the shock of feeling normal

Kind of in a o_o place, but I'm liking it. Highest prednisone dose I've ever been on and actually feeling pretty good. I forget what it's like to actually feel good grinding through several months of rough.

And apparently I'm getting the hang of this, fasting glucose this morning was 88, blood pressure 134/80, ongoing food reactions and hayfever allergies finally seem to be controlled, and I'm SLEEPING. Huzzah!

In the past I've had some real love/hate relationships with steroids, and since it's only my third day I'm sure I'll run into something later as I'm tapering. This is also the longest taper I'll have been on, 12 days. Actually 15 total since the reaction breakout and the restart. I've known people who literally just live on prednisone for months at a time and always wondered how, because in the past I've been fairly miserable on it, but that was mostly before I understood how to control my blood sugar, I think. I've also gotten the bone pain that comes with steroid use, which I can very honestly say is THE worst pain in the world, including childbirth, kidney stones, migraines, and being thrown out of a wildly flipping car during an accident. Bone pain is its own speshul thang. This list of side effects is a bit excessive, but yeah, always risks. I've been on and off prednisone at least once or twice a year for nearly 25 years, thankfully in shorter bursts, but it's cumulative over time and I'm very lucky to be in as good a shape as I'm in.

Guess we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, such a relief getting past the last two months of packed ears and sinus and the resultant losing battle with continual histamine spikes. Histamines affect body systems in all kinds of ways and impact other health problems, and suddenly sent me cycling through a series of pre-crash scenarios because system overload. Of all the things I've lived through, I think the most ironic way to croak off would be my own body overreacting and shutting itself down during cytokine storm.

So this week is all about getting back on track, workworkwork, keep slamming through as much as I can while I can, and actually enjoy it because I feel so much better! Yay!

nutrition is taken for granted

This post is a desperate attempt to rip myself away from twitter on my phone. I've been up since 2 a.m., thank you solumedrol, and now I need to pull all my focus into getting out my door in a couple hours for an appointment with a nutritionist, which cracks me up. Gonna be fun meal planning around nut/peanut (includes mangos bcuz in the pistachio family), all citrus (pervades all things that taste good, avoid 'natural flavors' that spike flavor in prepackaged foods including salad dressings, sauces, and condiments), the bananas-avocado-potatoes trio because of latex, and now wheat. Which I'm really not supposed to be eating anyway because I'm controlling my diabetes without meds, and wheat in everything spikes glucose as badly as sugar does. I'm looking forward to a very interesting meetup, and it had better be for $84, because insurance isn't paying for this one. I figure I need the moral support right now, though.

Since my parents didn't believe in doctors and I was so terribly aspie (failing to communicate well) through most of my adulthood, it took a really long time for me and my medical team to figure out I'd been living with food reaction induced asthma for several years. I lived on cough drops for a decade before I got an inhaler, and then lived on advair for 9 months before it dawned on anyone I might be having deeper issues. When I finally found out I'm diabetic and changed my diet, a lot of that went away because I was severely curbing the carbs, and I discovered a carb rich diet was also causing other problems like IBS and bad headaches. Lost 50 pounds and started feeling a whole lot better.

Then the airway problems ramped up. Cashews were first, and it was nasty. I'd been eating cashews for years, so that was a big surprise. I was already suspicious of peanuts and had stopped eating anything with peanut butter because I was tired of the itching, but that blew up along with the cashews, and now I can't even touch something else that has touched something with peanut in it without itching and actual swelling. I purged my house. Then came the lemon. I'd already cut out orange juice for severe heartburn and limeades because my mouth went numby and tickly, but I love everything lemon. When that finally scared me with airway, I was almost devastated to give up lemon juice sqeezed on crabcakes and the rare piece of lemon pie, my fave dessert in the whole world. It's terribly difficult to purge citrus. Lemon isn't legally bound to be listed as an allergen and can get away hiding in ingredient lists in the form of 'natural flavor' in everything from salad dressings to condiments and sauces. I started making my own salad dressing. I was thrilled to find Annie's condiments and dressings, I can finally eat ketchup again without a reaction. Click this pic to go the to Annie's site. It's my way of saying thank you to them for helping me enjoy eating with all this going on.



So. Now it's wheat. This is my second round of steroids in 2 weeks and I got the rash this time along with the itchy tongue and croup. My allergist told me last year to take 2 zyrtecs twice a day and eat anything I want, and if I have a reaction then throw in some pepcid and claritin, crank benadryl round the clock for a couple days, and if I decide I can't live with the reactions, go in for steroids. Well, besides no one being able to live on that much zyrtec (my regular doctor pulled me off it after 3 weeks because I was such a zombie he was afraid I'd have a traffic accident), it's actually kind of dangerous to just keep putting your body through continual autoimmune reactions. And dumb. And sucky. Very, very sucky. No food on this planet is worth the suck I've gone through.

Let's put this into perspective, for those of you without food allergies. I can't walk into a bar without risking my life thanx to nuts and citrus. I can't eat anything out of a deli, fast food, or restaurants because of cross contamination with allergens. (Believe me, I've tried.) I can't enjoy other people's homemade goodies or potlucks no matter how diligently they try to cook for me because they don't realize how cross contaminated with allergens their kitchens already are. I check every single package before I handle what's inside or eat any of it. I'm braced for a reaction 24/7 everywhere I go because people naturally eat candies and foods and touch everything without washing it off their hands. And NOW I'm facing no birthday cake or nibbling on holiday goodies. Not even an oreo, which is peanut-free if I stick to the regular Double Stuf.

I hope you guys appreciate how much I really don't whine about this. And I hope I never ever EVER become allergic to chocolate and dairy because Hiland chocolate milk and packaged cheese is my go-to on the road.

Ok, those thoughts are organized and pushed out of the way now, time to wash my hair and get ready for the nutrition counseling.

a day in the life

These are highlights. This is how blogging has helped me get through the 'brain crash', which happened in 2004 during Bell's Palsy (which is totally nontypical but may be related to being a carrier, as we shall see) and grew increasingly worse until it started getting better around 2012-13, and is still improving. Between the confusion of brain fog and memory deficit (which was a new thing to my eidetic memory), I was unable to keep things straight for a long time. Being able to go back through private blogs not only helps me remember stuff, but why I made decisions this way or that. Blogging made it possible for me to watch my progress through a plan to get healthy again, physically and mentally. It's been nearly ten years since the brain crash (first signs in Sept 2004, but puzzling because no visible signs of stroke, tumor, illness, or trauma.) Life still goes on. I'm so glad I kept a daily log because I honestly don't remember most of this until it is triggered by reading it back to myself, then I go Oh, yeah... For the curious, I'm a Lymie (first infected in high school) with Epstein Barr (from a wild mouse bite, yeah I was stupid and picked one up by the tail when I was a kid) and had a bad Bartonella infection as a kid, very ill with the measles in high school (probably responsible for surgically corrected arrhythmia years later), nasty car accident, autoimmune flare ups, severe fibromyalgia, a nasty months long systemic CMV infection in 2007, declared completely disabled in 2008, but because I'm a stubborn aspie, I'm doing everything in my power to get back off disability. It's a slow climb up a steep mountain, but I believe blogging is the key to planning, the climbing gear, if you will. They say life sucks and then you die. Well, I want my life to suck as long as possible.

August 18, 2007

•  
  

       Boy.  That was a tough 5 minutes after they pulled out.  Me and Twinkles bawled our eyes out before we went back in the house.

  My sploit is off to Texas today to her new life with her fiance.  Time to start her new job, look for an apartment, get married…

  This was a small part of the loading process…  Boy, my camera is getting bad.

  

  Of course, the sploit wasn’t weepy one bit.  Look at that grin!  She has techno-JOY!!!!  Ok, private joke.

  

  It was a little early for Twinkles, but she was a real trooper, walking in the door at 6 a.m. in time for bacon and good-byes.

  

  Thodin.  The yucky green car that has been part of our driveway for years…  Today is probably the last day I’ll ever see Thodin again.  I think they have plans to trade it in later.  For some reason, this picture gets me more than all the rest.  I have so many memories of moving the sploit to college and back in Thodin.

  

  “Ready, Houston…”

  

  One more quickie pic of my baby….  *snif*

  

  Backing out…

  

  Now Twinkles is crashed on the couch until it’s time to go to work.  I’m feeling a weird sort of blue on my big stupid pills.  The chicken is cackling.  The dryer is going.  I am trying very hard not to think about how badly I wanted to be able to go on this caravan trip with them.

  *sigh*

August 18, 2008

• Finally starting to feel a little more normal, yay!  Finished the antibiotic this morning.  The body spasms are quieting down.  Have been sleeping a LOT.  Just about caught up on the usual chores. 
• Watched the Two Coreys season finale this morning, had it dvr’d.  I couldn’t believe all the pills Haim was on.  They didn’t name them all, but after dumping several other bottles, he argued to keep the vicodin (label said to take 4 a day) and the xanax.  Geez, dude.  I can barely handle 1/2 a vicodin at a time, and I have serious medical issues.  Any time I’m offered xanax and valium I turn them down, point blank.  I fear how hard I’ll work suddenly moving furniture around by myself if they knock the pain away and I have no inhibitions.  Good way for me to wind up in the ER.  You know, I never realized until I watched this season of the Two Coreys that I really am a seasoned drug abuser, under the guise of fibro and lupus.  I’ve been fighting to get off the meds for several years now, and dealing with withdrawals and the shock and recovery my body has to go through on top of being ill, and I’m convinced that the world of chronics and terminals is a serious issue of medication abuse, sponsored by pharmaceuticals, insurance, and the poor doctors caught in the middle.  When I’m on all the same medications that serious drug addicts wind up going into treatment for…  Just because I have an excuse to take them doesn’t mean it’s ok. 
• Scoped out a few sites on epstein barr.  Good lord.  No wonder my doctor was so quick to give me that handicap tag.  I didn’t realize how complicated that one is, and it’s just one of many wrecking me up through my life.  I know I seem pretty aggressive sometimes about digging up info on stuff, but in some ways I’m still pretty naive.  Here I was apologizing to my attorney for wanting to start up a disability case last November when I was so ill I could barely stand up and walk a straight line.  I blame the Asperger’s, I guess it just takes awhile for things to process and really hit me.  I fought the disability for so long, not realizing how much support I would have had even 20 years ago.
• Haven’t talked to my dad in nearly two weeks.  Keep thinking I should call and make sure he’s still ok with Mom’s care at the nursing home, but something in me keeps resisting.  He was calling me nearly every day and sometimes crying and angry, and I had to keep smoothing things out.  Scott’s mom is now driving herself all over creation every day, gets the boot off her broken ankle in about a week.  She has stopped calling me every day.  Well, I take that back.  She called me a few days back to ask if our land line phones were out from the rain and I said yes.  She called back the next day to ask if I’d called in to report yet and I said no.  (I’m very literal.  If she’d wanted me to do the calling, all she had to do was ask.)  Then she called me the next day about the wiring in their air conditioning, and once she found out Scott was available he started getting all the phone calls. 
•   I don’t do phones well.  I don’t do other people’s ‘panic’ well.  I’ve had to get through so much on my own without any kind of support at all, it’s incredible.  It wears me out terribly, as an aspie, to have to handle other people’s stuff.  I feel like I’m still recovering from all that constant problem after problem after problem this last month.  On top of my own problems.

August 18, 2009

Family meeting at the nursing home set for Sept. 1st.  I have so many feelings conflicting around even just the need for this meeting.  I don’t even have to take sides to dread this.  I’m not even on a side.  I see both sides, I see that both sides have blinders on and won’t budge, and I see that it all boils down to me being the main arbitrator because I’m legally in charge of both parents.  I just wish my dad would stay home more.  He’s a good guy, but he just needs to relax and have more of a life than hanging on every breath Mom takes.  If I had known Mom would make it this long, I really should have gotten a lawyer on this years ago.  And her own private room.

Scott picked two Walmart bags of tomatoes last night, half from the big Shop of Horrors bush under my kitchen window, the other half from the bush that fell over two months ago in the flower bed.  When the coffee kicks in (not sure it this will work, the first cup wobbled me back into bed) I wanna get a cookie sheet out and roast a whole bunch to freeze back in little bags for future batches of settler’s beans and spaghetti sauce.

@ 11:30 a.m.

What a long day.  I’m in slo-mo.  It’s so bad that I wrote down that I took a pill, and 15 minutes later could have sworn I never actually took it.  Just writing it down doesn’t mean I took it… dang it.

And I can’t go back to bed because I finally wandered in there and stripped it.    It’s a good thing I’m so far ahead on food, because I don’t think I could cook a meal from scratch today.  I’d wander off in the middle of something and forget I was doing it.

 @ 1 p.m.

I’m willing to entertain the notion that I’m having some depression.  Took 4 hours to get that cookie dough mixed.  My brain shuts down completely every time I think about either 1- my next doctor appt, 2- the nursing home meeting, or 3- the disability hearing.  Ugmo.  Eating a warm cookie.  It’s helping.  Put half the dough into the freezer for another day. Watched a new episode of The Universe, they finally made a new one.  I would sure love to lose myself in just thinking about stars and galaxies. Decided to throw a good *what the heck* to the wind and threw mine and Scott’s pillows in the wash.  Scott’s is line dry only, but I’m going to throw it in the dryer anyway.  If he winds up sleeping on a ball, it might prompt him to go buy a new pillow after two years of saying he’s going to buy a new pillow.  I have no idea how old this one is, but it’s gross, and I’m tired of waiting.

August 18, 2010

• Today is chiro and the grocery store.  This will force me to get a shower.  I’m having the hardest time getting more than 2 showers a week in this month.
  That meaty soup yesterday turned out really good.
  No brain yet this morning.  See ya.

August 18, 2011

I scanned the crap outa the wedding book before Scott took it back this morning with our order, which is now only for show so other people ordering pix won’t think we’re awful parents, because we could easily print them out on our own photo paper now.  We’re just getting 3 pix, of the whole family, the 3 generations, and bride’s parents with the couple. As we were going through the book and noticing all the other family photos, Scott couldn’t help noticing how often *** and her current guy showed up, and how few pix we were in, and it became obvious that Twink didn’t make it clear with the photographer exactly who the family ~was~….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My perfect bow made it in the album.

August 18, 2012

I really think this weird bladder spasm thing is my lower back kicking off again. Been having problems with it ever since all the mess started up with Andy, then gram, then Scott’s stuff, and now I’m having trouble moving and bending again, and starting to get pains down my legs. Might have to start back weekly with chiro. Also thinking about getting back into core strength training for my spine. (retrospect edit- it did turn out to be severe fibro and was only relieved with many weeks of ASTYM therapy over several months- I can't even begin to describe the pain and the way it referred around nerve centers)

August 18, 2013

Day 7 of norco withdrawal +_+ 

I think the worst should be about over. Been a zinger week, nothing like going through opiate withdrawal on prednisone and round the clock benadryl. I’ve lost 3 pounds, at least. Hitting coffee a little early. 

Tonight is utterly sleepless, only 1 1/2 hours so far. Slept real good earlier in the week, surprisingly, probably all the extra benadryl, even though I was wired to the gills. 

August 18, 2014

*** got back home today, will probably retire now. Scott took his mom and Twink out to see him come in. *** got married Saturday, and after they were pronounced and kissed they locked light sabers. I heard her blade was red, which is Sith, lol.

I finally got a couple of weekends off in a row, and dang if I didn’t get in my bedroom with a forklift. Got that stupid dresser and armoire OUTA there. Scott says I can have a new dresser any time now, so maybe over this next week I can finish up the piles of stuff that have been amassing again since Twink got pregnant. I’ve been using a broken drawer on the floor for at least two years. Was supposed to get a new dresser a long time ago, but Twink getting pregnant and piling in here (rather her here than some place stupid!) and then moving around and then popping the kiddo early practically on top of me having surgery, and then keeping us busy every weekend (and more) since then, this whole last year has been like riding out a string of tornadoes. We’re exhausted. Anyway, I caught a second wind and boy howdy, my bedroom is getting a very badly needed makeover.

My nerves are quietly going into shock. Here we are again, a year later, not sure whether my blogs will disappear. Was hoping to have a little money this fall, but still not sure yet about Xanga renewing. I need to get this book wrapped up. I’m glad I didn’t meet my last two deadlines because I am really liking the conversations I’ve had about breaking it down some more, stretching it out, filling it in. Work of art. I need to do it justice. It’s not just another story being tossed out there, it’s my histoire philosophique. It’s me putting Camus and Lewis onto the same gourmet sandwich. I really do believe I can pull this off, but in the middle of all this other duress and another blog salvage…? I’ve always said I do love a challenge. My whole life has been like the Tour de France.

this is how super aspie procrastinates

I loathe forms. I'm good with technical information like OSHA training and cartography and NEPA laws. I'm awesome at organizing ideas, thoughts, and actions around millions of dollars of inventory floor merch and stat cleanup in a hotel or hospital. I can even go straight to a particularly sized and threaded bolt in under a minute of walking into Lowe's. But filling out forms...

You'd think the simple step by step process would be the easiest thing in the world. Name, address, phone number, how many pieces of gum I've chewed in the last ten years. The irony is that I have turned answering questionnaires into a hobby blog, I could practically compete in a professional question answering contest. The reality is that, despite acing blue book tests in a very hard linguistics class for my anthropology minor, I freeze up over simple forms so badly that I actually do them wrong.

I know, right? Who gets their name wrong on a basic form? Who screws up answering a few questions to which the answers haven't changed in twenty years? ME.

I am facing my demons this week. Here is my conundrum- My publisher has people calling me every single week. They have changed my case rep at least three times in the last 6 months trying to get me to cooperate. I can't get through any of their heads that 1- I'm super aspie and don't do phone convos well at all because 2- between auditory processing probs and slight hearing loss AND being aspie that I need them to 3- SLOW DOWN and stop the sell, sell, sell rattling on top of a background rich with other voices, furniture noises, and tech glitches cutting syllables out of every fifth word before 4- I hang up because the cacophony fries my brain out so badly I can barely speak sentences after only a few minutes, much less still form coherent thoughts.

I live with cognitive disability. This hasn't impacted my cognitive content much at all. My lawyer told me during one of the lowest points in my life that my IQ must be through the roof and he wished all his clients were like me. Sadly, it all becomes unusable mush so quickly from interruptions and distractions that I'd never be hired to work for a guy like him.

I need an office manager. They used to call them secretaries, but I know from one of my sisters that getting office skills certified and then actually running an office is no joke. I don't have the money to hire someone, and even if I did I have such a distrusting nature that I probably wouldn't anyway. The people who I do trust have piles of their own stuff to deal with.

I have to do this. If I want to move forward, I have to wrap my glitchy brain around interpersonal communication with a complete stranger many miles away who doesn't have a clue how to help me help them help me. I have to train my rep how to be my handler. I have to do this with a cognitive disability.

Years ago, one of my biggest breakthroughs with my psychologist was when I told him how frustrated I felt being referred to specialists by my doctor, only to have prescriptions thrown at me after five minutes. I felt like the problem wasn't even being defined, much less investigated as to cause. To simply generically treat symptoms doesn't help me get better. You know what my psychologist told me? He said I am easily led. I stray off my path with every new question, and after a few questions the original goal is so out of focus that I can't get back to my path. My assignment was to keep my goals in sight- why am I there? what do I want? So I learned to list a few questions like that before visits with new doctors, and with a little practice I was able to remain more focused and clearly state what I wanted to get out of the interaction. After many years of misunderstandings and sometimes very poor care from some doctors, I am much healthier now and way more satisfied with those interactions.

I don't get to see my publishing rep in person. I have to cut through possibly years of phone bank training and experience to get a different kind of interaction going. I get to do all this over tech that distorts background noise into a nightmare for me, and I need to do this as calmly and politely as possible when I'm feeling my most frustrated. It's so cliche to say I'll need xanax, but that may be exactly what saves the day for me.

Prepping for this phone call involves skills I'm actually very good at. I'm a research maven with years of organization experience. Even this post is part of the prep, it's helping me line up my thoughts and calm my nerves. I keep telling myself once the first book is out the door, the rest will be a piece of cake, because that's how I usually am with new things.

But the forms.... "Does this work contain any preexisting materials?" I have questions regarding how to answer nearly every question on these four endless pages. My rep will practically have to hold my hand through this whole form filling outing process, and she's going hate my guts before it's all done. *facepalm* Because I'm aspie. I can't just check a little yes or no box without forcing another person to commit to mental gymnastics because they can't understand that I don't need a textbook understanding of their job, but I DO need them to please repeat that entire last phrase at least three times because for some unknown reason they can't fathom what slowing down their talking means. Maybe it means I'm so dumb they feel they have to keep over explaining everything, but all I need is to correctly hear the words they speak. I'm sure they're wondering how in the world I think *I* could ever write a book.

I can tell from that last paragraph that I'm not ready for this phone call yet. I may have to go fold some laundry and clean some bathrooms first while the xanax kicks in. I don't know why my psychologist doesn't think my social anxiety isn't as severe as I think it is. This is ridiculous. My rule of thumb over the last year is that if something is upsetting or terrifying me, find a way to write it and throw it out to public, because that is usually more terrifying than just doing the thing I'm afraid of in the first place. So, here it goes.

new year spoonie assessment

Last winter didn't look terribly hopeful but it was a huge step up for me from winters before. This winter is amazingly way better than so many years past. What changed this year? Here you go, have a power point review.



The biggest thing was finding out I'm allergic to acetaminophen. I've been living on benadryl for so long, dealing with so many other reactions, never occurred to me I might be having a continual reaction all this time underneath everything else. I'm already banned from ibuprofen, so there's not a lot I can do any more about home pain treatment. Requires being smarter than ever before, avoiding impending consequences, not being stupid about overdoing and overextending myself. Pills are a quick fix anyway, not a cure that keeps you from crashing sooner or later.

The next huge thing was ASTYM, all the new rage in fibromyalgia treatment, based on postitive results with athletes. I spent 4 months in grueling ASTYM therapy, deep soft tissue massage for the purpose of breaking up hardened scar tissues for better blood flow and muscle control. That alone has dropped my pain level enough to exist without daily pain meds, hooray! I still hurt, and the pain levels can still shoot pretty high, but I've been given 'permission' now to do what I always found instinctual- dig deep where it hurts. Pressure points are key, and then stretching and exercise are crucial.

The biggest difference from last winter to this that I'm noticing is a serious lack of migraines. I spent last winter with the shades drawn and barely able to cognitively function, much less read. This winter I'm doing just about anything I want with minimal occipital nerve problems and greatly reduced nerve reverb overall up and down my spine. Again, still have some interesting pain, just way easier to live with. A neurologist has finally documented the body-wide dysesthenia I developed last winter as healing from an ancient car accident. He said nerves can take years to heal, especially after being thrown violently out of a car, and being very ill with lupus and diabetes and several rough viruses along the way stopped the healing process for awhile. I'm still avoiding alcohol, don't smoke, eating healthy, trying to get plenty of rest, staying well hydrated, exercising regularly, and not going over my fatigue limitations. I am trying to keep up higher protein and healthy fats in my diet since protein builds tissues and fats are vital for nerve health.

I am currently having a stiff knee/leg from carrying a 15 pound baby around while she was teething, but nothing swelling up so it's most likely frogged muscles from muscle strain. I see a chiropractor once a month and take zyrtec daily to help me sleep on the advice of two different doctors. The zyrtec also helps my body stay calm when it wants to over react. An allergist diagnosed me with autoimmune reaction disorder, says it's common for people like me to just start hyper reacting to everything, so there you go.

If you're a spoonie running into this, I hope it helps. Most insurance and medicare will pay for the ASTYM therapy, but you have to ask your doctor for the referral. Good luck with your stuff.

haters gonna hate

Let's be honest. Holidays do a pretty good job bringing out about as much stress as anything on the planet. For some reason the pressure gets cranked up and everything comes under not just a spotlight, but a microscope. It's the season for charity, for giving, for selflessness, and for media driven haters. And I think we're all getting tired of it. I've run into several posts and comments this last week pointing out the redundancy and stupidity of grouping up a hatefest on haters. I mean, it's ok to vehemently hate the little stuff, right? It's ok to group shred a person for having a bad day and saying something stupid. But it's not ok if someone blows up and starts shooting little kids. I'm not understanding where the difference lies. When is it ok to HATE in the first place? Where do we draw the line at stomping on people's heads? I think what's bothering me is that the haters hating the other haters think they're the good people and it's their duty to hate the bad haters as long as we're on the good haters side.

One thing that's kind of bothering me is famous people doing this. They have huge loads of followers favoriting and retweeting everything they do, moving along like a synchronized school of fish. If a famous person designates someone to group hate on, the whole school of fish starts chiming in, even if it was just one comment from a hit and run person who normally doesn't follow the famous person to begin with. It's important to establish that we HATE ANYONE who dares to speak their mind about something they don't like, regardless of where that person is coming from. It's important to GROUP HATE and make sure we're all on the same side PROTECTING OUR FAMOUS PERSON. *wow*

Grow up. I just want to say that to everyone in the media who has a bad day getting a little offended by a tweeter or commenter saying something not as nice as you'd like. So it got to you, so you blew up. YOU are affecting a LOT of people by responding to it. YOU are TEACHING people to GROUP HATE. Even if you do it in the name of all that is good and holy and justify all your reasons for crashing down to their level reacting to it, it is still HATE. I'm really tired of seeing that. We want our superheroes, but we can't be superheroes ourselves on the internet. We can't just walk by a few pissy words without having to make a huge deal out of them.

I see famous people talk about having depression, and I see them make big deals out of making sure to post that you should help family members or friends get the proper help they need for depression every time suicide or grisly crimes or whatever pops up on the news, but I don't see them actually say anything substantial about how they themselves are surviving real depression DAILY, or how they are themselves helping real family members and friends cope DAILY. They don't talk about how emotionally exhausting it is, or how we keep ourselves going, or the little things that help us keep it all together when our worlds fall apart. In fact, those very people with the big schools of fish following them don't seem to notice how much they rely themselves on those schools of fish to keep them going. Must be nice. Where can *I* get a school of fish to follow my every move and support me through every minor crisis and shred any haters that cross my path? I know, you earned that because you did something that makes money. I could play the same game, actually the ultimate in gaming, right? Become successful, gain a following, build your private army, and Be Someone in blogs and on twitter. I'm all for that, I just think the group hate thing sux.

Haters gonna hate. If you can't deal with one or two little haters popping up in your following of, what, 20,000 or more (millions?), DANG. You've got a problem, famous person. Because the rest of us deal head on with haters while the lurkers cower and hope we are the superheroes who can walk on by and not be phased. I have been learning how to be a superhero. It's not pretty or easy. It's a really lonely way to live. You don't get paid, and most of the time no one publicly cheers you on. You famous people can feed your schools of fish on your crumbs while they group hate for you for free (internet body guards, what next?), but that makes me sick, and I think I'm so unimpressed that I'm going to just keep doing what I'm doing and stop using you guys as role models. I watch other people suck up over that kind of stuff and I just reel away wondering when grown people stopped noticing their playground mentality is what isolates the very people they CLAIM they want to get help for. Is it any wonder we see the kind of stuff on the news that horrifies us.

Piranhas. Barracudas. Pretty schools of fish.