I Haven't Found a Drop of Life

I have to say that I don't particularly enjoy this time of year very much. The weather is cold and dreary and it gets dark out at 5pm. Things to do are pretty limited because its freezing out..and I mean freezing literally. The highest temperatures the past few weeks have been in the teens. Also, it is the beginning of an entire year and while that year goes by quickly, I don't feel the speed of time passing by until a few months in.

So right now, I've been feeling anxious. Like I'm waiting for something to happen but not enough time has gone by yet. I don't know if I'm waiting for warmer weather or for motivation or what, but I feel like I'm at a stand still. When I picture this year in my head, I see myself having so much fun but we are already 2 months in and nothing has happened. For some reason, I just feel lost and like something is missing.

Someone once said "the two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why." I guess I have yet to experience the second most important day of my life...

Title post is from "Addict with a Pen" by Twenty One Pilots

Too Young to Die But Old Is The Grave

I have kind of been neglecting this blog for a bit. There are some serious issues that I have been dealing with that have really made me struggle to hold onto who I am as an individual, a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend, a friend, and simply as a human being.

Over the past few months, my family and myself have noticed significant changes in my father. My father was the type of man that enjoyed simple things. Spending an entire weekend eating, drinking wine and watching movie marathons on the SciFi channel would be a perfect weekend for him. There was nothing that he loved more than having a few drinks, creating new mixed drinks, or sharing a whole bottle of any type of liquor with people. As of recent months, my father no longer drinks any alcohol, not even wine. There aren't even any liquor bottles in my parents house. He no longer eats, he no longer sleeps and he no longer watches television. At all.

He is a completely different man

He has also been stuck on the idea that my mother is having an affair (well, several affairs now). At first, we thought he was being a typical jealous Dominican man. Jealousy runs in Latin men's blood since they are raised to believe a woman should stay home tending to her husband's every need (holds back vomit.) However, things kept taking a turn for the worse. He would accuse my mother of sleeping with any and every man we knew. He even accused her of sleeping with family friends that were women! He accused her of poisoning his food, of performing voodoo on him, putting sleeping pills in his drink, dressing provocatively, cheating with her doctors, her co-workers, her co workers husbands, her friends husbands and pretty much anyone that came to his mind.

All the while during his accusations, he was unable to produce a single piece of evidence. No phone calls, no voice mails, no sightings, no pictures, no text messages, no comparisons, no motives, no nothing. He would follow her, watch her, even hired someone to follow her, took her cell phone, and did several things that would have led him to find SOMETHING, anything...but he still produced nothing. And since he has been unable to produce evidence, he started saying that my mother placed a spell on him to blind him from seeing/finding evidence. She had a spell put on herself to protect her while she is out and about fornicating with several men and women. He became paranoid about everything and everyone. He would ask a question and you would answer him and then 5 minutes later he would ask the same question in a different manner to see if you would give him a different answer so he can try to catch you in a lie. He became a man obsessed, a man on a mission to catch my mother in an act that she wasn't even doing.

My father even went as far as saying that my mother belongs to a cult where women meet once a week to devise plans on how to control their husbands so they could go around whoring themselves out. This cult would send subliminal messages through the phone to people they wanted to influence and this is also how they would "prey" on the men that they wanted to sleep with. Mind you, my father is a very intelligent, scientific and highly educated man who got a Master's degree in Mathematics.

Wait, it gets worse...

This whole time all these things are going on, we had an idea that something was not right with him. We knew something was going on, but couldn't figure out what. We chalked it up to a mid life crisis and perhaps a nervous breakdown, but he just kept getting worse and worse. We started to notice these changes I spoke about in his behavior. We would also notice that he would suddenly break down in tears often. He would also threaten to disappear from our lives, threatened suicide when nobody believed him, and he would sometimes regress to child like behaviors and patterns.

Even with all of these somewhat clear signs, I still had a thought in the back of my mind that maybe he was right about everything. Maybe there were things that we just weren't seeing and weren't catching on to. Maybe, since he was obsessed, he noticed things we didn't. So I started to watch my mother's every move, watched the way she spoke, her behavior, analysed her words, dissected them, read into every line, noticed how she dressed, how she walked, how she moved. I watched every single detail my brain was capable of processing. I found nothing different, nothing that seemed like strange behavior from my mother, nothing out of the ordinary and nothing to lead me to believe that my father was right.

Then earlier this week, my father called me with something that made me realize that he was in serious need of help. I realized this was not normal jealousy or a mid life crisis or a nervous breakdown as we previously thought. My father had a mental problem...something way more serious than I ever imagined. Earlier this week, he called me and told me that he had discovered something that would seal the deal and convince everyone of my mother's "infidelity." He told me he was more than 100% sure of this news and he would lay his neck on the line to show he was right. He spoke with such conviction that I believed him before he even told me what it was. He went on to say that he was certain that my mother was sleeping with my fiancee, Victor, and with my sister's boyfriend, Stephen, who lives in the basement with my sister and her kids.

My heart literally came out of my ass at this point

It was right then and there that I knew he was not in tune with reality and he was not mentally well. I did some research on the Internet and looked up all his symptoms (delusions, paranoia, etc) and I discovered that there is a disorder called delusional disorder. There are 6 types of delusions, and one of them is jealousy where the person is convinced their spouse is cheating on them.

This disorder is a psychotic mental disorder where a person believes a delusion that could be possible and plausible, but is certainly not true. People with this disorder lead high functioning normal lives and don't really exhibit bizarre behaviors other than the delusions. These delusions can also be linked to other psychotic disorders, such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The symptoms of this disorder, along with everything else associated with it, describes my father to a T. I have no doubt in my mind that he is suffering from this...no doubt at all.

People who suffer from delusional disorder often fall victims to depression and anxiety and suffer from this chronically and often for the rest of their lives. The only way to manage this is through drug therapy, where the patient is prescribed anti-psychotic medication, and through psychotherapy. However, most patients do not seek any help since they strongly believe that they do not have any type of psychological problem. My father, of course, is one of these people. He does not think there is anything wrong with him and he swears he will find evidence soon.

My family and I all went to see a family therapist yesterday (my father refused to attend) and we told him everything that was going on. He agreed with my diagnosis of delusional disorder and also told us that it sounds like my father might be suffering from a mix of mental disorders such as depression and schizophrenia.

I have no words to describe how that information made me feel...no words at all

We devised a plan to trick my father into coming to see this therapist. I don't know if it's gonna work and I don't know what to do if it doesn't. At this point, this is one of those things that my psyche cannot process. I feel like I am watching a movie and I am just waiting for it to end so I can leave the theater and go back to my normal life.

Title post is "The Bucket" by Kings of Leon

You Are My Sweetest Downfall

I need a change. I want to do something to my hair. Dye it or cut it but I dont know what and I'm scared to do anything I wont like but I'm sick of the same shit.

In other news, I wont be continuing my dance classes for October. I dont think I will have the time to get there even once a week. Work is going to get very busy that month since I have to go through a yearly audit for one of my sectors. I was told that I should plan to work later until mid November. Late as in 8 or 9pm every day. At this point, suicide is certainly looking mighty fine.

I need a reason to want to wake up in the morning and at the moment I have none. I need a good book to get lost in. A good movie to lose myself in. Anything that will remove me from my reality. I find myself wishing that I was drunk the majority of the time that I am conscious and the cigarettes I am smoking are increasing daily.

I miss my car. I miss having the freedom of just driving somewhere and not depending on the schedule of a train or bus. I hate not having a way to get places and I hate the fact that its been raining for the past 3 days. My hair looks like shit and that's exactly what I feel like.

I have been wanting to take a long walk and just think and think and think until my brain begs me to shut down. I want to walk until my legs buckle...until I reach the point where exhaustion overwhelms me and I fall asleep as soon as my head touches the pillow. I want to fall into an oblivion where figures seem distant and blurry and I dont know if I am dreaming or awake.

Up until now, I have never understood how people get addicted to drugs or alcohol since it alters their reality, but I completely understand now. I understand the need to escape and the need to feel like nothing is real. The need to just view figures and shapes and just get inklings of feelings, but not really feel or see anything at all. I just want to sleep through the rest of this endless life.

When will I want to wake up?

Title of post is "Samson" by Regina Spektor. Great song...so fitting for me right now

Everything That Comes Together Falls Apart

This office is like a freezer and my hands are so numb, I could barely type. I have not been myself lately. There is so much going on in my head that I have to keep myself busy at all times so I dont give my head a chance to run away with my thoughts.

I hate thinking about reality. Things that other people never give a second thought to. Like I cant stop wondering if my little brother is happy? The thought of him being miserable is constantly in my head. I am literally driving myself insane with it. And I wonder if my father is truly happy or if he is silently suffering? And the thought of this KILLS ME. Literally, a little piece of me dies when I think that the people that I care the most about might be in pain. It is very difficult to deal with these thoughts, which is why I am convinced that I am verging on insanity.

Last night, I had a breakthrough with Victor. He told me things that I desperately needed to hear. Things that I thought he was too ignorant to notice and he confirmed things that I constantly doubted. He said them all with such sincerity in his voice and in his eyes that I could do nothing else but believe him. I think that this was the first time that I actually allowed him to be there for me in all our time together. Its sad that it took this long but, either way, it was a bittesweet breakthrough

I'll hold on to this little bit of positive amongst this sea of blackness that I have sorrounded myself with.

Title of post is from the book "Looking For Alaska" by John Greene. Its a quick read and a great book, definitely recommend.

Miserable At Best

I had an epiphany the other day. The kind that wakes you up and puts everything into perspective. I realized that I am a miserable person and that my misery is not caused by any outer, environmental factors, my misery is innate. I was born this way and I will most likely die this way.

I dont know how to be anything other than miserable, any other emotion is unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I often wonder how people have happiness that just radiates out of them. What did they do differently that they are able to feel that way? What did I miss? I cannot fathom how people can be innately happy. How people can genuinely laugh and genuinely be interested in how others are doing and how people smile with their eyes...I just dont get it.

The worst part of it all is that I do not want to be this way. I do not want to live my life swimming through my darkness and trying to stay afloat. I feel like I am constantly on the edge of a cliff and like at any point, I will fall over and just continue to free fall in my black abyss. I am sick of this. Misery loves company too so I am certain that I spread my misery without even noticing it. I often wonder why Victor seems so miserable and I never realized that it could be me making him this way. Its hard to be happy around a negative, downer like I am. I dont even know if he has tried to be happy and I have just stunted him.

I keep writing about how I want to change my life and do things so that I dont end up regretting how I live. How I wanted to make a list of things I wanted to do before I die, how I am gonna start living freely and enjoying my youth. But I have been nothing but an unrealistic, hypocrite because I have done none of these things. I have no list and I am not free. I am holding myself captive in my web of misery. Nobody could set me free but me, but I dont even know the first thing about freedom.

I feel like this is beyond me. Maybe this is not something I can control, maybe this is my fate. But it would kill me to think back and realize that I settled to live life a certain way because I didnt know how to fight back. What if I can tackle this? What if I can actually...be happy? I dont want to die thinking what if's.

I called a therapist at 11pm on Thursday night. I left a message. She called me back and left me a message to call her again to make an appt.

I still have not called.

Title of post is Mayday Parade

I've Become So Numb

I havent been doing too good lately. I've been feeling down. I mostly just want to disappear in my slumber. I'm not sure why I am in this downward spiral. All I want to do is sleep and hope that I will feel different once I awake. As Three Days Grace says: "I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all" and thats exactly what I feel, nothing at all.

Which is worse?