now is the time

Yup. It's happening. At last, I have gained the courage to step out into the big, scary world all alone. I am equal parts excited and utterly terrified for this new battle.

Three days ago (on 9 August 2014, I am going to mark this date in my memory forever), I decided that I have to set a too-big goal in a too-little times span or I will never accomplish any of my dreams. It only took a few hours to decide what I was going to do – as I have been dreaming of this adventure my entire life. And it took me even less time deciding when to do it, as I realized I have never had a real New Years Resolution. So, at some point between Dec 30 and Jan 1, I am going get on an Amtrak train that will take me to Austin, Texas and never bring me back. And I am going to start a new life there.

So far, I have been hit with two questions. I will address the answer to both.

1. Why Austin, Texas? What is there for you in Austin?
   The two times I have been there have been the only moments in my life where I felt like I fit in. I am weird. The city is weird. It's a perfect match. It also has more opportunity for me than other places that I have considered. I want to go back to school to study either neurology or forensic psychology. I also want to write. There, I can both find a place to study and be in a very media-centric area. The art, music, and television scene in Austin blows my mind. I have considered NYC and LA for similar opportunities, but Austin managed to win out. I feel safer there than in other large cities as people have always been kinder and more respectful toward me. It is also warmer than NYC, and since I will be leaving in winter, I don't want to possibly be stuck outside in the cold. And it is detached from the people I know in California who may either send me back home or allow me to be dependent on them. It is also midway between where I grew up (Pennsylvania) and where I want to end up (California).
2. Are you sure you're doing the right thing? What do your parents think?
   Firstly, my parents don't and aren't going to know about this. I don't need people trying to stop me. I need people who will support me. Secondly, yes. Yes, yes, yes I am absolutely sure this is the right thing to do. I have been in a situation that has left me feeling hopeless for too long. I can't do it anymore. If I continue just drifting by, I will end up killing myself before I reach 25. I know myself well enough to know that I have to take a giant leap to accomplish what I want to accomplish in life. I don't get places unless I completely throw myself out into open water and start swimming toward an island. For the next few months I will be meticulously planning this new start to my life – and in just three days of planning, I realize more and more that this is the right decision. I have mapped out shelters, social service offices, food pantries, churches, etc in the area – and I may even have a part-time job already waiting for me.

So far, since I have only been planning for a few days, I only have the basics worked out. I know where I will go in case of emergency. I know where to find shelters. Where to find food. Where to find trustworthy people. I have asked a friend in Texas if she can find someone who will allow me to use their address so I can be transferred to a new job (and hopefully open a bank account and a P.O. Box). I have read up on Austin's laws in regards to being homeless – panhandling, sleeping, showering, etc. I am developing a support system that includes people from all over – in case I get into any rocky situations. I have found people who will hold onto my most valuable possessions until I have a place to keep them myself. And more.

Things could take two directions upon my arrival in Austin. As I get into the city at 6:22 PM, my first night there I will almost definitely be on the streets all night. After that, it depends on how much support I can gather from other people. - As I said, I may have a part-time job there waiting for me. This will give me income, a place to store my work clothes, and a safe space to 'loiter'. I will immediately begin looking for either a second part-time job or a full-time job. Now, where I will be staying until I get an apartment is still in question. It is possible that I will be living on the streets until I can save enough money and find a cheap apartment with roommates. This is not ideal. I have found though that there is a Bed and Breakfast walking distance from where I may be working that has a $1,000 monthly rate. If I could afford this for one or two months, this would give me a chance to secure another job and find a place to live. I am very much hoping for this option as it will give access to a shower, bathroom, kitchen, washer/dyer, etc, and also provide me with safety that the streets can't give me.

I am reaching out now for help. I am currently working, but I will still need additional money to support myself for the first few months I am in Austin. I am hoping between work and the kindness of other people, I can raise $5,000 before Dec 30. This will cover my train ticket, two months at the bed and breakfast, a bus pass, food, etc. I will be leaving with nothing but a backpack full of essentials (in case I end up on the street, as I don't want anything particularly valuable stolen from me).

If you would like to help, I would be forever grateful.

I have opened a gofundme where donations can be collected for my train ticket, a place for me to stay, food, etc.

I have also created an amazon wishlist with basic items I will need.

And, if you would like to send anything else (ex: gift cards or cheaper versions of items on my wishlist), you can email me at jalyssarussell@gmail.com and I will provide you with an address in which you can send mail. If you know of a cheaper place for me to live (even for just a month or two), please email me at this email address as well.

It would mean so much.

My Closest Friends Are Geese

Many people have seen or heard stories of dogs sticking by their fellow dogs who have been hit by cars – and even dragging them out of the middle of the street. There was one particular story floating around the internet with a picture of two dogs – one had been hit and the other refused to move from its side, not allowing anyone to even get close to it. Even though such stories are tearjerkers, I've never really bothered to put much thought into them.

I saw a goose get hit by a car yesterday. Well, I didn't really see the car hit it. To be exact, I saw the aftermath of a goose getting hit by a car yesterday. I saw the goose – two broken wings and a broken foot, dragging itself the rest of the way across the street. A mixture between hopping on its good foot and inching itself along on its stomach – like it was trying to swim on dry land. Alive at the time or not, the goose was clearly done for. It couldn't fly and it could barely attempt to walk. The probable internal injuries taken into mind, I have no doubt that the goose will be dead by tomorrow at the latest.

I wonder if animals have the potential to lose hope. I'm sure that some do. There are several creatures besides humans that have been capable of expressing complex characteristics and brain functions. Elephants and dolphins, for example. Both have shown themselves to be intelligent and also to be capable of developing friendships with their own species and with others. I'm not 100% sure of the accuracy, but I once read that primates in captivity losing interest in the outside world and repetitively counting their fingers instead of interacting is a sign that they have lost hope. So I wonder if geese can lose hope. If something in their brain can trigger a sense that they are dying and they find themselves with the option to keep going or just give up.

If geese can lose hope, this one was a fighter. It made it all the way across the rest of the road and kept going. I could write an entire blog post on an inspiring goose that was clearly dying but decided to keep going until the very end.

But that wasn't what struck me. It definitely wasn't what led me to the internet to research the habits of Canadian geese, nor was it what led me to write a blog post on them.

In front of the injured goose was the rest of its flock. I never really took the time to think about what geese do when a member of their flock is injured. (...which is actually odd, because that definitely seems like something I would take the time to think about and spend an entire day bothering my friends [particularly Alexx] about.) I've always seen geese as assholes. Because they are assholes. So in my head, it's always been that a goose dies and its asshole friends and family are like 'Did you see Gary walk right out in front of that car? What an idiot. How did he survive past being an egg.' and then they move on to chase unsuspecting creatures and eat everything in creation (then poop it out all over the damn place). Because really, geese are just assholes.

Though, unfortunately, I can no longer be so adamant that geese are evil creatures created by Satan for the sole purpose of infesting the earth with a desire to kill anything standing between them and food.

The rest of this goose's flock did not fly off and let it there to die alone. In fact, they stayed only a few steps in front of it as it dragged itself along. Every few seconds, they would stop and turn around to make sure it was still there – honking rather quietly at it as they did so, as if to encourage it to keep going. I was stunned. (I really had no good feelings about geese. None. Not even a kind of good feeling.) The geese in the flock slowed their pace and even stopped to wait when need be. I knew that ducks would do this for their ducklings, but I never considered that geese may do this for their fellow flock members.

At first, I considered it was just instinct. Something in the geese said 'You can't move on unless all of your flock is with you'. But when did instinct fizzle out? When the goose was mostly dead? When the goose was completely dead? Was it all about instinct? Or did this flock of geese actually care about this injured goose? Thoughts flooded my brain until I had the chance to go home and research the characteristics of flocks of geese.

It turns out that if you want to be a decent human, you should probably forget being a human and aspire to be a goose.

Geese show a strong devotion to other members of their flock. (Random fact: Did you know that geese are monogamous? That's right. It isn't just penguins. Geese will find and mate with one other goose for the rest of their lives.) Geese are highly emotional in their connections to one another – especially when a fellow flock mate is on the brink of death. If a goose has become sick or injured, two flock mates will stay with it until it is either well or has died. They will honk encouragement to it. And if it dies, the flock will mourn its death. I think that is a development that surpasses just instinct.

I am lucky enough lately that a few of my friends have devoted themselves to being geese. Not even just two, but three. I feel like the goose that was hit by a car and dragging itself across the road. The past few weeks have been the car. I've been lonely. I've been sick. My mental health is taking its toll, and my meds no longer seem to be working. I constantly want to die. Everything I do is insulted or mocked by family. I seem to be slowly losing my job – or at least being deemed inadequate, working for an hour and a half then being asked to leave because someone can do my job later. My grandfather has cancer. Life in general is just a mess. I can't get control over myself, and no one seems to understand. Every time I try to be positive, I seem to be slammed back to the ground by a problem even worse than the last. So I stop trying in order to protect myself and I am deemed just one of those negative people who brings others down. And no one wanting to be around me, people getting tired of me, not feeling understood, loved, or like I have any support – it just makes everything worse. It just enforces that not only is everything going wrong, I am wrong as well.

I am just dragging myself across the highway with a limp foot and two broken wings – waiting for the inevitable.

Yet, somehow, three people manage to stick with me – looking to make sure I am still here and honking encouragement while the rest fly off. I am probably not going to get very far. I think everyone knows that by now. I have no desire left to keep dragging myself and more cars seem to just keep running me over. Still, they are here for now, standing on the other side of the road.

Sometimes I hate them. I hate them because I can see they made it across the road and I didn't. I hate them because I know they are going to get somewhere and I am just broken. Other times, I admire them. I imagine what it must be like on the other side of the road. Their successes at being functional people in life give me something to dream about. Then I feel guilty that they have to stand there, watching me get hit by car after car. Something else must be calling them and I am holding them back. And I wish the last car would hit and it would all be over with.

Mostly, when the last car does hit, I hope they're the last thing I see. Because it means someone believed in me to the very end and felt that I was important enough to stick by even when it was clear that it was a hopeless cause.

And now the one animal that I wished to never see is the one that I aspire most to be.

Clouds

I don't want to disappear as much as I wish I could view the world in Universal Omniscient – a narrator in life rather than a character, watching and observing my surroundings without having my own story. I envy the clouds that float across the sky, able to see everything but feel nothing. They explore the world, from the skyscrapers in New York City to the Himalayan mountain tops – free of fear, bound by nothing. They travel wherever the wind takes them. And even on days when they flood the world with their sadness or rip it to shreds with their anger, they can't be touched. They continue toward their next destination, able to view the entire world on their journey.

I, like everyone else, view my surroundings through First Person Limited – thrown into the mess of life while only truly seeing myself. I'm forced to interact with my surroundings. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. There are no breaks. There is no chance to view the world from up high, free of tethers. The strength of the clouds as they release everything they've pent up inside of them is seen as weakness in me. That which makes them needed is that which makes me unwanted. And I wonder if I'll ever even have a next destination – unable to even fathom how I might get to it. I want to disconnect myself from life – removing myself as the main character of my story while still being able to view the beauty and tragedy in the world. I want to be untouched, a silent observer of life and death, able to eventually move on and allow people to experience the sun that shines through when I'm no longer around.

And it kills me that the only reality of escape is to simply disappear.

To observe as myself is to take but not contribute – to become more of a burden. To not exist as myself is to do neither – providing others with sun.

To compromise, I consider becoming a different person. I develop an image in my head of the person I should be – someone with different likes, different positive traits, different flaws, different ways of thinking. Someone so vastly different from who I am now that that person has to be 'good'. Someone who can interact with the world without causing turmoil. I imagine being someone intelligent who is a good friend and a welcomed acquaintance. I imagine being someone who never takes but always gives. I try to be someone who will get somewhere in life and who won't burden others with their presence. I reinforce the idea that I am bad, but my attempts to be good only seem to make me worse.

I wonder if it's possible to hate yourself so much that everything in you simply gives up. Because as I was taken to the ER the other night, controlled by vomiting and panic, it felt as though my mind and body had simply given up. And now, I don't particularly want to get out of bed. I don't think I'm sick as much as I am done with being myself – someone so selfish and unlovable. I think maybe I would feel better if I wasn't me.

But I am me – and I want to close my eyes and disappear.

The Bee Room

It isn't stressed enough how frightening mental illness can be (and almost always is) to those who experience it. Fear can range from a creeping nervousness to pure terror – often sliding back and forth across its own fear spectrum without ever stopping. The bouts of calm are few and far between. And, still, it is just a calm before the next storm. And I want to stress it again: mental illness is frightening. And invalidating a person's feelings or perceptions makes it all the more scary.

Because not everyone's minds work the same, I can only speak for myself in this post – but I know that there are people out there who will be able to relate. Lately, I have felt under attack. Am I under attack? I honestly do not know. There are few ways that I know how to reach out to others when I am in this state of mind, and the ways I do know how to reach out seem to always backfire on me. Everyone needs reassurance and positive attention – some people more than others (and more often than others). I am one of those people who constantly needs reassured that I am loved and that there is nothing 'wrong' with me. I need reassured that I am good, or I am sure that I am bad. And I need it more than ever on the days where I am sure the world is out to get me. But as I reach out in whatever desperate ways I can manage, it always ends with negativity. I am an attention-seeker. I am ungrateful. I am annoying. I am many things – and none of them are good. And, already feeling under attack, I become more defensive and more desperate.

Imagine being in a room with a bee. (You're also allergic to bees.) “I need someone to remove this bee,” you shout at the closed door, huddling in the corner. The bee is not attacking you, but there is potential that it might. There is silence. “Please, remove the bee!” You finally receive an answer, but it isn't one you were hoping for. “Stop shouting!” yells a person who does not know you are allergic to bees – and you're stuck in a room with one, either unable to open the door or just too afraid to move out of the corner. The bee is riled up by the noise. You panic. You hit the wall, trying to draw in the attention of someone who can help you. People begin to get angry and annoyed. They hit the wall back. You cry and hit the wall harder. “Stop looking for attention!” someone yells. “There probably is nothing even in there!” another person announces, unable to see what you do. Suddenly, you're beginning to doubt the existence of the bee and you feel guilty for crying out. It buzzes menacingly while people continue to shout. “There are people who have to deal with bees every day! Some people even have to deal with worse! Get over it! You should be grateful it's only one bee!” But that one bee, something that looks so small to everyone else, might just be the death of you. And while the people around you don't think that they are causing any harm (only trying to make you see the 'truth'), they don't understand that they are suddenly part of the potential attack.

Finally, as you're reaching exhaustion and feeling as though no one cares about your safety, someone does come to help you. But no matter what they do, they just can't open the door. It's not their fault. It's not your fault. Even as the people who were previously just hitting the walls and yelling back at you are shouting, “Someone is actually trying to help you! You won't even let them in! Do you even WANT to be helped?!” The door is just stuck.

And what can you do besides accept your fate or become all the more desperate.

The people who didn't understand your situation to begin with either leave the building or continue to yell at you for your fear and desperation to be helped. And, eventually, the people who had shown up to help but found that they couldn't get through the door either join those who are yelling or leave as well. You scream at them not to leave. You don't want to be alone. But they're tired and they want to go home. They don't want to hear you yelling for help when you both know you can't be helped by them. There is nothing they can actively do for you. Sitting outside the door seems useless to them – even though it means the world to you, knowing they're still there. You feel so alone. Even the people who do stay are behind a door, and even though you can talk to them and you appreciate that they are there and you don't want them to leave, you still feel so alone. You can't help it. You just want to be on the outside with them.

People come and tell you to help yourself. You throw your shoe at the bee. It hits. For awhile, you think the bee is dead. But it isn't. You throw your other shoe. The same thing happens. And then you are out of shoes. The bee sits on top of them. And people continue to tell you that you just have to help yourself. You're strong. It's not like anyone else can help you. You're bigger than the bee! If you don't get yourself out of this mess, you clearly want to be in it. But they don't understand that one little sting can kill you. That sometimes you get so close, but the bee can fly and it is faster than you.

They recommend (sometimes condescendingly) that you get professional help. So an exterminator comes. He sprays something to kill the bee under the door. You cough and wheeze and eventually beg him to stop. The spray makes you feel as though the life is being sucked out of you. He tries a different bee spray. This time you feel nauseated and you can't stop crying. He suggests maybe you should talk about the bee. You describe it in detail, but you wonder if he even believes you. He diagnoses you with a bee allergy as though you didn't already know you were allergic. He also tells you that you seem to have a bad habit of biting your nails. You should probably slide some money under the door for another session so you can talk about that too. Oh, and if you need him, he is only available next week for one hour. But you should be fine until then. 

You're confined to a corner, feeling helpless. The people who have told you they don't even think there is a bee in the room with you leave you questioning whether or not your perception of the bee is real. Those who yelled at you for seeking attention make you feel guilty for your desperation for help. You want to kill yourself before the bee can, but you're scared and you voice it – and people respond by telling you if you were going to kill yourself, you wouldn't be telling others you want to be dead. You would just die in silence. You think maybe they want you to die in silence. They call back the professional who deems you as a hazard to yourself and takes the rest of your money for another session to talk about the bee. I mean, maybe if you talk about it, the bee will slowly start to disintegrate or something. There are the people who have left you, making you feel unworthy of being helped – annoying, a burden, self-centered, someone with nothing to give to anyone else. And you begin to fear for the day when the people still behind the door finally get up and leave as well. You cling to their presence tightly, accidentally smothering them.

Suddenly the entire world seems to be against you. In reality, outside the door, it isn't. But from where you are confined with that bee, that little speck of mental illness, there is only fear. And it seems like nothing will ever change.

I just want to tell you that if you know someone who struggles with mental illness, it is not always that they just want the attention on themselves. It's not always that they're not thinking about you. It's not always that they're annoying, needy, frustrating people. It is not always that they don't want to help themselves. Or that they want to turn down the help that you're trying to offer. They're stuck inside their heads with a bee and the door won't open. And the best thing you can do is not to get angry, not to yell, not to invalidate them, not to accuse them, not to try to convince them you understand when you're standing in a world outside the door. The best thing you can do if your loved one is struggling is to sit beside the door and let them know that you plan to stay.

You don't need to sit there 24/7. You can get up – take care of your own needs. Please, take care of yourself as well. Eat, sleep, take time for yourself, do things that make you happy – and don't let anyone make you feel guilty for being happy just because they are not. But when you can, sit down outside that door. And on particularly bad days, offer some reassurance that someday, the door will open. And if the person on the other side gets angry, yelling that the door is never going to open, remember that it's fear speaking. People who struggle with mental illness, in a way, are in fear for their lives – especially those who struggle severely.

Be kind. Even if you can't see past our door, to us the terror is very real.

Don't let anyone treat you badly though – ill or not. Don't accept abuse. If someone hurts you, get out.

But for those of you who know people who kind, good people but are just stuck in their heads with a bee...

It would mean the world if you could sit outside the door with a flyswatter, offering comforting words and hoping with us that the door will someday open and we will be free.

I Can't Write

I had started a blog post a long while ago about returning home from my trip to Texas and California to move into a new apartment – but it got lost in Lamictal-induced lack of creativity. Everything seems to get lost in that lately. I have a novel to write, a blog to keep up with, and several crafts I'm working on – but psychiatric meds have a way of zapping your creativity and motivation until it is completely gone. It bothers me because I am a writer. I have been writing since I was twelve. All of my hopes and dreams for the future and the present include writing. And what's most unfortunate is that when I can write, I'm good at it. There are few things more devastating than no longer being able to pursue your talent.

I consider going off the meds. I'm on Zoloft (100mg), Lamictal (50mg), and Trazodone (50mg), but I've yet to decide whether or not that is the best idea. On one hand, I am more leveled when I'm on them. On the other hand, I feel as though I am going nowhere in my life without my writing. There is nothing else I want to do. I was meant to write. I need to write. And the meds have stopped me.

The past few weeks have brought a bucket load of new experiences, each one planting an idea in my mind that I'll never put onto paper. From traveling across the country by Amtrak to moving into an apartment with a horrifying attic to sitting alone on a beach watching fireworks, there has been muse surrounding me on all sides. But the moment I open Word, it's gone. Before the meds, I could write 24/7. I DID write 24/7. I would stay awake all night, skip school, skip work, shut myself alone in a room and bring stories to life.

Now the words I can't even convince myself to write are as dull as real life. It's as though I can't convince my brain to get out of bed anymore. I can't pursue the one thing in life that gives me purpose. And I question if I should tell my doctor that I would like to go off the meds.

LA Zoo Gallery

Home Is No Place Like There

I go back home tomorrow. Back to work, moving into a new apartment, then the same old day after day. I wish I could stay here forever. Or go back to Austin. Or keep traveling across the country. Anything that would make me feel independent and useful – anywhere that I have friends and people who like me, who I trust. I don't want to go back. I want to move and explore and meet new people and write things and try new things and not feel tied down. I hate feeling like I'm going nowhere. I love that my brain is tied up in traveling and exploring; I hate that I'm crazy and that I'm useless when it comes to finding a way to do it forever. And maybe that I'm just useless in general. I can't handle the day after day retail job or dealing with a constantly fighting family or missing people I've never met and places I've never been. Yet, there seems to be no way to have the things I want. So tomorrow, I go back home.

People I meet when I travel are different than everyone else. It's encouraging to be told that I'm intelligent or funny or creative or kind. I'm not bad or annoying to them. I don't get in the way. They want to ride with me on the train or sit down and talk with me for hours. They like my quirks and appreciate my talents. We get to know each other better in just a few hours than other people and I get to know each other in a lifetime. I guess when you only have a few hours and you're bored, you're not as inclined to brush people off. It makes me wonder why I feel so miserable around the people I know. It makes me wonder why I'm always just getting in the way and why I'm more likely to get insults and mocked than I am to get some encouragement and help. I wonder why people in new places approach me because they see something unique in me while people in the places I'm forced to exist in just want me out of their hair. I want to travel and to exist in places where I'm around people who want to be around me. I hate that I can hear in my head the voices of people I'm going back home to replying to that with, “You mean places like that exist?” Because then I doubt that they do, even though I've been to them.

And I really hate that there are people who make me feel worthless on a daily basis that will reply to this telling me how “great” I am then go back to treating me like dirt.

And that there are people who will respond with, “Well if you don't like how I treat you then leave.”

And that there are people who will tell me, “Well, I guess you should stop being lazy and work harder”, because they clearly don't understand the struggles I go through or how hard I already work every single second of my life.

I hate that I have to feel responsible for how other people treat me. And that I have to feel like I'm not doing enough to get to where I want to be. And I hate that strangers know me better than anyone who has “known” me for an extended period of time. I hate going back to a way of life that makes me feel worthless and not worth knowing. I hate going back to people who don't appreciate my interests or my areas of knowledge or how my mind works. I hate going back to people who don't care what I have to say when I speak. I hate going back to people who would rather do anything as long as it means they don't have to spend an extended period of time with me.

I want to go back to places where someone will brave the heat and new areas to find a place to have good ole Texas BBQ with me. Who cares if we're not 100% sure where we're going. We're going somewhere. I want to go back to places where someone will spend an entire day at the zoo with me and then come back to next day for 12 hours of intense roller coaster riding. Sleep can happen some other day. I want to be around strangers who trust me enough to tell me their deepest fears and darkest secrets. I want to be around friends who are content to cuddle up with me and talk about everything and nothing for so long that we lose track of time. I want to be around the people who tell me things they've never told anyone else, who hug me when I cry, who get into mischief with me, and who are intelligent and interesting and see that I am too in my own way.

I don't want to go back home. I want to go 'home' to all of the places I am comfortable and free to be me.