Hey there, followers and friends. I've dropped off the face of the planet, but I'm clawing my way back into the swing of things. Enough time and events have passed to warrant an update! not all of it is positive, and I'm going to talk about some personal and dire things in addition to the positives. Trigger warning for descriptions of drug use and addiction.

TL;DR: I'm doing better, but I have a long way to go and things are still not even remotely ideal, but I have made important progress in a number of areas and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

First and most positively, I've just returned from a vacation/over-due honeymoon with teacat! My parents sprung for the costs and so we got a much-overdue break from the stress and chaos that we and the family have been going through. I think it was a very positive and decompressing experience, and it allowed us to rediscover some aspects of our relationship that have been dormant for a while. It put a lot of things into perspective, and though it was only for a week, I think we both got a lot out of it. <3

Second, most negatively, my sister is still going through some terrible complications with her addiction and related behavior. The story, in short, is that her addiction appears to be completely out of her control, and she nearly died on Saturday due to an overdose, just days (if not hours) after getting out of another stint in jail. The only reason she survived was because one of her only remaining friends had been there to find her and do CPR on her for two hours until she came to. My family, especially my mother, has been trying to do everything she can to help her, but ultimately this just wound up enabling my sister's addiction and thus to further alienate her from the people that love her. My mom is heartbroken. She's surviving, but she is at the point where she expects my sister to die of an overdose before she can get her addiction under control. My dad and I agree, and we're all sort of quietly (sometimes not quietly) resigning ourselves to this. My sister's antics and troubles have weighed heavily on all of us, and affected the quality of our relationships with each other, including my relationship with my husband. Having a few weeks where my sister was in jail and therefore SAFE was a huge weight off of everyone's shoulders, and the physical distance my man and I had while in Hawaii was a necessary and healthy break from this drama, as it allowed the two of us to collect our thoughts and focus on our own lives for a while.

The two of us are seeking therapy for the woes we have been facing, both to help us put our life's events into perspective, learn about and label our thought patterns and behavioral tendencies, and experiment with medications to free us up to discover who we actually are in the absence of the anxiety and depression that has gripped us both (individually and as a pair). The sessions are of no cost to us out of pocket (thank you Affordable Care Act!), and for my part I think my therapists and the facility itself are approachable, compassionate, attentive, and dedicated to their work and purpose. I have been going to sessions for 6 months, but I still feel like I'm at the very begining of my recovery, in part because my depression has gotten worse and more complicated since my sessions began. This is in large part the result of my family stress and living situation, which itself has deteriorated immensely during this time. But the gains that I've made are undeniable, and I wish to continue seeking help from my care providers. I started taking sertraline (aka generic Zoloft) about 5 weeks ago, which is an addition to mirtazapine (aka generic Remeron) I've been taking and increasing the dose for the past 6 months, and I think the side effects have been minimal (mostly just sleepy) and to a large degree actually helpful. The mirtazapine has helped with my sleeplessness, and it has quieted my nausea and increased my appetite, and I started finally gaining weight about 2 or 3 months ago. The Zoloft, which can cause nausea, has not done so for me, probably due to the first medication, and so I've really begun packing on the pounds. I'm going to need to start exercising, and with that food boost I'm finally beginning to feel like I have the energy to do so. I'm hoping to reduce the dosage of mirtazapine to try and help minimize the sleepiness, so that I can experience the "extra energy" that Zoloft is supposed to give its users.

I ultimately decided do drop out of school to focus on my recovery and look into getting part-time work to have a little bit of income again. Being broke and indigent is not helping my self-image, not to mention the stress. I have submitted a request for a refund of my tuition on medical grounds and filled out the proper paperwork and such.

I've been entering into a more creative period since dropping out, which has given me more room to take care of myself in general. I splurged on a new guitar preamp, which is really helping me get more out of my guitar and bass in a way that I was not before I got it. My parents have encouraged me to start playing drums again, and we've begun discussing putting up a wall and door to the room in question to give me more of a personal, isolated creative space. I'm just kind of a private person by nature, and despite my attempts to open up and not worry about things, but I experience intense embarrassment when I'm performing or practicing in front of others, despite what wonderful things people have said about my ability to perform music. It's scopophobia (the fear of scrutiny and social rejection) on a level that I have habitually minimized and misunderstood, and I realize now that I need to find my way of living with it. I cannot give up music all together, because when I try to do that my depression gets even worse. I crave it, and I need to do it. Perhaps the medication will help even me out in this regard, but the point is that I both thrive on and struggle profoundly with music. I hope to make something out of this tension, instead of being so steamrolled by it.

I'm also trying to remember to spend time playing video games, which I started avoiding over the past year, and to remember to keep looking into how to make them as well. I am good at coding, albeit self-taught, and I wish to continue to develop these skills even if I don't make a career out of it. Unity 5 is out, and they removed the pay-wall behind its most desired tech, such as real-time shadows & render-to-texture & camera/audio post-processing effects. They also give away its new audio mixer, physics-based shaders, and real-time global illumination, which are all things I've wanted to play with and learn about but never had the cash to buy into it. The only thing they're hiding is the fancy analytics, team-collab features/license, and their cloud-build system, none of which I'll need. I've never been more excited to dig into this tool to make games with teacat's pixel art~

Above all, I'm trying to learn to pace myself and not make promises (to myself or anyone else) that I can't keep, so I won't make any, aside from the promise that I'm trying to make more of a commitment to my own well-being. This includes continuing medication, investigating moving out (somehow), looking into music lessons, taking a class here-or-there, and trying to "touch" all of my areas of interest on a more-or-less daily basis. This is something I'm going to have to work up to from where I currently am. Once I accomplish that, I will need to make this a routine, structured or otherwise.

So, that was a lot! Sorry to dump so much, but this is an accurate account of what all has transpired in the past few months since I posted, and it's all relevant. Thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves.