Kassandra Syndrome

Next Pennsic

kassandra — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:14:51 GMT

Aside from it's awesomeness, one's first Pennsic results in needing to adjust how they'll do things for the next Pennsic, by a lot.

My first mistake was waiting to do my garb sewing till the month of Pennsic; if we'd done it sooner, the loss of three days and three sewing machines wouldn't be all that tragic like it ended up being. Mom and I determined the correction for this is going to work like this - for Yule, mom is going to buy me roughly 150 - 200 dollars worth of fabric, patterns, trims and notions and I'll be sewing at least one to three pieces of garb per month, starting in January. This should result in at least six or so outfits at minimum, which coupled with the garb I was given/bought this year will be a great base.

The second glaring mistake was not really packing for potentially cold weather. I brought a very thin blanket I usually use when I go to Lancaster, thinking that if it kept me warm in Jackie or Vince's place, it'd be fine for Pennsic. Dear lord, I was so very wrong. I ended up having to borrow a blanket or a cloak several nights, and one super cold night I ended up curling up in someone's small tent and small bedding nest. There were a couple of times I borrowed Evil Dan's cloak while we were schmoozing, because it was just that bloody cold and I was in very summery clothing. So I'll be making my own polar fleece and faux fur cloak for next year, along with a faux fur blanket for my bed whilst also taking one of those microfiber blankets with me. Oh, and a sleeping bag or two, just in case.

My third mistake was corrected early on during Peace week. I brought a pair of sandals that I thought would work fine because walking around at home with them was comfy and all that. I was SO SO wrong there. Teg took me with her over to Son of Sandlar when she went to purchase her boots, and Sandlar had me try on a pair of their slip on shoes. They were very comfy, and even though he typically can't hold things for people, he held them for me for three hours so I could scrape together the cash for them; Arwen was awesome enough to give me an advance for them, then work the time off during the rest of the war. Taking those shoes, which I will also use in Mundania, along with the combat boots I brought for breakdown day, so I should avoid this next year.

The rest of the changes aren't really due to mistakes, more so due to personal preferences and things that just seemed to work better for me.

Instead of an air mattress, I want to get one of those no-frame, folding love seat/couch things like the chair Glenn has, and keep it folded out as a Japanese style floor bed. Sleeping directly on the ground doesn't work well for me (as I found out the night I nested with Dan for warmth), but the air mattress wasn't all that comfortable either, likely because I usually sleep on a futon and more than a twin size. The love seat/couch thing will give me roughly the size of a twin and a half to a full size, and will likely be more like a futon since it's a mattress on the ground.

I'm planning on getting two different lanterns for next year - one propane based one for outside of the tent/wandering and one battery powered one for in the tent itself. Flashlights are alright, and I'll likely take a small LED one like Dan had, but the multi-directional light the lanterns give is better for lighting up a tent, I think.

Oddly enough, the green/black motley umbrella was a hit. I had one person try to steal it, cus they thought someone had just set it down and left it when I was actually turtling with it, while another asked me if I had made it myself. Next year though, I'm putting squishy balls on the tips of the frame - one tried to peg Arwen in the eye, but she had on glasses so it deflected; that would have been bad otherwise. I figure alternating black and green Styrofoam balls would work to avoid such problems. I may also get a motley back drape for it - the jury is still out on that.

Next year, I'll be going down on the first Sunday, so I'm there for when Arwen opens on Monday, then stay through last Saturday afternoon for break down. I may end up getting combat pay on both ends of the week, but I'm good even if I don't. I will be writing up my schedule of hours as soon as I have the class listings though, and I'm going to be a tad bit more selective about my classes next year.

I think that largely covers it. Once I'm readjusted to life in Mundania, I've gotta start the overhaul of Arwen's website and figure out how to convert a guest book into a "cookbook".

Miss everyone already! *hugs the lot of her Pennsic peoples*

Fuck You, Brain. >.

kassandra — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:32:10 GMT

I had Tony wake me up this morning as he left for work, so I could call the physical therapy place that's literally attached to my primary care physician's office and my disability lawyer. Had a burst of creativity afterward, and finally got a document made up for Magitech that I've been meaning to do.

Then I went back to bed, and as I was trying to fall asleep, I suddenly had this massive burst of missing her. Out of no where, mostly; a smaller burst happened during the four minute rest at the end of Rachel Brice's yoga cooldown. For several weeks prior, she'd been the furthest thing from my mind, thanks to a protection collar Val made for me - it's really helped, a lot.

But this sudden crash really sucks. I've basically only had like, three hours of sleep, if I'm lucky...which has made me too tired to try doing yoga this morning. *sighs*

Sadly, she'd likely just trivialize things like she did a month ago, and not really understand what exactly is going on with me, like a month ago. Hopefully it will just go away again soon.

Haunted

kassandra — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:48:41 GMT

I'm not quite sure which is worse - having hope, hope breaking, or having no hope at all. They all hurt in their own manner, but I'm trying to figure out which one of the two I've experienced hurts more.

There's a distinct absence in my life now. It's formed a deep hole of the metaphorical sort, one that's lined with Harry Potter style snapshots that move around in continuous loops; the bad times are stark black and white with grey hues while the good are faded colour with water stains streaking through them. Many of the good times line the upper part of this emptiness, while many of the bad line the bottom, each interspersed at random with the other type and more balanced in the middle.

Along the very bottom the fogs of sorrow drift, floating upward and fading into the mists of sadness before nearly dispersing in the light above the hole. Sometimes, this is a consistent progression, other times it is more sporadic and unpredictable. Certain things remain the same though - the bottom is always depression and is always quite dark, with the memories glowing eerily as the loop, providing the only light there.

In that vulnerable time between sleeping and waking, my brain begins to work, creating images and sounds like a movie. Mostly, they're hopes and occasionally they're memories. At first, these hopes played smoothly, their sound was distinct, their colours were vibrant and alive; they all lead to about the same thing, even though the paths there weren't always the same. For the past week, they're becoming more and more disjointed, like badly edited film or some super frakked up cinematography style, with the kind of bad voice editing that a lot of Asian import movies have - the kind where the sounds don't quite line up right with the words, and sometimes don't entirely at all. Now they stop short, or get interrupted, with this really androgynous voice saying something along the lines of "this will never happen, stop hoping it will", forcing my eyes to open and typically having to squint because there's sunlight slipping through the curtains.

These have always made me not want to get up out of bed, to retreat back into the dead sleep I've been having for most of the past six months, but it usually only added half an hour onto whatever time it took my screwed up body to start being capable of extensive movement while now they add hours. And ever time I start waking up again, I get another broken movie and another lecture from the androgynous voice. I can only talk myself into getting up within an hour or two on the days I have a lot of homework, because I absolutely have to get up or there will be trouble with school.

So I'll claw may way out of bed, and start clawing my way up out of the hole so that I can function, shredding pictures as I do so but they're always perfect and whole again just after. I then spend the day filling the whole with activities so that it's less noticeable, and so that it doesn't come up in conversation. Some days I fill it enough to barely stumble while other days I can't seem to fill it up past the middle of the mists; regardless of how full it gets, it always gets emptier and emptier as the day goes by. Sometimes, it empties rapidly and I find myself falling into the bottom of the emptiness while other times it just causes a sink hole, usually when I see something that causes the impulse to share it with the one that's gone for the latter and often after any kind of encounter with the missing person for the former; that always makes the filling fragile and fine like quicksand.

I'd like to lie and say there are days when I don't notice the hole at all, but there aren't. No matter how full I fill it, that emptiness is still always there below the surface, and I always know it will become empty and unavoidable again. If it's really full, I can ignore it and nearly forget about it for a while, but not entirely - the ghost is still there, even if you pretend it isn't. Those are the days when it's easier to act like there's nothing wrong, and that the hole isn't there, and those are the days that people likely buy the act without question. But it's just a masque.

For a while, I had a different masque, one that I thought would work to help wait things out, until they got better. Then I wore another masque to try and be what she wanted me to be, but it was just so exhausting and so emotionally draining that I couldn't wear that masque for long; fibromyalgia reacts to those sorts of things, so I was quite literally running myself into the ground mentally and physically, just to make someone else happy and have them be there. There was no way I could keep doing that, and expect to have any spoons for anything else that I need to do day in and day out, let alone spare spoons for when something out of the blue or rare happened.

So now I wear this masque, a flimsy thing made out of thin paper machet, that droops off the stem it's tied to; the same stem that I can only hold up for so long, before I have to put it down because my arm hurts. I usually only pick up the masque if I'm going somewhere, or talking to people online extensively, but it's a lot easier to pick up and put down a masque online as long as there's no web camera involved. And the masque doesn't hide the hole, the emptiness from myself, just from the people around me.

By the end of the day, the hole is empty again. There's more fog than mist, and the only reason the bottom is visible at all is because of the way the moving memory pictures glow, and even that is severely distorted from the top. I rarely see it in this state from the top, since I usually slide down further and further the less full the hole gets. By the end of the day, as it reaches the time when I should go to sleep, I'm back down in the bottom of the hole again, watching the phantoms move absently, waiting for the insomnia they cause to leave. As I slip back into sleep, but still close to being awake, the broken films of hope begin to play again in their disjointed and chaotic fashion, and that annoyingly androgynous voice lectures me again.

I wake up to this. I go to sleep with this.

And in between, it's just a different game of masquerade.

Son of a Bitch

kassandra — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:10:40 GMT

Although it definitely wasn't the focus of her coming all the way up here from Philly, Kat and I figured out something that bothers me more than our break up does.

I've been unconsciously feeding off of her emotions, and that all of her fatigue has not been from depression/stress.

Now, she let me do conscious drains from time to time, because she liked having her energy cycled, so as far as I knew, that was the only time I was ever doing anything. For me, anything aside from direct energy is really not all that sustaining, so I didn't really notice that I had more energy than usual when I wasn't intentionally taking her energy. This also may be why each month Kat's fatigue got worse and worse, though her other life situations were getting worse as well, so it's hard to say.

Even though she's not mad about it, since both of us totally missed it, I feel really bad about it. I have been sure for years that I didn't drain away anyone's energy without their consent, though I wonder if my subconscious began doing so via indirect energy in other ways. None of my other relationships had such a marked increase in fatigue, so I don't think I did much prior to Kat. I really don't think I did that to any of my friends, largely because I haven't had many since withdrawing from social settings.

I may have though. We were discussing about the fact that I didn't find much comfort over the break up in Tony or my mother, even though both were really sympathetic and reminding me often that they still loved me. I mentioned that likely I would have gone looking for it if our friend Harry had been in town, because it was the lack of feminine energy that wasn't motherly that I felt would be comforting. Kat pointed out that whether I realised it or not, I was thinking in terms of feeding; it's likely I've done similar things before without knowing it, but it just never happened as frequently as it did with her.

It really bothers me that this has happened. I mean, the book I'm reading right now was kind of already spelling that sort of thing out, but I really thought I was just, for lack of a better term, energy starved entirely. As Kat put it, I'm a "picky eater" - I don't like Tony's energy, and largely I don't like male energy at all and I also obviously don't like familial energy because I haven't just been draining my biological family. The energy I like is feminine energy, and likely even have a more specific preference than that if I can find it, but any feminine energy will do. Which may be the real reason why I was limiting my friends to largely males over the past few years, so that I wouldn't have the opportunity to unintentionally feed. I haven't had a girlfriend who lived anywhere close to me since I withdrew from what likely was my primary energy source, so between the two...it does make some sense, metaphysically speaking.

Between finding this out, and what I've been reading in Belanger's book, I've decided that I am going to start actively feeding. The only drawback to that is that I'll have to track down donors, which is something I've tried once before with no success, and I'm expecting to have even less success given that I'd prefer they were female...which is kind of a very large common preference among energy deficients. >.<

Cascade

kassandra — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 09:35:52 GMT

So, that lock that opened was one serious lock. I keep getting this almost steady sort of stream of memories, and echoes of the reasons why they were suppressed. Most of the ones in high school have been shut out because of what happened from the summer before my sophomore year of high school till right around the time my senior year started; a single continuing incident that actually likely makes up the bulk of what caused the CPTSD occurred between those times. Honestly, I don't entirely trust my memories of that long, drawn out event, though a few of them do have the sense of not being wrong or at least being very close to the truth of the matter. I was the target of what happened, so I have no way of knowing what it actually appeared to be until Nathan and Joe reached in and began untangling it with me. The majority of the memories directly involving that are still locked down tighter than Fort Knox.

Yes, there are some things I wish didn't surface with these aside from the ones in Fort Knox, but there are some really good ones that have come up too. And some that are likely extremely trivial to some people, but so damn precious in their simplicity - like singing Every Rose Has Its Thorn as Phil lay with his head on my lap, crying over losing one of his more well loved girlfriends permanently. Ashe with the funny catchup bottle positioned on his belly and pelvis, turning a rather innocent phrase into something delightfully dirty. Kevin glaring at his DJ equipment, because a lot of it was in such bad condition, yet somehow he always McGyvered it to work - just not as well as I think he would have liked. Teasing the straight girls into letting me kiss them, which somehow turned several of them bi, and a few into lesbians eventually (with long time girlfriends...I think I should get some thanks there >.>); that should have clued me in to being more lesbian than bisexual, but there were outside influences that made it seem like bi was the happy compromise to keep those influences from harassing me in some form or another.

I think the most disturbing thing is watching the progression from the vibrant and charismatic creature I was back then slowly withdraw and fade before trying to hide from a great many things, including my actual self. At the time, I had what I thought were good reasons, but the continual smacking from the Universe should have made me realise I was heading the wrong way...but it didn't. I became someone very different, and while some of those changes were good, the larger majority of them were not what I ever wanted at all. A lot of the time between when I finally successfully suppressed that person till just before I got sick is still hazy and super fragmented, though it is easier to pull something out from the closer times if I need it.

There are a number of things I don't want to restore, because they were the actual bad parts of me back then. The side of me that engaged in those stupid goth/club politics and the big social games that got thrown around so frequently. They were on the whole largely pointless, although it does help me pick out when someone is trying to manipulate me, unless they're better than the Confetti crowd was at manipulation; most people don't really get past that level without actively being really bad people so...yeah. I obviously don't want to bring back the whole "compromise" of being flat bisexual, or the bad incidents that are tied to sex...and when they weren't tied to sex, they were tied to the boys I dated. They were all boys back then, and some of them sadly still are, and a few of those have not moved on from the basement of their relative's house to real life yet either.

As much as there was a rush to the way I handled the metaphysical/spiritual back then, I wouldn't want to go back to that reckless way of doing things, nor would I want to lose anything I've learned along that stripe over the years. Even though I was largely running from things tied to that, trying to hide in the mundane world, I never could get away from it and the lessons that resulted from it were rather harsh; the one lesson literally killed me so that a conversation could be had with actual impact.

I wouldn't want to be clueless about my mental health issues like I was back then. I think that's a lot of the reason why people loved me or hated me, with very little middle ground if they were around for even a moderate amount of time; back then, the Borderline ruled me, and I had no idea what it was or that it was as dangerous as it is. Somehow, in the middle of my flight from the things before, I managed to find out what Borderline Personality Disorder was and correctly identify that it was an issue I had, which lead to me starting a bit of home brewed cognitive therapy. I sort of wish I'd found out about the CPTSD earlier, as I think it would have been easier to correct if it hadn't been left to get such a hold on my mind.

I still remember the damn neurologist telling me how spectacular the raw gray matter I had was, how he'd trade me any day, and how that exceptional quality is likely why the PTSD is so damn good at what it does. He said that even though I wasn't aware of it, I set myself up for disaster by telling my brain to bury what happened in that space of time around most of my high school life. He's right and wrong in that, but I think I was a cocky teenager and believed I could keep it limited and under control.

I do want to be vibrant again, even though my health issues work against how active vibrant people can be. I want to restore my charisma to being positive instead of the dark and brooding intimidation it's become. While there won't be sexual attraction if they're not female, I want to be able to connect with people on a spiritual level again, not just a few select people but a broader range. I want to actually do things with friends and get to know them better rather than relying on innate gifts to learn about them. I want to have friends that I can cuddle with, or pass out with, and not have to worry about anyone taking it as more than what it was - myself included. I did a lot of that with Matty or at his house while we were hanging out with people; he hated the majority of the boys I picked, and constantly was telling me to just find a lesbian and settle down...again, another "Hey, pay attention" sign that I ignored, I think, whether Matty consciously knew or not.

I'm writing a lot in this thing as of late. Part of it is so that I have black and white proof I can use against my brain, reminders that aren't going to go anywhere unless something catastrophic happens to LJ...which I highly doubt with how good a record they have. Another part is an attempt to reveal to the people who know me now what I actually am, and I kind of feel like I owe a great number of people an apology for what basically boils down to being deceitful toward them. I haven't been myself for a very long time, so there's quite a bit that they may have perspectives on already that likely is going to be shattered quite a few times over the next while.

I don't expect this cascade to last very long. From what I understand about CPTSD, you get rushed with a set amount of information immediately, and then it tapers off as you get further away from the thoughts that opened up first; it's very difficult to get the locks to continuously open one right after another, though it's not entirely unheard of. We'll see how that part of it turns out.

I think I'm going to go to bed "early" for me; tomorrow's a fairly important day, and I'd like to be well rested for it.

The Vampire Heresies

kassandra — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 02:37:23 GMT

As promised, I'm writing up some of my thoughts on the modern beings who have come to find a sort of acceptance in and with the label of vampire. As this is a public journal, I'm sure someone, somewhere is going to read this and get into a tizzy about how it's not what "real" vampires are at all, largely because it's such an off-handed explanation.

I wanted to get this written out before delving too much further into the Codex, as I was getting the sense that Belanger's thoughts were beginning to echo my own (or visa versa, as I believe she is older than I am); I suppose I just wanted written proof somewhere that I thought of them on my own before reading much of her works.

As many people know, vampires started out as twisted creatures in folkloric stories, corpses that had somehow been damned to rise and devour their former friends and families, etc. Later on, through the works of several fiction authors, the vampire was turned into the elegant and refined creature we're used to today; they maintained many of the mainstream and obscure abilities associated with vampires and added new ones. Most of the authors who romanticized the vampire made an effort to draw attention to just how deceptive and thus evil they were, which eventually lead to other authors bringing in characters who were vampires, but still moral - we'd lack Louis from Interview, which would be a loss, and we'd also lack the entire Cullen cult from Twilight...which would be pleasant, due to how crazy the fans get.

Personally, I think the moral struggles of the vampire were better represented by Rice, as she made them into the elegant predator who you knew was dangerous even if you couldn't put your finger on why.

Anyway, the commonality was always the need for blood, and how the vampire could not survive without blood, etc. Some fictions took it to the extreme, like the role playing game Vampire: the Masquerade did, where the blood was so innately used by the vampire to fuel their power and house a sort of racial instinct that it became almost more than it was in earlier fictions. In some ways, it was getting closer to the truth, but not exactly.

I'd like to point to something from the book of Leviticus here (17:11, and stop looking so shocked that I pulled out a Bible, sheesh):

"For the life of the flesh in in the blood..."

That's the important part of it, contextually. If you want the rest of the scripture, find your own Bible. ;-)

Life and blood have always had an intimate connection, and every single culture that ever made it for more than a few years made this connection, even if they sprang up in areas where there were no others to teach them this. Really, it's not rocket science - this red stuff spill out of this person if I open a wound upon them, and if too much of that red stuff comes out, the person dies. I'm fairly certain even the most basic Neanderthal or earlier cultures knew this, even if they didn't have this way to express it (because I do believe that the Bible didn't exist that many centuries ago =P).

Cultures arose who took this further, realising that blood was just another form of life energy, and that this energy could be transferred by drinking it or through certain types of meditation (we're going to gloss over the ones who also believed eating the brain allowed you to take on memories and aspects of the person whose brain was nommed upon), which inevitably lead to what we call the "Asiatic Religions" or some other silly title that severs them off from mainstream religions...even though some of them are likely older than those upstarts.

Other cultures came to similar conclusions, but expressed them a bit differently (like our brain eating friends I mentioned) or put them into a different context that was unique to the area in which they lived. If you notice, like many parts of religion, the concept of blood being life energy in a physical form is in a lot more religions than you'd think it was.

Funnily enough, these same cultures all had folklore about evil monsters who stole blood or the energy that was carried in the blood through other means; psychic vampires of ages past were likely the inspiration for the myths about creatures who stole life through stealing the breath or by "riding their victims" in their sleep - you know, succubi and incubi.

Many people have the misconception that the word vampire came first. It really didn't. Energy deficient people have existed for a very long time, although it is harder to sift through folklore and decaying records to find them individually, or even clutches of them (...I suppose a lizard reference is alright there).

Vampire is the word that humanity created to describe these creatures. It became ingrained in our societies as a being that needs to drink blood to live...which means it was the closest word that existed for the energy deficient individuals who make up the majority of the vampire subculture.

Real vampires aren't actually vampires at all.

Now, in order to follow my theory about them, you really need to at least understand the concept of the soul and past lives, and it works better if you believe in that vein of thought; higher metaphysical understanding is great for the deeper aspects of this, if anyone versed in such wants to get into conversation about it further. I'm going to give a simplified, largely universal expression of the theory here, mostly because I'm not feeling up to typing that damn much.

So, as I was saying, real vampires aren't actually vampires at all, for the more part. I always append it because there's always a few random exceptions to every statement that is defining "real" whatever may you have. It's just the closest word that fits, it's something that damn near everyone on the planet understands to some degree, so it's easier for these people to find each other and find a communal identity by using the word vampire.

In certain veins of thought on reincarnation and the soul, it is believed that our soul came into existence initially in what would be our first life, and that after death, this soul continues to return through the process of rebirth. At their core, these souls are whatever they were in their first life, which often times has had the word or name for them lost in antiquity; there are some very old souls out there, according to this paradigm. Like other reincarnation schools of thought, it is believed that not all souls are reborn in this manner, often being called "Once Borns" or similar. The reasons for such vary from person to person and group to group, but it's a rather shared belief amongst people within this metaphysical facet.

Now to inject a little bit of science into the theory (quit blinking, I can fit Evolution into Genesis). This is where the theory sort of splits into two similar but different schools of thought.

Some reincarnationists of this stripe believe we did not need a physical body in the sense that we have them now in our first few lives, a period that is most easily related as the First Age using the Asiatic wheel of ages. But the world changes, people change, and as the once borns began to join the dance more and more frequently, the changes became more dramatic; not necessarily because the once borns arrived, but the time frame coincides depending upon when on the Wheel you put "regular humanity" coming into existence. The world is not what it once was, the corporeal shells that the soul resides in are not the same as they were long ago.

Many of what would become human myths were based on these old souls, until the changes made them slowly "disappear"; they did not disappear, they just found another way to remain and continue their interactions with the once borns. Humans created words for them, though vampire came along very late in the game compared to other things like the Fae, angels, demons, fallen, Kami, elemental spirits. Names have power, remember that for later on.

As these old souls began returning as things changed and they did not, they had to also change their methodology a little bit; unfortunately, as they became the lesser group in the breeding pool, the corporeal shells on the whole began to be less and less corresponding with these souls and their energies. These beings weren't done here, these souls continued to return, even as their mortal coils became more like cages than bodies.

This distancing of the baseline human body from the reincarnating souls is what brought about those who are energy deficient. Because these bodies as the known timeline of history marched forward could not really use the energy the soul was creating within it, these people just had less "usable" energy over time. Some of these souls began to lose their way as this process happened over the span of ages, while others blatantly turned away from what they were during their lives here, despite the fact they keep returning as well.

In a way, all of these souls became lost through out the ages, in as much that they didn't quite understand themselves and what they needed to do to "fix" their deficiency - most didn't even realise what that deficiency is. I'm not sure if it was a conscious decision groups of these reincarnating souls or a side effect of the distancing of the baseline human from these souls that caused them to not remember who they were easily, if at all, after their rebirth.

I don't think any single reincarnating soul can be credited with figuring out what the hell was going on; like many of the discoveries of the past, a person here and a person there and another over there came to similar theories, and eventually they spread them throughout the reincarnating souls that were still coming back to this plane until an "Awakening" became common for these souls in the majority of their lives.

This didn't change the fact that human genes no longer were familiar with these energies. Some souls adapted themselves to make their energy work better within their mortal cages, others likely found ways to alter their body and make it accept the soul's energy, but there's a large part of these reincarnators that could or didn't do either for some reason and eventually figured out they had to draw that energy from others, or be extremely miserable during their shortened lives.

Herein we get what would become known as the modern vampire or as some put it, vampyre.

Theses souls didn't remember their true names, many did not remember their true form, while only a scant few did remember anything largely significant. Their common bond was that they all needed life energy to survive, something that I believe grew more and more pronounced as humanity continued it's evolution...though we have kind of hit a plateau on that, given that baseline human genetics slowed to a crawl as far as evolution is concerned and have not changed for several long centuries. I think this is why we're seeing more and more individuals who are energy deficient "Awakening" and why many of them have been able to develop their spiritual/metaphysical gifts even though their mortal coils don't jive well with the energy these souls are made of.

These souls make up much of the ranks of the vampires, especially in specific regard to psychic vampires. The words for their true forms either misused by humanity or forgotten by everyone, including themselves, their definitions often changed as well. These souls had little to base themselves on, aside from the fact many of them seemed to be energy deficient in some way or another, most to the point of requiring outside energy to survive.

There was only one common word for the devourers of life force/blood - vampire.

And so these souls have flocked under that banner, which oddly enough had a splintering of sorts that lead to the whole "Otherkin" thing in the latter part of the 90s...but they largely still associate or identify with vampires, even if they don't know why. As I said earlier, a lot of the reincarnating souls don't remember many things, and most don't even try to reach back to their origins. Most can't.

Now, recall that I said most real vampires aren't vampires at all. I added that caveat while this theory was evolving years ago, as it occurred to me that some of these reincarnators might have begun their first life as one of the creatures who became the basis for the vampire folklore, which would technically mean they are vampires entirely. I don't think there are as many of these types, as the other mythical beings are far older than the vampire mythos' beginning, so there weren't as many reincarnators beginning their first lives by that time.

Very, very few reincarnators had their first lives in the last few centuries. It's like there was only meant to be a certain number of them, and they all finally made it into this plane. Most reincarnators are very, very old as far as human terms are concerned, while there are a number of reincarnators who likely saw the beginnings of mankind. More and more are remembering farther and farther back in this century, but I don't think many end up remembering far back enough to realise all of this.

Don't jump to the conclusion that all of these reincarnating souls identify themselves as vampires or their fracture sub-subcultures - some remember enough to find the distinction distasteful, and they're usually very adamant about how they are not a vampire...even though they are energy deficient. These reincarnators don't necessarily remember exactly what they are, but I think most of them are close to the answer.

Also, there are other manifestations of the energy deficiencies. Sometimes, rather than a straight forward low energy level, the bodies of these reincarnators manifest their problem between the soul and the body via sickness or physical weaknesses. Learning to "feed" might lead to their physical symptoms lessening, but that would likely lead to becoming dependent upon psychic vampirism; that particular part of my theorizing is still a bit shaky as it was only added a few years before I ended up in PA.

And that is my "heretical" perception of the vampyre...which covers a bit more than just them. >.>

Metamorphosis

kassandra — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 08:17:22 GMT

I realised earlier today that at some point, and I'm not sure where because around 75% of my memory is gone (thx CPTSD), I started becoming my mother.

Now, don't get me wrong. Mom has her cool moments. She loved all the little goths who used to come over for picnics, and Thanksgiving and Christmas - most of them weren't welcome or comfortable at their family gatherings for those holidays, so Mom gave them a place to relax and be more like themselves. Hell, she still keeps tabs on a few of them through Facebook, or asks me about friends I have found again that she hasn't added. This is major cool.

She has her moments of being Enlightened. They are few and far between.

But the women in my mom's family (and just my mom's side of the family) are bitter, dramatic bitches. Walking balls of negativity. Voids of unhappiness.

I realised I'm turning into that. I do not want to be like that. I want to be like my dad's mother, who could be a cold hearted bitch when necessary, but otherwise was classy in that 1930s movie star sort of way. She had a fucking horrible time as the last chapter of her life, but she didn't really ever complain about - she took care of my grandpa even though she had medical issues, until it literally killed her. She didn't complain in a way that ever said it was super negative.

Obviously, this has played into a lot of my interpersonal relationships with friends and lovers. People like the women on my mom's side of the family are very emotionally draining just from their innate negativity. Some of them make it up to almost martyrdom status with their negativity and delusional self sacrifices, which is even more emotionally draining. I don't make enough energy to being with - I don't want the little I have to be negative anymore.

Now, in some respects, people might have the perspective that it's justified since I have so many medical problems, which have caused financial problems, which have overall degraded my quality of life and it's totally expected for me to be a depressed and despondent person. This is a bad perspective, it's a crutch, and I admit that I used it from time to time to justify my attitudes; I'll likely still be growly when I'm having a bad health day, but I really need to stop being snappy and bitchy on the bad days and not let the medical and financial bullshit get me to a point where I'm a negative, bitter bitch.

It needs to be fixed. I have a few ideas on how to do it, but I honestly am not all that sure about how to go about changing that and having it be real - I'm really concerned that I'll somehow make myself falsely not negative or go overboard to the point of being an unrealistic optimist. Suggestions are welcome on that one.

There are things I want, that I've always wanted, that I buried under the social stigmas of the people I grew up around. I always thought I succeeded in dodging their dogma, and I did when it concerned other people...but not with myself. So I guess I got it half right. I've been trying to break through those barriers, so I can have the lifestyles and ideals and philosophies that are more me. It's happening, a little late to save things, but it's there; there's still a little voice nattering at me from time to time about how what I'm doing is wrong, or inappropriate or that this person and that person think this about me...but I'm tuning it out as often as I can.

I think a lot of it is going to take reassurance, which unfortunately is really emotionally draining in another way, not just from lovers but from friends in general. I'll be honest, I was afraid that if Kat and I broke up, the friends I made in Lancaster would suddenly treat me differently, like a pariah - basically that they were her friends and only being friends with me for her sake. Sure, there's likely a few people that did actually do that, but it's likely a very, very small percentage. Some of that reassurance I'll have to find myself through the interactions with these people, likely most will be, but some sort of encouraging statement about the friendship or relationship would help from time to time.

It's also about actively putting myself into the situations that still have dogma attached to them, kind of like a facing your fears sort of thing. It's fight or flight, in a way - you either fight yourself to change your perspective, or you run away from it and continue to limit yourself and keep yourself from not having what you want. In the past, I've always run away; I couldn't this time, something is different. Life is to fucking short for that, and there's always a chance that the little number above your head is going to suddenly crash from the forty years you were supposed to have to seconds, and those 40 years are gone and you lost a lot in the 30 you had because you couldn't get past those limitations that you cling to, even if you don't really believe in them.

For example (and I hope she doesn't kill me for this), I need to go out to the places Kat and I went to socialize, watch her flirting with other women and tell myself that her attraction to them does not change things between her and I. Or watch Tony flirting with someone else and do the same thing. It's what I should have been doing from the beginning.

My other idea on breaking past one of the walls was to ask Kat if we could go on a sort of three way date with some other girl we mutually liked, who liked both of us, and keep it at a casual level between us a few times. That's kind of not possible now since she broke up with me, but the concept is still there if I can find someone I trust to do that with me. Granted, it's likely I won't be in love with anyone else who volunteered, but I think it's the basic concept that's the key to unlocking that last little bit.

Lastly, for the moment, I need to stop ripping myself apart over my physical appearance. Dating two people who could eat whatever they wanted without gaining a damn pound started making me really self conscious; and seeing all the gorgeous, thin women Katherine was introducing me to made it worse (no offense to you beautiful ladies). It's past the point of being okay - I almost didn't go to the last Nod LARP because I felt like the outfit I was wearing made me too fat. Seriously. That was my thought as I was standing in the bathroom, looking in the mirror right before we left. It was almost like an anxiety attack in a way.

I need to let go of the image of myself physically before I started getting sick, I need to stop comparing myself to it as I likely will never get back down to those dimensions because my hips and breasts finished growing when I was like 20 something, shortly before getting sick, so they're not the dimensions I remember. I got hit by medical conditions that resulted in gaining something between 70 to 90 pounds over the course of two years as my health rapidly degraded and I was put on medication after medication in an attempt to stop the crash, and between the things like Prednisone (for the uninitiated, this low grade steroid makes you ravenously hungry) and not being able to move properly for like a year and a half while they were figuring shit out resulted in fat.

Essentially, I need to remember that I am not the little teenage girl anymore and that trying to mold my body to that is impossible and senseless; gentle reminders from others from time to time helps too. Thwapping me when I turn down a compliment is welcome too, as that doesn't help me see myself physically the way everyone else does.

I am bound by my medical conditions when it comes to exercise. There is very little I can do that jives with both the fibromyalgia and the rheumatoid arthritis; the first requires something that's relatively slow and stretching and can't handle having to hold a position for too long (so Yoga hasn't worked for me) while the rheumatoid arthritis needs to have less constant movement, it needs to be gradual and needs to be held for a few minutes so the muscles remember WTF they're supposed to be doing (so 95% of the stuff at a gym is useless to me, as are high impact carido workouts). My compromise is belly dancing every night possible for 30 - 45 minutes, it's a slower pace because it's a beginners series, and I can hit pause if I need to work something out with my body. This does not result in fast fat conversion or loss, as it builds very thin and anatomically dynamic (is that even a real phrase?) muscles, and with the lack of hard core cardio level belly dancing, this is a very slow process.

But I am working on it. I'll get back to a different version of the dancer body eventually. It will look different, but hopefully it will look good to me, and hopefully by then my self-esteem/confidence about my appearance will be high enough to not let myself think I'm still fat once I do get there. It happened in my schooling years a few times, even when I wasn't all that over weight, and there were many times I tried to avoid eating, even though it gave me a bad hypo/erglycimic reaction...so I know my mind can think that way.

This ended up being pretty long. I'm really starting to think that myself (and possibly Kat) hit the fabled "mid-life crisis" stage earlier this year. And it started jarring my mind in ways that loosened the locks from the CPTSD, so they finally broke when things with her came to a head last week; now it's a flood, like I broke the hover dam, and I'm going to fight to keep these feelings active. There may end up being even more perspective shifts as the weeks pass by, and they'll likely be just as sudden or swift as the ones this weekend generated.

All this shit tore us apart, but maybe it was necessary. Maybe for once I'm not alone in being the Destroyer of Worlds, and have someone who could finally turn the tables on me, which is something I really needed. It's about bloody time, universe.

Going to watch a few more Dan Savage clips, then dance if the damn vertigo stops in time - always happens when I have to were my glasses a lot. >.<

~Blood before tears.

CPTSD Uh...Thing.

kassandra — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:17:26 GMT

Well, locks opened. I feel better about things, though I may have unsettled others with this sudden change.

With CPTSD, sometimes a situation causes part of the suppressed brain to open up, and it can be really immediate or in a very short amount of time. And it's not always 100% stable, as the CPTSD wants to suppress it again; I am going to fight that tooth and nail, because this is a step towards how I want myself and my life to be - I am not going to let the stigmas that trapped me take this back.

I am not a very good person, over all. I'm fairly frakked up in the head, and never could figure out how to get help for it; I ended up taking a friend studying medicine's round about advice, and essentially got caught with my hands on the razorblades back in June of 2008. I was able to start getting my shit straightened out, though it's been a bitch to find a therapist I can tolerate long enough to be worth it; sadly, many of them in this area let their own personal paradigms influence their decisions about their patient's mental health - in very short layman's terms, they're all bloody bias (and often hypocritical) Christians of some stripe, and completely against things like polyamoury and BDSM and Paganism of any form.

Needless to say, we don't relate well. Hopefully I can find one, because it's really necessary for my disability case. Otherwise I'd just say frak it, and buy some books off Amazon and do it all myself (which I may still do).

Basically, I am not the person I want to be. There are still some horrible negative habits I have - some of which I don't even notice myself - that I want to be rid of, but most of them require the locks from the CPTSD to open...which usually requires a highly emotional or traumatic event to happen. Oddly enough, that's also what can cause CPTSD to suppress stuff. Gotta love the human mind and it's almost paradoxical complexity.

So yeah. I wanted to through this out there since a lot of this is a HUGE shift from the Nephilim you all know and love (or hate, there's really never an in between on that). For the love of the Gods and Coin, please encourage the good changes. It really helps make it all stick.

THC

kassandra — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:49:49 GMT

Okay, so my ideas and psuedo-rant about medicinal THC are way too much for Facebook status and comments, so it's time to throw them out in a journal entry.

Here are my major issues with medicinal marijuana, which is the current working form for using THC as a painkiller.

Smoking is really not healthy. Sure, medicinal mary jane does not have a lot of the crap that a cigarette/cigar does, but you're still breathing in ash and smoke which still screw up your organic tissues.
No matter how tightly controlled the cultivation setting is, marijuana will have a lot of variation of quality and effectiveness. This can lead to doctors having to change the prescription, only to have the next round of medicinal marijuana be pretty potent, leading to having to change the prescription again, etc.
Let's face it - people are going to either outright share their medicinal mary jane with friends, or their friends are going to be all for taking advantage of the second hand high they can get. The latter is not necessarily the patient intentionally trying to get around laws for their friends - some people aren't even going to think about that aspect and light up whenever their pain gets to high, whether people are there or not.

Those are my three major problems with the concept of medicinal marijuana. I am a strong believer that as many of the bad side effects of a drug should be cut out as possible, and they just aren't doing that with medical THC. It also does not take a rocket scientist to know that anything you grow will have variations regardless of how hard you try to control it, which is why many high end chefs are nutter about the ingredients they use in their work. And really, a lot of people really don't think about second hand smoke or will intentionally use second hand smoke to get high, while others will just be either too stupid or too nice and outright share it. These are not thoughts that require a lot of brains to figure out!

Now, to the medical community's credit, they do have a THC pill out and about however, it does not work nearly as well as the smoked version of THC (read: pot) due to the way the digestive system works. Not enough of the THC is getting to the brain, which is where it needs to be, and it also takes longer for it to get to the brain when digested vs. outright inhaling it. This isn't rocket science either (it's biology~), and I would think that anyone whose smart enough to be manufacturing medication would come to these conclusions as well.

TL:DR - the THC pill sucks, and requires too high of a dose to be cost effective vs. pot.

Logically, if a pill isn't working, there are one of three things that can be used in it's place - an injected formula, a transdermal system, or an inhaler delivered mist.

Perhaps it is going out on a limb, but I find it pretty obvious that an injected version of THC is not the best option for it. That's a little too direct of a method, though it may be useful for people who need larger doses or have to have more frequent doses. It might also be viable if it were injected into a muscle vs. directly into the blood stream or subdermally, if it were used for severe cases. But I really don't see this as being very cost effective, and most people really aren't okay with having to use needles that frequently.

So then, let's look at a transdermal solution. This is popular for a lot of different things already - nicotine, estradiol (read: birth control), certain analgestics like Fentanyl (read: powerful narcotic painkillers). It provides a steady, regulated dose of the medication constantly, is relatively inexpensive to make, and requires a lot less upkeep from the patient. Many people find it really weird to share patches, even when they're the stop smoking nicotine patches; that's not to say the potential for abuse isn't there, it's just a lot less common than pills or pot.

I'm a huge fan of transdermal medication, and have been ever since Planned Parenthood introduced me to Otho-Evra like five years ago. I don't have to worry about taking yet another pill every day, and only have to really deal with it once a week. Otherwise, the patch is just there, hanging out on my skin, giving me a nice steady does of norelgestromin/ethinyl estradiol.

Sure, there's a downside to transdermal - the patch can fall off. I've honestly only really had a problem with this in places where there's a lot of trapped humidity, typically when I put it on my shoulder blade. It does a lot better on my arm, and really, if that happens I can just slap some medical tape over it and it's fine again. It's actually really, really uncommon for it to happen if air circulation in one's domicile is good. I've never had the thing fall off in a club or in the middle of exercise or anything like that. Trapped humidity has really been the only thing to give me an issue.

Let's look at the last option, which was actually the first alternative I thought of to medicinal pot and the crappy THC pill - the THC inhaler.

This delivery method would be the closest to the medicinal mary jane method, and works basically the same way: the THC is inhaled, absorbed into the blood stream by the tissue in the lungs, and transported to the rest of your body - specifically, your brain. Like an asthma or allergy inhaler, it can be taken as needed, without much effort and is a hell of a lot more transportable than pot (because let's face it, people are less likely to try taking your inhaler than they are a bag of pot). Similar delivery method, less the horrible side effects caused by any kind of smoking, with no second hand possibility.

Unlike a pot plant, extracted THC would be more consistent time after time, and way easier to control in a chemical sense. Each puff from an inhaler would have the exact same potency as the next, unless someone is trying to use the inhaler when it's pretty much dead. The same amount would have the same expected result, which is a huge plus for medicine.

Now, I really don't see any of these as "revolutionary thinking". It's frakking common sense, in my book, and doesn't require that vast of an intellect to come up with. We have these technologies, we're already using them, and we're constantly expanding upon them - so why haven't we done this yet? Why haven't the people who paid big money to go to school to learn bio-chemistry on levels that make the Average Joe/Jane's head spin?

This also would change the landscape of the legalization of marijuana crusade. I really hate that a lot of people hide behind medicinal mary jane as a reason for legalizing pot across the board. The issue we're going through with pot isn't new! We did it with alcohol! Prohibition - that's all this is! Stop making it about medical, when it's not!

Granted, not all activists for the legalization of pot hide behind medicinal marijuana, but enough do for it to get annoying. I think it would get a lot farther if they went from the Prohibition angle, and focused more on how much money would be generated from legalizing, taxing and controlling pot the way we do nicotine and alcohol. That's what it need to be about, imo.

Anyway, that's my psuedo-rant about THC in more complete form. Agree with it or disagree with it - just don't say that it's not something other people can't think of.

Goals

kassandra — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 21:14:04 GMT

This is more so a post for myself than for others, but encouragement on any of these is welcome as long as it is constructively given. I've had a lot of random goals run through my mind as of late, and figured I should write them down in case the thought falls prey to the hyper-active memory suppression.

Win Disability Case
It was pretty obvious this was going to be on here, I'm sure. I've been largely passive on this, since I don't think the lawyer can force the process to go much faster than it already is. I do need to contact her more often, though, which is largely the main part of this goal.

I also need to find a therapist in the Bloomsburg/Berwick area that I can at least tolerate enough to have once a month or twice a month sessions. There's a place on Center Street in Bloom that was recommended to me, however I can't ever remember the name of it, and rarely go past there anymore. Maybe on one of Tony's days off we can go check it out, though they might be a little weirded out by someone dropping by physically to set up an appointment.

Move to Lancaster
This hasn't been happening as quickly as I would have liked it to. The bullshit that the UT DMV is throwing out at Tony is keeping him from being able to apply for any good jobs there, specifically a job at the Lancaster County Prison. Until that gets cleared up, he won't be able to get a PA license, which he technically needs since he's been living here for over six months. Theoretically, we should be able to pay them the last $60.00 they're bitching about, but I hate to say it for sure and jinx it from happening.

I talked over a lot of options with various friends down there - the possibility of finishing off the basement in Guy & Jackie's place, possibly one of Alex' other properties, and Vince keeps mentioning he might have something in mind too - so that part will likely be a bit easier to deal with once Tony actually finds a job down there. The logistics of moving always suck, though, and it might take some time for both of us to get moved down there fully; I figure he can stay down there in one of the guest rooms while we work out getting our stuff moved down, etc.

Get Back Into College
This has been stop and go for me, though the term doesn't start until January. I had a hell of a time getting my transcripts from high school, since my high school no longer exists and they moved all their records to an obscure storage space that doesn't get anyone going into it aside from once a week to once every two weeks; I got them though, scanned them and e-mailed them in. I have something like 60 transfer credits from the Art Institute Online alone, but they won't release official transcripts until I pay off the ~$280.00 I didn't know I owed them; mom says she'll pay for that once I do her taxes, but she can't find her tax information for 2008...go figure.

Then there's the dreaded mathematics placement test. This is what screwed me over at the Art Institute - because I had plenty of time to do it in, and got help from the biggest math geek I know, I ended up being placed in a math class that moved just a little too quickly for me, given there were only 5.5 weeks in a term at AIO. I seriously needed the class just below that one, but the damn shuffling of the advisory staff for my degree - they went through 6 head advisers in like 4 months - made that not happen. I don't want to end up in that situation again, even though the terms at Westwood are 9 weeks each.

Also, the unreliable internet connection makes doing this test chancy, because if it disconnects while I'm in the middle of the test (which it's tended to do whenever I go into either placement tests), I lose everything that I've done before and have to start over. -.-

Thankfully, my English grades have been so good, they're not making me take a placement test. Unfortunately, Murray School District apparently lost my SAT and ACT scores, as they were not on my transcripts when I got them...so they can't get me out of the math placement tests. =/

Straightening Out My Mental Health
This actually covers several small goals that I really didn't want to get into publicly. There's a very small chance that the Borderline will be cured, and even less of a chance that both it and the CPTSD will be cured, and curing CPTSD can take years anyway so I don't mean becoming the DSM-IV/DSM IV-TR's definition of completely sane. I'm more so meaning that I want to get on the medication that's needed, if it's needed, and get a better handle on a lot of my anxieties since they are by far the largest pain in the ass from all this.

Personally, I've never really been a fan of the whole traditional therapy thing. Even though I've had a few therapists I've connected with in times past, not a damn one of them really helped at all; none of them were even capable of diagnosing me. The only reason I ever got diagnosis is because I self-diagnosed the Borderline and started working on it on my own, then turned around and explained to the team in the Geisinger Psyche Ward what it was, took their tests to verify it, and spent a week letting them figure out what to do with it. The CPTSD was initially diagnosed by...a neurologist, when I went to find out about the memory issues that have been getting worse since I moved back in with my mother.

Like many things in the past (read: end of high school, most of my online college time), I'd rather just get a workbook along with some lectures or notes, and do it myself at my own pace then occasionally go in for an evaluation to see how it's progressing. With how conservative this area is, and how limited the selection of mental health specialists is, I'm pretty sure it would go a lot better - I've yet to feel comfortable enough talking to a therapist in this area largely because they're all Christians and Republicans (usually both, no offense) who let their own beliefs taint their practice...which is bad, for a therapist.

Sadly, most therapists and the SSI disability judges like that option about as much as they liked the idea of a hypnotherapist (which would likely go better than a conventional therapist). >.<

Be Healthier
Yeah, I know, that doesn't actually sound right since no matter what I do, I will always have a shitty immune system and mental issues, but it's the only thing that I thought could cover both parts of this goal without giving it a long title.

First of all, even though I eat better than either of the other people in this house, I still am not eating as well as I likely need to. Hopefully, my insurance will agree to cover a dietitian/nutritionist like my primary care physician wants; it's sort of a preemptive action to make sure I don't become pre-diabetic. I figure that if I actually can see one, I'll abuse the hell out of the situation and get as much information as possible, and as much of a custom tailored diet as I can. Unfortunately, a lot of the problem with "eating well" is cost - it's just a bit too expensive for food stamps to cover while the second problem is that I can't always cook for long periods of time; either my hands lock up and become useless or my back/hips/knees give out before I'm finished.

Over the past couple of months, I really started slacking with tracking my food intakes as well as actually doing any form of exercise. The tracking thing was more laziness than anything else, since I basically have an internet connection anywhere I go. Beyond that, I either felt too self conscious about doing the exercise (i.e. whenever I was down in Philly or Lancaster and had 0 100% alone time), I would have really bad RA flare ups - which agitate the fibro, or lately it's been depression. I also have trouble making the local belly dance classes, which are way better than my DVD, either due to medical issues or due to not getting my cash assistance till the day after class...and that's kinda put a damper on developing technique.

So even though I might not particularly feel well mentally or physically, I'm doing a modern dance work out warm up in the morning and at least half an hour of belly dancing in the evening every other day at minimum. I really don't think that will be enough overall, even after I get to where I can do both for 30 - 60 minutes, because several of my medications cause weight gain.

Jessi pointed out to me that the YMCA works with people who can't afford their regular rates, there's actually a disclaimer on their site about how they do so because they take in charity donations and the like. I didn't get a chance to get into them the last time Tony had off work during the week, so I'm hoping to do so this coming week - I've heard good things in general about water aerobics/swimming for both RA and fibro, so as much as the first is for "old ladies", I want to try it.

Those largely are the current goals, and some of them encompass several small ones. I'll likely edit this if I settle on more goals, but I think any solid updates aside from that will just be different journal entries.

Houston, We Might Have A Problem

kassandra — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:40:54 GMT

Well, I think I've discovered what my biggest problem with Wellbutrin will be - not eating enough.

I track my food intake (or at least try to) every day, and over the past few days, my caloric intake has gone down dramatically. I haven't been very hungry a lot of the time, and when I do eat, I still can only eat a small amount - like a 6' sub (and just the sub) fills me up.

MyPlate configures caloric intake based on age, height, current weight, amount you want to lose per week and your activity level. With it's formula, I should try to get close to 1624 calories per day if I want to lose 1.5 pounds a week; previously, the target amount it calculated worked awesome, though a few months ago I had to up my activity level to see any weight loss - the first year and a half I lost weight without being able to exercise much, to the tune of about 40 - 45 pounds.

Today, I'll be lucky if I break 1000 calories before bed...but I burned 300; yesterday I only got in just over 1000 calories and burned 100. I just seriously have not been hungry, more so than usual when I'm having a rough time. There's a lovely threshold of calories that the body needs to keep out of starvation mode, regardless of appetite, and I'm really worried that 1000ish calories is NOT keeping me above that. Basically, you don't actually lose weight when this happens because your body is trying to store up everything you take in so that it doesn't "starve".

On average, losing about two pounds per week is considered healthy, but even on those settings I'm falling about 350 - 400 short as of late. And that's not even taking any physical exercise I get into consideration, because by and large the activity level that fits (at least from their descriptions) is sedentary since I have to spend most of the day sitting or laying down and resting. The additional exercise will likely cause more than that, and while I'm all for losing the fat, I'm not up for losing any muscle or losing it to fast for my body to be um...I can't really use the word healthy here, since I never will be. You get the idea though.

I don't really want to cut down on exercising, but it's not like I can force myself to eat without getting nauseated. I want to be (as) healthy (as possible with my medical conditions), I just am not sure how to get in more calories without getting too much of one thing (sodium, fat, carbs, fiber, sugar, cholesterol) if I'm not hungry as often. >.<

Triangular Love Theory

kassandra — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:17:52 GMT

A friend of mine linked this Wikipedia entry to me - I totally plan on tracking down the books mentioned, because this makes far more sense than what I was taught and what I've typically found when searching for information on relationships.

This, along with the comments on the prior entry, really helped with sorting through how I was feeling; knowing that other people have similar views always makes me feel like less of a freak. =)

The Theory Overview

The triangular theory of love is a theory of love developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg. The theory characterizes love within the context of interpersonal relationships by three different components:

1. Intimacy – Which encompasses feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness.
2. Passion – Which encompasses drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation.
3. Commitment – Which encompasses, in the short term, the decision to remain with another, and in the long term, the shared achievements and plans made with that other.

The “amount” of love one experiences depends on the absolute strength of these three components; the “type” of love one experiences depends on their strengths relative to each other. Different stages and types of love can be explained as different combinations of these three elements; for example, the relative emphasis of each component changes over time as an adult romantic relationship develops. A relationship based on a single element is less likely to survive than one based on two or three elements.

Forms of love

**Combinations of intimacy, passion, and commitment**
	Intimacy	Passion	Commitment
Nonlove
Liking/friendship	x
Infatuated love		x
Empty love			x
Romantic love	x	x
Companionate love	x		x
Fatuous love		x	x
Consummate love	x	x	x

The three components, pictorially labeled on the vertices of a triangle, interact with each other and with the actions they produce and with the actions that produce them so as to form seven different kinds of love experiences (nonlove is not represented). The size of the triangle functions to represent the "amount" of love - the bigger the triangle the greater the love. The shape of the triangle functions to represent the "type" of love, which may vary over the course of the relationship:

Nonlove is the absence of all three of Sternberg's components of love.

Liking/friendship in this case is not used in a trivial sense. Sternberg says that this intimate liking characterizes true friendships, in which a person feels a bond, a warmth, and a closeness with another but not intense passion or long-term commitment.

Infatuated love is pure passion. Romantic relationships often start out as infatuated love and become romantic love as intimacy develops over time. Without developing intimacy or commitment, infatuated love may disappear suddenly.

Empty love is characterized by commitment without intimacy or passion. Sometimes, a stronger love deteriorates into empty love. In cultures in which arranged marriages are common, relationships may begin as empty love and develop into one of the other forms.

Romantic love bonds individuals emotionally through intimacy and physically through passionate arousal, but neither is sustained without commitment.

Companionate love is an intimate, non-passionate type of love that is stronger than friendship because of the element of long-term commitment. Sexual desire is not an element of companionate love. This type of love is often found in marriages in which the passion has gone out of the relationship but a deep affection and commitment remain. The love ideally shared between family members is a form of companionate love, as is the love between close friends who have a platonic but strong friendship.

Fatuous love can be exemplified by a whirlwind courtship and marriage in which a commitment is motivated largely by passion without the stabilizing influence of intimacy.

Consummate love is the complete form of love, representing an ideal relationship toward which people strive. Of the seven varieties of love, consummate love is theorized to be that love associated with the “perfect couple”. According to Sternberg, such couples will continue to have great sex fifteen years or more into the relationship, they can not imagine themselves happy over the long-term with anyone else, they overcome their few difficulties gracefully, and each delight in the relationship with one other. However, Sternberg cautions that maintaining a consummate love may be even harder than achieving it. He stresses the importance of translating the components of love into action. "Without expression," he warns, "even the greatest of loves can die". Thus, consummate love may not be permanent. If passion is lost over time, it may change into companionate love.

Sexuality

kassandra — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:42:50 GMT

It isn't as black and white as I had convinced myself it was, which is really fucking with my head right now.

There are a lot of categories, as it were, that fall under sexual preference; FetLife has had one of the more comprehensive lists for such, so I'm going to post them out from there. If you don't know what one of them means, look it up on the internet, as there are several guides/definition sites that can explain it to you.

Typically, the "line" of sexuality looks somewhat like this (hence it seeming pretty cut and dry):

heterosexual --> heteroflexible --> bisexual --> pansexual --> homoflexible --> homosexual

Sometimes, it's not as straight forward as it looks, meaning that for some people, there are categories between the six basics; it's entirely possible that these secondary categories aren't even solidly categories, and don't fall squarely between two of the basic categories.

Humans like to be able to define everything, with labels or categories, so it's natural for one to get a little confused and/or unnerved when they can't find a label or category that defines what they're dealing with. That would be where I'm at currently, and it is really getting to me.

For years, I have been trying to figure out why I can't seem to hold interest in continuing sexual relations with the men I'm dating for longer than a month, often less and why the sex itself is only enjoyable from a physical stand point and not a mental one.

It's only ever been an issue with men. Unfortunately, until recently I really haven't had any sort of relationship with a woman that could actually have physical elements to it. I discovered that I don't have the same issue when I'm with a woman - the enjoyment is both physical and mental and there's not that sharp drop off point in interest after a month or so.

This has lead me to look a lot at the patterns within the sexual side of my relationships over the years, and the trend really started to make more sense when coupled with the what I've been noticing lately.

I ended up having a conversation with Zeke that helped but didn't help. Basically, he pointed out that he believes there's a huge difference between what we all basically call sexuality and sexual compatibility, with the latter being more fluid than the rigidly defined former. He pointed out that it sounded like I was more sexually compatible with females than males, more often. Once in a great while, I might actually be sexual compatible with a guy, but not quite as much as it was with girls.

That sounded a lot closer to what's going on with me. Sure, I can appreciate the beauty and sensuality of the male side of the species, I'm just not really all that physically attracted by it, except maybe once a year or so or less, for a very short time.

So essentially, I'm a lesbian that sometimes finds someone whose an exception.

But here is where it gets complicated - when it moves to more than just the physical side of it.

I can still "fall in love" with a guy, while simultaneously not want any sort of sexual/sensual interaction with them. For example, I love Tony very deeply, and would be completely lost and crushed without him at this point...but I don't want anything more physically than cuddling and maybe a little bit of light kissing. This rather much breaks what most people believe is capable of people in the category that defines my sexuality; I'm still trying to get a grip on the fact that it's actually possible.

And that's about where I lose any cohesive thought on the matter. That's where it falls into asking myself "Am I actually a lesbian?"/"Am I still considered a lesbian if I can love a man, but not have the sexual side of that present?"

That's where my head's out right now. I just hope I can find an answer sometime soon.

And Now it's Time for WTF Friday...

kassandra — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:34:11 GMT

Dream interpretation time again! (Andy, I'm thinking you might be of help here! You too, Thain, as you're studying psychology!)

This is a less than happy dream however.

Early Thursday morning (early in my world anyways), I had a nightmare. I decided that I did not want to see the entire nightmare, so I hard pulled myself out of the dream, yay lucid dreaming techniques.

In said dream, I was in some sort of basement bedroom, and for some reason, I had crawled out one window and was going to crawl back in through another however an unnaturally large black widow spider was in the ground sill. There was no way to get past it and I didn't have any weaponry with which to get rid of said spider, and since it was unnatural, animalistic mind control was out of the question. I'm dreadfully arachnophobic, so I made myself wake up.

Of course, I woke up with a startled motion, which woke Tony up. I was lying on my back to explain the dream to him, when I glanced over and noticed he had turned into a ginormous, disproportionate black widow that had his face instead of a spider's head. He was turning to hover over me, and I could feel something trying to bind me. Obviously, I hadn't actually woken up the first time, and it was part of the dream, so I tried again to wake up; I'm fairly sure that if the dream continued, he would have drained me dry (yay more lucid dreaming techniques).

This time, I actually woke up, and waited for a while to tell Tony that I was awake and had a nightmare. I actually tried to just go back to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes for more than a few minutes, I saw the first black widow from the ground sill. Eventually, I told Tony what was up, and ended up getting out of bed around noon with very little sleep.

Now, I'm having trouble going to sleep again. I close my eyes for to long, and suddenly I'm seeing this spider again.

I figured perhaps it was dream analysis time.

Let's start with the starting location - a basement. Here's the bit that pertains to the dream:
"To dream that you are in a basement, symbolizes your unconscious mind and intuition. The appearance of the basement is an indication of your unconscious state of mind and level of satisfaction. It represents primal urges, animalistic desires and basic needs. The dream may also be metaphor for "abasement" or being "debased". Are you feeling humbled or unworthy?"

Alright. So likely my subconscious is trying to talk to me about something. I doubt it's the metaphor part, though after mom's flipping out earlier that night, I was feeling kind of wretched and worthless...but I think there would be other imagery in the dream that pointed to her if that was the case.

Let's look at the mode of exit/entry - the window. Some key things here...the window was tinted, though not horribly so, and I was looking at the window for a few minutes before crawling out. That said, here's the bits from the dictionary that fit what was seen in the dream:
"To see a tinted window in your dream, represents your need for privacy. You are keeping some aspects of yourself hidden. You also want to remain ambiguous."

Alright. There's no denying this one. I don't like revealing certain things, even though my Facebook statuses would imply that I'm a very open person; there's just a lot of shit I don't talk about publicly, or even to friends and close friends - essentially, if I start talking to you about that shit, you've crossed a rather major threshold. In some aspects, I've spent years keeping myself of the radar, remaining rather ambiguous by and large to a lot of people, even people from the past who knew "the old me" so to speak. It drove some people in my guilds in EQ2 nuts, though it's gotten a lot worse over the years, and I'd had a 3 year break from EQ2 since it began.

You're on to me universe. I get that.

Moving on....

"To dream that you are looking out the window, signifies your outlook on life, your consciousness and your point of view. It also refers to your intuition and awareness. You may be reflecting on a decision. Or you need to go out into the larger world and experience life. If you are looking in the window, then it indicates that you are doing some soul searching and looking within yourself. It is time for some introspection."

There's a lot of ways to take this one. Since I literally crawl out of the window, it may signify that I am indeed literally getting out into the larger world and trying to experience life again - as I am; for those of you just tuning in, I largely became a shut in after moving to Pennsylvania, especially after I could no longer work and got sicker. Sure, I socialize via online mediums but...that's not quite the same, even though it was putting myself out there in a form. Joining the Nod game started the process of "getting out" and Kirre's influences on me/going down to Philadelphia to visit her largely continue that process.

Kirre's also made me think about a lot of the perspectives I've had, gotten me to accept some that I was suppressing and take care of other things I was ignoring. I don't think she's really realised the full extent of this, but she's caused a lot of thoughts and changes in perception, largely for the good thus far. So perhaps that has something to do with it.

My intuition and awareness have been increasing steadily over time, when I'm not on medication that dampens or confuses things. I rather accurately predicted my Aunt's death (death sight blows, btw, I highly recommend against trying to develop such a thing), among several other things, and I've been quietly working on a lot of the metaphysical/philosophical things more and more. It might be a reference to that, and the expansion thereof.

It might be a combination of both.

Or it might be referencing some decisions about the ways to make the relationships work - maybe even over something "trivial" like making the costs of travel more economical for all three of us. I'm seriously not sure which of the many things this one could be.

Now let's look at the re-entry specifically. Here we have a darkened, inaccessible window, with a nightmare of a black widow guarding it. Pertinent bits from the dictionary:
"To see shut windows in your dream, signify desertion and abandonment."

There's a few angles to this one.

Frankly, I have major abandonment issues for about the first 8 months of any relationship, because largely very few have made it to that and the longer ones have been about that. This is not a new revelation to me, and I keep telling Kirre that it's something that happens that I can't just magically turn of - it runs it's course, I need some assurances from time to time while I logic out how utterly unreasonable I'm being.

On the other hand, this situation is also vastly new to P-chan as well, and there's always the off-chance that he's totally bullshitting us about being okay with it which would eventually lead to him being the abandoning party. Given that he does show up in the dream, I'm inclined to say it might be this, or at the very least a combination of the two.

"To see a black widow in your dream, suggests fear or uncertainty regarding a relationship. You may feel confined, trapped, or suffocated in this relationship. You may even have some hostility toward your mate."

Now, I feel that the unnatural size of the widow plays an important part in the interpretation - if you've ever seen Jumanji, damn near the size of those spiders. It took up most of the ground sill, and for anyone that's had a house like that, you know how huge those things are. However, it was blocking the way, so I'm not sure how that plays into things.

Being in a poly-amorous relationship, this is a bit of a clusterfuck to figure out, as there's more than one other partner involved; given that later on in the dream it turned into P-chan, it might be that side of the V, but dreams aren't necessarily logical like that. It could also have nothing to do with P-chan himself, which is also very likely if it falls on that side of the V at all.

As mentioned above, there's already a bit of fear/uncertainty with Kirre's side of the V, as the relationship is still pretty new and not necessarily moving in the ways both of us had thought it would. Sometimes I do feel a little trapped by some of the requirements of the relationship, because I can be rather extreme with wanting to just relent so the other person can be happy...which is doubly strong due to the fact that I actually can be submissive to Kirre.

The submissiveness is A Big Deal. I've never been honestly submissive to anyone, even though the sub side of BDSM has always been a turn on to me (I am a switch, after all); I'm outright submissive to Kirre, to the point that I have to remind myself that it's okay to disagree with her. So that plays into things, I'm sure, and there's been several times where she's had to go "don't go along with it if you don't actually like it/feel comfortable or aren't happy".

But yes, I can think of a few things that make me feel kinda trapped on that side of the V.

As for P-chan's side of the V...

Even though I haven't talked much about it, I'm totally reconsidering the wedding thing - note that I'm saying wedding here and not marriage. It is important to separate the two here, defining wedding as a big event that involves lots of people and a pretty reception with food, drink and dancing whereas marriage is the actual legal act of getting married.

I don't think I could in good conscious have a wedding at this point. It's very unbalanced, and even though Kirre's not bothered by it, I am. And I feel a lot of pressure from a lot of sides to have an actual wedding, rather than quietly going and doing the paperwork without an audience and without fanfare. Likely, my mom would flip shit if she read this (she's not friended on Facebook anymore, so there's likely not a chance she would) because in her world, the two are rather tied together...even though she ran off to Vegas to marry my dad. Most of our friends would likely find it odd and be a bit weirded out by it, though I could be wrong. Mostly, I'm afraid Kirre will take it the wrong way, so I've remained rather silent on that train of thought.

The whole wedding thing is one hell of a confining and suffocating trap, obviously.

There may be more to it than that, but I've not quite riddled that part out yet. I do get frustrated with P-chan, because he is male and there are just some things he innately can't do or isn't good at dealing with, but I don't think there's anything aside from the wedding bullshit that's making me feel trapped at this point.

Wait, I'm wrong there.

He's been really hesitant about moving away from the Bloomsburg area, and that is making me feel pretty trapped. I dislike how...non-metropolitan the area is, and I've been having so much difficulty with getting the medical care I need here, and I cannot go out of the Columbia-Montour counties for medical care unless I actually move to another county. I also dislike the lack of stores here - I miss having huge fabric stores, craft stores, a PetSmart, a good sushi place, more dining options and cool little boutique stores that are actually boutiques. Staying in Philly and having all of those things right there has made this even worse, as I'm getting to have that part time, usually without much of a chance to take complete advantage of such (though frak Philly drivers!).

I get that he doesn't want to live in this state, and that he wants to move back to San Diego if we do any moving really, and while he says he'll move wherever, the attitude being taken just rubs me the wrong way. So that's all making me feel a little trapped to, I suppose.

Since I woke up twice in the dream, I'm going to stick that bit at the end. I really couldn't find anything in the dream dictionary I use about having a partner morph into a ginormous and disproportionate black widow. I can make educated leaps at this based on the entry for widow and on the knowledge I have of the little bastards, but that's rather unguided.

There's a bit of a snippet from the dream journal that kinda relates, but kinda doesn't given that Tony is male..."Because the female black widow has the reputation of devouring its mate, it thus also symbolizes feminine power and domination over men."

Let's de-genderize that statement down to "Because the black widow has the reputation of devouring its mate, it thus also symbolizes power and domination over a mate."

Playing it from that angle, it's likely got something to do with the whole moving thing, I think. Unfortunately, P-chan holds all of the power in that regard, as it is impossible for me to move if he doesn't want to, without utterly changing the dynamics of the relationship and raising a lot of eyebrows as well. And the likelihood of finding someone other than my mom or P-chan who would let me live with them without having an income is less than nil, so he very literally holds all the power there.

In some ways, he holds a lot more power beyond that. If he were to decide that he was in fact not okay with me seeing Kirre, he can demand that I break things off and I would be expected by nearly everyone to break it off even if I didn't want to. This bothers me. A lot. My hackles raise over that idea, even if the chances of such a thing ever happening are small; my hackles would likely raise in a similar matter even if it was Kirre demanding such, even with how submissive I am to her. It's a hard limit, basically.

*rubs forehead*

Maybe it's less specific. Maybe I just don't like the idea of a male having power over me. Maybe that's why I've been essentially exclusively dominant for so long. Maybe that's why I instinctively take an opposing stance against P-chan until he relents, though I generally feel bad about it afterward because of how he relents/what he says when he does.

Or maybe the literal ideals about a black widow are the actual case here, which are the least likely. Perhaps in the end P-chan is going to "devour" or "kill" me like the black widow does it's mate, either metaphorically speaking or literally speaking. It would be ironic if it were the latter, since my mom's gut reaction to his talking to me again was to think he might be trying to "get even" for the two times we split up or that he was going to kill me in a "if I can't have you, no one can" type scenario. Like I said, the most impossible of all the theories on this end of the dream.

I'm rather open to interpretations on this part of it.

Moving on...

Let's look at the waking up facets. I wake up once in the dream after finding the widow of unusual size in my way (points if you caught the reference there).
"To dream that you are waking up in your dream, indicates that something is missing or lacking in your life. There is an aspect of your life that you are not utilizing to its fullest potential. You are not recognizing your abilities. The dream is literally telling you to open your eyes and wake up!"

There's a lot of ways to take this one as well, especially given that I was in worthless/why-the-fuck-am-I-trying/want-to-die mode after mom's fantastically pointless blow up and given that I am unable to do most of the things I used to enjoy thanks to my medical problems. Those two alone could cover that whole part of the dream, except that they're rather out of context with the rest of it...not that dreams necessarily bother with context...

Anyway, putting it into context, it could be my brain trying to tell me to wake up to all of the above things I've gone off about. I tend to suppress a lot of thoughts, feelings and memories (yay CPTSD...frak you, CPTSD!) until I do something like this where I'm kind of stepping outside my box and kinda not (yes, I use my dissociative actively sometimes). Or, on the flip side, it could be trying to tell me to wake up to whatever specifically inspired either the first section of the dream OR even to whatever inspired the last section of the dream...if I can figure out WTF that actually was for the second part.

It's kind of hard to make that call without really knowing what inspired the second part of the dream, I think.

Also..."Alternatively, waking up in your dream may be a signal of a lucid dream."

Sorry, no, it was not a full on lucid dream - the only control I had was forcing myself to wake up. Granted, I'm rather aware of the fact I'm dreaming, even when it's not got so many fucked up indicators that it's not reality like this one had, so...yeah. Not quite the direct interpretation there, I don't think. I actually can't fall asleep without starting up a lucid dream unless I'm beyond exhausted (see below).

Yes, I realise I only woke up once in the dream, and technically the second waking up was not part of the dream, however I felt that this part of it fit better at the end of it all. Deal, people, it's my journal.

Now that I'm beyond dead tired and exhausted, I'm going to go attempt to sleep, and hope that I pass out and into that happy velvet darkness that occurs when I don't have the cognitive energy to lucid dream.

And Jesus Christ, I get snarky when I'm tired. O.o

I Am Not A Vampire

kassandra — Mon, 24 May 2010 07:27:29 GMT

The title fairly much sums up what this post is going to be about - rather adamant explanation about how I'm not a vampire. Some of you are probably wondering why the hell this is coming up at all. I've finally sort of accepted that I have some severe energy problems since the progression of my illnesses ramped up back in 2006. It's not just a matter of feeling tired all the time or the fatigue associated with the fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis - it's quite literally having a problem with having sufficient chi levels. I have a few theories on the why I can't maintain the energy levels, and why drawing from the surrounding environments isn't helping much, but I'm really not about to share them just yet.

What I am going to say is that after many discussions with both Katherine and Michelle about it, I've decided to start draining people for energy. I'm not big on random "feeding", as it's termed, because it's rather personal when you're empathic to people and I've also been avoiding it for so long...I just never bothered to really learn how to do it properly, and the only kind of drains I've experienced have been super low level, the "drop the person to the ground as their energy rapidly vanishes from their being" type, and essentially succubus style feeding (yes, during sex, quit looking so damn surprised).

So between the limitations of what I know how to do, needing to practice how to do it differently, and the act creating a lot of intimacy, definitely not feeding on random people or random friends. I'm working on creating a small network of donors so that I basically don't have to drain a single person often; kinda hard to do given the area I live in and the lack of minds being adjusted to this stuff, but it is possible to do over distance with effort and planning.

Locally, at least semi-locally, I can drain Kat and she practically throws her energy at me sometimes. Downside is that the object I have that has a connection to her (a torq she's had for a while but only worn like once or twice) is really unstable, and I'm apparently allergic to the metal - it's turning my skin green - so I don't really like draining from her unless she's here or I'm in Philly or we're both in Lancaster. Aside from that, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be rather screwed locally - I just have a really hard time draining from Tony, or processing his energy or something...it's just not compatible for that.

Distance donor wise, Michelle has offered to send me her energy when she's in manic modes, since she has way too much at that point without any sort of outlet for it. She's picked out a geode to crack in half, so that she has one half and I have the other, and made some pretty holders for them. Michelle does have compatible energy, and I'm pretty sure there were times she was throwing it at me while I was living in New Hampshire, so there's no concern about that there. I'm really not sure if I'm going to get any other donors from a distance, but it's more likely than local ones.

It helps, quite a bit, to drain energy or have it given to me. I'm really hoping that once we get medication straightened out, that this becomes a non-issue again, but there's a lot of bullshit going on with that...and my rheumatologist is out for maternity leave at the moment, so it's pretty tough to resolve it.

Point is, despite the fact that I currently need to drain energy from other sources and have polymorphous light eruption syndrome, I'm not a frakking vampire and I would appreciate it if people didn't give me shit about it or make all the stupid vampire jokes I've heard a hundred times over the past 11 years. -.-

Your Tax Dollars at Work

kassandra — Fri, 14 May 2010 19:06:03 GMT

So yesterday, I got a PA/FS 162D telling me that my cash assistance benefits are done after this month, and that my medical assistance and food stamps are at risk too. Tony tried looking up the code they cited in the letter, and all he could find were things referencing the renewal that has to be done every six months, and Terry advised calling in to appeal it immediately so that I don't lose the food stamps - apparently if you ever lose FS, you're out for a month of them even if you reapply for them and get approved.

Needless to say, the first thing I did when I could actually move and get out of bed was call the county assistance office to find out what the frak was going on. I mentioned to the nice lady (who was having a bad day, and was a bit frazzled, but still nice) that we thought it might be a renewal issue, and she corrects me about it and tells me what actually caused it.

I lost my disability case, though I have yet to receive any mail telling me that I have. Supposedly, I should have gotten that letter by now, as the SSD/SSDI systems released it on the 11th, and the letters are set to mail out before that information declassifies.

What a shitty way to find out that I have to appeal. Furthermore, I have to have the appeal started to the point of having some verification paper from the Social Security Department by June 3rd to avoid interruption in my CA benefits, but by June 11th to avoid having that huge downtime in the FS benefits. Or something. I don't even know what all is being pulled at this point.

Of course, I called my lawyer to tell her we need to get on this, and point out that I have no mail about it so I have zero clue about how we appeal the court decision when it was an appeal of the original decision made when I filed. I'm guessing we do another year of data collection (*sighs*) and then go back to court, but I have no idea.

And of course, this lands the day before Drac's Ball, and what were supposed to be two days of hanging out with Katherine and Harry in Philly. I honestly have no idea if I'm going to be able to be happy shiny perky goth, or if I'm not going to be able to forget that I'm being completely fucked over by the system at the moment, without the system have the decency to buy me dinner first. >.<

Grr...

kassandra — Sun, 09 May 2010 22:35:50 GMT

Despite having lost 40ish pounds over the past year, I can't seem to get any lower than 190. I've made a lot of changes to what I eat, though I do admit that since Tony moved in, that's been slipping. A lot.

The primary problem is that he can eat anything without gaining weight, so of course, he does eat just anything. This also means that when we do have money, he's more inclined to eat fast food or Sheetz MTO rather than making food; unfortunately, since cooking generally means 15 - 20+ minutes of pain from standing and stirring and stuff, I've just been acquiescing to the idea of eating out, and I think that's a large part of the problem.

Given that they're dicking around on getting me the non-latex version of Humira, there's been virtually no exercising I can do for longer than 10 - 15 minutes if I'm lucky. I've been trying to do the warm up section of the belly dance DVD I own, and can't do the full thing without joints frakking up and locking weird, which doesn't work right when you're doing a hip circle. -.-

So, I'm making even more adjustments to what I eat, in hopes that it will provide at least a half pound loss per week. I'm going to make sure I have a salad every day, and some form of fruit every day. I have a shopping list of stuff that doesn't require cooking much, so we'll see if that helps. I've also figured out that trying to do super low carb is a bad idea with how fucked up my body is, but I'm going to try to keep that to between 100 - 150 per day.

I'm just very sick of being overweight. I'm never letting them put me on any kind of steroid again. Everything else I'm on right now doesn't really affect weight gain, but stuff I was on did...I just can't remember what the other things were aside from the steroid, because I've gone through quite literally every RA medication that doesn't have sulpha in it. >.<

So yeah. Just wanted to rant before I grabbed the neighbor's kid and sacrificed them to an elder god out of irritation. >.<

Fuck you, Unison MedPlus.

kassandra — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:30:26 GMT

Right now, I'm fighting with my insurance because they won't approve any of the three medications that are approved by the FDA for the treatment of Fibromyalgia - they treat a core part of the syndrome, not just the pain symptom - but they're all for putting me onto opiates like Morphine...when my family has a history of abuse with them. Aside from the predisposition for addiction, neither myself nor my rheumatologist really believe it's the answer for dealing with Fibro, we're both very against super addictive narcotics, especially since there are a lower amount of opiate receptors in my brain.

MedPlus (and I believe most of Unison's insurance plans) use a step therapy model for their medicine, which is part of what is biting me in the ass for this situation.

The first medication we tried getting them to approve, back when I first had to switch to the State Medical Assistance two years ago, is called Lyrica. Originally, it was just a diabetic nerve pain medication, however it was tested and approved for use with Fibromyalgia. The medication essentially shunts the amount of information being processed through pain nerves, and for about a year, it worked very well. MedPlus, however, denied covering it because there is another diabetic nerve pain medication that comes first in their step program...which is quite different from Lyrica AND it's never been approved or even suggested for treatment of Fibro. They ignored an appeal that pointed this out to them.

At that point, I was already on the max dose that can safely be given, and with the cost of the medication without insurance (almost 200.00 per bottle), we decided to stop using it. Then I was forced to switch to a moron rheumatologist for six to seven months that really deserves his own rant post since he made everything worse.

Last November, I returned to my original rheumatologist, and we decided to try and get Cymbalta through the pre-auth process. Cymbalta originally was just an anti-depressant, however after a lot of testing and development, it showed to have marked improvements in a large group of Fibromyalgia patients and was approved by the FDA. Here MedPlus handed us TWO bullshit reasons for denying it; according to their step therapy program, you have to be on two "lower" anti-depressants before they'll okay Cymbalta and in the case of the one I was on, it got refilled irregularly because no one had explained to me that mental health is done directly through the PA Access Card and not the MedPlus plan. Even with an appeal explaining that it wasn't for mental health treatment, and reminding them that none of their reps in the course of almost a year told me that they don't cover mental health caused the irregularity of the prior prescription, they still said I had to be on other anti-depressants first...which don't work for Fibro all that well, and are not approved by the FDA.

Now we're trying to get something called Savella approved. My doc gave me the titration pack, and mom covered the first month with her flex spend from work (which she has about 100 - 200 left over on per year). Savella is ONLY approved by the FDA for the treatment of Fibromyalgia, and while it was developed off of the same group of medication that anti-depressants fall under, it is not considered an anti-depressant by the FDA and the company that makes it advises against using it as such since it was not developed for that and has not been tested as such. My insurance is again trying to deny it based on the same reasons they gave for Cymbalta, but when I asked about Fentanil (sp?) and Morphine, they said that was just fine.

Sure. Give me the frakking addictive opiates that just numb the pain and don't actually treat the syndrome itself, even though I don't have the opiate centers in my brain to process them right, which means being given stupidly high doses that are going to be pretty much instantly addictive. Bitch at me about making a psychiatrist put me back on anti-depressants, which don't even work because I have to have an anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety to chemically manage the borderline but can't be on the anti-anxiety because of the post traumatic stress syndrome (the chemical treatment clusterfuck from that probably deserves it's own rant post too). You're a frakking insurance company, and clearly don't read all the information about the medications you're denying or the ones you're saying I should be put back on or the information in the doctor's requests for the medication coverage to begin with. Oh, and let's not forget that you won't cover the dental work I need done properly, so I still have a broken tooth in my mouth that occasionally cuts my gums up or gets infected and makes me sick. Thanks for basically making it impossible for me to get better, you money grubbing sons of bitches, I bet you get money from the state based on how many of us you keep on MedPlus by screwing with our treatment. -.-

I hope to god that the national Medicare is better than this crap.

Well Frak....

kassandra — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:57:35 GMT

So, mom and I have a theory as to what the horrible injection site reactions are coming from. I have an extremely mild allergy to latex, like if I leave a bandaid on the same place for 24 - 48+ hours, it makes the skin red and irritated or if I try using latex gloves more than every other day (found that one out in high school science) - not exactly something that has ever been a major issue, because I can just reposition the bandaid so it covers a different area of skin every day, and avoid using latex gloves for more than a few hours every other day or more. No big deal, to the point of where I don't even think about it when someone says "Are you allergic to anything".

Penicillin, on the other hand, can rip my stomach up and cause the whole throwing up blood thing, and sulpha drugs may do the same damn thing. That sort of shit is memorable, you know. Most pepperoni causes the same thing, more than likely because of one of the preservatives they use in it, since old school Italian homemade pepperoni doesn't have the same effect.

Given the pattern we're seeing, I'm going to assume that I inherited my mother's allergies at a lesser degree than what she has them, so that I can avoid any other horrible reactions like say the entire front of my thigh swelling up to the point that it bruises while being itchy as all hell and so tender that walking hurts in a whole new way than normal. That's where I was at Friday/Saturday and part of Sunday after my Humira injection.

I called the Walgreen's pharmacy hotline, since they deliver the injectable medication for the state insurance, to ask about whether there were latex-free options for Humira or Enbrel. It took the pharmacist a bit to find them, but here's the information she discovered for me.

1. It is very likely that this allergy has been made WORSE by the exposure that the injections give, rather than having an immunity start to develop. Which makes sense, because the evilness of the injection site reactions have been getting progressively worse, and occurring in a much shorter time frame. Initially, it took about 24 hours for the skin to start puffing up, however this last time it wasn't even 12 hours before it started going nuts.

2. Enbrel SureClick auto needles and Enbrel pre-filled syringes all have latex chambers and caps. That means the suspension is surrounded by latex, and so is the needle. That would explain the horrible reactions getting worse after switching to Enbrel, and I'm going to pinpoint the SureClick as the major trigger for this allergy getting worse...cus that's a rather long latex tube, and god knows how long the suspension has been sitting in it, taking in the latex.

3. Humira apparently only has the cap for the pre-filled syringes made of latex, however I'm dubious about that because the plunger's end looks like the same exact material. Their auto needle, however, does not have latex at all. Needless to say, I called Mucciolo's office and asked for them to switch me over tot he latex-free pen.

4. If it's not being caused by a latex allergy, and I happen to be allergic to something in the suspensions or the medication itself, I'm pretty frakked. There's pretty much no other treatments I can do, because the hardcore pills and tablets for RA medication contain sulpha, and all the rest of them (like Celebrix) have failed to make an impact.

When we finally can move back to San Diego, I may end up strong arming a doctor into getting me into the clinical trials for bone marrow replacement as a cure for RA. Sure, it's a year in a hospital, and the shitty process of having my bone marrow zapped by radiation therapy and chemotherapy, but it's very likely that I'd come out on the other side without a trace of RA...which I am all for after these fiascoes. >.<

Google, China & Haiti

kassandra — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:18:14 GMT

You know, a lot of bad shit has happened in my life since I last updated this journal, some of which has gone down in the last 36 or so hours. I could rant about it, take all the sorting out I've done in my head and put it down here, but I realize that about 95% of it is trivial shit compared to what else is going on in the world this week.

Let's start with Google and China, and how the globe needs to unite.

Call me a radical, but I agree with France - we need to define some basic rights to the internet and information technology that all humans should be allowed. The ability to use the internet is not just a convenience in France, it's a basic human right now. With how digitized our world is getting, more countries need to look into this sort of thing, as does the UN; some information that is found online is not found on printed media and will not be found on such unless someone prints it off on their own printers. Granted, I don't think the way France set up their laws on it were perfect, and they need to have some tweaking done to them, but the bottom line is that people should be allowed to have mostly unfettered access to the internet (I say mostly because I'm against children being able to look up porn, for example).

I've been vaguely aware of the fact that Google has been following the demands of the Chinese government in regards to what their version of the search engine can find and have accessible to Chinese citizens. I never really found it right, but I was one of those people who thought that it was better that there be some access to the powerhouse that is Google's search engine rather than there being none. However, as time's passed and more information has come to light about it, I was less and less okay with it.

Then this week happened.

China basically has been trying to use Google to track down activists who disagree - 99% of the time, peacefully - with their government so they can arrest them, paint them as treasonous bastards and then execute them to scare their citizens into behaving?

Whiskey.

Tango.

Foxtrot.

I really don't care whether it soley was a human rights decision, a combination of HR and business, or a purely business standpoint - I'm glad Google said the same thing, and essentially made a bold move that told those Chinese sons-of-a-bitches to shove their bullshit back up their asses (note: I mean their government, not the people in general <3 Jimmy Chi!). It doesn't take a business or social analyst to know that China is going to look at they're "Hey, by the way, that censoring thing? HELL NO!" move and not agree with it, because their entire regime would crumble pretty damn fast with free information flowing into the country.

However, just booting them out of the country isn't going to make things better for China, as it's probably going to draw attention to the fact that there is that much censoring going on, and with as many people who use Google.cn in the country, they may end up with a social problem on their hands that their internet spin doctors might not be able to contain. Which is, in the end, a bonus - there's socialism and Communism, and China's on the wrong side of the fence. They really need to get up with the times in regard to humanity and what it means to lead people rather than just scaring or brainwashing them into compliance.

This issue has the potential to not only draw attention to the bad practices that come with dealing with China, but it may help in blowing open the whole rights of the internet issue at large.

The second thing going on this week that makes anything that happened here in PA seem trivial is the ginormous earthquake that hit Haiti. Unless you live under a rock, you can't not have heard about this - given that I pay very little attention to the news and I'm aware of it, that leaves no excuses.

Since the earthquake hit, my mother's been updating me on a friend of the family's situation: Tia, a woman who was once my babysitter and is amazing with kids, was in the process of adopting a little boy from Haiti. Rather than lamenting not having a kid, she had the spine to say "You know what, it my not have my genetics, but an adopted child is worth just as much as one I might give birth too", which is a huge thing to me considering I've had boyfriends break up with me because they found out I really cannot have children.

Unfortunately, she's been unable to contact anyone from the orphanage, which was relatively close to the palace in Port-au-Prince. The palace and most of the surrounding buildings are flattened, and seeing the first images of that had to be rough on her.

After watching movies tonight, I wanted a distraction, and decided to look up something more about this - a lame attempt at helping as it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. But as I read more and more articles, the more and more I was horrified and amazed.

Preval said he himself had not been spared. "I cannot live in the palace; I cannot live in my own house," he said. "The two collapsed." He added that he did not know where he was going to sleep Wednesday night, but was not worried. "I have plenty of time to look for a bed," he said late in the afternoon. "But now I am working on how to rescue the people. Sleeping is not the problem." - Haiti president says estimates put quake death toll in thousands, CNN.com

That, ladies and gentlemen, is one hell of a president. The man doesn't have someplace to sleep, his home is destroyed, and he could have easily gotten away with arranging shelter for himself and just overseeing this from afar, but instead he's not even worrying about himself - he's worrying about his people who are trapped in the rubble. That right there made me wonder whether any of our Presidents would get that down and dirty in a nation wide crisis...sadly, I doubt few of them would do so, and even fewer would truly mean it.

Amid my digging, I was pretty shocked to find that "Heroes" star Jimmy Jean-Louis had started an organization to help out underprivileged kids in Haiti, where he's originally from (hence him playing the Haitian on the show, obviously). The focus of that organization has temporarily changed, having mobilized to help out with the disaster. Jean-Louis drew attention to something I don't think people really are going to think of immediately, and my misinterpret unless they actually stop to think about it: sending items to Haiti at this point is a bad idea, even if you're filtering them through an organization like this or the Red Cross. There's going to be such difficulty getting them to Haiti and through the area right now that the best thing that can be done is monetary donation; these donations can be put towards major things that are going to be more easily transported like medicine, something that the country is dangerously low on with the number of hospitals ruined vs. the number of patients that they have. Medicine and clean water are probably the two most important things we need to get to them, with food coming up in a close second.

And yes, I know he's looking for his own family amid the mess, but he's only human. You can't fault him for that.

Mom found a little site that helps you put a Haitian flag on your Facebook profile picture to show your support for the disaster relief. Yeah, it's not a whole lot, but not everyone can spare cash or items right now, or even know who to get them to. And it does give some comfort to people outside of Haiti who use Facebook, because it lets them know that other people care too.

The orphanage that Tia was going through has a Facebook page. If you can, please go there and fan the page to show your support. They're having difficulty contacting anyone inside the country, for obvious reasons, and all updates they have are being posted here as well. There is also a link and instructions on how to donate directly to the orphanage; there are way to many children that got hurt or killed between the two orphanages that went down, so it's unclear whether or not her son-to-be was one of them. I rarely ask people to do something involving faith, but if you can, please pray to whatever God you worship or send out the good vibes into the universe and ask that as few kids as possible were killed, and that hopefully Tia's son survived - and that those who did survive will continue to live, since water is so scarce right now.

My friend Alicia posted this as a status earlier: Text the word Haiti to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross. Text the word Yele to 501501 to donate $5 to the earthquake fund. The average Haitian lives on $60 a month, your money will go a long way. Will you please donate? You'll probably hardly even notice it on your cell phone bill. 100% of your donation goes through- cell carrier keeps nothing.

Yes, this is applied to your phone bill. If I weren't on someone else's plan, I'd have done a text in to both.

I know a lot of people freak out over Americans donating money to emergency funds like this when we have so many problems here in the States; many people who do don't even bother making donations to American humanitarian organizations, so they really don't have room to talk in the first place. The down and dirty of it is that with this situation, people will die a lot faster and in a lot greater numbers without help from larger nations and their citizens, and it's the right thing to do. Maybe it's just because I find the whole lack of helping each other when political, social or geographical bounds thing to be rather stupid...shit like this is not the kind of thing you ignore, nor is it something you degrade just because you don't feel like giving up an MMO or a couple of movie nights for a month. I'm horridly poor right now due to waiting on disability, and I'm giving donations so these people can live.

Which is saying a lot given most of the time I'm pissed off at the way humanity as a whole acts. >.>

Anyways, these two things made me realise that as much as the last 36ish hours of my life have kinda sucked and got me questioning life and people, there's a lot more going on out there that takes precedence over it.

ABF U-Pack, and Why They Suck

kassandra — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:24:46 GMT

When we worked out that Tony was going to move back here, we searched around for a way to move the stuff that was affordable, and found a company called U-Pack that was an extension of ABF freight systems. It sounded like a deal over renting a truck by the time he was ready to get the ball rolling for it, as trucks were running about 1600.00 USD (not including gas) while this Relocube thing they had was running for 1250.00 USD; there had been a Penske special we missed that would have been 700.00 USD for the truck and a tow cart, but Weir screwed up his return to work and so we missed it, and I really wish we hadn't.

I should have known there would be problems with ABF when they had issues picking up the Relocube. We called to have it picked up, got told that the driver was already on his way back into the garage (even though their site said pick ups could be up till 8 PM) and that they would leave a message to have it picked up the next day. The next day rolled past, still no pick up on it so we called again, and finally the next morning they got their act together and got the cube picked up. I blew it off as being a bad egg in the SLC offices, and I think I'm wrong.

When we got back here, Weir screwed up on getting Tony his paycheck, and ended up sending it to his mother's house instead of back here even though he stood there and watched the payroll wench change the address; she screwed up Ford's checks when he went back to work for them, and I really think the only reason she keeps her job is because she's got a pretty mouth, and uses it liberally. So we called the local ABF office to reschedule the drop off - which sounded like it was going to go well, since the Relocube was apparently a day late in getting to Berwick.

And we were wrong - the next day, the guy showed up to drop off the cube, and Tony discussed with him the fact that the date had been changed, and apparently the guy didn't ever get the message. Tony let the guy know that we'd contact them as soon as we got the check from Weir, however by that time general costs for gas, work clothing for Tony and a new pair of jeans for me (because mine tore) had bit into our remaining funds from the trip here...then Tony's check from Weir wasn't as much as he was expecting it to be.

So around the 20th of September, I talked to some lady in the local office and as far as I was aware, set up the cube to be stored for 30.00 USD a month until we could get it out, which at the time we thought would be around the end of October, beginning of November. Unfortunately, we just barely figured out we were going to have to push it back even further due to registering the car, the 600.00 USD in work that needs to be done for it to pass inspection, and 392.00 USD to get Tony's license un-suspended (which he wasn't even aware it was suspended at all until after we got here).

Yesterday, we got a letter from them, stating that they have been unable to contact us, and that starting two days after the letter was sent, the Relocube would start incurring a detention fee of 50.00 USD a day. The letter was dated 10/20/09, postmarked 10/21/09 but didn't arrive until 10/24/09 in the afternoon, apparently after they closed because when I called the number on the letter, the line rang and rang and not even an answering machine picked up.

So we sent them an e-mail, asking what was going on, pointing out that the letter wasn't even delivered until 3 days after the postmark, and explaining what we had set up (or at least thought we set up) with the local office. We voiced our concerns over their inability to notate accounts properly, and the problems we'd had thus far; the reply we got was nearly identical to the letter we had received, except now it said that our items were in Murray UT, that the fees would begin two days after 10/22/09, and included a new paragraph about how after ten days they were going to auction off everything in the cube.

The twit didn't answer any of the questions or concerns voiced in the letter, so a reply was sent requesting that it be escalated with essentially all the concerns and problems we've been having on top of the questions we had before and the new ones we had now with the response we'd gotten. That was earlier this morning, and while I'm not expecting to hear anything back on a Sunday, there has been no further contact from ABF about the matter. Tomorrow before work, we're going to be calling their local office and possibly the main office to try and get this worked out. The level of professionalism ABF has shown thus far makes McDonald's counter crew look like business professionals instead of fast food workers. -.-

As far as Tony and I knew prior to this, the Relocube was going to be put in storage for a fee of 30.00 USD, which by the time we could get it out in December, there would only be 120.00 USD in additional fees. The woman at the local office had told me that we wouldn't need to call back until we were going to need the cube delivered, and that the fees would be added on to the total cost at that time. Currently, under that agreement, there should only be 60.00 USD in fees.

Needless to say, we're both extremely stressed now (which doesn't help me much, as I've already been pretty ill this weekend), as all of Tony's possessions less his computer and a few clothes as well as the handmade leather grimoire I have, and the piano that Mom and Dad bought together before he died. I really wish we could get the money to get the cube now, and be done with these morons, but neither of us have a way to produce that much money before they'll supposedly start selling off our stuff.

I'm never using a moving company again that isn't a moving van we drive, even if it costs more and even if Tony bitches the entire drive. This is utter bullshit, and mom was completely right that these kind of companies are just trying to screw you over and steal your belongings. So going to report all of it to the BBB and FTC. -.-

Update

kassandra — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:01:52 GMT

So, I've been relatively quiet as of late. There's a lot going on in my life, and it is all taking time for me to adjust to.

I'm still not used to having Tony around. I think we're mostl past the whole 'stepping on each others toes' phase, for the more part, though there are rare moments of that sort of thing still. In some ways, it's like nothing has changed in the past 8 years, but then there are huge reminders that they have - the last time I knew Tony, he barely knew anything about computers, didn't play MMOs much, and had a slightly different air about him. I still can't wrap my head around the idea that he's been in love with me for thirteen years, and that it didn't ever actually go away, and I still sometimes worry that he won't be there anymore someday; that's not exactly his fault, but at some point, my brain just sort of put the idea that everyone but my mother leaves me at some point as it's default perception.

He's handling my medical nightmare pretty well. Last night I actually physically hurt more than I can ever remember, and he was exceptionally understanding of it, and I think he was a bit worried when the stubborn "I refuse to be a cripple" part of me kicked in and I tried making dinner even though I had problems walking and standing and sitting and laying down. Even though it generally makes things worse, I still can't accept how much I can't do anymore, so I push myself until my body snaps and kicks my ass.

Last month, I spent a lot of time with a neurology team. There was concern that my headaches (which I can't actually differentiate migraine pain from fibro pain, aside from the additional symptoms that are related to migraines) and memory loss may have been from my car wreck, especially after discovering that the U of U medical center and my doctor back then completely dropped the ball and did not do all the post head-trauma testing they were supposed to do.

There are seven areas that are tested for damage after a person suffers head trauma or shows signs of potential brain damage from other forms of trauma and disease; there is also a 500 or 600 (I forget which) True or False test they give you that's a lot like a super-long personality test they give when you apply for a job now a days, but with different and more personal questions. I took that test right before I went to see Tony, and my other two tests were broken up into two sessions during September, one three-ish hour session and one hour long session with an hour meeting after to discuss the results and treatment plan moving forward.

The scale for these tests goes from Below Average to Superior, from what I could gather. My tests resulted in four Superiors, two Above Averages and one Average - the only average was the area involving numbers, math and time so now I have medical proof that my brain wasn't built for those things. Medical proof that I suck at math, at least compared to everything else I do. >.> (Sadly, I can hear Nathan's voice saying something to the affect of "No, it's not medical proof you suck at math - you should be at least average with it!"...damn Math major.)

Having a neurologist go on and on about how awesome the hardware of my brain was made me kinda edgy; I suck at taking compliments, and I kinda started wondering when two guys with blue latex gloves were going to come in and haul me away. I know the doctor was just being a geek over it, and that he was genuinely intrigued and excited by how well the hardware of my brain was developed but it was way to weird for me.

Based on the 500 question test plus the results of the seven areas of the brain testing, the neurologist determined that I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and because the hardware is so good and is constantly receiving messages that I'm in pain, the PTSD has caused severe memory suppression. While he guesstimates that the PTSD began during somewhere between pre-teen years and the first few teenage years; the working theory is that initially the PTSD suppressed only certain incidents, then as time passed and I experienced more physical and mental trauma, the PTSD began essentially a regularly scheduled suppression every few years (more than likely the car wreck in 2000 triggered it to start doing that), but as the medical problems began to manifest and get worse over the past 3 - 5 years, the PTSD began to start memory suppression anywhere from every few weeks to every few months. Basically anything I don't do on a regular basis or that my brain hasn't classified as "instinctual/innate" or basic mandatory things needed to live, the PTSD will suppress it and I'll have a bitch of a time remembering. Sometimes, after a lot of brain wracking, I can remember things however there are still a large number of things I should remember and just can't dredge out.

Now, I'm still trying to accept this whole PTSD thing. PTSD is something, in my mind, that people like war veterans get. It never even crossed my mind that it might be something I had. Like everything else, I read up a bit on it, and I believe that the BPD and PTSD have basically a feedback loop between them that makes both of them get worse over time. Sadly, my insurance isn't accepted by any of the psychologists or psychiatrists nearby, so I can't get treatment for either condition until after I win my disability case.

The other medical problem I've been having is with my damn rheumatologist. Olenjinski isn't a healer in the slightest, and barely qualifies as a doctor as far as I'm concerned. In late March, I transferred over to the Rheumatology department of Geisinger Medical center because the majority of the Geisinger system accepts my insurance or my insurance will make an exception/compromise referral for. I should have known it wasn't going to work out after the first visit, but I was naive and hoped that over time Olenjinski could pull his head out of his ass or polish his belly button so he could see where he was going; neither occurred. Over the past six or so months, he's progressively taken me off of my all the working medications, refused to confirm the RA diagnosis or provide a new diagnosis, and essentially blown off treating anything. About three weeks ago, Tony quite literally had to pick me up out of bed one morning even though I hadn't done anything too physically taxing, and yesterday I was in the worse pain I've ever been in (think Cruciatus Curse from Harry Potter...for about 8+ hours); I am in worse condition now than I was before starting with Dr. Mucciolo in November 2006, hell, I'm back to how bad it was in 2004 except there's so much pain I can't sleep.

We got a date for my disability hearing, much to everyone's surprise since it's been under a year since my denial. The hearing will be on November 17th in the morning, and between now and then I have a lot of stuff I have to do. I'll have at least one to two more meetings with Susan between now and then, however some of the appointment dates I have are cutting it close to the trial.

First of all, Susan was awesome enough to cover the fee to have a psychietrist/psychologist she's worked with before do a huge sessions with me to document the extent of the BPD and PTSD as best as we can in a single 3 - 5 hour session. Dr. Gray also does part time work with CMSU, a local psychology group that works with patients who can't afford care or aren't covered with their insurance, so if I like her, I may arrange to go back to CMSU if they let me have her as my shrink. If I win the trial, I'll just pay to see her on my own dime if CMSU is bitchy or medicaid doesn't cover it.

For that appointment, I have to print out a few things from my various journals, as well as print out a list of symptoms for both BPD and PTSD and highlight the ones I have. I'd like to back up my live journals onto discs, but since there's no sort of download entire journal to desktop option, I'm kinda meh about having to go through and cut and paste everything from my past journal and this journal. This journal is basically open to the public on everything though, so she can see it even if I don't download it all somehow.

The second thing I have to do is contact CMSU and have my prior counselor write up a diagnosis, since she can't actually share her session notes with anyone without going through a huge process that isn't entirely necessary. That'll be kinda awkward given that I stopped going to see her because I found out that I wasn't getting the treatment needed and because I really didn't feel she could mentally/intellectually keep up with me; I kind of never called to say I wasn't going to be going there anymore, heh.

The third thing is happy, even though I have to borrow money to do it - I have to go back to Dr. Mucciolo and see if I can start treatment with her again, and see about getting everything clearly documented for a non-health care professional. The problem with doctor's notes is that they make them for themselves, or make them field specific, and often have a lot of mental notes tied to very vague and simplistic notes they've made. So I'm going to ask her to essentially write up every little detail that lead her to her diagnosis for both the RA and Fibro, basically translating 2+ years of notes.

For that I'm working on getting my records from Geisinger transferred to her, made a list of all the symptoms of both RA and Fibro with the ones I have highlighted, and printed out images of both RA trigger points and Fibro tender points and highlighted the ones that I have act up, and circled the ones that are the worse. I also tacked on a list of treatments I wanted to talk to her about, including going back on Humira and Methotrexate even though it means not drinking alcohol for at minimum 36 weeks. >.<

Unfortunately, the meeting with Susan yesterday ran from just after 1 PM to nearly 4 PM...and my brain's weird defense system that tries to make me seem normal triggered, so I remained sitting the entire time. That was a mistake, especially since Tony noted that on average, I get up from sitting every 25 to 35 minutes; my brain makes excuses for me to get up, since I'm really having a hard time accepting the whole completely physically broken at my age thing, so I didn't realise how often and when I was doing it but when the subject came up during the meeting, I realised what my brain was doing and what my body was actually doing.

So after the meeting, I found I could barely walk, and within about an hour fairly much every nerve ending was lit up with pain...hence yesterday/last night being mentioned as it was above with the stuff about Tony. I put on ice hots, stayed largely curled up on the bed, and cried because it was way more pain that I was used to (which is saying a lot given my pain scale number averages about a 7.5 to an 8). All of my joints hurt, all of my muscles hurt, my face hurt, my inner ears hurt, and I had a migraine; oddly enough, aside from there being lots of pain, I was acutely aware of pretty much every part of my body in general.

While Tony and I were curled up and I was basically explaining everything to him about how I was dealing (or not dealing) with it, he told me about what it felt like when he was electrocuted while working on a machine system in the Navy, and it basically sounds like high level electrocution creates the pain effects that severe fibromyalgia does. Granted, most people don't live through such, but Tony's too stubborn to die, though his heart did stop for a little bit immediately after. So, to an extent, he actually understands exactly what the pain part of it can be like, even if it wasn't for as long; I think that may be enough for my brain to not try and hide how bad I'm physically doing anymore, but we'll see.

Aside from that, playing AION mostly now, though I did break from it to play the City of Heroes/Villains free activation weekend. I kinda miss CoH/V, it was fun mostly due to how little commitment it required and it's simplicity in systems along with the RP scene on Virtue, but it's not something I can afford since it would just be a sort of "take a break" game, at least not right now. Maybe once we have stable incomes, it'll be doable but for right now our "MMO subscription" belongs to Aion.

The Unwedding

kassandra — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:59:19 GMT

As previously mentioned on my Facebook, I somehow have a free copy of the latest Brides magazine...I'm still not sure if I have a free subscription, or if I was just given a single free issue. I suppose I'll find out in July/August when they release their next issue. >.>

Ironically, I've found something useful in this issue, aside from a couple of red wedding dresses to show my mom, since she insisted that no one "normal" got married in red; the subject came up because she really didn't see a point of even looking at the magazine since the wedding ceremony I've idealized since high school is definitely not the mainstream type of wedding.

Yes, I've had the ceremony largely designed since high school, when I designed my wedding ring for the Intro to Fashion Design class I was in. The location was never solidified until after Nathan told me about his wedding, since I really wanted to do it at Stonehenge in the United Kingdom...which is rather costly and unlikely to be kind to the guests' income. Nathan and Alicia got married at a replica of Stonehenge out along the border of Washington and Oregon, the Maryhill Stonehenge Memorial; there's another well done replica here in the States, up in New Hampshire, but considering most of the people will be traveling from somewhere on the west side of the US, Maryhill still is more ideal even if the NH version were cheaper to book.

But...I only really ever thought about the ceremony itself, which is largely based off of traditional Celtic handfasting with some of the more um, necessary bits of modern weddings included. As for the reception, the dinners, the rehursals...all of that is completely forign to me as is the entire process of most standard weddings and I've determined I don't like a lot of it, nor do I think Tony will either.

Initially, I was thinking of doing a sort of pseudo-Medaevil faire type reception, though didn't see too much point in an actual faire setting since there wasn't really all that much to the guest list; Tony and I share the majority of our friends, we both really don't plan or want most of our family members there, and no matter where we hold it, there are going to be at least 5 - 10% of the guests who won't be able to make it due to travel.

So I run across this article called The (Un)Wedding: A 12 Step Plan in this Brides magazine issue I've inherited. I'm basically writing this out so I don't have to constantly reference a piece of paper, and so that people who are invited/going to be invited/want to attend have an idea of what exactly they're getting into.

Step 1: Keep it short.
I like this. I mean, I was looking at the scheduler help on eWeddingTeam.com and was at a complete loss on what a realistic schedule was. I personally have the attention span of a goldfish, as does my friend Anna, so the suggested times started adding up to a "WTF, there's no way I'm going to need that much time for X!"

Due to personal preference and medical problems, the ceremony is going to be around sunset, and I already have planned on getting a pretty parasol in case there is still too much sun at 7:00 PM (which is when we're projecting sunset to be on May 1st). Realisitically, that leaves us maybe an hour to two hours of light, so I figure that having it run for an hour and a half at most was sane; based on the time I selected for the ceremony, it was suggested that general preparations begin at 12 PM and actual ceremony preparations (read: getting dressed) begin at 3 PM.

Now, if I decide to go for a whole entire spa treatment before the ceremony, I can see 4 hours as being a viable amount of time for getting ready. If I luck out and Jenn can travel up to the wedding, I know that an amazing make up job can be done in less than 30 minutes (even if I want something intricate and girly), and if not, I doubt it would take anyone else more than 45 minutes to an hour to accomplish the same. I really planned on letting my hair be mostly natural, maybe a bit of work with a very large curling iron, if that, so really all that needs to be done is putting on the hairpiece and veil there. The dress (I would hope) shouldn't need any last minute adjustments, because I'm sure Anna and I will have worked on it several different times long before the day of so that the fit remained perfect - and even though I'm a horrible klutz when not dancing, I'm sure the instant I'm put in a dress like that, the same reflexes would take over so I'm not expecting anything horrible to happen between putting it on and getting finished with the whole affair.

2. Rethink the numbers.
I was already doing this, mostly due to the fact that everyone is going to have to travel to attend the wedding, as I don't recall anyone I know actually living within driving distance of Maryhill. The article suggests comparing it to a guest list for your birthday party, and while I did have that huge joint party with Shorty in '98, I'm so not into huge crowds like that anymore; I didn't see any point in wasting the paper and ink on invitations to people who I wouldn't want to party with for several hours anyways.

As it stands, based off the little Facebook app I've been using for my "OMG, getting married, *squee*" moments has only 41 people on the guest list, with six people in the wedding party itself. There's so no need for a ginormous ballroom, 12 piece orchestra...I'm honestly wondering if I even really need an expensive wedding specialist DJ, especially if I end up going with a small venue - I could probably get away with 2 CD/DVD decks, a mixer and a few speakers (or just borrow Tas' Bose entertainment system =P).

3. Pare down the ceremony.
Well, that was kind of done by default. I'd like (ideally) Nathan or Tas to officiate the affair, mom and I agreed that since my father is dead my cousin Phillipe would be the right choice in filling that role (if I use it at all), and handfastings tend to be a little more intimate than a traditional ceremony anyways.

There's not going to be any fantastic religion-affiliated remarks/openings, though frankly I haven't been to enough weddings to remember what all BS is used in an actual ceremony. I think I've been to 1 semi-normal wedding as far as the trappings went, and 1 handfasting based ceremony.

4. Don't Channel Eva Longoria.
So apparently Longoria had a week long, multi-million dollar wedding. This kind of suggests ditching a lot of the stuff that was confusing me - the bridesmaids multiple spa trips, the lots of gifts for all the bridal party members, even the separate bachelor/bachelorette parties.

Every site I've been to seems to make this huge production over the pre-wedding girly bullshit. They all seem to go beyond the idea of a bachelorette party and bridal shower and extend into the bizarre "spa events" and "pre-ceremony spa trip" BS, and all seem to be huge into the idea of giving your bridal party a ton of personalized gifts as thank yous.

Our bridal party is getting free traditional kilts (that's 9 yards of tartan on the kilt itself, not including the shirts) with (more than likely) handmade belts and pouches w/nice flasks if they're male, or a custom tailored dress designed by myself and Anna along with jewelry and hairpieces and custom made slave anklets for shoes...yet somehow, according to most places, that's not enough of a thank you. Is it taboo of me to say "WTF, no" to that?

While I'd love a trip to a spa to have things like waxing and relaxing done professionally, I really don't believe we'd have the cash to cover more than maybe myself, Tony and two other people (more than likely, whoever ends up being key in planning/running the entire thing) at most. Realistically, I'm becoming enough of an organic health nut that I could probably design just as fantastic a treatment and pull it off in the pretty hotel room, considering every one I've looked at includes ample space and a hot-tub like bath. I've waxed my own eyebrows before, so it's not like it's a new concept, and Nads really isn't all that hard to use for everywhere else, either.

And the "bachelor(ette) party" thing. Most of my friends are male, a lot of them are friends with Tony, and I really don't foresee any of them aside from Matty and Eric enjoying the whole girl-type party. Due to personal belief, I really don't find the whole "stripper"/"strip club" based bachelor(ette) party appropriate or right, either. I really don't see why we can't do something as a large group, with both Tony and I present, like his suggestion of touring the Gaslamp District bars as a group (though I don't agree with the "and see how long it takes us to get arrested" part he included). There'd be drinking, there'd be dancing if it's wanted, there'd be food...and our friends won't have to pay for two different outings since again, most of them are mutual friends.

5. Book a restaurant.
I'm not sure if I like this idea or not, largely because I really only have whatever I can find online as options for reception venues. Being that I hate people in general, I don't want anyone not on the guest list to be able to wander in or even see my reception (call me a xenophobe, you're probably right to some extent), so I'm leary of a restaurant ideal.

I'm considering taking a trip up to Maryhill as soon as my disability claim settles and I get backpaid, or Tony and I save enough money to go do a bit of a scouting mission. If I can find a restaurant venue that does have a large enough secluded area for the reception, I'd probably use it, but if not, I'll have to see if there are any super small ballrooms or semi-large confrence rooms at the local hotals that can be converted.

Though a restaurant kind of makes my whole "organic and raw-foods" thing a problem... >.<

6. Play with tradition.
I like a lot of the suggestions here.

One suggestion is outfits for the bridal party that can be used again. Everyone in the bridal party is into either LARP, RenFaire's, SCA or the like, so even a traditional kilt will see use again. The tenative design in my head for the female outfits are elegant enough for a wedding, but simplistic enough to be used for going to the theatre or out to a romantic dinner or with the way some of my friends dress, going to the club. Hell, even my wedding dress design can be partially used outside of a wedding, though I doubt I'd use the complete gown again for anything else. So the "reusable" bridal outfits thing is covered.

It suggests either tossing out things like programs and favors entirely, or keeping them understated. I'm still debating on the programs bit, because the majority of guests are going to be knowledgeable enough about handfastings to understand what is going on, so there's really no point in a huge and fancy program, if there's need for one at all; if I do use a program, it's going to probably be a small scroll on designer paper that I make in photoshop.

The favors thing has been confusing me over all, because I vaguely remember only ever getting like a bottle of bubbles or a bag of glitter from a wedding/reception. Some of the favors I've seen on wedding shop websites are a bit gaudy or way over the top for what I initially conceptualized for favours - I mean, giving every guest an ice bucket and bottle of champaign or wine, or their own set of personalized glasses? A bit much, in my opinion.

This article suggests giving something that's useful, but not expensive. I was looking more at candles and/or fans since the ceremony's outside...I think the most "extravagent" thing I looked at was a small personalized incense set or a personalized mini-flask key chain. I totally foresee our friends making use out of that stuff than anything else.

7. Think about setting.
This one kind of gets tossed out if we end up going with a restaurant, since they'd be providing things like chairs, tables and the like. I'm pretty sure the hotels would provide the same things, too. >.>

8. Don't forget about the music.
See, this goes along with my whole "Do I really need a professional DJ w/his own set up" vs. the "laptop DJ" idea. Yes, I know that most DJs don't like the whole digital mixing thing, but I don't think any of the ones I know would complain at not having to haul a bunch of heavy speakers and boxes with them; besides, I'm pretty sure most of the people we'd be inviting use MP3s or that iPod format for their music now a days anyways. Hell, this actually suggests just using an iPod and an iHome if there's no laptop-using DJ available.

9. Word it right.
The invitation.

Is it horrible that I'm afraid of a tiny piece of paper? Like, seriously. The wedding invitation scares me. I've been sent 4 individual collection books of invitations, and most of them are either the wrong theme, or too damn hyper elegant and gaudy. The article suggests using colloquial language over traditional language, which I like a lot more than the "So and so, the daughter of person A and person B" type invitations.

And then there's the whole "egagement" picture thing. Everyone expects an engagement picture, and I'm not really sure if Tony and I can afford that and the wedding photographs. Hell, I haven't even decided if I'm going to hire a professional wedding photographer, or hire the Orton boys to videograph it and then use still frames to create my own photos on my PC. It might be a good excuse to finally buy a nice digital camera though...I mean, how badly can mom fuck up "point and click" for an engagement photo?

...don't answer that. >.>

10. Wear it well.
Regardless of whether we were doing a full "traditional" wedding, an (un)wedding, or a mix...I figure some people are going to be confused over how to dress anyways, given that the bridal party is so non-standard that Oprah would probably be confused. I'm thinking of wording it as "Renessance or Semi-Formal Dress", so that if any guests want to wear their garb, they know they can while people who don't do that sort of thing don't end up showing up in a super-dapper tuxedo and feel awkward when they realise the bride isn't actually wearing any shoes.

11. Pick the right photographer.
Ugh. Again with the photography thing.

Personally, I don't think any "professional wedding photographer" is going to cut it for our wedding. I've looked at a few wedding photography sites, and just get a horrible knot in my stomach that typically is followed by the words "I've got a bad feeling about this..." in a random Star Wars character's voice (though typically it's Ewan McGregor's Obi-wan).

After seeing the work that Brandon Orton has done with his videography project, I've been thinking about hiring him for the actual ceremony and possibly the reception; Brandon has done some awesome videos for he and his wife, though I think their Christmas video was the cutest. (Please see http://www.ortonfilms.com/ for examples.)

Referencing back to the engagement photos, the other idea I've been toying with is doing them in Memory Grove at some point, or possibly doing a semi-normal photography session with the wedding outfits at Memory Grove then having less formal photography at the Maryhill portion, since it is involving travel.

12. Go sweet and low (key).
Okay, the article wins for suggesting ditching the multi-tiered fancy cake for a bunch of cheesecakes.

I've looked over wedding cakes, my mom used to make and decorate cakes semi professionally...I've never really liked the look of a wedding cake. And the toppers for them? Have yet to find one that's even remotely appropriate for Tony and I.

Now, I doubt a lot of people remember it, but the first time Tony and I dated when we were kids, I ended up creating a custom cheesecake for his birthday that year; since then, I've had a lot of ideas for cheesecakes that are always follewed by a mental "and I think Tony'd agree"/"Tony'd like that". Just because of how much he likes cheesecake, and his reaction to the birthday present, the two are very closely linked in my mind.

So the idea of a well done cheesecake as the wedding cake is highly favourable. Though deciding which type of cheesecake is a whole nother story... >.>

Some Interesting Concepts

kassandra — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:43:18 GMT

Lately, I've been slowly reading a book about nutrition via a raw-food diet. While the author does get a little overly poetic at times, the book has so far been fairly enlightening and enjoyable. Said book is called Eating for Beauty by David Wolfe, and while there are a few spots where he suggests buying the books of fellow authors or a couple of products he's developed specifically, he also gives alternative ways to go about obtaining the same results; it's sort of like "easy way: buy this product I developed to do this, that and the other" vs. "harder way: eat lots of this, that and the other which will take a longer amount of time to do the same thing".

I've actually had the books since shortly after I got my final tax return, but never really took a look at it as I was trying to slug through the book I'd ordered on the Gerson Therapy - which, while interesting and something that I'd be willing to try, it is not covered by my insurance and the nearest center that does the Gerson Therapy is in New York...which is a bit to far. I probably would have not gotten so heavily into the book if it weren't for this amazing Kirlian photograph found in the first few pages of the book; sadly, I can't find a digital copy and our scanner refuses to scan colour for some reason.

This Kirlian image featured one of the most brilliant aura's I've ever seen taken using the technology, and more brilliant than most of the ones I've seen personally. It was so bright, you couldn't see what the object was in the center of it, what was generating it - the caption noted that it was a piece of fresh organic asparagas. I really never expected an asparagas, or any vegetable, to give off that kind of aura. I mean, it's something that I would have taken for a photoshopped image if I didn't already know so much about Kirlian photography. Simply amazing, and for the first time in my life, I want to try asparagas.

The book has many different Kirlian images used in it, as one of the points Wolfe is emphasizing is what kind of energy and nutritional value is lost when things are grown in the manner that commercial companies use and/or when they are cooked. The differences between the images are pretty astounding, and I was kind of surprised how much is lost between commercial foods and organic foods. Granted, I've been switching over to Organics as I can, but the selection here is very limited and we don't have a nearby Whole Foods or anything like that, at least not that takes Food Stamps. I suppose that because I've been dealing with auras all my life, I don't need any super extensive explaination about what the differences mean as far as the energy goes.

Something I learned about that I had not really known before was how foods are alkaline based or acidic based. I understand that some were acidic and others were like bases, from science, but I didn't really know how the differences affected the body. Wolfe provides a list of symptoms for when your body is too acidic and when it is too alkaline on top of explaining what each does to the body, along with a list of where each general food type is on the scale between the two and some extensive lists of raw foods that are alkaline, neutral or acidic.

The thing he did touch on but did not cover in much depth that I'm a little uncertain of is the whole food combinations thing. There's apparently better combinations of foods that digest easier than other combinations, though from the sounds of it, the majority of 'meals' that I'm used to fall under the "not so good" to "bad" food combinations groups. So now I'm trying to eat silimar types of foods together, but I'm still not sure what foods might go together well from different families/types...

Currently, I'm up to about 30 - 40% of my daily food in take being made up of some type of raw food. I'm eating a lot of vegetables, which is kinda new for me, and I've cut back to taking prilosec every other day so that hopefully I can digest the leafier greens. The fruit thing wasn't a huge switch, it just was more of a move away from pre-packaged processed fruits to organics, though the selection at the store tends to suck for either type of raw food. >.<

I'm not sure if it's healthy, but from just Monday to Wednesday when I had my appointments, I'd lost over a pound and since I started changing my food over, I've noticed the weird way that my stomach is shaped is changing to be a little more normal. I think that it's partially due to the fact I've been on so many antibiotics over the years, the digestive system doesn't really have all the probiotics in it that the body needs, and part of it is from the imbalance with the acid in my stomach. Hopefully the change in diet will help both...

New Spectacles!

kassandra — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:52:52 GMT

I just picked up my new pair of glasses. Holy cow, are they light!

Chandra (the pretty girl who spent a shit ton of time helping me select them) was adjusting them, and the arm snapped off, but they had a duplicate copy of the frames on hand. They turned out to be a LOT more delicate than we expected, but I can barely feel them on my face - which is saying something given the Fibro can be bitchy with glasses.

We also figured out a better type of disposable contacts for me, as the optician used a different kind when checking my prescription after the exam. They have a higher ability to retain moisture, so the problem I was having with the Acuve drying out hasn't occurred with them. In a month or two I'll be getting them, even though I think I can wear these glasses a lot more often.

Apparently I have a couple of options for back up pairs of glasses. They've got a promotion going on that I can get another pair at half off frames and lenses, so I could get an identical back up pair for 65.00 USD. However, my insurance offers secondary pairs with a more limited frame selection for 39.99 USD, so the glasses themselves would be a little bit heavier. I'm considering getting the identical pair within the 30 day time limit, then getting the 40.00 ones a bit later on. It really all depends on the styles they have available for the 40.00 deal, as these all have a year warranty so if they break, I can get them replaced easily enough.

It's taking a bit to get used to the glasses though. They've got a different curvature than my prior pair, and are the right prescription, so it takes less work to focus...and I'm not used to it yet. >.<

Chandra is also a massage therapist in training. She's currently going through a specialty class for Myofacial Release massage, which is a FM specific technique. Once she's doing the tests/required at school but working time, I'll probably start seeing her once every other week for a massage to see if it helps with the pain issue. She's an absolute doll, and has so far shown that she is a natural healer of sorts, so I think I can actually trust her to try the massaging given that the last time I had someone try giving me one it hurt like hell and made me leary of them.

All in all, I lucked out with this year's optical visit. =D