Garden Of Loooove

Not sure my homemade glycolic acid serum is going to do anything. There's a tiny bit of sting just as I put it on, then nothing. I was expecting more sting. Truth be told, I added a bunch of glycerin to the bottle without knowing how much of the contents was glycolic acid. Some of it was probably water. Well, if I don't see any results in a couple of weeks of daily usage, I'll buy some more acid and create a higher concentration serum.

Today is president's day. Another holiday that snuck up on me.

I'm having a difficult time. In addition to the other things on my mind, childhood memories have been coming back to me. I grew up in an abusive and dysfunctional household. I thought these things were behind me, but, the older I get, the more I understand how warped things were and are, and it's as if my memory keeps re-serving me old leftovers so that I can digest some more.

There's no way to think about being betrayed and damaged by one's own parents such that it isn't devastating. It's like yanking a plant out of the ground at the root: there's no way for it to survive such violence. How does life go on when damage has occurred at such a fundamental level? Before one is mature enough to even understand what is happening? Maybe that is the semi-conscious thought behind the suidality: not me wanting to kill myself, but lacking the ability to see how to continue living with such seemingly mortal damage. Wanting to correct the seeming aberration of still being alive despite having been yanked up out of life by my roots. Wanting to cut off the finger, the hand, out of which I cannot pull the splinter, a splinter that's been inside me for decades, sometimes hurting, sometimes lying in wait for the next time it'll hurt.

Problems that have no solutions have always bothered me.

I guess I'm out of energy to be upset anymore. That's over for now.

I slept without my blanket last night, with just my hemp sleeping bag, my heavyweight cotton homemade sleeping bag liner, and my cotton quilt. Even with all that shit, I was still cold. But I turned the heat up too high and ended up sweaty and uncomfortable. So not much sleep last night. It felt like I got none, actually. I'm ever amazed at how sensitive I am to temperature.

I cut my hair again today and it feels great. It looks better when I brush it upwards.

I keep meaning to look for my birth certificate but I never get around to it because I either need to go out or I'm in pain or discomfort. My life is going to fall apart over this lack of ID. I wanted to avoid redundancy, but I'm going to have to get a regular state ID and then apply for a real ID later, when I get my shit together. I can get a check or voucher or something to cover the cost of the state ID because I'm a recipient of public assistance. I've done it before. Wait, no I haven't. I got some va organization to pay last time.

Doing poorly at my studies is very much paining me. I'm not used to doing poorly at academic things. Then again, before the last two or three years, I wasn't used to being suicidal either.

I'm very tired and unmotivated to post because I missed posting yesterday even though I composed a post and, I suppose, because I didn't sleep at all last night. I'd read something in the insomnia sub-reddit about nighttime dehydration and sleeping next to a heater being the cause of someone's insomnia, and, since I feel chronically dehydrated, especially over-night, and my skin is dry in this climate, I decided I'd try moving my bedding across the living room, away from the heater. But I always have trouble sleeping in new places.

Today was my third endocrinology appointment. My fasted bloodwork and the data the staff downloaded from my glycometer and glucose sensor were all normal. The single super-low reading I had, from back in November, may have been a false alarm. The endo spent a minute or so squeezing and observing my fingers while I tried to not stare at his glossy black hair, then he mentioned that sometimes slow blood flow can cause a low reading, and I suppose that my blood does flow slowly because getting a large enough blood droplet for the glucometer always takes forever. But now that I think about it, I don't understand how the rate of blood flow would make a difference because the reading is taken after the blood has flowed (or been squeezed) out of the finger.

Whatever. Basically, there's nothing more to be done unless I go a very long time without eating, which would be torture. The endo said to not do any more blood tests unless I'd fasted for at least twelve hours, and that the standard procedure for a hypoglycemia diagnosis is seventy-two hours of fasting. I have no idea why that's so long a time period because I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia in college after just twelve hours of fasting. But my health was worse then, so maybe diagnosing me was easier. I had more blood sugar crashes. Now, I'd need to stop eating regularly to get the same effect, and that would give me days worth of migraines and insomnia.

I'd do it if I could be sedated the whole time, but I wouldn't trust (male) hospital staff while sedated, and maybe the hospital wouldn't agree to sedate me for three days straight anyhow. The endo said he has to fight to get people admitted for the seventy-two hour fasting, so I'm guessing whoever has authority over this wouldn't be ok with seventy-two hours of sedation either. Plus my body is so good at keeping me awake that I'd probably keep waking up from the sedation and/or they'd have to give me a dangerous dose to keep me unconscious.

The endo suggested that he could sort of keep an eye on me with yearly or bi-yearly appointments, and, not knowing what else to do but wanting to keep my options open, I agreed. I got an appointment six months from now, but, as I was leaving, I thought that perhaps I shouldn't bother. My main concerns with respect to hypoglycemia were low blood sugar waking me up too early and the need to eat so often to prevent migraines. The endo said my blood sugar looks good over time, so that blood sugar issues are not what's keeping me awake. And, I considered, maybe it's not low blood sugar that's causing the migraines. I just get migraines easily; in fact, I had one after this appointment today, seemingly randomly.

I was not in a good mood after the appointment. I think I was mostly just tired from lack of sleep, but I was also tired of having unexplained medical issues and no hope of improvement. Also the endo AGAIN asked me whether I was angry or frustrated or whatever during the appointment. He's done that every time I've seen him, so, at that point, I was a bit frustrated. It's annoying when people are overly concerned with my emotional state. He'd been asking me the same question over and over again, and I think I may have been getting fatigued with repeating myself, and that's what he interpreted as anger. I was not angry with him and I did not need or want him to take responsibility for my emotions. I almost never want that from other people.

I also felt bad about being in public with bad skin. The way to catch a partner is too look one's best as often as possible. I cannot do that.

I left the hospital a couple of minutes after the hourly bus had passed, and the weather had gotten chilly and rainy shortly before I'd arrived at the hospital. I didn't want to wait outdoors, especially given that, having decided before leaving my apartment that it probably wouldn't rain, I was wearing shoes with large holes in them and insufficiently warm/protective clothig. Plus, I need clothes. I went into a clothing store that's across the street. I didn't find anything I liked, I don't want polyester clothes, so I left empty-handed. I'd planned to go to the dollar store afterwards, but my head hurt too much, it was too cold, and I was afraid of getting caught in the rain and even colder weather as it was then late afternoon.

My headache got so bad, and I was in danger of making it worse by going out to pick up the prescriptions I'd promised to pick up, that I decided to buy a frozen pizza. I didn't want to spend the money, or, rather, the food stamps, but I got another check from dor, so I'm not too bad off. Health is important. The pharmacy finally had some liquid iron for me. I hadn't known anything about it until the pharmacist called me yesterday evening. I'd already had the prescription switched to another pharmacy. The bottle of iron says 'not for household use' and contains two kinds of artificial sugar. Not really something I want, but I'll take it until I can get something better.

My life is so broken and empty. It seems emptier than it is because the things I lack make me not feel like engaging in what I do have.

I feel confident that I'll sleep tonight. Unconsciousness is a relief.