Mood: I hate myself. Can't shake it.
Music: Wheatus, Teenage Dirtbag
Mind: Even the music can't cheer me up.

I hate everything. Absolutely everything.

Nobody asks me about my mood swings. Good thing, too.

Justin had the right idea to stop talking to me when he did. I don't quite know why Paul still bothers with it, except he's also taking antidepressants, and that probably makes it a little easier for him to deal with it. I used to think that Justin was maladjusted because Justin had all the problems at home. Now I realize that he was not only sane, he was wise. He was also a lot like me, which is why I can't talk to him anymore. It all fit in together like a puzzle.

Okay, I'm not making sense. That's okay. Nobody reads this except for Paul and me, so it doesn't really matter. I wouldn't have posted at all, except I don't journal anymore and I've got to say a few things.

First of all, I hate what this wedding has become. It's no longer a wedding. It's frickin Godzilla. Call in the planes and the helicopters, but you still won't be able to salvage the damage. I want it to be over with, because it doesn't matter to me anymore about keeping up appearances. I feel the need to invite a lot of my friends, simply because my mother has invited all of hers. This in itself is silly, but I would much prefer the company of people I like, rather than people I'm supposed to like because my mother does. I want to wear Birkenstocks; she wants ballet slippers. I want flip-flops for the wedding party at the reception; she wants "regular shoes." I want to leave the details up to the experts -- which is why we hired them to begin with; she wants to meet with them all again to finalize those details.

And apparently, I haven't said anything nice to her since I got engaged. That's what she said today. That means I've been rude for almost a year now. A personal record, I guess. Of course, it hasn't made me feel any better. I get along so much better with her when I'm not living with her. This, I assume, is because I don't feel like I have to live up to what she wants me to be for 24 hours a day. I only have to be the person she wants me to be (thinks I should be, etc.) in small doses of a few hours. I'm not saying that I don't love her, because I do. But I'm beginning to feel like she'd prefer to have a clone of herself without all of my issues. She told me yesterday, when I was feeling rather awful anyway, that I was too old to be treating her the way I do when I have mood swings. Of course, if she had asked me what the matter was, I couldn't have told her anyway, because that would have just been one more example of me NOT saying something nice to her.

In short, this has become something I never wanted it to be. I really want to take three or four steps backwards and find out where I went wrong. Oh, yeah, I know. I didn't elope. That's where I went wrong. I traded in my chance to get away from here for the chance to wear a (scratchy, heavy) wedding dress one time. I told you I was crazy.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to go see the endocrinologist. Apparently, Mom thinks it's all my fault that I can't lose weight. You're right. It is all my fault. I'm just probably in denial. I'll take a label for it either way. If I say it's not my fault, then I'm in Self-Denial. If I say it's my fault, then I'm Self-Loathing. Frankly, I don't care what the doctor says anymore. Doctors can take their self-righteous ego and shove it. I'm sick of trying their remedies one after another. It's not like this is serious medication, like chemo or AZT or something, so why am I'm straddling the toilet, throwing up until I see spots before my eyes? And yes, this has happened.

Well, I've reached the point in my rant where I stop fighting and just break down and cry. This occurs when I realize that it's pointless to attempt to change anyone's mind, especially my mother.

In short, I'm miserable. Sometimes I think I'd like to collapse into myself, implode, black hole-style. The closest I can come to that is to get as far away from people -- phone calls, e-mails, visits -- as I possibly can, sink back for a while, read, explore, attempt to better my mind without needless contact with other minds. That sounds far too complicated. The alternative is to sleep a lot, which is also a benefit, because I'm tired all the time and I don't really have to think about how crappy things are going when I'm asleep.

Having said all that, I feel surprisingly normal, especially when compared to a lot of people I know. That's not to say that I AM normal, because I'm NOT in denial of my own neuroses. However, I don't play video games for eight hours a day like Matthew. I don't fail classes simply because I don't care like Paul. I don't think that I'm reincarnated, I don't have hangups about relationships, I don't hate men (or women), I don't feel like life would be complete if I moved away. I just get a little too attached to my music. And sometimes my head hurts so bad that I'm sick to my stomach and it doesn't go away for a day or two. And once in a while, I think my pills don't work as good as they could.

So now, I sign off. This post, this site, are my little secret. I sign off, not feeling any better, go out with Mom and attempt to be civil and wonder how much things would be different if I weren't me. Or if I were me, but better. It's mind-boggling, mind-blowing.

I think I'd like a cup of tea.