Feeling Better

Feeling Better

School is finally over again! This semester has been very interesting. I remember struggling a lot at the beginning. I remember going for days without doing homework, and those horrible suicidal thoughts just made everything worse. As the semester progressed and I began work on my keyboard, I got increasingly absorbed into my work. I began feeling better and worked like crazy on concepts, Solidworks models, and renders. I enjoyed it so much. For my Adobe class, I designed a security camera, which I made into a little monitor, like a baby monitor, but for adults. It is colored a vintage blue and yellow. It has a little cute antenna and a push-to-talk button. Doing the Solidworks model was interesting. I really like blobjects and rounded forms. The camera is a little rectangle, but every face should have curvature. It just looks great. Just yesterday, I was looking at my Apple USB-C cable and comparing it to a very similar one that came with a MagSafe base. The Apple cable is completely continuous, even though the plug looks like an extruded slot. The expected planar horizontal faces are actually curved. That makes for a great look with smooth and continuous reflections and highlights. In contrast, the other cable is just a slot, two arcs connected by two horizontal lines. If you put it up to the light, you can see the reflections break where the arcs end and the lines begin. I thought that was very interesting. I’ll remember to use that in my designs. Anyway, I’m now realizing I didn’t use any Adobe software for this one, lol. Another project was to design our own watch since next semester we’re going to work with an actual watch company. I have my own brand already, my own logo, so that was easy. I made a minimalistic design, which is my jam. Everyone posted their moodboards and sketches on a collaborative board, and it was interesting seeing everyone’s different styles. Some preferred very involved designs, others went for fancy. I think I was the only one who picked other minimalist watches for inspiration, like Mondaine; ever since I went to Switzerland, I’ve been obsessed with the SBB clock and its signature movement. The design restriction was that the watch needed three complications: 24-hour, day, and date. Many just ignored the requirement, but I didn’t and got full marks! There was one class where I was falling behind, History of Product Design. Every week I was supposed to read the assigned readings and write a summary, find a quote, and find an object related to the reading. Since I was struggling so much at the beginning, I didn’t do many of the first readings; the habit stuck, and I didn’t do any work for the semester. At least I wasn’t the only one, and the professor was kind enough to open all the assignments until the end of the semester. Once I was done with the keyboard, I quickly submitted all the readings. I was not able to attend Hillel events for most of the semester because all events happened during my classes, although there were some that I could have attended, but I decided not to. Eventually, I went to the screening of the Prince of Egypt during Pesach and made matzah pizza. I attended talks about proper criticism of Israel and the connection to the land. For this last one, the coordinator laid out cards which pictured a connection to Judaism and the Land of Israel. I picked the one that had a person in front of a mirror. The person seemed sad, empty, but in the mirror, they were happy and had a Magen David on their heart. It immediately spoke to me. I know I am meant to be Jewish. I just haven’t gotten there yet. And when I feel bad for having my conversion on hold, I just tell myself in the mirror, “I’ve found my people. One day I’ll be completely Jewish, and I’ll be very happy.” The person sitting next to me had been to other Hillel events, but I had never talked to him. He picked a card with a family celebrating Chanukah and Christmas; he is a convert too! He told me, “You won’t regret it.” And then the event ended. I went to Finley to work on my keyboard renders, but I was distracted by a clear view of the New York skyline. I walked closer to take a photo and resumed my walk. I wanted to get something to drink from the vending machine first. After getting my drink, I was ready to get going, when someone stopped me. It was the same person from the Hillel event; earlier, he offered me Hamantaschen, but I was very full. He stood behind me holding up his cup of Hamantaschen. I laughed awkwardly and took two from him, then continued on my way. But before getting far, I decided to turn around and talk to him. It was a good conversation. He invited me to go to his synagogue one time and offered to introduce me to the Rabbi. I told him that I have not been satisfied with the observance of the Reform movement, and since he’s conservative, he told me that might be a good fit for me. I have been considering just that for months. I told him I was trans, and he reacted very surprised. He said he couldn’t tell; that was very nice to hear. It made me happy. So he said, Orthodox is definitely off the table, no objection there, and I want something deeper than Reform. So, conservative it is. Pesach was just next week, and we decided it would be too much for my introduction. We’ll see how this goes. I have not gone to the temple in about a year. I feel sad about that and feel like an imposter when I wear my Magen David since I’m not Jewish and I’m not actively converting. I know I’ll get there. Hopefully, now that I feel better, I’ll be able to move forward with that. And that’s been pretty much it. I’m finishing writing this post from Mexico; we’re on a trip with my grandma and aunt, and I’m exhausted because I woke up at 4 a.m., took a delayed 5-hour flight, then rushed to get from one terminal to the other and took another delayed one-hour flight. We managed to get dinner but couldn’t do much else for the day. So I’m happy to say that I feel better. It’s been rough, but I’ve found solace in my work. I create amazing things, which in turn motivates me to keep going. I know one day all this hard work will pay off, and I’ll be doing something I really enjoy, no matter how tedious it is, designing.

Emotional Abuse

Emotional Abuse

This one has been in the back of my mind for a while, I want to recollect these terrible moments I guess, just to let it out. As I write this post, I can hear my mom saying “stop blaming me for your problems.” That is not my intention at all here, I just want to share my stories, as I do in this blog. During my last mini depressive episode, I was talking to the wall about maybe telling my mom about my growing suicidal thoughts; she’s really all I have and I would like her help through this. Immediately though, I am reminded of the time we went for a walk and I told her I didn’t want to live anymore. Her simple response was, “do it.” Perhaps she thought I was not capable of ending my life, but that response made it clear that I was on my own and that the closest person to me wouldn’t care if I died. As I decided I’m never bringing up the topic with my mom again I get another flash. We went to the beach in Mexico with my aunt and cousin, I must have been 14 at the time. My mom and I got into one of our classic arguments, sparked by some of the most ridiculous shit that half the time we don’t remember what even started it. This time with just the two of us in the room, I decided to drink an entire water bottle without letting go of it once—yea, I don’t know why. I was almost done, the bottle all crumpled up under the pressure, when my mom started talking to me. I signal to her to hold up a little with humming-like noises. She disliked the noises and we begin shouting. Some time later something came over me, I began slamming a coffee mug on my head as my aunt bursts into the room to stop the fight. She restrained me, very tightly, while my mom opened up the curtains, opened the door to the balcony and shouts at me something along the lines of: Want something more effective? Jump off from here! My aunt took me down to the pool with my cousin. As a child, my mom got mad at me, went grab some scissors and came to my room where I was on my bed, coiled up against the wall, hugging my favorite plush toy, a bee. She climbed on the bed, took the bee from me and proceeded to cut it up. She got it fixed weeks later. Writing this one made me cry, I guess that’s what I want, to let it all out. During arguments she would threaten to give me up to foster care, or orphanage, or military school, or mental asylum, or my dad when he was still alive. She would grab the phone and call, or pretend to. Many times she would pack some of my clothes, taking me as far as the main entrance of our building. One time she had my dad come all the way to our house only to turn him away, he lived really far. On several occasions she called the police, twice they came, but never up to our apartment, I remember the sirens. Then there’s the countless insults; you are stupid, you are an idiot, you are retarded. She was specially mean after my autism diagnosis, again, calling me retarded and stupid when I wore my earplugs and glasses. She came into my room one time to tell me I looked stupid with my autism pride t-shirt, however I decided to cover my ears and scream at the top of my lungs to avoid hearing her, it worked though I was called crazy. As a child I would go to her room to show her whatever I was playing with; when she was watching tv, she would sigh in disgust and turn up the volume really loud. She would do the same with earphones, blasting the volume and ignoring me altogether. She would ignore me for hours after a conflict, completely refusing to acknowledge me or anything I said, even if it was important. When I was in kindergarten I forgot my coat at home, my mom refused to let me go get it and proceeded to blast the coldest air in the car for a while. One time she took me to a mental hospital instead of taking me to school without telling me. She tried doing the same she did to my bee plush to my Kizuna AI plush but I quickly ran to her room and grabbed her dog plush threatening to do the same. And there was also physical abuse, or parenting as I knew it. Spanking, by hand or with the thickest belt ever—she would tell me the metal end would work better,—slapping. At a certain age I began covering myself, which was interpreted as me hitting back, though I did sometimes. During an argument she started spraying air freshener at me. Then she grabbed the nearby can or Raid and sprayed that on me too. One day I wanted to do some changes to the settings on our security cameras but I needed to restart the WiFi router, despite not doing anything important, my mom told me I shouldn’t do it. I tried arguing my case but she got fed up with me quickly and things got out of control. My mom scratched my right hand because I was blocking her way—I know I was wrong, I was telling her I wanted to have a peaceful conversation but she kept ignoring me; walking away was never our best quality—a lot of blood was coming out. I got really mad and started shouting really loudly so everyone would know what she did. My mom told me I should call police on her and later she began hitting herself on the temples repeatedly, saying “I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid…” I developed a scar that looks like a cat scratch. We’re both fucked, I don’t know what else to say. I know I didn’t make things easy, but regardless, some behaviors are just not okay to do, no matter what the child has done. I regret not walking away when I should have, and I regret being pushy at times, I know that just made everything worse. After my psychosis, when I was getting assessed at the hospital, the doctor was impressed by my experiences, he asked if I considered it emotional abuse. I responded that I didn’t, in my mind I was thinking that it just was the kind of parenting that I got. Needless to say, I don’t think that way anymore. All this certainly shaped the way I live today. I mean, when my mom gets mad at the cat, when I hear that tone in her voice, I get scared, as if she is mad at me. Same thing when she stomps the ground dramatically, it’s so triggering. And yet, I don’t know what I would do without her. She gives me everything I could ever want. We have a great place, we never worry about food, she brought me over to live in the US, she pays my college tuition, she accepted me as trans and pays for my HRT, etc. But a hug, an “I love you,” they are almost nonexistent. If only that could change. I often think I should start doing it myself, but it would take so much out of me, and I have never done it before, and I think my mom is stuck in the same situation. I don’t know what to do.

Calm?

Calm?

It's been two weeks since my antipsychotic dose was increased, and, I feel good. Everything is quieter, the voices have disappeared, it is so relieving. My mood has stabilized, and I feel happy most of the time, though I still have ups and downs. School started again, it’s looking exciting but it will be a lot of work. I’m doing good so far, I’m going to design an assistive keyboard for autism for one class—I have so many ideas. I’m calm and happy most of the time, however, there are times when I feel terribly sad. It mostly comes out of nowhere, or actually, I have noticed it happens after some kind of inconvenience such as getting stuck doing schoolwork or cracking my screen protector. Suddenly, I begin feeling sad to the point of crying for no reason. Intrusive thoughts flood my mind, they are about my future or past actions. Then, after more crying, suicidal thoughts begin. I have noticed that my suicidal thoughts are becoming stronger, I mean, it’s getting harder to resist them. I have asked to die, I have held a knife up to my neck; but something still prevents me from doing it. I really don’t want to die; on good days when I feel happy, I feel so grateful I didn’t give in and didn’t die. Something dumb happened to me at school. I arrived at the parking lot just as the bus was leaving. I was late so I decided to run to the next stop to catch it. I began running uphill and when I was crossing the street, still running, I suddenly fainted. It felt like my usual fainting after standing, but this time I was in motion, and I couldn’t feel it coming, otherwise I would have stopped running. I face-planted on the pavement and scraped my hands and chin. I did catch the bus tho. I arrived late to class and after a while, I decided to check my laptop; its corner broke. I know I cannot run uphill because of my fainting, which might be POTS, but I couldn’t feel any signs I was about to faint, it was only when I was already falling that my vision blacked out. I’ve been feeling extremely tired during the day because of my new dose. It’s impossible to wake up, I end up doing it three hours after my alarm goes off. One day I arrived home past my meds time and I had a thought, I wouldn’t take my meds to see if I would have more energy the next day. And I did, I woke up at 7 and was very productive for the day which in turn made me happy. Around my second week, I received an email saying that TEDx is coming to my school. Doing a TED talk has been a lifelong dream of mine so I began thinking about applying. I hesitated for a week, but finally, I decided what I was going to talk about, my mental health journey. I want to tell people that they shouldn’t sacrifice their wellbeing for schoolwork. Update Mar 11 It had been two perfect, happy weeks. I dreaded the moment I would feel sad again; it happened. As usual, suicidal thoughts are stronger than before, I would even say stronger than before the hospital; but those weren’t suicidal thoughts, it was the voices telling me to hurt myself. I do not see the point in life, I do not know why I would want to drag on the pain. I know I should ignore these thoughts and wait until it all passes. I try to remember when I’m happy, how thankful I feel I didn’t give in to those thoughts. Yet, during these moments the only way out I see is death. Update Mar 12 Sigh… That was one of the worst episodes yet. I feel better today, I woke up at 12 and went to the store, and later went for a 10 kilometer walk, yeah, I had a lot of energy. I still don’t know what the point of life is, but I know that if I keep doing nothing other than crying all day, discovering my purpose is only going to be harder. Update Mar 17 So, once again my hope is gone. I was planning to work very hard today, I have to present five concepts tomorrow of my keyboard, I have nothing. During the first phase of our project I was feeling terrible, so I didn’t sketch much and thus, I don’t have anything to work with for the second phase. I also wasted last week because of feeling depressed. Well, I couldn’t do anything today. I began feeling suicidal and very fatigued so I went to lie down. The whole morning went by. I went to the kitchen and grabbed the hot sauce, I poured it on my hand and licked it. I kept doing it until my mouth went numb and I felt very dizzy. I did it again at night. I’ve been toying with my knife on my skin. I don’t want to go to the hospital again, the suicide hotline is crap, my mom is mad at me because I didn’t go to the supermarket this morning and won’t talk to me. I feel lonely, tomorrow is going to be terrible. I want to die. I don’t want to. I just want this to stop, I don’t want to be depressed, I want my life and motivation back. Not just in little glimpses, fully back. I want to do things, Hashem has a plan for me or I wouldn’t have woken up today, I want to find out what that plan is. How can I do this by myself? Mar 18 I decided to still attend class, everyone’s projects are amazing, I think they all met during the weekend while I knew nothing. .I didn’t eat this morning and I feel terrible. Someone left a box of thumbtacks where I sit and I cannot avoid pricking my fingers with them. The thought that I don’t belong here keeps getting stronger, no matter how good I am at many of the things we do. If not product design, what else am I good for? I don’t know what will happen if I go talk to a counselor here at school. I think I’m gonna leave and go eat something. I’ll return for my second class today. I don’t even know where to go without feeling paranoid. Maybe go read Torah in the library, hopefully that will make me feel better. I don’t want to die but these thoughts are so strong. There was a fire alarm the moment I arrived at the library. As I go down the stairs I think I should just stay. I feel lonely, I cannot see a way forward, I cannot see my life ever improving; this is not me, I’m usually very optimistic. I want the pain to end.

Voices

Voices

This is my first post published directly to my public blog, thanks to everyone that has visited. So far I have published posts that I wrote over the last two years, though I still need to publish some more, but I hope the writing style is enjoyable! So, I don’t know what to do, I still hear the voices narrating my actions, I keep getting into those dissociative moments where I lay down in weird positions, and during our trip to Mexico, my aunt told me she heard me talking to someone when there was no one there. I have my next appointment with the psychiatrist soon so I’m writing this to remember my symptoms because my mind tends to go blank when he’s asking me things. I don’t really have much to say for this post, maybe I’ll publish an update later. Update Wednesday 15th I thought I should comment on those dissociative episodes I have. Just now I felt one coming, I began feeling numb, tired out of nowhere, I began to move my head around pointlessly, however, this time I decided to play some music loudly, and it seems that prevented it. So, these episodes happen at least twice a week, like I said, I begin feeling numb and tired, so I lay down. My head and arms begin to drift and move pointlessly around, I move my head side to side, I hold my arms up in the air, roll around in bed, and at this point I feel completely out of it, without being able to snap out of it. I feel like I’m not myself, but I seem to be able to remember the event. Minutes go by until I begin to feel really tired from all of the moving and gradually stop. During these episodes I have also punched my pillow—quite aggressively—before throwing it across the room. And I have also hit myself like that time with the stim toy. Before the antipsychotic, it was during these episodes that I heard voices the most, I would have full blown conversations with people who weren’t there, but now I don’t hear any voices during an episode. After it all stops and I realize I’ve just been through one of these again, I begin to cry and feel very sad. I miss not having all these symptoms, I just want my life to be normal again. I should also mention to the doctor the camera hallucination, even though it has stopped, and those countless times I talked to people who were not really there. And also that every time I hear a voice, I always think it’s a real person talking, but my mom tells me that it’s all in my head. Update Saturday 18th Today’s morning was terrible. The voice began telling me how everyone was plotting to kill me, that’s why everyone stares at me; I began covering my ears while recoiling on the floor but it wouldn’t go away. I have felt really paranoid for the rest of the day along with having some fleeting suicidal thoughts. Update Sunday 26th I told my psychiatrist about the recurring voices, he didn’t say much, he increased my Risperidone dose to 2 mg and recommended to go to the hospital if symptoms keep getting worse to get reevaluated. I thought he would be able to tell me what is happening to me, but apparently not. The increased dose has been making me very sleepy in the mornings, but overall feel calmer and hear less voices.

Camera Hallucination

Camera Hallucination

I was just out on the patio, talking to my grandma’s dog in English like I used to do—maybe just talking alone, or to myself—and I couldn’t help but notice that words weren’t coming out of me the way it used to be. I would talk alone for hours, getting absolutely lost in believing that behind the camera floating around me were people who loved watching me going about my day. I livestreamed 24/7 to an audience of some 200 people, the camera automatically pivoted to whatever I wanted to share, and when it pointed at me, I would smile at it, gesture, and talk to it as if I were talking to a real person. I can only imagine myself talking to the wall… That hallucination formed part of my daily life for years, and I loved it. I felt I was famous and felt happy for having people who wanted to watch me. My imagined audience kept me company when I was most lonely, and I made them laugh and have a good time. The last time I remember talking to my audience vividly was on my way to the hospital. Encouraging messages flooded the chat—appeared in my head—they were glad I was getting help. That night I began taking Risperidone, an antipsychotic. The following days I felt my paranoia was weaker, voices stopped. And something else stopped, the camera hallucination. I still talked alone, but to no one in particular, just to the air. I was overjoyed about not feeling as paranoid, and definitely glad the voices had stopped, and I just now came to realize how much the camera hallucination meant to me. I feel lonely now that there is no audience to interact with, I don’t feel special anymore, and it makes me sad.