exerpt...

...My previous class ended twenty minutes ago. I rushed out of the room like all the other students. It must have come across as though I had another important class to attend that started in exactly one minute less than the time it took me to hurriedly walk there. In all honesty, I just hated the idea of pushing myself out that door at the same time as all the other students. I didn't want to be doing the same thing everyone else was doing in such a small space. To put myself in a situation where my actions could be seen projected in front of a group of peers performing the exact same action. It's much too easy to notice the faults in ones gait or coordination when the perfect example of mindless exodus is exemplified right next to you...

A late night dramatic moment

I'm sitting alone in the bed I just got into. The clock reads 3:12AM. I'm worried that I'll have a panic attack about throwing up almost as much as I'm worried about throwing up. I go to bed super late now just to reduce the chance of me waking up during the night. When I'm alone, I don't have the strength to have a panic attack. No one to talk to, no one to be with, to comfort me. I feel like such a faggot for needing these things, but during a panic attack, everything feels foreign. It feels like you've never been there before, and it's the scariest feeling. It's nice - necessary - to have at least one thing you know with assurance will be there, that's important. The upside of it being a human is that you can interact with it. The downside, of course, is that all humans feel somewhat foreign to each other. This is due to the fact that you can never entirely know someone. You can never know what they are thinking, how they will react, how they feel in its entirety.

I miss her when she's gone. I don't want to become dependent on her as well, I have enough things I need in my room at any given time, but I know she likes the feeling. I know she appreciates the comfort of knowing I have to have her. I don't blame her, and I'm not trying to cast a negative light on that, either. She just likes the assurance. Wouldn't anyone?

I'm insane, I think sometimes. No one I know is like this. No one I have ever known has fallen to this level of insanity. I used to think Emily's OCD was weird. Look at me. I don't sleep until 4 AM, I can't eat meat unless it's cooked well, and I can't ride in anyone's car, EVER. And public transportation? Forget it. I either drive myself, or it's not happening.

AM: After Midnight? PM: Pre-midnight? Huh.

I need normality. I crave a daily life that isn't filled with worry, anxiety. I don't wan to have to think about this all the time. I want the freedom to think whatever I want, without it relating to my emetophobia.

-

Kyle, Andy, Dylan, Alanna, and Mike Williams all played poker tonight. Kyle won big time. About time, though. That kid usually looses, even though he knows well how to play. It's good to see him with a fat stack of chips in front on the table.

We listened to the full forty minutes of glory that is "Sean's Crazy Dirty Dream 2." If I can't remember what that is whenever I read this again, ask Dylan. We turned out all the lights in the house, and put it on over the stereo. I had a minor panic attack there, so I went into my room, turned on the light, and used the bathroom. I came back out and listened to the rest of it. It was awesome, once I got used to the darkness of the room.

Kyle's sleeping on the couch tonight. Good thing he came over in pajamas. That kid has the most awesome pajamas you will ever see. Smiley faces, bills, you name it. J.D. Rockafeller.

I want to sleep, but I'm worried. I'm also super tired and I have to get up at either 7 or 8. I'm going to try to sleep now.

I'm going to sleep.

][)) ][ //\/ (() S //\ ((_) ][2

The panic attacks have changed recently. They went from an intense "oh God, oh God, I'm gonna throw up" type of panic to a confused daze, somewhere between standing up too fast and not sleeping enough feelings, mixed with a heavy dose of I just ate way too many jelly beans nausea, but one hundred times worse.

I'm starting to worry I will lose everything. My sense of humor. My interest in day to day activities. Will I ever ride a roller coaster again? Go camping? Sleep a night through?

I want so badly to put this whole mess on pause. Just enjoy a week of life without it. It's starting to really hurt my girlfriend. Last night I kept bothering her, and she was obviously annoyed. She kept telling me to just stop thinking about it, but in the middle of a panic attack, you can't really just stop thinking about the panic. It's PANIC. I read up on emetophobia, and discovered a lot about it, and a lot of people who also have it. Sounds way too familiar, the whole losing sleep, praying to God, telling Him you will make life changes if you just stop feeling insane, etc.

Not it's 2:15 in the morning and I have work tomorrow. I was going to get up at 7, go to The Coffee Bean and get some coffee, sit around and enjoy the morning for what it is before heading to work, but that's less than five hours of sleep now.

Steph doesn't understand why I write this blog. It just makes me feel a little better to know I wrote down how I feel. I don't have to worry about making the internet pity me, or look down on me for being such a pussy. I don't have to lie to it so that it doesn't start feeling nauseous itself. It's the internet. However, maybe someday, someone will stumble over this blog, and be truly interested in the psychological instability I am dealing with. Maybe one day I'll be cured, and I can start writing this blog like I wanted to in the beginning, a diary of my day to day life, so that I didn't forget the little things.

And that's what I like about this blog. It automatically time stamps my entries with the date, and I can say whatever I want to say. I guess I should write about something else every once in a while. Here goes.

I've come to appreciate cigarettes more. What a great stress relief, I dread having to stop smoking, but that's probably just my chemical addiction talking. Last night when I was freaking out, dylan walked out of his room. I sprang up from bed, much to Steph's dismay, and asked him to smoke with me. He had apparently just had one, but he accompanied me anyway. Good man, good man. It calmed me down a lot, and when I went inside afterwords, I was able to finally pass out. Probably at about three in the morning.

I downloaded "A Clockwork Orange" on audio book tonight to give me something to listen to so that maybe I won't panic as much. I also basically beat all the missions in Red Dead Redemption for the Xbox 360. Hell yeah. I want to get 100% game completion. Just to be a total badass.

I'm not feeling too lousy, I may try to go to sleep soon.

To God.

I guess I'll write until my laptop dies.

Today has been weird. My stomach and intestines have been in knots all day. Steph works up near LA usually on thursdays and fridays, but this week it's wednesday and thursday. She left at about seven. Since then,I picked Brandon up. Usually, he drives here, but he was in a car accident earlier today. Freeway traffic stopped, and the guy behind him rear-ended him. He saw it coming and tried to get out of his lane and apparently hit a truck in the lane over.

We got some meat at this mexican mercado on 9th, "Five Star Market". My parents got me a barbeque on the fourth of July (I'll be paying them back,) and we cooked it and made some kind of tacos with salsa and cheese. I cooked my meat super well done, but I couldn't bring myself to even try the sketchy chicken we also got. All the meat is like two dollars a pound there.

After I drove him home I had a cigarette with Dylan. I bought L&M lights 100's. Probably a poor choice but they were only four bucks. The guy at the counter said if I didn't like them, at least it was nothing to cry over. The bum who is usually outside of the 7/11 wasn't there, either. Probably a good thing.

It's misting. It's not rain, but it's also July. Strange weather this year.

Today I've ingested:
~Carmel Macchiato from Starbucks (super good, my first time trying it.)
~Blueberry and oat thing, and some blueberry scone. (Jamba was out of oatmeal for Steph.)
~Rice, noodles, orange chicken, and cream cheese rangoons. All from Panda Express.
~One Adobada taco
~Two packets of Stater Brother's Oatmeal.
~Water, green tea/sierra mist, Canada Dry.

I had more than three cigarettes, but hey, it's a work in progress.

I've also played a lot of Red Dead Redemption. Video games get my mind off of my stomach more than TV or books. Unfortunate, but at least something helps.

I want to feel better so much. I haven't had a normal day in months. I haven't had a good day in months. I need prayers.

Anxiety.

An update on the sickness:

So, on saturday, I turned in that stool sample. It was a little bit humiliating, but I was extremely hopeful that it would show me the cause of my nausea, pain, and discomfort.

And, I'm going to make you wait for the results of the test, as I had to. Let me tell you a little more about how I have been feeling, physically, and emotionally.

Physically, all the discomfort is in my abdomen. Sometimes it's burning, sometimes it's nausea. Sometimes it's a stabbing pain. It occurs sometimes in my intestines, sometimes in my stomach, sometimes it switches between the two.

Right now, it's burning. It's burning in my stomach. And it burns like hell. It feels like I haven't eaten in days. It's not hunger, though, I couldn't eat if I tried. It feels like someone is having a very successful campfire in my stomach. I can't find anything that the feelings are tied to. It happens at night too, when I haven't smoked, so it can't be cigarettes. It doesn't consistently happen after eating, so it can't be any type of food doing this to me. It doesn't appear to be any structural issue inside me, the ultrasound would have shown that. It can't be in my blood because they tested that too.

And apparently, it isn't a parasite, because the results came back, and they were clean.

The list of things it may be is becoming small enough to remember without being written down. And, considering the whole point of this blog is so that I stop forgetting the details of things, that should illuminate just how small it is. It is as follows:

+Lack of sleep
+The regularity of my smoking finally wearing something down inside me
+Stress
+Anxiety

Each one just as unlikely as the next. Except the last. If it is the last one, though, what do I do? What CAN I do?

It's probably not the first one, because I feel sick when I sleep enough too.
It's probably not the second one because symptoms started a year before I touched my first cigarette.
Stress may be contributing, but I don't think it's the cause.
And, come to think of it, same reason for the fourth.

My mother thinks it's subconscious. A theory of hers is that I am afraid to fail. And I won't try if I feel nauseous. It makes sense enough, but how do I stop it? Why would my own body do this to me?

Emotionally, I am destroyed. At least twice a week for months now, I have been face to face with my worst fear. Throwing up. his devil that stands just outside of my peripheral vision. Who's shadow I catch just when it's too late to look and see him. I want this to be over. I need it to be. I am drained, and yet it continues to attack me, every day. Every night. Every time I go to the doctor, I cost my parents over $500. We don't have the money for this, and yet, I cannot stop going. This needs to end. It's too much for me to handle. It's ruining my life, my relationship, my job, and my parents, God bless them, haven't complained a bit. I love them. I can't believe what they are doing for me. I can only pray to God that one day I will be as perfect a parent as either one of them. They save my life every day.

I just want to feel normal. I just want to be able to eat a meal without worrying, ride in someone else's car. I want so badly to be free of this. I want to sleep without the fear of waking up in five hours, sweating, panicking, crying, shaking, sick.

My girlfriend has been amazing through all of this too. Every single time I wake up at night, she comforts me. Always the same problem, me panicking about vomiting, and never once has it actually happened. Still, she will stay up as long as I feel scared. She will console me, and reassure me. Thank God for you Steph, I love you so much.

It makes me feel like such shit to be this childish, the uncontrollably afraid. Irrational fear has never before been a vice for me. I hate seeing myself sick. I hate who I am when I feel nauseous, and I never want to be this way again.

All the tests returned normal. So I guess I'm fine.

To Whom It May Concern: Part Two

I've been waiting to take those anti-anxiety pills until a day when I don't feel sick, that way when I take them, I'll know more about the side effects. However, that day may not come for a while. I guess I'll take them tomorrow. We'll see what happens.
Steph and Dylan were both away for the night. I thought it might be relaxing having the apartment to myself. It was certainly quieter. Too quiet. I spent most of the night trying to get someone to talk to. I called my good friend, who said he may call me later. He didn't. Because of the sensitive nature of most of the things I may end up be writing about this guy, I would prefer to just call him... Oliver. I like that name. Steph hates it because all she hears is the word, "Olive."

Anyway, I have to be at work at eight a.m. for a store meeting tomorrow, where we all sit in the dining room of the restaurant, and talk about how the store is doing. Sometimes there are interesting activities that I can only assume are meant to make you want to slam your head on the tables till it's over.

I think another reason I want to start writing things down is because, as I said, my memory is terrible. Because of this, I can remember the gist of my past, but with absolutely no details. This should begin to explain why most of the stuff you will read here is mundane and unimportant.

People in my apartment complex complain a lot about how "noisy" we are. After staying in the dead-quiet apartment all night, I can't see how we are the noisiest. I keep hearing loud bumps and windows slamming, and across the way, a guy has his window open and his TV on. These aren't complaints though, ambient noises have never really bothered me. I don't understand those uppity neighbors I always seem to get, who complain every time I shut my fridge. I seem to have a knack for finding people who would rather not have ears at all.

I watched more House M.D. tonight, video chatted with Steph, and tried to get Starcraft to work with my brother, who lives in Santa Barbara for college at UCSB. This was the original Starcraft, gloriously manufactured in 1998, and the game my brother used to beat the shit out of me in throughout my childhood. Seriously, this guy seemed like a god of war at this game. We never got it to work. He says he'll try to download some things and get it working for tomorrow. "Unfortunately" I have a fun night planned for tomorrow with the empty apartment and the lady-friend.

It's two in the morning, and I have to get up at six-thirty. I'm afraid to go to sleep, because I might wake up feeling nauseous.

But life seems to always be that way.

To Whom It May Concern:

The reason I'm making this diary... well, there isn't really a reason. A friend of mine was telling me about how his mother kept a diary when he was an infant, and she recently gave it to him to read. He had something wrong with his lungs, and had to get surgery. He told me that the words from the diary were so innocent it made him cry.
Now you know me, I'm a sucker for that type of thing. I guess I'm hoping one day that I can stir that type of emotion in someone I care about, too.

That reason, mixed with my terrible memory, gives me enough reason to start writing things down, I suppose.

My name's Bryce. I'm twenty years old. I live in an apartment with my friend Dylan, and my girlfriend Steph. I pay six hundred fifty dollars a month, he pays five hundred, she pays one. The reason for the difference is because I was paying six hundred fifty at my last apartment. I had to move out because it was getting crazy with drug use. Not me, but everyone that ever came over to that place. When you start doing drugs, the first thing that goes is your discretion. Followed closely by ambition, and then the sense of how intelligent or insightful you actually are. Dylan only pays five hundred because he's a full-time student, and Steph one hundred because we kinda just threw her on the lease and figured she'd be here a hell of a lot anyway. This way I guess she's helping with the water bill and groceries.

My father just bought me a 1975 Corvette Stingray. When I first turned 18, I inherited my grandfather's 1994 Ford F-150XL. It was a beautiful truck, and it saved my life, too. I'll write that down a little later. That's an entry of it's own, and I need to be getting some sleep soon.
So, I've been working on the car with the spare money I have, which is not much. I work at In-N-Out, which I believe is a respectable company. In the fall I will finally stop dicking around and reallygo to college. I have taken a language class and a philosophy class, but now I'm going to go full-time, and start taking GE's to get into UCI, (which shouldn't be too hard) to become a lawyer.

Between money, work, school, and other depressing innuendo's, I believe now is a good time to mention I'm smoking about twelve cigarettes a day.

I should also mention that I'm sick. It started three years ago when I took a mission trip to Honduras for two weeks. (That's what I get.) And be careful, because I'm about to go into detail.
When I came back, I had diarrhea about once every month or so. Pretty bad bouts of it. But it never came to a point where it was bad enough to see a doctor. Eventually, about a year ago, I started keeping Immodium in the car, just in case. And for the past three months, my stomach has been extremely upset. I have been waking up in the middle of the night-- Well, I just noticed I missed an important part of this story: I have an extreme fear of throwing up. It's the only thing that I'm really, really afraid of. Not spiders, not heights, not elevators, but throwing up. If anything goes wrong in my abdomen at all, I immediately attribute the word "nausea" to it. My dad, at one point in time, tried to calm me down about it by saying that at least it wasn't something like bridges or dogs, something that would affect my daily life. I mean, imagine being too afraid to cross a bridge if you had to cross one on your commute to work. However, recently, it has been affecting my life. In a big, big way. I wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes up to three times a week, and immediately start feeling nauseous. I'll have an anxiety attack, (sweating, shaking, freaking out,) and eventually it wears off with the lingering thought of, "if I was going to throw up, it would have happened by now, and I would be continuously feeling worse and not any better." These attacks can last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour.

Also, I get extremely nervous eating food simply because it may give me food poisoning, my worst nightmare. That and the stomach flu. And let me clarify, I mean eating any food. Every time I eat, the thought is prevalent in my mind, will this make me sick?

I can't ride roller coasters anymore. I can't even sit in the backseat of a car.

The worst part is, I don't see a solution. I went to the doctor, he scheduled me for a blood test and an abdominal ultrasound. They both came back clean. When I went back in, I took a little bit more control of the situation, and started expressing my opinions at to what we should do next. (He did everything I thought we should do, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.) He gave me the paperwork to give a stool sample, (I figured that may be where it started, A parasite or something,) and gave me a months worth of anti-anxiety medicine. Upon closer examination, the anxiety medicines side effects include nausea and/or insomnia. What a dream.


And sickness begot depression.