Bipolar? That's Me!

Yay, long weekends... Not!

Well... No one's heard from me in a while. Apologies to all; I've been massively busy. On the other hand, maybe this rant will make some people decide not to like my posts. This one's a bit personal and features a lot of stupid people and too many shades-of-gray definitions... a frustrating highlight to a cruddy day.

Among other things, my past weekend was a tad bipolar. Thursday was up and down, ending on a fantastic high note, while Friday was so stressful I was literally shaking, to some degree, for most of the day.

Thursday evening, someone we all know (yes, I mean Katie<3) decided she would be adorable in her process of asking me back out. (I said yes of course, I would have to be an idiot not to adore her...) Actually getting time with my (re)girlfriend left me the calmest I've been in months by the time I got home.

Unfortunately it didn't last for the next morning. The first coherent memory I have (that's because it was as I woke up, not because I was high on anything, for any of you readers who always read the worst possible meaning into anything. For the record, I refuse to get into drugs because I don't want to mess with my brain when it's basically my best attribute. I don't have a lot else going for me, so I want to keep what I have... but I digress. I have a rant to share...)

Basically my first coherent memory was of being yelled at, and almost immediately yanked - by the hair, which is painful - into a sitting position. I proceeded to get into a massive wrestling match with my mother (with all the standard tricks, including hitting me over and over when I decided not to respond 'cause I was so pissed and verbally harassing me while I sobbed, holding the blanket tightly over my head as though it would actually shield me from anything). She later decided that since she had to go to work and she was leaving the house without me, I /had/ to skip school and work on a few things like laundry from my room.

Just f.y.i... Hey, I don't appreciate the unprovoked physical not-quite-abuse. Really, I don't. Also, I'm seven-frikken-teen. There's a /law/ that says kids have to go to school either until they're sixteen if they're dropping out, or until they graduate from the equivalent of a public high school's 12th grade. If I don't go, it's truancy, and my parents get in trouble… Since I am not dropping out, I am legally /required/ to go to school. Normally, if I was told "get up NOW" when I was in that much of a fighting mood, I would bury myself under the covers and curl up on the floor when I'm finally dragged out of bed (by dad, who has the physical strength to enforce that.) All things considered though, including the fact that I for some reason zoned in on the fact that she told me "stay home, but get up now," I decided that after she left for work, when my dad left to take my sister to school, I would get up, dressed, etc, and walk out the door. It's not an unreasonable walk to school, but long enough that when I'm at my most energetic and power walking (I can't run with my backpack on... it's heavy and it's hard enough to walk upright with it on) it will probably take me a solid, sweaty, half hour. By the time my dad and sister walked out the door, I was nearly half an hour late for my zero-block class. I think I was out of bed and down the stairs to my backpack, and even slinging it over my shoulder in record time (for me.) I stopped long enough to grab a house key from the garage, and to call the one person who both has their own car to drive and that I regularly tell about my personal/family drama, asking for a ride. I woke her, but she said she'd be on her way soon. I paid careful attention to how dad had locked the front door, and locked it back the same way on my way out. Then I just started walking. 20 paranoid minutes later and barely halfway to school, my ride showed up. We completed my "journey" by getting to my school in less than four minutes. Turns out, I was right on time for the normal first period class, so I went straight there. The attendance office ladies called my third period class to give me grief about not signing in (my first block teacher is a bit clueless when it comes to computers, so any day I'm late or my excused absence is assigned to the wrong day, I hear from all my other teachers, "hey, why are you marked absent?" and nothing from her. The second class I went to today, the teacher asked me why I was absent, then emailed attendance. I should have been sarcastic, saying "oh yeah. I'm obeying my mother and not coming to school today. I forgot; my bad...") I decided I didn't really care whether I was marked present or absent, because I didn't know if my parents would be searching for me and check the obvious place (since my backpack was gone and all the folders that are normally in it would have had to still be there because they weren't anywhere else) by calling the school and asking if I was there. Besides, they told me not to be there, and since I'm not 18 yet, I'm still legally obliged to obey them. It's sort of a compromise? Either way, Attendance learned that I was there, and I went on with my day.

By the end of the day, I had a massive headache (that happens when I cry and get my head specifically dehydrated. Also, I have orchestra as my last class, so everyone was being loud and not helping the pain...) I was also starting to freak out about the necessity of going home. I stayed for my normal Friday club meeting, which let out earlier than usual, then called my friend back. She picked me up, and we went for a drive, which almost got me to relax, except it ended too soon, and I freaked out so much about how I didn't want to go back to my house that she gave me the option of taking it to the police as abuse...

Yeah. Long story short, we went downtown to the police station and talked to someone... and the officer said "it sounds like growing pains to me" and pointed out that parents have the right to corporal punishment. He did, however, say he'd file some form and a social worker would call us up to help us basically "work through [our] issues." He also called my mother, letting her know that I'd spoken to him and all that. (At least, he claimed to have called her. Friend and I were sent out into the lobby to wait.) He came back out and told us that she'd been pretty receptive to what he said, which was that I'd been in, and he thought that dragging me around by my hair and slapping me was dangerously close to physical abuse, so she should try to find some other way to get my attention, but also that he'd told me to try to follow her rules to not make it necessary in the future... Said she'd asked that Friend take me home and that we'd talk when we both got there. Friend of course took me the long way home, reassuring me of her unending support. Despite everyone else's reassurances, I was freaking worse than ever then, worried that I hadn't been able to express myself clearly enough, that the officer hadn't taken me seriously, and especially that mom would know what I'd tried to do and would go off on me worse later.

In any case, I got back to my house at like 6:30, more than ten hours after I'd left the house, and still /way/ too soon for my taste. I dragged Friend in with me, still desperate for sanity. As soon as I was in the door, dad asked where I'd been all day. "at school... Then [club]." He accepted that, but since he was leaving to take my sister to a birthday party, he insisted I come along since I was home. Friend had to leave, and didn't put up a fuss, but mentioned to me that my dad clearly didn't know I'd spoken to the police that afternoon, since he hadn't said anything even halfway relevant. I agreed, and rode in awkward silence out to a country club with them, and back with dad. When we were ten minutes out from our house, mother called and evidently asked whether I'd gotten home. Hearing only dad's side of the conversation, I caught fragments like "I was leaving at the time and it seemed best... it seemed prudent to bring her along." I managed to worry more.

Then I finally got home and had to deal with her... absolutely NOTHING out of her, beyond the normal, "loss of /so many/ privileges and get back to those chores I told you to do this morning." I'm not really sure what "no privileges" means, as all I can figure I've lost is my phone, which she took that morning, and internet privileges, also gone ca. 7 A.M. - there was even a fragment of conversation that included her telling me "and that's why you have permission to leave the door to your room closed" which may not seem like much, but I HATE when I'm in a bad mood and trying to hide from everyone and she /insists/ I leave my door open, or the times she makes dad take it off... She didn't even made a move to put her hand on my shoulder (which normally is fine or even taken with the intended affection, but one time it did spark a wrestling match between us and she broke one of my favorite keepsakes in the process, as well as tearing my nightshirt off of me, so i wasn't really sure if she'd decided not to risk anything). I began to believe that everyone else could have been right - that the threat of being arrested was quite a reset-inducing factor and would probably work wonders… But then she didn't say anything at dinner (it was just the three of us eating dinner, and the first time I'd really been close enough to talk to them). She didn't say anything when I asked her a chores-related question and no one else was on the same floor of the house... I have to wonder if she really got a call, or if the improvement was just from the fact that she hadn't known where I was from whenever dad told her i wasn't around the house until 9 P.M.... In any case, zero issues between then and Friday night, when I typed this up. Obviously, I'm not gonna be able to post this until at least Tuesday afternoon when I have a computer class, and it might even be by emailing Katie a .txt and saying "Hey. Post it." For whatever reason, the lack of issues actually scares me really badly. In this family, a lack of chaos is rarely a predictor of good things to come…

Yeah. Um. Yeah. Rant over... Who's glad you don't have family issues like this kid right here?

*sigh* Until next time, my patient readers

EDIT: So, turns out she /did/ get that call, but she didn't mention anything until Sunday morning when we were the only two in the house (Dad and Sister go in to church early) so I bet Dad doesn't know. She said she didn't know what I'd been thinking [insert minirant here] but that we would talk about it when I was ready. Which might be never. I'm starting to think taking it all the way to the authorities was an overreaction. 'cause really, it's not consistently bad... I'm wondering if she's so nice in comparison because she's scared though... Friend seems to think so. I don't know. It's still a huge, muddled confusion, but at least my internet is on now, so I can post this earlier than expected...
Also, you'd think she would wait longer than three days (read: this happened as soon as Monday night) to hit me again, all things considered. With as scared as she's acting... You know? Headshots hurt, for the record, especially when you take a backhand to the temple and it rattles your brain... Yep. Ouch. But we've really only had that one episode since Friday, and usually when we have such issues, they're a bit more frequent before they become "virtually nonexistent" again...