, but I don't believe in demons, orbs, UFOs, SLI, or things like that. Even psychic powers I have a tough time with, since what people see could so often be mistaken hallucinations or psychotic delusions. I have at times felt I was psychic, when I was about 10-12 years old, but that was also at the height of my quirks and alienation from society. At that age, it was the first time I really remember wanting to die. I was so depressed day in and day out, nothing helped. I dressed differently (very geeky, in fact) and excelled in school, because I felt like I was supposed to, but also because I didn't have the distraction of friends or a social life. I believed I had psychic ability, that I could see ghosts. That's when I had my first paranormal experience, that I've been unable to shake my whole life. I wonder now if it was real. But the recordings and evidence I've gathered since then help to reinforce the belief, as well as meeting so many experts in the field out here in California. But that possibility it's "mental illness" that is responsible for that core belief still nags me.
I wonder if it was the situation that made me what I was, or if I was who I was. Even into college, as much as I wanted to make friends, I could say things that someone took the wrong way, not knowing how far to take a joke, not knowing exactly how someone would read something I said. Often I would come away from a situation with a different take than those around me. For example, I took a class where the professor took us to his home and to his studio as a sort of field trip. The idea was to show us how working artists lived and worked, what kinds of things he did to keep his office organized, software, etc. At the time, I remember being extremely annoyed that he had done this, thinking it was an overtly conceited gesture, showing us what a "big shot" he thought he was, and thinking his way was the best way . . . My boyfriend at the time (now husband) told me he thought it was just because he had access to his own studio and office, that it was easy, and it made sense. I blew off what he had said, thinking he just "didn't understand" the B.S. that existed in the art world, and therefore didn't know what he was talking about. But now that I think back, I think he was right. And I wonder if those kinds of events are common for schizotypals.
I'll discuss all of this with my mental health professionals. But it's been on my mind, so now it's on my blog. Time to find out what's wrong, so I can fix it. And maybe, by extension, my sibling. I worry so much that he/she isn't getting the help he/she needs. So I can only live by example, can't I?
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