• My dad male parent is having trouble at work through no fault but his own, and his taking out his self-inflicted frustration on everyone else
• My therapist won’t stop insisting that I need medication and I need to start taking my meds, to the point where he doesn’t really listen to what I’m saying anymore
• My mom’s female parent’s birthday is this Sunday, and I know for a fact her husband did not buy her anything and is not planning to, so I went all the way to the West Village to pick up this expensive perfume that she really wants, and when I let my dad know, he got angry at me for spending “his money” on stupid things
• I was just trying to help because things have been rough at home and I want her to have a decent birthday
• I don’t have much money in the bank as a result.  My parents have been giving me an allowance of about $200/two months and I wasn’t going to say anything about my low funds because I have just enough to get by right now and I don’t want to be a burden
• Meanwhile, I cannot go to therapy every week because it is (allegedly) too expensive
• Last week, my therapist spoke to my male parent about my need for more therapy, and offered to set up a payment plan; my male parent said he thinks I need more medication and that I will not be getting more therapy, but did not elaborate as to why
• I have been on medications since I was eight years old and I’m sick of it; I didn’t need the meds when I was eight, I didn’t need them at all until I was in middle school, and I believe that maybe the unnecessary meds I was taking then messed me up, and that’s why I need meds now
• I would be willing to go on new meds if I could also get more therapy, but otherwise, I am not taking anymore pills, aside from my ADHD meds; I will kill myself or go to a shelter or live on the streets before I take another pill for them; if I do this, it will be for myself and it will be on my terms
• I have looked for jobs and spoken to my parents about getting one and they told me they don’t want me to get a job
• I’m taking two classes at a local school and need a ~$60 textbook for one and ~$100+ in art supplies for the other and I asked my parents if they wanted me to drop the art class and they said no but now they won’t pay for anything and it’s too late to switch to another class, and I have the wrong textbook for the other class and really need the new one
• I had $20 and my sister took it to buy a book about Johnny Depp for her friend
• I had plans with a friend I have not seen in years and called my male parent and he said he told my sister she could take it and I freaked out because it was too late to cancel and what the actual fuck
• He came home from work and shouted at me and told me he is done with me and that I’m useless and he doesn’t give a shit if I kill myself, and that I should never talk to him again
• I have an appointment with my psychiatrist tomorrow; he called my dad to confirm and then called me to say the appointment is still on, which I greatly appreciate

I thought being home would help, I thought I would get into intensive therapy and things would improve, but my parents are the least supportive people imaginable and I will only let me go to therapy twice a month, which doesn’t do shit.  My dad actually told me to “really concentrate” in therapy, and not to “dilly dally and waste time.”  What does he think I do in therapy, talk about about the weather and paint my nails?  Doesn’t he notice I leave in tears half the time?  Apparently not.  He and my mom don’t care about me and they never have.  One of my earliest memories is of being three years old, sitting on the sofa early in the morning on the weekend, and my dad started shouting and cursing about the mess in the living room.  I was three fucking years old, he couldn’t have calmly taught me how to put things away instead of losing his fucking shit?  I also remember being four years old, six or so months after my sister was born, and my mom was taking a nap with my sister in my bed (I have no idea why), and I wanted to play BECAUSE I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD, so I would go into the room and play, but then my mom would get angry, and every so often I would purposely try to wake her up BECAUSE I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD, and she got up and hit me for several minutes, and for the rest of the day, she loudly talked about how she and the baby only got a two hour nap because of me.  Did she really expect toys to substitute for actual human contact?

I do not have the faintest idea who in the universe thought it would be a good idea for these two people to have children at all, let alone with each other.  My mom has mood swings worse than my own, but I’m the one who has to be medicated.  My dad has a textbook case of narcissistic personality disorder, but I’m the one who’s self-centered.  My dad has said, on multiple occasions, that he is “the most important member of the family.”  WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK

They expect me to clean the house, but whenever I do anything, like reorganize the kitchen cabinets, or clean the kitchen counter, or clear off and vacuum the sofa, or clean the entire bathroom from top to bottom, or clean and organize the stairs, they fuck it up within five minutes.  That’s barely an exaggeration.  When I brought this up to my dad, he was dismissive and said I should be maintaining the bathroom on a regular basis, implying it’s no one’s fault but my own.  Jesus fucking Christ.

My friend’s birthday is on Wednesday, and I was planning on making cookies and mailing them to her today, but of course my mom stayed home from work (no clue why, she’s just been on the sofa all day), and wouldn’t let me in the kitchen, and I’m not talking to her because she was verbally abusive yesterday.  Later, I went into the kitchen and saw that the bags of M&M’s I’d asked for to use to make the cookies had both been opened and eaten to the point where I couldn’t possibly use them, so there goes that fucking plan.

I called my psychiatrist and told him I don’t want to be on my antidepressants/anti-anxiety/mood stabilizers (fluoxetine, or generic Prozac) because I don’t need them that much and my parents just use them to give me a hard time, and he agreed with the part about my parents and told me to take a couple of days to think about it.  I’m writing him an e-mail to explain everything to him right now.

My circadian rhythms have gotten pretty messed up in the past two weeks, so I’ll fall asleep at around 2:00 AM and wake up ten- or twelve hours later.  It’s gradually been getting better, but now I’m on a million different medications, each with their own fun side affects.  One of them screws with my appetite, so I get full off of small portions before hunger strikes back with a vengeance.  Another has practically turned me into a pregnant woman, minus the fun part of course; my olfactory senses are in overdrive, most foods have a weird taste to them, and when I even think about certain foods (like hard boiled eggs, or ham, or chicken), I feel nauseas.  I’ve been on many different medications, so each of these side effects by themselves would be doable, but together, they’re a nightmare.  I’m rarely hungry, but when I am, everything tastes gross.

It’s not as though I can give up any of these meds, either.  One pill opens my lungs so I can breathe easier; another controls my seratonin levels to help me balance.  The third pill contains amphetamines and keeps me focused and organized, and the newest pill releases hormones because my body can’t regulate them by itself.

It’s almost definitely the birth control making me feel so horrible, but there’s really nothing I can do about it.  My doctor gave me two months’ worth of free packets, with the instructions to come back afterwards to retest my hormone levels.  If I take the pills, I’ll feel sick all the time, but if I don’t, my doctor won’t have a good idea on treating the PCOS.  PCOS won’t kill you directly or quickly, but it causes a variety of medical issues, so treating it sooner rather than later is imperative.

Stopping any of my pills wouldn’t be (immediately) fatal, but it would decrease my quality of life significantly.  It’s so frustrating; I feel like a slave to modern medicine, but there isn’t much I can do about it.  I really wish, more than almost anything else in the world, that my mind and body worked properly.  I want my mind to clear up and start functioning normally, and my body metabolic- and reproductive-systems to do their damn jobs without any issues.

My therapist and I were talking about my desire to stop taking Prozac, and he said mental illness is a life-long struggle for some people, and stopping my medication could have very serious consequences.  He explained that even though my mood is fairly stable about ten-percent of the time, it only takes ten-percent to mess up one’s life.  The more I thought about his reasoning, the more appealing sticking with Prozac seemed.  I decided to take my prescribed dosage of all my meds everyday this week and then see how I feel.

I feel lousy.

• Take two classes at a local school
• Get a part-time job
• Take my medication everyday
• Go to the gym at least four times each week
• Lose weight*
• Try the low-GI diet and adopt it permanently if it proves affective
• Learn to knit
• Take up embroidery
• Learn how to ride a bike
• Read more
• Photograph more often
• Work hard in and out of therapy

*This isn’t so much born of vanity as it is of necessity as part of the treatment for PCOS

I really fucking hate my family sometimes. My sister is an irritating, self-absorbed teenage bitch, and my parents refuse to understand my issues and can be very selfish. My dad is especislly awful; he will sometimes imply or say outright that he is the most important member of the household because he makes the most money. My mom stayed at home to care for my sister and me, but has worked full-time for the past eight or so years. She might not make as much as my dad, but her financial contributions are invaluable; we would not be able to even scrape by without her. I thought being at home would help somewhat, but my dad won’t call the insurance company to see if I can go to therapy more often, and my parents threaten eviction whenever I do something they don’t like, which, as mentioned in an earlier post, can be the smallest thing.

I’ve been trying to clean the the house, which is difficult because I’ve been depressed and unmotivated, and no one else seems to care about helping out. I cleaned the entire bathroom not long ago, and people have already started messing it up again. I love Unfuck Your Habitat and have been reading it for help and inspiration. Today, I did a ton of work in the living room, and my family was really pleased and happy with what I’d done. I was doing laundry when everyone came home, and I asked my sister to go down to the co-op laundromat with me, since it was dark and rainy outside and the laundry room is in a creepy basement. My sister doesn’t take to me often since she’s an irate teenager, and I wanted to hear about her day. Our mom asked her to go so she did, but grudgingly, and said some very rude things while we were down there, although we did wind up having a somewhat pleasant conversation.

An hour later, I went to change my sheets but had a lot if trouble because I sleep on the top bunk. I asked my sister to help so one of us could lift the mattress while the other got the sheet on. It would have taken five minutes but she started whining and refused, saying she’d helped me once today already. Meanwhile, I had spent my whole day helping the family, while my sister’s just been hanging out with friends since she has the week off from school. My mom chimed in and said she used to change my sheets when I was a kid, and if she could do it by herself, so could I. I went to see if my dad could help, but he was falling asleep. I asked my sister again and my mom got angry off and said she would help. I said no because she was being pissy, and she started banging on the headboard and yelling at me. My dad woke up and started screaming and cursing that I didn’t need help, I was just trying to bother my sister, and to shut the fuck up and stop being so selfish. A minute later, he came into my room and told me I better take my medication daily, or else (I had mentioned earlier that I hadn’t taken it since I woke up really late).

Whenever I’m in a bad mood, they blame my medication and claim I haven’t taken it. I do sometimes forget, like today, but fluoxetine (generic Prozac) has a long half-life and builds up in your system, so if you skip a couple of days per week, it has little effect. I really don’t like fluoxetine and don’t want to take it anymore, but they won’t hear of it, so I’ve just been taking less. My parents also don’t understand that it’s an antidepressant, not a mood drug. They’re just so fucking insensitive about my meds and my problems and I’m sick of it. I’m trying really hard to get my life together and they just don’t seem to care. I can’t get better if I’m surrounded by all of this negativity, but I have nowhere else to go and I don’t know what to do anymore. My therapist said we would work on these things next time I see him, but that’s not until Tuesday. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get through the next five days.

Also, I can’t even take a fucking shower now because I still can’t get my fucking sheets on the bed. My mom has been sleeping on the sofa because my dad’s snoring is so bad, so now I can’t watch TV or read a book inside. It’s so fucking trashy, I wish my dad would just go to a doctor or they could both compromise or something.

I’m also really angry because I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) earlier this week (more on that later), and even though it isn’t immediately life threatening, it still sucks majorly, but they don’t want to talk about it and don’t see it as a big deal. No, it isn’t cancer, but it’s still rough and not as simple as taking some birth control and moving on.