oh my gosh!  i can't believe how long it's been since i visited my xanga site.  and i don't know why, but i was surprised to read blogs from sites that i subscribed to.  it's strange.  you think that you know where things are going.  but really it's difficult even to know where you have been. 

i feel like my life is changing.  it's changing a little bit at a time.  but then again, just in the past month there has been major changes!  i was at rock bottom (felt like THE rock bottom), stopped taking some of my medicine, fired my psychiatrist, got a new therapist who is a psychologist, went from totally hopeless and angry to somewhat of a "normal" state (although, who knows what normal is for me since i don't even know.  maybe it's better to say more stable state).  sometimes when you change one piece of your life (like changing my therapist), everything else gets shifted because of it.  and in my case, i feel much better about life, about my self, about the possibility that i might get better some day and oh i don't know, i think i'll be alive at least until next year which is a lot longer than i have been able to look ahead.  so anyway, thank God i have a new therapist and learned while i was off some of my meds that i need the meds to be as close to myself as i can be.

AND i totally feel empowered and liberated.  i felt tied down to my therapist and didn't think i could ever move away.  i felt totally tied to my church too.  but now i appreciate the community without feeling like i couldn't survive if i moved to a different place. 

when you find that you have a few rotten apples, you might be tempted to try to make something of the rotten apples.  but i would rather throw away the rotten apples and save the rest of the apples.  maybe it sounds harsh, but i find that after limiting or cutting off my ties to people who i feel badly when i interact with them, i feel much better and hopeful about life.  when i get mad at people, i have a tendency to turn that anger inward and really intense urges to do damage to myself come up.  so when i limit my exposure to people who upset me, i don't get the intense self-destructive impulses as much.  in time, i hope i can manage my impulses and also develop better coping skills so that i don't want to destroy myself when i get upset at others.  but for now, it's been really good for me to not talk to people who upset me.  life feels pretty good when you minimize the yuck-iness that regularly taint your world.  to those who have been left behind, i assure you that it is for the best and that we both benefit from not messing in each other's worlds.  i mean, is longevity of any relationship better than having peace of mind?  

[edit]  i don't mean to suggest that anyone who i have lost contact with is someone i wish to avoid or not keep in touch with! 

my condolences...
praying for god's comfort and peace

pictures of the bestest ramen place in tokyo!


red mango


i didn't eat all three!




lotte world adventure (location of redmango that i went to)