I’m trying not to cry. I’ve been trying not to cry for hours. I’m so tired of this. I’m so tired of feeling so distant from my family. We just don’t understand each other. We don’t get along. I feel like they’re all against me. I’ve always been the bad one. I’ve always been the one that isn’t good enough. I’ve always been the one that does everything wrong. I don’t think I can survive here much longer.

Shit, here come the tears. I’m just so weary. So tired of this. What can I do? I feel so helpless; I feel so alone. What can I do? What way out do I have? God, I need a Xanax. I’m so tempted to take one. It’s very dangerous to take Xanax and drugs like Xanax when I’m on the meds I’m on. The question is, do I care? Right now I’d do just about anything to relieve this pain.

The tears stream down my cheeks. My mom would call these “crocodile tears”. I want my mommy. But she’s so against me right now. Everything I do is wrong in her eyes.

I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t need the approval of my family anymore. I’m trying to convince myself that their way of thinking is faulty. That they’re the ones that are toxic. My family says it’s me, that I’m the one that’s crazy and that I’m the one with a skewed way of thinking. But when I tell my therapists, or my psychiatrists (yes I have multiple of each) about what goes on, about what I think, they awknowledge that yes, I am mentally ill, but that it’s most likely caused by things that happened to me during my childhood. Caused by my environment, the environment I’m still stuck in.

…

So I walked away for a while. I’m much more calm now. I’ve been looking at some artwork (I discovered a great artisan named Kel Flowers [what a fabulous name! I’m jealous] whose custom made books are amazing), and reading some poetry, and, well, I feel better.

I think maybe my emotions are running wild because of my hormones. It’s “that time of month,” and I think that could be causing my roller-coaster emotional state as well as my severe back pain. Ah, the joys of being a woman. (I’m sure you’re dying to hear about my feminine health issues…if it bugs you, skip the next paragraph. [and perhaps grow up a bit. Hahah…totally kidding!].)

The problem with my periods are many. First of all, they’ve never been regular. I guess in a way that’s kind of a double-edged sword. On one hand it’s kinda nice to have only a few periods a year. Also, I get PMS about a week before my period which includes debilitating back pain (as in I can’t get out of bed), crazy emotional roller coaster mood swings, and pregnancy-like symptoms (things like being overly emotional, cravings, morning sickness, tender breasts, etc.). The worst part of all that is that not only do I get that for at least a week before my period, it continues during my period. So that’s 2 weeks I’m basically out of commission. So that is another reason it’s kind of a good thing

that I have irregular periods. The bad part about being irregular is that it screws up with my hormones, which when irregular can cause issues (as if I don’t have enough issues already). I don’t really know how to explain it, but when I go a long time without having a period it’s almost like I get a buildup of hormones or something that cause mood swings and such, which actually gets relieved after my period is over. (I know, totally weird.)

Anyway, enough about my feminine health. As I mentioned, I was reading poetry a bit earlier. I was looking through the website of that artist I mentioned (Kel Flowers), and she had a book that she made that was inspired by the poem “Mushrooms” by Sylvia Plath. I had never read this particular poem before, but as the book was beautiful (and the verse of the poem I could read in the pictures of the book were beautiful too), and because I love mushrooms (k…we’ve established that I’m weird, lol); I decided to look up the poem. I found it on a blog (actually looks like an interesting blog) here:

http://thebutterflydiaries.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/sylvia-plaths-mushrooms/

I really like how the writer of this blog displayed this poem, and added pictures, and so I’m going to post the same here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Isn’t that a lovely poem? I’m in love with it. It’s definitely one of my new favorites! When doing a Google search for this poem, I also came across websites with analysis’ of the poem. Most people agreed that this poem was a metaphor for the women’s rights movement. However, some people noted that they think that “Mushrooms” is about communism in either Vietnam or China. One commentator said, “hey .... another idea..... it is known that Sylvia Plath was pregnant at the time of writing this poem. i feel this poem also depicts the coming of a new generation. 'whitely, discreetly, quietly'... what better words can you get, to describe a growing fetus!! maybe she imagined her own baby speaking to her. the poem represents the hope and future of the world - the forthcoming generation. ... or .... she may be speaking of WAR AND HATRED. remember the smoke that goes up from an explosion takes the shape of a MUSHROOM!!” One commentator even likened the mushrooms in the poem to gossip. All interesting speculations. Personally I tend to lead towards the supposition that “Mushrooms” is about the women’s rights movement. Perhaps that’s romanticism on my part, but I’m sticking to it! Lol ;P