This has been making me so happy all day.

I had some crazy dreams last night, and there were a lot of Xangans in them for whatever reason.

First was @Ghillies_guide. He was being filmed for some sort of MTV Cribs type thing except he was showing off his truck. The weird thing was that he was dressed in that classic white Elvis costume thing and had long hair that was braided into little braids with white beads to match his outfit. He was pretty excited to show off his empty trailer, I didn’t quite get it.

Then for some reason I was in Japan with an ex (an “ex” in my dream even though I didn’t recognize the person at all; no one I dated in real life) anyways, it didn’t look like Japan, it looked like Columbia from Bioshock Infinite with just a ton of little grade school Japanese girls running around giggling. I wanted to get away from everybody so I went through this one door only to realize I walked right into a bedroom and there were 3 people going at it and talking in the bed so I ducked behind this half wall so they couldn’t see me, and also because I spotted my fuzzy blanket I liked so much so I decided to just hide and cover myself up with that to get a nap. Turns out it was @TheTheologiansCafe and @Celestial_Teapot (dude, this is the second time CT has showed up in my dreams for no fucking reason) having the 3some with some other unknown female. I didn’t ‘”see” them but I heard them talking and in my dream I recognized their “voices”. Anyways the conversation turned and they started talking about me and CT said that he was personally going to write the American Embassy because he thought I would be a much better fit to be an ambassador in Japan than my “ex”. I got all excited.

Then I woke up.

The end.

I just had a mini-revelation this morning and I want to try to get it into words before it gets too complicated.

I am thankful for my clinical depression. Actually, today I kind of love it.

Weird thing to say, right? This is why I thought this today:

This morning I woke up depressed. I usually wake up most mornings depressed but today it was particularly bad. I dread everything out of initial instinct, this makes things hard at times, and is something that I know is unbearable for my partner (sorry, hun, I’m working on it). For the most part, it’s out of my control. It is one of those things that isn’t a problem with me, my personality, my behavior, or conscience (all of which can play roles in depression but in my case does not). In my case, my depression is about 85% chemical imbalance issues (the other 15% caused by real life, stressful situations; but these numbers like 66.7% of all statistics are made up), and I am not currently taking any SSRI’s for it. This may or may not change soon, but I’ve always tried to tackle my emotional issues from the inside out. Instead of medicating myself, I’ve spent the past 3 years doing intense, albeit mainly solo, introspection and analysis. Basically, I have been slowly concentrating on figuring out why I feel the way I do about things, and if it has something to do with things that have happened in real life, or if my brain is just overloading on unhappy chemicals that is causing me to feel down or react to situations in ways that aren’t quite rational at all.
It’s been a long process. I have probably gotten it all very wrong and haven’t been doing it the “right” way but we will leave that up for a later debate.

But here is why I am thankful for my depression:

I appreciate the little things more, the small little details. When I’m depressed, I don’t feel like going out of my way for anything, I mainly just want to hide in a hole in the ground and never come out. So when someone goes out of their way to do something for me, I immediately notice, because I don’t go out of the way for myself and I don’t expect other people to either. Growing up, I was always taught depression was a sin. Yes, a sin. It was something I could control because I bring it on myself through my heart and through my actions (I will concede to a point that this can be true in some cases. Sometimes depression is brought on by the wrongs we have committed, but this is not the type of depression I am talking about here. That’s guilt). Depressed people in the social construct I grew up in were ostracized basically, nobody should associate with the depressed person because they obviously have something grievous going on in their lives that could cause you to stumble and potentially risk your relationship with God.
Because of growing up and believing this, small acts of kindness that other people go out of their way to do for me just kind of blow me away. If I wasn’t depressed, I probably would take a lot of people’s kindness and generosity for granted. I grew up to believe that being depressed was an ultimate form of selfishness, but honestly, I would probably be more selfish if I wasn’t depressed.

It makes me appreciate the people in my life more. I KNOW I am one tough beast to handle. I KNOW that sometimes, I make every minute a nightmare for anyone within 100 miles of me. I know this because I have to live with myself, and I am stuck having to hear my own thoughts all the time, most of the time I spare that from others (trust me, no one wants to know what really goes on inside my brain, everything that I share is extremely filtered, even if it doesn’t come across that way). When I am at my worst, I am in awe of the people who have chosen to stick by me and I make sure they know that. Reid deserves every gold star in the world, and then some. I’m serious, he is one of the best people on this entire planet. Is he perfect? No, far from it, but that makes me love him more. This past Sunday he had a pretty rough day. He woke up grumpy (rare!), he lashed out at me when there was no need (rarer still, but I was content to just let him go on cuz I had my cereal, I was just fine) he threw little fits and nit picked and then went to work. He came home that night and was a little better. He apologized for how he acted, I just hugged him and said, “No, seriously THANK YOU for being the difficult one today! I needed a break from playing that role. Also, thank you for how much crap you put up with from me.” And we laughed and everything was great. Everyone should have a Reid in their life, and that is why I like sharing.

I am thankful for my depression because it reminds me that I am MUCH more than just my illness. Like I said, this morning I woke up depressed, and there wasn’t any reason for me to be feeling that way. My life is good right now. I am absolutely surrounded with so many positive people who love me, who care for my well-being physically and emotionally (here on this site that has been more of a home to me than any physical building as well as in real life) and will do anything to help improve my life for my ultimate happiness. If I hadn’t woken up depressed this morning, I probably wouldn’t have spent all this time being thankful for how much my life doesn’t suck. Depression is a part of me, yes, but it is not what ultimately defines me as a person. I’m pretty sure (or at least I hope) that when I die, the loved ones behind aren’t going to put, “Here lies the gunslinger, the depressed.” (Although, I would find that quite humorous). Depression is something that at times does hold me back, sometimes I let it negatively impact my life when I shouldn’t. I don’t have to be passive about it but sometimes I am. My ultimate goal is to not let it hold me back though, and that is a battle every day. I will gladly fight it, with whatever weapons I have, medication or just sheer force of will.

The fall and winter months remind me a lot of my depression. The trees lose their leaves and life seems to stop and decay sets in. I think those days are the most beautiful. The clouds can be weeping and hugging the earth for comfort and sometimes that can be a suffocating feeling for some humans, but I imagine sometimes that those clouds are crying tears of happiness and rain ultimately brings about life. So what appears on the surface to be something sad, is really something quite beautiful. The grey weather that matches my grey feelings gives me hope because with all this metaphorical rain in my life, I’m bound to have one beautiful garden before it is all said and done.

That is my hope. And this is something I know I will be reminding myself of often.

Today, I am depressed but life couldn’t be more beautiful than it is right now.

I have that restlessness in my spirit again. I’m a nomad and I’m coming up on renewing my lease for a second time which just kind of makes me a bit sick in my stomach to think about. “I’ll be here for at least one more year.” *shudder*
This city has been my second least favourite place to live (TN is the top slot). There’s just a lot of bad memories here. Years of spiritual abuse. Years of physical abuse. Every day I’m reminded of what I’ve survived, and that makes me both proud and sad. Most of the time when I go out I’m constantly looking out to avoid the people I knew growing up. Home schoolers are freaking every where though and I always run into them when I’m least expecting it which is usually uncomfortable and awkward. I will go out of my way to avoid some of these people. I want to move some place new. Some place free from bad memories and the people who brought them about. I long for new, fresh air. I need to get out of here, but I know it will be some time before that is feasible. But one day, it will happen.

A friend of mine recently helped host a spiritual abuse awareness week with other bloggers like Rachel Held Evans. My friend and I grew up in the same cult (if I’ve said it once, I will say it a million times more; Sovereign Grace Ministries is NOT a church, it is a very dangerous cult. They perpetuate serious spiritual abuse by way of their culture). Reading the blogs and the stories just ripped me open all over again, and it made me sad that I am still too scared to tell my story. I could have, I could have but I didn’t. It would have been a safe place to tell my story but I still feel like my lips are sewn shut. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth when I try to talk about it. I hope one day I can talk about it, I know it would probably help. There were so many stories that sounded like I could have told them, and it was very eye-opening for me because sometimes I forget to factor in all that stuff when I approach my anxiety. Sometimes I will be triggered by something that doesn’t make sense to me because I blocked out all that, but reading other people having the same anxiety issues I have and realizing there is a direct correlation between that and the type of abuse I withstood for the better part of 18 years it suddenly all made sense. I even had Reid read some of the stories because I felt that it better explained parts of me I couldn’t explain myself.
I’m still working through all of that stuff. The processing of it tends to be constant but on a background level, but sometimes it will consume me to the point where I can’t move.

I’ve withdrawn a lot in recent weeks. I can’t remember the last time I talked to anyone in my family. I don’t even talk to Reid’s parents as much at work anymore; I tend to stay upstairs instead of coming down in the afternoons and working the downstairs desk since I can hear the phones to answer them from my office. I feel my hermitiness creeping back in, and on one hand I don’t much mind it because I could use some alone time, but on the other, I know it’s an extremely unhealthy thing for me to let it get too far. I’ve come a long long way on my social anxiety to the point where I don’t actively think of all the excuses I could use to decline an invitation out, most of the time I accept and look forward to going out and being with people. I’m so proud of myself!

I’ve gotten back into gaming some. I really miss playing video games. Working at GameStop for a year really burned me out on the subject entirely but Bioshock Infinite has me itching again to play more games. I am loving Infinite right now, I can’t wait to finish it! I’ll probably go back to Skyrim after, I get so sucked into that game. I love it. I’m still pretty bummed that the South Park game got pushed back, but hopefully the delays will mean they are trying to push out a better game. I’d rather wait then have a buggy game or something with a subpar story/play.

Tonight, Reid and I are going to sit down and pick out a weekend for a get away (I’m hoping we can do something towards the end of the month or early May at the latest). We’ve only had 1 vacation together that was just the two of us (no family) and I was sick as a dog the entire time. I’m going to stock up on vitamin C and take loads of that before our vacation haha! I’m excited. I think we will probably just end up going to Charlottesville and visit UVA. It’s only an hour and a half away and it’s beautiful out there with lots of wineries, I just hope we can find a hotel or B&B that’s affordable. If not we might just tent camp it up there (weather permitting). In any case, I am really looking forward to having something to work towards. I try to have at least one thing to look forward to, far off or near, it just helps me stay motivated and hopeful.

I know I’m a couple of days late on this fad but oh wellz. Reid says I have an incredibly special talent for killing “the mood”. I mean, I can slaughter the mood quicker than just about anything. It’s almost a super power. I told Reid about the newest fad posts going around being the biggest or top turn offs. I decided to put my own spin on it and recount some of the special ways I have killed the mood. Oddly enough, we both could only think of one instance a piece. And when we compared stories, we had both thought of the same one. We’re both racking our brains for other ones because there are plenty but for now, this one will have to do.

1. Reenacting the infamous scene from The Champ in an effort to revive a romp that ended juuuuuuust a little bit too soon (for me at least) will not result in a spontaneous double-header boner. In fact, it just might prevent you from getting laid for a few days after…

I looked in the mirror today and I realized I did not know the person looking back at me. It was strangely fascinating to have that moment where you stare into your own eyes and realize you’re staring at a complete stranger.
I did not recognize her face.
Her eyes were foreign to me.
Her body was a mystery, even as I buttoned her blouse, I wondered what the rest of her was like.
Her hands copied my movements but I could not feel it. I felt disjointed.

She looked at me and sighed and turned and walked away. Silently, I followed.

Small’ish update on the pulse I made last night.

Last night I said I was worried about one of my best friends. Turns out, there was a guy who threatened to rape her a while back (before I knew her) and he was just recently let out of prison for serving his sentence for threatening her. He has already broken his parole by contacting her through one of her dating profiles and apparently has been making fake facebook accounts in order to track her down. He has said that he wants to kill her friends. Last night I went out with her and her boyfriend to the club we usually hang out at. She brought a picture of the guy to give to the bar so they were aware that that guy was not allowed in (it’s a members only club on the weekends but open to the public during week nights). She contacted the local police about the violation of his parole orders but, as is usual, they aren’t taking it very seriously. She did tell me that she has a friend who is basically “Archer” (if you’re familiar with that cartoon. I love it) and has been helping her get into contact with the right people at the FBI.
We’ve talked about game plans. She has her bear mace, and will be getting a concealed carry permit soon (I am also working on getting my permit). I just helped her move into her boyfriend’s house the other day, which I am so glad we did because she was living alone before and closer to this guy’s area as well. She won’t be going anywhere alone, either her boyfriends will be with her or I will, or her parents.

I guess we just have to sit this out and wait for the authority’s to hopefully do something before this guy does. She is really worried that he will make good on his threats.

I feel so helpless.

First off I want to thank everyone for all the minis and helping me get enough points to change my name!

So goodbye forever_musing, and hello to thegunslingergirl.

Why that name? Well, firstly for those who will inevitably ask, yes I have seen/read the anime/manga and I loved it. It’s a nickname that was also given to me a long time ago and I really liked it. As I have shared before, I’m not really a girly girl, if I were to share all my interests and likes and activities and nothing more about myself it would probably be assumed that I was male (I tried it once as an experiment and I was right haha). Anyways, I’ve always liked that kind of image in my head, the no-nonsense, tough, strong type of girl. That and I do have a special place in my heart for firearms (but no, I will not get into any discussions about gun control, and if anyone thinks this username has anything to do with any of that mess well, you’re laughably wrong).

There’s also a lot going on in my life right now, and a lot of stuff coming up that I am just going to have to man up and deal with. I spent a great deal of last week just being a crying mess over it all. I whined. I complained (and many of you put up with it). But I’m done wasting my time dreading the inevitable. I can either let it get me down and render me useless, or I can step up to the task at hand and handle it the way it should be handled. I just have to accept that sometimes I’m not going to be strong enough, but I’ll be damned if I’m bested before I give it my all. I’ve been through so much in my short time on this planet, and I know I have a long ways to go before my journey is over. There will be times of joy, and there will be times of grief. There will be adventures, and there will be catastrophes. There will be memories I will hold on to forever as well as ones I will want to purge and never think of again.
That’s life. But I won’t let it get me down without a fight.

Because I’m the gunslinger girl.

“I’m scared.”

“I know. It’s been a long week.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“I know.”

“You’ve done a 180 on me. One moment you’re excited about something you won’t tell me about and now you’re rethinking our entire relationship.”

“It’s been a long week.”

And with a heavy sigh you walk out of the room, turning off the light. You do not linger before closing the door.
And then I wrapped myself in the cold blankets of silence.