I’ve been feeling burnt out on a level I personally can barely comprehend much less express. Maybe this is what depression is for me now that I am taking the Topamax? Not sure. It’s not anything like I have felt before. It’s not the depths of despair I am familiar with. It’s not the usual angry angst. It’s just this listless, useless, wasting type of shit that’s lingering over me. Actually come to think of it, I have felt this way before. The last time I lived with my parents. But I had other symptoms piled on top of this. I had dark, busy and paranoid thoughts. I had a deep rooted fear of sleep and what my dreams would bring. I was actively fighting with my husband, face to face.

Thankfully I have none of that other mess going on. No dark thoughts. The paranoia is just fleeting whispers rather than a driving force. I’m coming to accept the fact that since the postpartum psychosis that this nonsense paranoia will likely be a part of my life forever. I think it would be easier for me to deal with if it wasn’t generated on facts and details. It would be easier to get treatment if my fears where of alien invasion for example. But no. I worry about the corruption of the government. I worry about corporate global take over. I don’t trust our school system. Honestly I don’t fully trust our health care system. Individual people can be trusted but the systems are broken and the facts show that. And it’s sadly the broken systems that generate the paranoia.

And no I don’t think it has anything to do with the process of me moving back in with my parents. Is it helping things? No. They spent the entire month last month working on the kitchen instead of the three rooms upstairs for us to move into and they are STILL working on the kitchen now. Even though I haven’t given the landlord my intent to move notice I feel like I am in limbo. My mother wants me to start bringing stuff over which would be fine if I had a place to put anything. So we are just here, lingering and occasionally bringing things over as we need them. My children always do better here than I do. It’s in large part why I had decided to come here. I can feel myself sliding. I’ve been feeling it for sometime. It’s like I’m sitting on the edge of a pit, waiting to fall. But I don’t fall. I suppose I have Topamax to thank for that. But I’m not pulling myself back away from the edge either. I’m tired all the time but I’m not always able to sleep.

My father gripes about the time I spend on the computer but there is no where for me to go. Not to mention that I am now an admin in one of my online support groups and a member of many more. It’s not every day you get to be a part of a parent group that garnered the attention of both the Obama Administration and Gary Johnson’s campaign team and want to hear our opinions of what’s important in terms of the schools and issues for special needs children. The teams for both Hillary and Trump never responded. I have no idea if our group leader reached out to Jill Stein’s team. But she had us write letters or post comments with our thoughts and concerns within the group and she submitted it all to the two offices that did respond. And then of course there is the stop FedEd movement. I admit I have a greater investment in special education because of my children, but when you see system after system put in place that repeatedly screws over the best and brightest you seriously have to ask yourself how is that supposed to help those with disabilities. So I’m finding myself becoming more aware and more involved with this movement. But according to my father I do nothing. Apparently even homeschooling Scholar Owl doesn’t count as doing anything.

I’m 40 years old and I still have no idea what it is my father expects from me. I just know that for as long as I can remember I have wanted to write. Something that reached and touched others on a deep level. Something that had meaning and value to the reader. I don’t know what it is my father wants me to be but he has made it clear it’s not a writer. I’ve tried other paths. None of them brought me happiness. I’m done living someone else’s life. I plan to write.

I’m seriously thinking about participating in NanoWriMo this year. It starts next month. I have an opening line and few ideas on the back burner to work with. Should be interesting. No, I don’t expect to be the next Stephen King, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, or J.K. Rowling or whomever else is a rich and famous author. Wish my dad would stop telling me that I won’t be. I’m writing for me and if someone else happens to read it and says, “Hey this was cool. I’m glad I read it,” then all the better. I just want to be doing something that I believe in and that I enjoy doing rather than always trying to figure out what someone else wants me to do for a change. I’ve been trying to do things his way since high school and the entire time at best I’ve only ever been just above the poverty line. So really, what difference does it make at this point if I’m a writer or not?