It's Been a While

 It's been so long since I've written a post on here that I don't even know where to start. A lot of things have changed in my life. I started this blog almost nine years ago. It's changed a lot too. From a Christian young woman figuring out her faith to renouncing that faith to now, over the last going on two years, slowly starting to open herself back up to it. I haven't been back to church yet, I still have a lot of trust issues there, too many instances of bullying when I was younger and cliquishness and lack of acceptance as an adult. Churches don't equate to a safe space for me unless its talking about my old church in Edgewood, which was the only church I ever really felt at home. But I'm getting there. I'm talking to God again, I'm working to get my life back together, actually trying to take care of myself because for so many years I just haven't cared. I knew I needed help, but I just couldn't bring myself to care enough to do anything about it. I spent two years in school on no medications, in another state and I conquered school and life and then I came back to New Mexico and the depression came back and everything's been a struggle since. But I'm back seeing a doctor, I'm back on meds, and I'm trying.

The Reason

A Facebook friend posted this yesterday and I saw it and was just like, holy crap, that's me. I don't feel like its talked about a lot why people choose not to commit suicide. Most of the time people talk about why people DID commit suicide and a lot of the time, that talk is very judgmental. I know I struggle when I see the negative comments directed at that person, usually talking about how selfish they are, questioning why they didn't ask for help, what a waste of a life their decision was, etc. I don't generally see many people trying to understand. So seeing a shout out like that, was kind of awesome.

I've been suicidal multiple times through my life, even as recently as two years ago. No, I have never actually attempted, though I have had plans in place. The reason I never went through with it, is because I knew how much my death would hurt my parents and, I assumed, my friends. See, I'm really bad at friendships. I have this tendency to assume that the other person or persons don't actually like me or will start to dislike me or something like that so I automatically hold back. I make my assumption into a reality, I guess. I've had friendships where I feel like I give 110%, always trying to be there, always trying to be a reliable friend, and had those friendships crash and burn. So, I'm reluctant to fully put myself out there, but there are times when I get so desperate for that feeling of friendship that I push a little too hard. See, I don't think I'm a particularly likable person. I'm stubborn, opinionated, and honestly, just a tad judgmental, okay, a lot judgmental. I tend to make snap judgments about people and its hard to change that impression once its made. Frankly, I'm a bitch. I will totally own that. But over the years I've made a few friendships that have lasted and while those friends may not have always known what to do with me when I was going through one of my super depressed phases, they were there.

Mirror, Mirror

I've been in Denver for almost a year now. I go to school full time, I work two jobs, and I'm currently in the middle of moving to a new place. I've done well for the last year. I've gotten good grades, I've done well at my jobs, but as the classes have gotten harder, my stress level has gone up and now with moving adding to an already difficult quarter, the cracks are starting to show. For the first time, I'm not doing well in a few of my classes. I'm struggling with finding enough time to study. I'm struggling with feeling exhausted all the time. I go seven days a week. The snow day we had last Wednesday was the first full day I'd had off in a few months. The cracks are showing and I don't know how to fix them. I live in a stupidly expensive city. I can't afford to quit one of my jobs. I'm trying to graduate by next summer so I don't incur a ridiculous amount of debt and so I can actually start working. I mean, I'm 28. Most of my friends and fellow students around the same age have at least one associates degree and most have a bachelors. Me? I'm at my fourth college trying to get the associates degree I failed to get two years ago.

The Gender Conundrum

We live in a world where gender is an ever-changing concept. It's no longer a simple black and white matter of you're male or you're female. Now we have transgender, non-binary gender, gender fluid, agender, bigender, and the list goes on. It can be a bit of a challenge to keep it all straight.

I was raised Christian, so anything deviating from the normalcy of heterosexuality was bad. Homosexuality? Bad. Bisexual? Bad. Transgender? Bad. And so on and so on. I learned to look down on those people, I was taught to look down on them. I had teachers and leaders who vehemently spoke out against them who painted a picture of horrible people making conscious decisions to live in sin, teachers and leaders who framed my perception of those people. I often wonder, if I hadn't left home and gone to college in another city, if I hadn't been removed from my familiar little closed off world, would I still be as close minded as I was then? But while my eyes were certainly opened and I became slightly less judgmental, I was still extremely close minded. It wasn't until I actually began to really meet and get to know these people that I realized that they were humans just like you and me, not these entities of evil I'd been taught about. And not a single one of them was claiming to be gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans or whatever in order to snub God, it was simply who they were.

Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge - Days 3-5

Apologies for missing a couple of days. Life got busy so I had to postpone. So, I will be doing three days today and then three tomorrow and after that, fingers crossed, I'll be able to stay on track!

Day 3 - Least Favorite Book
This is a hard one for me because I love all the books so much. So understand that when I say Chamber of Secrets is my least favorite, I still love it. I don't have any hugely specific reasons of why it's my least favorite other than it's just never been one to hold my attention as much as the others. Probably the only real specific reason I have is that this book contains the character of Gilderoy Lockhart. He is without a doubt the most annoying character in all of the books and not always in a good way. He has his moments where is obnoxiousness is comedic and it works well with the story but there are a lot of other moments where I just want to smother him with a pillow and have done with it. So while there are aspects of the book that I really, he kills other parts for me. Still a wonderful book though!