Since I've Been Gone...

It's been a while since I last updated on here, and the reason for my absence isn't good news. That's exactly why I haven't updated in so long too, because things have been rough for months. I was really hoping good things would happen or I would start to pull out of being so sick, and then I would have something good to write about...Or at least I could have a positive spin at the end of my downer of an update.
Sadly, after waiting months for better things to start happening, nothing's really changed. So, I guess I just need to suck it up and write about the negativity that has been my life for the past few months. Why now, today, am I suddenly going to write about everything? Well, that has to do with how my day went today.



I had another allergic reaction tonight.

I've been off of all medications for the past 2 months or so, to cleanse my body from the last allergic reactions I had back in September. Being off of everything is saying a lot too because 3 months or so ago (pre-allergic-reaction), I was taking roughly 50 pills a day. Most were supplements to make up for my nutrient lacking diet, but nevertheless, that's a lot of pills.

I took half of a pill tonight, one I've been on many times before and never had problems with, and within 15 minutes of taking it I recognized symptoms that I'm becoming much too familiar with. My tongue got tingly, and then my lips, and then my throat, and then the roof of my mouth... I felt jittery, my stomach didn't feel good, my chest felt tight, and my heart felt like it was beating different. By the first symptom of my tongue getting slightly numb, I was already mentally cursing because I knew what was happening. I was having an allergic reaction to the medication.

Since I've had more experience with allergic reactions, I drank liquid Benadryl, also took a Benadryl tablet, drank a lot of water, made myself eat, and then I took a nap. When I woke up from that nap I felt so much worse. Every symptom was still present, but the nausea was worse. At that point, I wished I hadn't woken up. At least in my sleep I wasn't actively thinking about it. But, I was awake. So, I ate many more times, hydrated as best as I could, and I've been resting as much as possible while I wait for it to pass.

After finally stabilizing enough and mustering up enough energy, I took a shower. While washing my hair, more hair than usual fell out when I washed it, and it really saddened me to see the clump of my already very thinned out hair in the palm of my hand. Standing there with the water hitting my tired and sore back, with a palm full of my hair in my much to thin and boney hand, I felt like sinking to the ground and crying. My body is literally falling apart and no matter how hard I've been trying these last few months, I can't stop that. I'm powerless, I'm withering away, and I'm only 18.

For some reason, I didn't end up crying. I finished showering, finished my nightly routine, and then I got in bed, grabbed my laptop, and instead of clicking onto my normal late night tab (Netflix. I've been bingeing Gilmore Girls. I so recommend it), I found myself coming here. Without thinking about it or having a post planned out, I just found myself writing this.

So, here I am...

It's 4:33am, my thinned out and fragile hair is still wet and cold from the shower, my frail hands are cold from the chilly night air of this first night of December, and I'm laying here in bed writing about how my life is falling apart; because what else can I do? Underneath the drowsiness and sick feelings I have going on right now, I can't deny the odd sense of déja vu that I'm feeling. As I'm laying here writing, utterly powerless as my life and body are crumbling, I feel oddly calm. I feel like I should be more scared or concerned than I am. I always felt that way... In the 4 years that this has been my life, I always stay so calm when things take a sudden turn for the worst. I guess this is just how I cope. Plus, by now, I'm just used to things like this. "It's just my life.", like I always tell people, as if that helps.

It's sad to me how used to all of this I am though...

After 4 years, we're still confused about what's wrong with me and we still don't understand why my body does what it does. We know I have Lyme Disease and many other co-infections, but we learned this year that something else is wrong. We just can't solidly figure anything out. I keep developing more and more allergies and we don't know why. We keep trying to make things better, but it seems like everything we try to do to turn things around just makes me worse.

I don't know if guilt is the right word to use to describe how I feel, but I definitely feel some level of responsibility for the frustrating situation we're in. It's my body that no one can figure out, and I know that I can't help that, but still... It's my body. I know it's not my fault and I can't control my body and how it reacts, but I wish I could. I wish I could do more than just sit here.

It's an extremely frustrating, and isolating position to be in. My whole illness in general is very isolating. Yes, I have a great family and good friends and a boyfriend who's always there for me, but no one really knows how it feels to be me. It's far from easy to live the life I live. People can't imagine how heavy it is to have my life...

This all has taken such a toll on me, and a clump of my hair falling out tonight was the shitty ending to an already very shitty day.

I wish I could just be done with all of this...



To quickly recap what has been going on in my life since I last updated:

I had a bad allergic reaction to an antibiotic back in September. It made me so sick that I lost 5 pounds in a week, started losing a lot of hair, and I since then still haven't been able to gain much weight back on. Also, my hair just continues to thin out. Now it's to the point that I'm concerned I may start balding and thats a heartbreaking thing to have to deal with at 18.
I was in the E.R. 2 times in September. (Bringing the total tally of how many times I've been in the E.R. in 2016 up to 5.) Since I last updated, I've had 5-ish IVs, a chest x-ray, 2 EKGs, and I may be getting an ultrasound soon (to check my ovaries for cysts.)
I've been extremely sick, to say the least. So sick that I had to drop out of my college classes by about October. It was such a hard and heartbreaking decision to have to make, but I knew it needed to be done. My sleep quickly got worse and never got better, so I've been practically nocturnal for months. I fall asleep at 7am and wake up at 4 or 5pm. So, I'm not around people as much because of my flipped sleeping schedule.
I basically stopped writing by October because I was too depressed. In fact, I've been so depressed that I've barely been functioning. I stopped most of my hobbies because I had no energy. Pretty much besides sleeping all day and eating late into the night to try and keep my calorie intake up, I haven't done much of anything. It's been really really hard for a few months, and theres no sugar coating that. It's sucked and I haven't really enjoyed being alive. That's just the harsh truth. I'm back to where I was 4 years ago, every thing fell apart...again. I had to quit school, I had to let go of my dreams, I lost friends, I lost myself, and I was back to wishing I'd just go in my sleep so I don't have to deal with this anymore. The only real significant difference, is for all of September and most of October, I couldn't make it a week without crying really hard. Like, it wasn't just crying, it was painful, hard crying. Keep in mind that I'm not a cryer, at all. 4 years ago, I never cried. I went almost 2 years without crying, and in September I just lost it. I really fell apart. I was a mess.

I'm not saying I'm not a mess anymore, I just decided it was time for me to stop waiting. I waited long enough for things to turn around, and it's time for me to talk about the negatives and start moving past it. I had to let go of a lot of dreams (school being one of them) and I had to re-think my entire life...again. So, after a lot of thinking, I made a fashion blog. I love fashion and that's something that won't have to be vulnerable for me to write about (unlike this blog where it's all very personal.) I'm also going to start YouTubing more because I want happy things in my life. (Links to those pages will be in tabs.) On top of that, my family is going to be taking a puppy home soon. We picked him out 3 weeks ago and he'll be coming home a week before Christmas. I think he'll be really really good for me. I just need more light and positivity in my life, and what's more happy than a puppy?!

The best highlights of my last few months have been Halloween and Thanksgiving, which are in my top 3 favorite holidays. My family threw a party for Halloween and it was great. I had to sit on the couch the whole party, but it was great to have people around and to be laughing. For Thanksgiving, we had lots of family over and I had a great conversation with my uncle, and I actually really want to write about what he and I talked about. There were a lot of good themes in that conversation that I want to talk about. Hopefully I'll do a post for that soon.


Right now, I don't have a big inspirational twist to this. I'm not really to that point yet where I'm looking at this all in a positive way. But I moved up to at least being realistic and setting more realistic goals for my life. I want to get back to writing and I hope that soon I'll have something better to post on here. Hopefully something with a positive and inspirational twist to it.

But! Until then, I felt like it was time that I at least put an update out there. I can't move on to being positive again until I get the negatives out of the way. So, there you go. I got a lot out of the way. I don't know who will actually read all of this, but I needed to vent it out.

Thanks for reading if you did. I'll be back soon. In the meantime, go check out my new blog http://heyoitsmayo.blogspot.com💕

How I Became a Motivational Speaker

Last week, I got a phone call out of the blue from my old principal. He called, saying that the superintendent of our school district specifically asked for me, because he wanted me to come speak at the teacher assembly. He thought my graduation speech was by far the best of all the ones he saw this last June, and he in-fact he said that my speech was his "favorite speech ever!" He thought I would/they wanted me to "Inspire them and remind them what they do what they do." So, no pressure haha.  It's an assembly for all the public schools in our town, and it had about 600 people at it. I accepted the day after he called me and he told me I could say whatever I felt was fitting for the occasion. Just being told that, and knowing that they trusted me that much, was a great feeling. So, I pulled a speech together in 2 days.  Tuesday morning (8-16-16), I woke up at 6:30am (despite that normally I'm just falling asleep at that time), I got to the school at 7:45am like how I was asked to, I was introduced to many important officials in the school district, and then next thing I knew it was starting. I was the closing speaker. The motivational speaker who was there, went before me, and they wanted ME to close the assembly. Thats crazy!! My principal introduced me to the crowd while looking and sounding proud, then I sucked up my nerves, put on a big smile and faked confidence while I gave my speech. 10 minutes later, I finished my speech and with my final words everyone laughed and then stood up and gave me a standing ovation.  I was in shock, my hands were shaking from my nerves and the adrenalin rushing through me. While I was trying to go back to my seat, the superintendent came up to me and hugged me with tears still in his eyes. He told me to stay up there with him, and while we waited for the applause to die down he thanked me multiple times for being there. He told me that's the second time I've made him cry, and he said many other kinds things. Once everyone sat, he thanked me on the mic and said "Thank you for being here and sharing your story with us all. You're effecting lives and making such a big difference by sharing what you've been through." He then thanked the teachers for coming, and I was finally able to go shy away to my seat. My principal (whom I was sitting next to) leaned over and said, "It was perfect." The woman on my other side told me I did so great, then a woman behind me leaned forward, shook my hand and thanked me. Leaving took a solid 30 minutes or so, just because so many people kept stopping me and coming up to me to shake my hand and thank me. The superintendent told me he wanted a picture with me, so then I took many pictures with people. My principal gave me a hug and thanked me for coming. My old teachers came up and congratulated me and told me they were so proud of me. Then just the amount of strangers that complimented me was crazy. I lost count of the amount of times I was told I should be a motivational speaker. Which speaking of motivational speakers, we talked the the man who went before me and he said he actually based his speech on what he heard I would be talking about! The motivational speaker based his speech off of my speech! What's that about?! (He told a story of his troubled and utterly tragic past, and how important of a role his teachers and coaches played in his life. Hearing that he based his topic off of mine is even more cool, because I think he decided to share that very personal story with everyone because he heard I was telling my vulnerable story too. He said he usually doesn't talk about his past, but knowing he was able to talk about it because I was being vulnerable is kind of amazing.)  Little do all of them know being awake that early is not something I ever do. They have no idea that I've been struggling with motivation so it was very ironic that I was asked to come be a motivational speaker. They don't know that the only other speech I've ever given was my Valedictorian speech, I've never taken a speech class, and in fact, I've had terrible stage fright my whole life too! They have no idea how far out of my comfort zone I was doing that!! It was such an amazing experience. I feel so honored to have been asked to do that, and I feel so much more motivated now. They have no idea how much I was needing to know that I am effecting people. I was feeling so useless and irrelevant, but seeing that I effect so many people when I'm just myself means a lot. I've always been the shy kid, I've never been one to speak in front of a lot of people, I've always been introverted and the last 4 years I've basically been a hermit. People generally haven't really cared about me since I got sick, people don't understand what I go through, I don't have many friends, I don't leave the house often, I struggle quite a bit with depression, and now all of sudden I get asked to d something like that... I was requested to be a speaker by many people, meaning that many adults were excited I was there to speak! I brought people to tears, again. I got a standing ovation, again. I got hugs and handshakes and countless kind words from total strangers. The coolest thing is I was just being myself, and thats all they told me they wanted me to do. I actually could cry about how happy I am that I can make such a big difference and effect people in a really positive way by just being me. It's the best and most rewarding feeling. I'm just amazed and still in shock. My teachers continue to make me believe in myself more and more.... (Some pictures of the event)  (When he was thanking me in front of the crowd) (The superintendent, me, and my principal. Coincidentally all coordinated in blue haha. 👕👔👖💙) I finally uploaded the video to my speech (10 months later.) You can watch that here. I just want to start out by saying thank you for this opportunity. I’m so honored to be here and be able to talk to so many educators of this community. It means a lot to me to know that my Valedictorian speech had such a lasting impression on people too. I wrote it purposely to be vulnerable and true to who I am. It’s my story, so it means even more to know that people got it and really liked what I had to say. With that being said, I’ll read you all a portion of my graduation speech… "Just a year ago I wrote an essay about my deep love and appreciation, for bacon. That's not a lie. That's me. That’s who I am.  I'm an insomniac, a blogger, a YouTuber, a writer, a book worm, a music lover, a musician, and many other things. I love super-heroes and sarcasm and singing loudly in the car. I talk to my animals like they're people and I answer for them too, because I'm totally not crazy at all. My nickname is Mayonnaise. Yes, you heard that right. Mayonnaise, like the condiment. They call me Mayo for short, but that's it’s whole own story.  My point is, I'm a total and complete weirdo! That's who your Valedictorian is; a person who's nickname is Mayonnaise, who writes essays about bacon.  The future of America everyone. 🙌 Feel proud.  Aside from all the silly things I listed that I identify myself with, I didn't list one really big thing that takes up a huge portion of my life, and I didn't list it because I don't define myself by it. …… I’m sick.  I've actually been very sick the last 4 years of my life. I started my freshmen year just as normally and optimistically as every other kid at Paso High, but not even halfway into the first week of school, I got really sick. I spent the rest of the year in and out of hospitals, seeing countless doctors and being tested for anything and everything they thought I might have.  My friends turned into strangers and my doctors became my friends. At a time in my life when my biggest worries should have been about school and friends, and boys and silly things like what to wear; I was waiting for test results to find out if I had cancer or a tumor or something that might kill me.  In the blink of an eye I went from all honors classes and previously having straight A’s, to not even being able to do simple addition, reading or writing. I couldn't even walk 10 feet without starting to black out either, and the summer before I got sick I was in water polo, swimming for hours at a time, and doing over 300 sit ups per practice.  My life and who I was was ripped away from me and I desperately clung to anything I could that was still me. ……. 4 years later, I'm still sick. I’m immensely better, but I’m still sick. I just don't look it anymore. I'll smile and you'll see my normal looking exterior and you'll quickly notice my weird, silly, fun personality and you'd never know.... I still have insomnia and bad days. I was in the ER recently too because it was a really bad day. Despite everything that's been thrown my way over the past 4 years, here I am, somehow still in the place I always dreamed I'd be. It feels right, and yet totally bizarre. After years of hell, I'm finally ending this chapter of my life, and it's still the ending I'd always wanted. It ends with me graduating as valedictorian, giving a speech about life…and bacon. I have Lyme Disease. But that's not something I identify myself with. 4 years later, it still takes up and controls the majority of my life and it's in every cell of my body, but I am not my illness.  It just took me a while to learn that I get to decide what things I let define me. We all get to make the choice for ourselves. We get to choose how we define ourselves.  I will not be defined by my illness." Just like in my graduation speech, I want to take just a minute of my time here and use this amazing platform to spread some much needed awareness for Lyme Disease. For anyone who doesn't now what it is, all it takes is just one tiny tick bite and your life can be drastically changed. I really encourage everyone to just Google Lyme Disease and learn a little bit about it. I didn't even know what it was before I got it. Researching it and being aware of what it is can save your life.  At this point in my speech I said my thank you’s, I made some jokes, and I addressed my class. But since I have this time here today, I specifically want to talk to you, the teachers. I went to 4 different High Schools in the last for 4 years due to my complicated health issues, and I have nothing but great things to say about all the people who helped with my schooling.  I had a counselor at Paso High who went way out of his way to be kind and help me, I had a home-hospital teacher who would come to my house and would bring me my work, I had a teacher at Independence who would stay after school with me and tutored me to help me catch up, my teacher at Liberty helped me create an independent school schedule that helped me be able to graduate on time,…and that’s just listing a few!  I really just want to thank the School District, for having a school system that allows the teachers to be so compassionate. The amount of kindnesses that was shown to me made all the difference in my life, and was the reason I was still able to succeed academically.  I’ve had so many teachers impact me and my life, and I really wish I had the time to talk about all of them. But I’m just going to tell a short story about one instead… My 8th grade teacher is one of the teachers I’ll never forget. She was the first person to tell me I was a leader, and actually made me believe it. She made me see myself differently, and it forever changed my life…After graduation, I messaged her and finally, after many years, thanked her for everything she’s done for me, and I think you guys will really connect with what she said to me. She said, “Being a teacher, praying you touch a life is what you hope for. It’s the “beyond academics” that matter most.” Obviously, academics is a very important part in a teachers career, but I agree with my teacher. Its the things beyond academics that matter the most. The teachers that showed me extra kindness and compassion, the ones that would just sit and talk with me about life and would tell me funny stories and make me laugh. Those are the teachers that made the biggest difference in my life. Now-days bullying, depression, self harm, eating disorders, and other mental illnesses, are more of an issue than ever. Those things are all thrown into a category that my illness also falls into - “Invisible Illnesses.” Invisible illnesses are the most misunderstood kind of illnesses, because its hard for people to understand how something could be wrong with a person that looks “normal.” Just because someone looks or acts normal, doesn’t mean something serious isn’t going on below the surface.  It’s really hard to be a teenager now days, to say the least, and if you’re struggling from an invisible illness its even harder. All kids, and teenagers especially, want to see our potential. We just struggle to see our potential on our own. We need someone to make a difference. Teacher’s arguably play the most pivotal role in kids, and teens lives. Teachers make such a big difference! You all get the opportunity every year to effect kids and push them towards their potential.  Basically, I just want to tell you to keep doing what you do. Don’t be discouraged by our sass and sarcasm. Don’t give up on us, especially when we start to give up on ourselves. Keep making a difference! Just be patient, don’t give up, and don’t doubt how important of a role you play in your students lives. As a student who’s had a lot of teachers effect me as a person, thats what I wanted to say to the teachers of this community. On behalf of all kids, teenagers, and students out there, thank you so much for everything you do, and keep pushing us to be the best we can be both academically and in life too. As a finishing thought, I’ll leave you with the same thing I ended my Valedictorian speech with. It’s something that any age can appreciate and I think it’s meaningfulness is part of why people remembered my speech….  If you want some really good bacon go out and get the thick sliced kind. Pan fry it like you normally would, then put it on a sheet, brush it with maple syrup and oven bake it. Delicious. You’ll thank me later.

"I'm falling to pieces"

I haven't played any music or done any covers for about 2 months, and that's mostly because my brother's living back up in his room. I usually do covers late at night and I blast music and sing and can be loud because no one's on my side of the house, but with him living there I've had to be super quiet late at night. He's gone for a week, and the first night he was gone I blasted music, sang and did a cover. Gotta make up for lost time haha.
I did a really long intro to this, just explaining what I'm singing this about. I really wanted to talk about it, and I felt like it would be cool to actually talk about it and not just write about it for once. So, I pretty much say it all in the intro.
I've felt really connected to this song lately. It's felt really relevant, and the fact that it used to be one of my favorite songs before I got sick just makes it mean that much more to me. It's really bittersweet for it to mean something so different and sad to me now, but it's kind of beautiful in a way.

I feel the lyrics to this song so much...I hope that shows through, and I hope what I'm singing it about shows through too.

(these are some of the most relevant lines to me)

"I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing"

"Just prayed to a god that I don't believe in"

"While I'm wide awake she's no trouble sleeping"

"They say bad things happen for a reason, but no wise words gonna stop the bleeding"

"...I'm still grieving"

"When a heartbreaks no it don't break even"

"What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you?"

"I'm falling to pieces"

Dealing With Disappointment

I don't even know where to start with this post... 
I feel lost. 

I'm hurting so much, both physically and emotionally, and I don't actually have a desire to really try and fix that right now either. I've been stuck for so long, and I've been trying so hard to push through it all, but it's gotten me nowhere. I'm still backtracking, no matter how hard I try to push through it all. I had hope, and all that got me was hurt. The few times I actually let myself get even remotely hopeful, it comes crashing back down on me. I'm tired, and I just can't do this right now. I've been fighting off depression for so long and I'm just done fighting it. The last straw finally broke my back. Congratulations world, you've officially broken me, again. 

We're soon coming up on the 4 year anniversary of me getting sick, and I feel nothing but sadness. It's so painful to think about how much of my life this illness has stolen from me. I've lost so much due to being sick...

As for today... People would never know, but I've been crying the majority of the last 24 hours. We've had a trip to Hawaii planned for a year now, assuming then that I would be much better by now. We were wrong though. I've been more stressed and worried about the trip the closer it kept getting, so much so, that I wasn't even excited for it. My gut instinct has been telling me that going on the trip would be really really bad for my health. But I followed along with my moms optimism for a while instead and tried to ignore my instincts. I got worse this weekend though, and then the next day I was worse, and the day after that I was worse. So today, I had to make the heartbreaking decision that I can't go to Hawaii. I weighed it a lot, and it was just a catch 22. Either I stay and be heartbroken and miserable at home, or I go and be sick and miserable there... In the end I decided I would rather just be miserable here than ware myself out and probably get more sick.

In and amongst all of me weighing the options, I actually figured out something interesting that I hadn't really realized before. I figured out that it would actually be harder on me emotionally to go to Hawaii than it would be to stay home. My mom was confused by me saying that, and to a lot of people I'm sure it won't make sense, but heres the thing... The last time we were in Hawaii was 4 years ago, right before I got sick. I was still myself, I was adventuring daily, I had energy, I was in the best physical shape of my life, I was full of life and optimism and was ready to take on high school and then the world. I had plans, and big dreams. I was still myself. Then, everything changed. I lost everything, including myself when I got sick, and I didn't realize it but Hawaii represents everything I used to be. 

So, going to Hawaii now and being too sick to do anything, too tired to go out, and just staying in the room all day would be extremely painful for me. It should be a fun trip. The change of scenery should be something that would make me so happy, but I know thats now how things are with me. Its not the same anymore. Things that used to make me happy and used to be "me", are all just a painful reminder of all that I've lost because of my illness. I've lost 4 years of my life to this. 4 years. 

I know a lot of my emotional pain right now is because I cant stop thinking about how long I've been sick. Its a harsh reality that never gets easier to accept, and if anything, the longer I'm sick, the more it hurts me. 

I've never really let myself feel so many emotions or be so sad about all of this, but I feel like thats past due. For years, my mom has told me I should cry and let myself feel the emotional pain of my illness, and now that I am doing that she's much more worried about me and has said I need to "heal and move past it." The problem with that though, is its hard to move past it when I'm stuck. I can't move past something I'm still in the middle of. It'll just take time.

In the meantime, I feel like I need to be alone. I don't want people to try to cheer me up, I don't want to talk about it a bunch with people, and frankly its because no one really understands. I know that sounds like some teen-agsty crap, but this actually is true. No one really understands. Only someone who's been sick for years could really understand this feeling. It's a feeling of deep disappointment, one that you get from repeatedly getting let down and hurt over and over, and its not the kind of disappointment you feel from being let down by people either. I have that feeling too, but this ones different. I hurt on so may deep levels that most people probably can't even imagine how I feel.

(If a picture could describe how I feel right now it'd be this one.)

I'm watching everyone my age get jobs, move away to college, travel the world, and have adventures.... Those were my dreams. Those were things I'd always seen myself doing at this age too. It's so extremely painful to watch everyone else going out and living their lives how I always wanted to too, and the worst part is I can't do a goddamn thing about my life. 

I'm just stuck.

I'm not worried about how sad I am or how much I've been crying, or that I'm depressed and not really feeling like fighting anymore. I'm not giving up, but I need to feel all of this. I can't fight it right now, and frankly, I don't want to fight it anymore. I can't avoid feeling emotions forever. I just need to be broken for a while, and I'm okay with that. 

The last thing I want to say is a short story, and it's actually not too depressive either. I had a friend say something to me a year ago, the context to it is too long of a story to tell, but she said (about herself), "I'm looking for happiness in the place where I lost it." I felt like that was so poetic and beautiful. I hoped that someday I would get to do that, but I didn't really know when or where exactly I lost my happiness. I realized this week that Hawaii is the place I was happy last, and that someday I'll have to do that. I'll have to go looking for happiness in the place that I lost it. Sadly, "someday" isn't now, and I'm tired that all I'm ever promised is elusive "somedays", but thats what I've got. 

If any other sick people are reading this and can relate, feel free to message me if you need to vent to someone who understands your struggles. 
I know this was a pretty depressive post, but thats the reality of how being chronically ill goes, you have to deal with a lot of depressing things. I'm deciding to post raw, vulnerable truths about how much I hurt emotionally, because in my early years of being sick I felt so alone because I never heard about anyone else feeling like I did. If just one person reads this and feels less alone then I've accomplished what I wanted to by publicly sharing my feelings. 

Remember, it's okay to not be okay. 

Nothing lasts forever.

I hope someday you all find happiness in the place where you lost it.

Heres to someday...

🌌🌙💙

~July 27, 2016 • 4am~

I'm Sick And Tired Of Being Sick And Tired!

I'm having a bad week, to say the least...
I've been on the verge of almost needing to go to the E.R., twice, in one week. I've cried myself to sleep, twice, in one week. I woke up crying once. I cried again late at night on a different day, and I just cried again tonight, this time in the shower... My health has been declining gradually for a while now, and this week, I finally just got too tired to keep up with being positive and hopeful. 

So, now, I'm just back in defense/survival mode. I'm not positive, I'm not hopeful, I'm not really enjoying life... All of my time, I spend taking care of myself and just trying to make it through the day, one day at a time. 

Lately, it's like I've been slowly sinking in quicksand, but I was still keeping up my good attitude. I was like, "I'll be fine! I'll find something to grab onto, or someone will pull me out! I'll make it out of this!" I didn't really worry about it, but then before I knew it, my arms went under too, and so I definitely wasn't going to be able to get myself out of it. I waited for someone else to pull me out or to find me a solution, and now I feel like it's up to my eyes and there's nothing I can do. 

It's past the point of no return. There's no quick fixes anymore. This will easily take a month or more before I'll feel "normal" again. I'm still sinking too, and that's what sucks the most. Things are still worsening...

Everyone else my age is working and partying full time. They're making money, having adventures, making memories, having fun... And then there's me. Still here. Still stuck. Still sick. 

There's such a huge gap between me and the other people my age. I feel so disconnected to my generation. I can't relate at all, and they can't relate to me either. Granted, it's been this way for a few years now, but it doesn't really make it any easier. It doesn't mean I don't still wish I was normal. Of course I still wish I was normal! With a life like mine, where I take 30 pills a day and always sleep like sh*t, who wouldn't still wish they could be normal?!

I've felt like the outsider looking in, the past 4 years of my life, and I'm deeply, truly, utterly, and just completely tired. 

I'm tired of being and feeling so disconnected and misunderstood. I'm tired of barely having a social life. I'm tired of never having the energy to do anything. I'm tired of the constant pain. I'm tired of being an insomniac. I'm tired of this being my life. I'm tired of being sick, and I'm so goddamn f*cking tired of being tired!! I'm tired every day of my life, and I can't even express how tired I am of that!!!!

People ask me how I am.

I say I'm tired. 

People laugh and say I always say that. 

I mentally burn down an imaginary city. 

Long story short is I'm not doing well. I'm really not okay. I haven't been for a while, but I'm now finally just accepting that I can't run from this, and I just need to try to get through this as best as I can. I can't fake my way through it anymore. In every way, I'm beyond tired. You can't even imagine how deeply tired I am.... 

I'm slipping. I feel like it's inevitable that I'll fall back into a full depression fairly soon. I normally very rarely cry, so the fact that I've cried 5 times in a week....It's just not very reassuring. I have a bad feeling....

My therapist said, from the way I talked about all the things that have been depressing me lately (the things that are making me cry so much), that it sounds like I'm grieving. I told my mom that, and she said it actually does make sense. We're coming up on the 4 year anniversary of when I first got sick and my life fell apart. I didn't cry at all the whole first year and a half of me being sick, if not longer than that. I was so numb, that I actually physically couldn't cry. In-and-amongst-that, I acquired some bad habits connected to my depression. I used to avoid feelings like the plague, and anyone who knew me then can vouch for that. Meaning, for the first few years of my illness, I didn't grieve all the things I lost, at least not properly. 
In the past year, oddly, whenever I would start to get genuinely happy, things from my past would come to the surface very suddenly and would make me break down. I've cried more in this last year than I have EVER. It's terrible. I absolutely hate crying. Crying never makes me feel good. Crying almost always just makes me feel worse. I avoided all of those things, and crying, for so long though. So, as much as my instincts tell me to keep avoiding them, I know I need to let myself feel these things. I need to grieve the things I lost. I need the grieve the life I used to have,  the person I used to be... It's been a solid year of letting myself feel, process, and legitimately let myself let go of things from my past. It's been a long and VERY hard process, and I'm still sifting through more of it.

The anniversary of when I got sick always really gets to me... I'm really not okay right now. I'm depressed. I'm really angry, and sad, and disappointed, and heartbroken, and anything but happy... I hurt, and I feel all of those things so deeply right now. It's just really deep rooted. I hate so many things right now, especially how much I've been crying lately, but this is part of my healing process. I can't shut feelings out forever. I know I need to just let myself feel it. I need to grieve.

What I said to one of my best friends this week was, "I'm not okay, but I will be..."

I want my blog to be a place where I can open up and be vulnerable, and just be honest about me and my life. I want to write about the good things and the bad things, happy or sad...

That's the truth... And the truth is... I'M SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED!!!! 👿

~I'll continue with positive posts as soon as I can... Thank you for listening to me vent. Love S💜~

Closure

My 8th grade teacher came to my high school graduation and with her, one of the things she brought to give me was my class journal from 8th gradeThe other thing she brought, was a letter I wrote to myself during the last week of school in 8th grade. We all had journals and we all wrote letters to ourselves that last week of school, and most of us said we wanted her to keep them both and give them back to us after we graduate.  

I never forgot about that letter, and I can't lie, over the years I've actually really wondered what I wrote to myself all that time ago...

After graduation, with my family around the dinner table, I fianlly opened that letter. It was shorter than I remembered, for one. That was my first surprise haha. My next surpsise was that oddly enough, I realized that some way, some how, I had actually accomplished everything I'd wanted for myself. I was actually kind of stunned by that. 

I read the letter aloud to my family and then I went through and explained that I'd actually done everything on it...

1: "I want to be successful in High School."
~I'm Valedictorian. Nuff said haha. ✅~

2: "Make new friends."
~Granted I didn't make the kind of new friends I thought I would, but I did in fact make a lot of new friends. Most are adults, some are doctors, and I'm friends with my teachers too. It still counts though haha. Also, not to mention my two best friends who I met online. They've stuck with my for 2 years now!✅~

3: "Try new things."
~I started playing guitar. That's a new thing. I started writing a lot, blogging, and have all sorts of new hobbies. ✅~

4: "Find something that inspires me."~I got so much more into music once I started playing it and I found so much inspriation in music. Just overall, I've found inspriation in my life and my situation, and I found a way to channel the negatives in my life into positive things. I let myself find inspriation in every situation, good or bad. No matter what, I end up writing about it haha. I have inspiration up the wazoo now! (I really wanted to say wazoo haha.)✅✅~

5: "Have fun."~I definitly have fun! I learned to make the most of any situation. I laugh every day, no matter how bad. I laugh til I cry at least once a week too haha.✅~

6: "Live in the moment."~I lived one day at a time for years, and I still kinda do. I really appreciate the little things in life. I try not to take life or speical movements for granted. I try to soak up as much happiness from even just the tiniest of moments as I can get. Sometimes just one tiny positive thing from a day was all I would get. You learn to really appreciate little things when the little things are all you get.✅~

7: "Believe."~It's a broad one, but I like it. I always try my very best to belive in myself, trust my gut, and trust my strength. I belive in the ones I love. I belive that we all have a purpose... ✅~ 

8: "Dream big." ~In 8th grade, that used to be my motto, or montra, or whatever you want to call it. They were words I really believed in, and I can't lie, I did give up on those words for a while. I came back around to them though, and I still have a lot of the same big dreams I used to have. I'm not gonna let life stop me from dreaming big.✅~

9: "Don't give up."~I know when I wrote this letter back then, I meant this in a way of that you shouldn't give up on your big dreams. But reading it today, it had completely different meaning to me. It actually kind of choked me up when I read that one. I've never given up, deapite all I've been through, and I really have been through a lot. Just because I didn't give up though, didn't mean that I didn't want to give up. I know there were many times I was so sick and was so deeply depressed and miserable that I actually wished I wasn't so strong of a person. I wished I could give up, but I couldn't. I hit rock bottom, maybe a few times, and it's impossible for me to give up. For better or for worse, I'm a fighter and I can't give up.✅✅✅~

Ps. My lucky number is 9. No clue if I did that intentionally back then haha, but that's just super cool to me that there's 9 things. 

After telling my family that I accomplished all the things I'd wanted to, I also thought about how cool it was that I actually talked about all (or maybe just most) of those things in my graduation speech too. That was just crazy to me. 

I hesitated opening the letter at first, scared of that what I said back then may make me sad now. I was expecting it to be pretty bittersweet, but I was honestly just in awe. 

It amazed me, and the letter that I wrote to myself all those years ago was the true closure that I didn't even know I needed until I read it. 

❤️

Big Life Update: From Prom To The E.R. To Valedictorian!

It's been a while since I've written on here... I've had quite a few ups and downs. Prom happened, my boyfriend totaled his car (he was totally fine thank god), we went to a wedding, my brother's girlfriend had a birthday(aka my in house bestie. She lives with us haha.), I did a cover of a cute song for mother's day, I was on the news when I helped out with one of my best friend and his mom's presentation about Lyme at a local high school, I was in the E.R. again (for the 3rd time this year), I had my graduation party, I sadly had to cancel going to grad-night, and then I graduated as Valedictorian! I'll go through and talk about everything. This is gonna be a long post haha. I can't go this long without posting...too much happens.


Prom! - April 16th
Prom was a blast! The whole day of Prom was really stressful and tiring. Everything kept going wrong. I was being super forgetful that day too so I had to go back in the house like 3 times because I kept forgetting things when I was trying to leave. We got rear-ended before we got to our dinner reservation too. All was okay though. No one was hurt and the cars involved were all fine. The whole time we were at dinner we were just trying to un-tense from being rear-ended. Once we got to Prom though, we had a blast. I danced for like 3 hours straight and didn't leave until it was over. It was just great. I got tons of compliments too, from people and workers at the restaurant, women in the bathroom, girls at the prom, and even a few teachers. Keep in mind that I don't even go to that school, it was my boyfriend's Prom, so I didn't know any of the people who complimented me haha. It was just a great night. Lots of great memories. Lots of laughs.

Accident - April 30th 1am
When my boyfriend totaled his car. --- He was on his way home from my house late at night. I live out in the country, so theres a lot of deer. Theres ton's of accidents on the road he crashed on because there's blind corners and tons of deer that just jump out. Luckily, no one else was driving around at the time so he just hit then deer and then a tree. I hated getting that call from him though... I'd been afraid of getting that call of him saying he was in an accident. Thankfully he was okay, and my dad drove down to help him figure out what to do. Note: that it all happened past 1am.

(I'm only gonna show a picture of the skid marks. They're still there 2 months later.)

Wedding - April 30th

The wedding was out of town so I had to wake up early, and we'd had a late night because of the accident. Driving past the skid marks (picture above), was so scary. At the wedding, the weather was great, and the wedding was beautiful. I wasn't feeling the best, but was a good day. We had a really good time. 

Amber's Birthday - May 2nd
Love her so much. Lots of laughs. I got her the most ridiculous card I've ever seen and she totally loved it haha. Her cake was just the cutest thing too.😊

Mother's Day - May 8th

My surprise/present to my mom was doing a special cover for her. I posted it the morning of Mother's Day. I wrote a big long post on Facebook, put the video with it, and left it for her to wake up to. She loved it. Later, we went to brunch with family. It was perfect weather, and just a nice day all around. (lLink to my cover here.) 😊 

Breaking News - Lyme Awareness - May 11th

I last minute decided to go with my mom to go help her, my friend and his mom at their presentation about Lyme Disease to a local high school. A news crew came and interviewed my friend and I because he heard we both have Lyme Disease, then later that night we were all on the news! (Link to the local news post here.) The rally went good, I passed out tons of stuff too, including... bracelets provided by LymeLilli.org, information pamphlets provided by BayAreaLyme.org, and I believe our story was featured on LymeDisease.org also! We also did the Lyme Disease Challenge with the ex-mayor of my town haha. #TakeABiteOutOfLyme #LymeDiseaseAwarenessMonth 💚💚💚

         (A little collage of pictures from that day, and then me on TV!)

E.R. - May 14th
I ended up in the E.R. after a medication change. I wasn't feeling very good and was having weird chest pain off and on for the first few days of being on the new medication. I felt good enough to go to the movies though, or so I thought. I made it about two thirds of the way through the movie, and my chest pain just kept getting worse and worse. I was keeping a close watch on it, and I know my limits well. I was micro-meditating to try to control my symptoms, but nothing was helping. The fact that I couldn't control it at all (which normally I can), and that it was only getting worse was very concerning to me. So I told my boyfriend I needed to leave, and he just said okay and held my hand as we walked to the car. He only asked me "Are you okay?" as we walked out, and I just shook my head no. By the time we got to the car I had gone from a 7 out of 10 on the pain chart (1 being best - 10 being the worst) to an 8. My hands were already shaking badly, my heart was racing, I was short of breath, and my body was twitchy when I decided I needed to leave the movie, but when we got to the car I was starting to pass out. Luckily, I have a ton of experience with almost passing out. I know the signs of when its coming on very well, so I know how to not pass out. I held my hands out and looked at my shaking hands and my boyfriend looked at them too and asked "What's going on? Are you having a panic attack?" As he said that, I felt my tongue staring to go numb (a sign I get when I'm getting closer to passing out), and I just answered with "I think I need to go to the hospital." He just said "Okay", and started to buckle up and drive. I told him I was starting to pass out but I was going to try to hold out and focus on not passing out. I forewarned him to not freak out if I did pass out. He asked me if I could call my mom or if he needed to do it, I said I would try. I called my mom and said we were on our way to the hospital and that she needed to meet us there. Obviously, she asked what was wrong and I said it felt like a bad panic attack at first but that it just kept getting worse and something didn't feel right. It didn't feel like my panic attacks. It was a totally new kind of chest and heart pain for me, and note that the other 2 times I was in the E.R. just this year was for chest pain. We drove in silence and when we got there he offered to carry me. I was talked to almost immediately by a nurse, and right after that my mom got there. She said she just dropped everything, ran out of the and sped there. I was called back in just a minute or two, even though there was a waiting room full of people. I had an EKG done and was seen by the doctor right after I got to my room. I had a blood draw and then an IV put in right after they left and then we just waited. It was a huge relief to be seen so quickly. They saw me when I was still at a 7 on the pain scale, and they all seemed pretty puzzled too by the sounds of my story and sudden extreme symptoms. My mom left to run home and get me food (I have a really restricted diet and have to eat on a tight schedule or else I start to feel sick, so her bringing me food was really important.) My boyfriend who had been quiet since my mom arrived, came and sat next to my bed once she left. I had my IV going and those are always painful for me (I have weak veins because I've had so much bloodwork done), and he knew all I needed was to just not think about it. He just talked to me, told me funny stories, made me laugh, was silly and sang a silly disco song that he'd been singing and dancing to earlier. I was laughing so much. I so needed the distraction. Before we knew it my IV was done, and my mom got back. She was happy to see me smiling and doing a little better. We got test results back and found out I wasn't having a heart attack so that was really good news. They didn't know what was wrong with me but they ruled off the big, really life threatening things we were worried about. I left still at a 5 or 6 on the pain scale. But I lived my life at a constant 6 for a long time. 6 is fine. It's livable. We got to the hospital at about 9:30pm and we didn't get home until after 1am. Meaning, we were singing "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer, in the E.R. at 12:30am haha. It was just a crazy couple hours. We ended up making the most of it though, and the 3 of us laughed a lot while we were waiting for results.

The next few days weren't very good health wise. I saw my doctor that week and had medication changes galore. I had to see a cardiologist the week also, and we had to talk to another doctor. It was pretty hectic. I spent the next few weeks after all of that resting a lot and really trying to recover.

In those few weeks, I got put on a new medication that made me really depressed. So, that wasn't fun. I was recovering from that, and getting back to normal, and then I got the news that I was Valedictorian!

It was just a roller coaster of a month.

(We made the most of it haha.)

(My mom put this in a fortune cookie for me, and thats how I found out.)

Graduation Party - June 4th
I had tons of family over for my graduation party. It was great to catch up with so many loved ones. I got so many beautiful cards. We decorated the house a bunch too and that was super cute. I love decorating for special occasions. My family got me super cute little cakes! It made me sad that I can't eat them (can't eat gluten, dairy, or sugar), but everyone else enjoyed them so that was nice.😊I didn't feel very good, but it was still a great day.

Disney movie marathon, not grad-night - June 7th
I hadn't been feeling good for a few days and only just kept feeling worse. I decided the day before, to cancel my trip to go to Disneyland with my class for grad-night. It was a really sad decision to have to make, but I knew it was what was best for me and my health. I dressed up in a Disney shirt, put on my Minnie Mouse ears, and marathoned some Disney movies instead.

Graduation/Valedictorian! - June 9th
I already published my post about my speech. (Link here.) You should go check that out if you haven't already!
Getting the news I was Valedictorian was totally shocking. I was not expecting it at all. I got right to speech writing because I only had about a week and a half until graduation from when I found out. I put so much thought into my speech. So much thought went into the content of the speech and how the speech was constructed. I had one shot to speak to that crowd and to make some kind of an impact, and I really wanted to take advantage of that. I wanted the speech to say everything I wanted to say, and to have all different kinds of effects and messages. I knew it was going to be a complex speech so a lot of thought went into it, but it seems like it payed off. My speech did everything I wanted it to, and then some.

Graduation day was very stressful. I woke up feeling like crap, so that made it really hard to get through the day. I was honestly worried if I was going to make it through the day and actually be able to do my speech. I forewarned my mom to not be surprised if I was going to need to go to the hospital  after graduation was over. I also talked to a few teachers and the principal and forewarned them that I wasn't feeling good. We had a hand signal agreed on, so that if I did the hand signal they knew someone needed to run over to me. My mom told my boyfriend to stay with me until I was going to walk out with my class, because she was that worried about me. He sat in the front row too, and he told my teachers that if I did the hand signal he was going to jump the fence and come to me. That's how bad I was doing. I felt so sick that day, but I was determined to go out there and still give my speech.
I have terrible stage fright, so I was so nervous about having to do the public speaking part of my speech. It was probably the most nerve wracking thing I've ever had to do. It was terrifying to me. I'm not afraid of death, but holy crap public speaking tho haha.
The minutes before I had to go up on stage, I closed my eyes and micro-meditated. I breathed and focused on the feeling of the wind on me. Then next thing I knew, my name was announced and I walked up to the podium. I cut it out of my speech video, but when I went up there a teacher came up too and brought a chair and left it there. She offered to stay standing too but I said I was going to try to stand and just go for it. She wished me luck and scurried back to her seat, I flipped to my page in the booklet, then I looked up at my family's section in the crowd. They were straight ahead of me. I told myself to only look at them when I would look up, just focus on my mom. I'd read my speech a few times to her, and a million times to myself...
I've lived my life these last few years very frequently feeling like crap at very inconvenient times. (Times like friends BBQs or Birthday Parties, or family get-togethers.) I've always hated being looked at and treated like I'm sick, so I quickly got really good at faking it. I would put on a big smile, I'd stand up straight and act completely normal, even if I felt like I was falling apart. I got really good at faking being okay, so thats what I did up there. I faked being confident (I really just wanted to run and hide and not have people look at me), I faked that I was happy and excited (I actually was feeling so sick that day that I wasn't even excited anymore), I faked that I felt good enough to be up there (I really, really didn't.)
I put so much time, thought and effort into my speech though that I wasn't going to just give up that opportunity. So, I got up there and faked my ass off, and by the second page....I wasn't nervous anymore. People laughed at my intended jokes, and they stopped and listened when I wanted them to too. I was totally getting the reactions I'd wanted, and it was then that I realized that most of my fear about the public speaking wasn't actually about public speaking. I was afraid about being so vulnerable. I was afraid that I was going to lay my heart and soul out there, and really give a vulnerable speech about me and my life and who I am, and that no one would care. But people were actually really listening. I looked up at one point and every single person was looking at me, and there wasn't a peep of noise. Like not even babies or children made noise! It was dead silent and all eyes were on me, and that was the moment I relaxed. It's totally ironic because that should've terrified me, but it's exactly the reaction I'd wanted. They were putty in my hands and I'd totally hooked them just how I'd wanted to.
By the end of my speech I wasn't faking it anymore. I really was feeling confident, happy, excited, and all of those happy emotions distracted me from how sick I felt.
As I was going off stage, the important faculty on stage all stood up and clapped for me, and the ones closest to me congratulated me. People in the crowd stood and clapped. When I got to my seat all the people sitting closest to me congratulated me. They all knew how nervous I was about my speech and knew I wasn't feeling good too (they found out in the course of lining up for graduation and such.) The principal congratulated me from the mic, the girl who spoke after me said "Well thats a tough act to follow", when I got my diploma every single person on stage who I had to shake hands with (which was like 7 people) all congratulated me on my speech and said varying kind or funny things. After graduation my teacher came up and gave me a big hug and congratulated me. My family was so proud, my 8th grade teacher was there and was so proud. My grandpa was the first person I hugged. My boyfriend was the last, because he patiently waited his turn. But when I hugged him I squeezed him so tight. He was so worried about me and we were both really happy and relieved and proud that I actually got through it.
The feeling of having that big crowd in the palm of my hand, and the feeling of getting a standing ovation is like nothing I've ever felt before. Being someone who's had horrible stage fright for as long as I can remember, it was completely shocking to have that feeling and completely love it. I loved how it felt to control the crowd and for them to like what I had to say so much. It was kind of addictive. I now understand how people get addicted to being on stage. Theres no other feeling like it.

My 8th grade teacher gave me a letter I wrote to my future self back when I was in her class as part of my graduation gift. I opened it and read it at the dinner table with my family around. I think I'll do a whole post just about that.

It was just a really good day. Most of the day was pretty crappy and stressful, but the way I felt at the end of that day was priceless. One of the best and proudest days of my life.

The next day, my uncle, who was at my graduation, texted my mom. He lives a few towns over, probably 30-40 minutes away. He said he was out, and he overheard some guys he knows talking about an amazing girl's speech from the night before... He soon realized they were talking about me, and he told them they were talking about his niece... I was blown away when my mom passed on that news.

(My brother's gf, Amber, did my hair and my boyfriend fed me haha.)

Now
Just this week, my speech was featured on LymeDisease.org (Link here) I've gone to the movies and made it through a whole movie without having to go to the hospital! Haha. I went to the beach this week with my bf. We took our hammock, hung it up under the pier and had a nice, relaxing afternoon. I did all of my thank you notes for my grad presents (I'm usually terrible at thank you notes haha. I did 24 cards.) I've been doing okay health wise, still a lot of ups and downs.
It's been a crazy, hectic, roller coaster of a past few months. There've been a lot of bad days, but there've been some big things and big moments along the way. I'm really really proud of myself, and I'm so insanely thankful. I just love my family so much. They always keep me smiling and laughing, and thats worth more to me than anything.

(Pictures from the hammock at the beach the other day)

☀️🌊💙

I know that was a lot haha... Thanks for reading it all if you did! I'm gonna try to write more often, so I don't have to do huge long updates like this. Thanks again. I'll be writing soon. 

Lots of love, Savannah. ❤️