I am more than what I look like, and I'm more than where I've been

I am Nora. I also answer to Ang, Angel, Anniebear, Norabear, Liquie, Lique, and a plethora of other names. Never call me Angie. I am obsessed with Pokemon and Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and The Legend of Zelda, Mario and Knights of the Old Republic. I read manga and watch anime. I never match my socks.

I love pictures and my picture frames are everywhere (not quite everywhere as one fell off the wall today. Oops. Must fix that tomorrow). I love fleecey blankets. I love my stuffed animals. I love books. I collect DVDs. I collect soundtracks in languages other than English for no reason other than it's fun. I hate wearing velcro shoes.

I love my friends and am fiercely loyal. You mess with them, you're messing with me. I love and laugh and play. I love to sing. I used to play violin, but it's been years. I can also play recorder and tin whistle. I know that makes me wicked awesome. I also clearly enjoying using slang that makes me sound like I'm from England, but since I have a speech impediment might as well make people think it's a bloody accent, since I get asked that constantly, right?

I love Harry Potter and Narnia. I love cups of hot chocolate with whipped cream and nutmeg, and cups of tea with milk. I love The Princess Bride and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Fruits Basket and Fullmetal Alchemist, Air and Kiki's Delivery Service. I'm a Disney nut and I know a great amount of random Disney trivia that can dazzle your mind. I collect sock monkeys and ladybugs, decks of cards and Beanie Babies. I love penguins and elephants, keychains and postercards.

I like playing in the snow although I hate the cold, I love being barefoot in the grass. I love the feeling of fleece against my skin, I love the feeling of a warm heated blanket. I hate hugs and physical affection, but at the same time it's what I crave and long for.

I suffer from many disabilities and do not know what it's like to live a day without physical pain. I also suffer from major depressive disorder, ADD, anxiety disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and eating disorder not other specified along with suspected OCD, nonverbal learning disorder, and other things. I have too many physical ailments to list. I have both visible and invisible disabilities  but none of them are who I am and none of them define me.


This is who I am. Not just the last paragraph, but all the paragraphs. I am not just a cripple. I don't have faith that can move mountains just because I'm disabled and I'm not a superhero. I'm a regular person, just like anyone else. I'm a person who wants friends, who craves love and acceptance. I'm Nora, above it all. I'm no different than you, please don't treat me like I'm a lesser person just because I happen to be handicapped.

I hear the comments you make behind my back, and you can really bugger off. I watch you laughing as I'm struggling to open the door. I hear the snide remarks. I see the dirty looks. I'm not blind, I'm not deaf. And even if I were, you'd still be an asshole for acting like that. I'm a human being, despite my disabilities. I'm Ang, no matter how you slice it.

You don't have to act different around me, just because I'm Angelique: Optional Parts Not Included (And Even Missing Key Parts!). I'm still a friend you can trust, someone who would love to watch movies and play video games with you. It doesn't matter that I'm broken, because one day I will be mended albeit it may not be during this lifetime.

I am a person who loves rarely but deeply, who just wants someone to understand that I'm more than a disabled person. I just want people to realize that disabled people are just like anyone else. Even though at times we need more understanding, even though at times we may have to cancel plans last minute because we're sick, we're tired, we're hurting, we're in pain. We still are people, and just want to be treated as such.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road

It's a new year. 2013. I cannot believe it's 2013. This year will be seven years since I graduated, eight years since I last saw my father. Crazy how time flies. It's been a year of highs and lows, of getting an apartment, of finishing my first semester at a new school, of falling deeper into depression, of riding the health rollercoaster. Of repairing broken relationships. Of building friendships.

It's been over three years since I last cut. Crazy, huh? Some days I find myself wanting to lapse back into because it helps dammit but I know it's a really poor life choice, It's stupid and foolish, and it's sick and twisted, but isn't that what addiction is? It's the very thing we hate, driving us to do the very thing we don't want to do with such a sick, burning passion. It's kind of like lyrics from a BNL song " And the very fear that makes you want to die / Ends up the same as what keeps you alive / It's way more trouble than some suicide is worth."

It's so surreal that it's another year, another year to explore. Another year of ups, another year of downs. As I continue my therapy journey, my medical journey, what will it bring? Will I only find more pain? Will I finally find hope? Will I learn how to love again? What will the doctors learn, what medications and tests will they put me through this year?

What will this next year bring? More fears? Or joy and peace at last?

We need a little Christmas, right this very minute

This year I feel like a hybrid of The Grinch before his heart grew and Scrooge before he became kind and good. This year I'm drowning in depression. This year I'm not finished with my classes and still slaving over work as Christmas approaches. This year I'm not very Chrstimassy at all.

I don't know what it is this year. Why I'm so anti-Christmas. I'm happy to give people the gifts they got them but I love giving gifts, gifts is my love language. I suppose I should be happy that we're celebrating the birth of our Messiah, but I can't even muster that. It'll be a White Christmas, but big friggin whoop.

I just lack the Christmas spirit this year.

I'm in too deep, there's no way out, this time I have really led myself astray

I am crippled with depression lately. At least I'm doing my homework which I suppose is something, but I'm not doing it well. I'm not doing it as I should. I'm not hanging out with people. I'm escaping into a world of books and video games, music and movies. I'm isolating into my own world, locking out the people who love and care for me. Throwing up walls, living inside the castle I've built myself and not letting down the drawbridge to let someone in.

I saw my therapist today (yesterday, now). I locked down and completely shut him out. Stupid and foolish, I know, but right now I'm fragile. I'm too afraid to let anyone in, even the people I know that could help. Even the ones I know that could make a difference. Because I simply want to lock out the world. I simply want to exist in my shell. I simply want to exist as I am - a fragment of what life truly is.

Easy answer is fixing my antidepressant situation, but that's a nightmare right now. It's hard finding a doctor who's taking new patients. Who I can click with and trust as that is so key with a shrink. It's what's important, but right now I just need my medications fixed so I can be me again, not quasi-me. I'm not sleeping a lot - largely due to being sick but when I do sleep, I lapse into nightmares. I relive the trauma that living once was enough.

I feel like I'm losing hope, and that I'm drowning in a sea of failure. I feel like I've lost a battle in a war I'm fighting, and I'm going to continue to spiral downwards. I'm so sick of this. I'm so tired of being like this. It's not the way I want to be, dang it. It's not the way my life was meant to be lived, but yet it's the way I live.

We were meant to live for so much more,
have we lost ourselves?

I'm trapped. I'm doing my best to keep up the facade, to only let people see bits and pieces of how bad things really are. Of only showing bits and pieces of how frozen my heart is at the moment, and the thaw is nowhere near. That I don't know how to start the process of melting and in some ways, I just don't even know if I want to. It sounds twisted, but depression is what I'm used to. It's what I know. It's whats familiar  And I don't like change.

And so instead, I live in misery. Which really isn't a good idea, either.

far as the curse is found...

I can't help but think of the parents who can't tuck their children in tonight. I can't help but think of the siblings laying awake sobbing, because their little/big brother/sister won't come home ever again. I can't help but think of the unopened presents. I can't help but think of the parents who will not wake up to laughter on Christmas morning, who will wake up with a gaping hole in their hearts.

I can't help but think of idiots like Mike Huckabee, who gave us this brilliant statement:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/mike-huckabee-school-shooting_n_2303792.html

Yep, if God were in our schools, this tragedy wouldn't have happened. Clearly. This was my comment on a friend's facebook timeline. Excuse the insane amount of swearing, because it clearly hit a nerve with me.

Dear Mike Huckabee, you are a douche. And clearly clueless because NEWSFLASH: PRAYER IS NOT FUCKING ILLEGAL IN SCHOOLS. Teacher led prayer? Sure, that's not cool but if students want to pray they can fucking pray. If students want to be a Christian at school, they can be a goddamn Christian. GOD HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED FROM THE SCHOOLS YOU DOUCHEWAFFLE. 

Ahem. Clearly he hit a nerve as that amount of swearing is unusual, even for me. Have a heart for the parents who won't be tucking in their babies tonight, have a heart for the parents who won't wake up to the sound of their children's laughter and pleas to "Wake up, mommy"! on Christmas morning. Have a heart for the siblings who went to bed tonight minus their brother or sister, their best friends. People like you make me ashamed to be a Christian, because you obviously don't serve the same God I serve. 

The God I love isn't all "Teehee, you took me out of schools, now I'm going to allow this guy to shatter innocence, to take lives that are not his to take." The God I love is weeping with the world, not being all judgmental and being all "WELL IF YOU HAD ME IN SCHOOLS, THESE KIDS WOULD STILL BE ALIVE!" He is just as shattered as we are, and comforting those children until the day they are united with their parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends. Your version of God is demented.

Go sit on a tack and rotate, Mike.

Xoxo, Nora.

You know what? God is just as heartbroken as we are, yet on a grander scale. God is holding those babies tonight, comforting them, wiping all the tears from their frightened eyes. Cradling them in His gentle hand. That is the God I serve.

I can't help but think of the children in my life I love, and the mere thought of them seeing dead bodies. Lord, I would be a mental case if I saw one at age 25. Nevermind shave 20 years off my life. I don't understand why someone would do this - but do I want to?

Those children, the ones who survived, will never fully recover. And my heart breaks for them tonight. For the families, for the family (that's surviving, from what I've gathered in the news many of them are dead as well) of the shooter. He's a jerk, but he's still a human being who had people who loved him and they have suffered a great loss too. I can't imagine someone I love snapping like that. How can you still love them knowing their shattered so many lives? How can you still love them knowing their actions rocked a nation? I suppose you still do - but that must compound your grief so much.

Heartbroken.

 

And the world will be a better place

Think of your fellow man, lend him a helping hand
Put a little love in your heart

There are so many stories in the news of all the bad in the world. We lie in extreme days and dark times. But even as we are coated in snow, even as our hearts are frozen, there are still good and kind people in the world. There are still people who reach out to others in need and want to make a difference in people's lives.
I was walking to Starbucks and there wasn't much of a sidewalk and what was wasn't shoveled.  It's below freezing and the walk was slow and tedious. As I'm passing the vet clinic, struggling through the snow (it's tough when not on crutches!) a young man asked me if I was waiting for the bus. I responded no, just going up the street to Starbucks. He then introduced himself (a young lawyer) and offered me a ride to Starbucks. It was out of his way, but he was still willing to help me get to where I needed to go. I gratefully accepted.

To him, it was a small gesture to help out someone. To me, it was so much more. It was me accepting help, and not being a stubborn pain-in-the-arse. It was me getting where I needed to go safely (and yes, I usually don't accept rides from strangers but he checked out fine and again, it was cold and I needed to get to where I was going). It was me trusting someone. The point is?

There are still good people in this world. There are still people who want to help other people. There are still people who have a heart, who "put a little love in it." It was awesome to get a ride and not struggle to get there. It was great to have someone help me out. And it's prove that even in these dark days, good people still exist.