off to Korea and Japan!

I feel stressed from the significant days that have passed but also excited about this trip with good friends. It's a weird mix. Which resulted in horrible dreams last night, feeling really emotionally unwell and feeling like I had to go to the hospital and wanting to use drugs in my dream. Ugh. Today's our last day to get ready eek. Of course I also dreamt that I was packing and then forgot stuff. I really hope that doesn't actually happen. Well anyway, the purpose of this trip is for my fiance to meet my grandpa. It really sucks that it's too late to see my grandma. I think it's starting to hit me now that I will never see her again. It's quite a shock. But hopefully we will have some good times. See you again in June!

oh mother's day

every year you come to torment me. everybody on facebook and even at church must go on about how great their moms are. well, i have someone to at least buy a present for, my future mother-in-law. it was great to see how much she liked it. but it isn't enough. i'm still upset and the day is already in the past. it was yesterday. so wtf? honestly, no words describe how i feel. it's a horrible mix of frustration, anger, grief, loss etc. arg, i hate you mother's day.

Semester's over!

Wow, I didn't think I'd make it at one point. But here I am and I just finished my last final yesterday! And I finished it in one and a half hours when it's a three hour exam! I feel pretty confident that I got a good mark. And I got an A in the other course. Amazing considering I missed so much school while in the hospital. But now it's like, what do I do with myself? I have no studying to do! Well actually, I need to get ready and plan for a trip to Korea and Japan which is coming up really soon. I can't wait to experience Asia with good friends without relatives that worry if I'll get lost or not. I don't need to be babied. I just get lost easily but that's not a big deal.

May 4th

It's a wonderful coincidence that the day my mother died is also Star Wars day. I love Star Wars. But alas, it doesn't help much with the grief. It also didn't help that my SO was away for his sister's wedding and it was the day before my last final. I became overcome with grief and cried a lot. Till I got sick of it. Thankfully I did study a lot before that. I just miss her so much. Which is normal. But then there's the slightly abnormal stuff: I feel like I lost the one perfect person in my life who I want to be an exact replica of. I guess the part of me that got brainwashed by my mom when I was little is still there somewhere, still making my mom into some god-like person who always pointed out my faults and how much better she was than me. So I always hated myself and wished I could be just like her, witty, on-the-ball, fast, sociable, classy-looking etc... Everything I was not. So, some part of me misses that too, someone to tell me what to do and how to be. I feel like I lost an essential part of myself when she died.

And now it's been 10 years and I can't believe it. It's been so long but the pain is still fresh. I ran into a girl with a large tattoo that said "time heals nothing" at a St. Patrick's parade once and I told her I agree. Still agree. I don't know if that's because, as my doctor put it, I have pathological grief or what. At least I don't hate her anymore for what she did to me when I was little. I know she was unwell herself. I just wish so much that she could be here with me, watch me grow up into an adult, see my new place, meet my fiance, give her opinion on my life choices, come to my eventual wedding, be proud that I am no longer an active addict, laugh and cry with me. But instead here I am crying by myself.

It was hard doing my final this morning. I had puffy eyes which I think scared my professor when she came to check in on me. She was like "do you have any questions?" and already started stepping away when I looked up and she saw my face. But I think I did well anyway. Although I am in pain, I can take comfort that my mom is with the Lord now, Jesus personally came to me and told me so in that dream I wrote about a while ago. I truly appreciate that Lord.

oh all I had to do was pray

It took nearly three weeks of using dreams for me to think, wait, I should pray for peace for my dreams. DUH. As soon as I asked the Lord to bless my dreams the drug imagery stopped. It's been 2 nights now without any drug using or chasing in my dreams. Hallelujah! I also promised myself that I would read over/meditate on Hebrews 13:5-6 everyday. Of course I have broken this promise but I am still trying to think of it as often as I can. It goes like this:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with all that you have, because the Lord has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"

I find the first part really relevant to how I feel I look. I get covetous so easily when I see a woman prettier than me. I'm also very bothered by the fact that I just keep gaining weight, probably because of psychiatric meds. I'm trying to cut down on calories but I don't want that to take over my life and I'm sick of never feeling pretty enough. I want to be content with the way God made me look. But it's so hard to do. Especially as a Korean woman who has to look perfect and skinny all the time. The stuff that God says in the passage is relevant to me staying sane in the face of my PTSD. Next February I DO NOT want to be in the hospital AGAIN. Some deep part of me needs to accept that God is always with me, will never reject me and is my helper. If I truly feel these truths then logically I shouldn't have another meltdown. I hope.

what the heck is going on inside my head

Sometimes it is a mystery what is going on inside my head. It's been like 3 weeks of using dreams every single night. I prayed about it and last night was the first night in a while that I didn't have a using dream. Instead it was a nightmare where I had to kill people or be killed. I am concerned, because it must be a sign that things are not all that well up there. I also have been yelling at my SO a few times which I usually never do. I also seem more sensitive than usual. If something upsets my plans, I get more upset than normal. I thought it must be stress from school but now that I think about it, my dreams and reactions to life right now was not like this when I was at my most stressed just before being in the hospital. So what the heck? Why do I feel more on edge and tempted to get high? Yes, school must be a part of it but I don't think it explains everything. Maybe it's because I found out a while ago that my grandmother in Korea passed away. But I was never that close to her and she died peacefully at an old age. Perhaps I feel connected to her still because she was the only one with me when we saw my mom pass away. Which leads me to the question, am I also feeling stressed because May is coming up (the month that my mom died)? Last year, I organized a trip to Mt.Tremblant with friends and I was ok. No urges to hurt myself. So, I shouldn't be that upset this year no? It better not get worse. I have school work to do and my last final is on May 5th, the day after my mom died. Sigh.

school school school

I hate how life throws things at you all at once. Soon after getting out of the hospital, I caught a cold, had tons of school to catch up on and then my roommate says she got bedbugs. It was chaos here for a bit. I missed more school, our apartment got turned upside down because of the bedbugs and getting an exterminator to come and I'm still catching up in school. For a while I just wanted to give up and lie in bed forever. But that's all passed now mostly. I think we are bedbug free now, I've just been studying a lot. We got to hang out with friends for a bit too which was nice. I got to see my friend who just got out of the hospital for anorexia and she looks so much healthier which was really nice to see. Another friend celebrated officially becoming a woman after surgery and that was fun too. We went to a gay club and man it gets crazy in there. I almost feel too old to be in a place like that. Most of the people must've been high too. Now I have a midterm to do in a week, then a research paper and then a final exam. Then I'll be done this crazy semester! It's been so hard to catch up, I have hard courses this semester. I made sure next year I won't have it as bad in terms of courses but you never really know.
I guess the end of semester stress is getting to me though, I've had countless using dreams over the last two weeks and it's starting to drive me nuts. I haven't been able to go to church, small group or MA for a long time so maybe that's why. We're gonna go to the MA meeting this saturday for sure. I'm getting too tempted by my dreams. They mostly involve cocaine and marijuana. I have to keep telling myself that giving in and taking them will not help my situation at all and will only make it a lot worse. But there's that part of my brain that just doesn't seem to understand that, even after almost 2 years of abstinence. I can't believe how difficult addiction can be!