I Feel Like I'm Drowning

I feel like I'm drowning.

I've had such a shitty week, and I'm so behind now that I'm finally working on shit again. I don't know that I'll ever get caught up. I still have 12 1/2 750+ word things to write and get turned in by Monday. I have 10 250-word things to send to a girl by Saturday and 10 more 250-word things plus 3 250-word blog posts to send to another girl on Sunday. I also have a 600-word thing to get done by Monday, AND now I've got a company wanting me to do some work for them. And once all these essays are sent in Monday, I get to start the whole cycle all over again.

God, I hope I can do this without having a breakdown. I feel like I'm already close enough to one as it is.

In addition to the work thing, I also feel like I'm drowning emotionally. I've been having issues with the paranoia, and it's made it hard for me to sleep. I feel like someone's going to break in my house and kill me, and every little sound I hear (and there are lots because this apartment building creaks like hell) makes my heart stop for a beat or two. I hadn't slept more than 5 or 6 hours a night until last night. (I need 9 or so to be fully functional.) It was starting to turn into a vicious cycle of the paranoia making it hard to sleep and the lack of sleep making the paranoia worse, so I drugged myself last night. I slept somewhere between 12 and 14 hours.

It's weird. I don't really feel manic, but I'm displaying some of my surefire signs of it. Paranoia, lack of sleep, jumping from one thing to another. Maybe I can't recognize my manias as such anymore because I'm so used to them being incredibly bad. Because the meds are knocking them down, they're not nearly as severe anymore, which makes it harder to recognize. Maybe this is what hypomania is? I don't know.

Either way, I bumped the Lamictal up to 175 mg a couple of days ago. I'm going to look for a psychiatrist, too.

There's so much more to say, but I have no idea how to say it. I feel like an asshole for even thinking a lot of the shit I think. I guess it's wrong for me to want the people whose lives I fucked up in my life. But the thing is, I don't know that any of them realize how much things have changed. And I mean in the last month, even.

I'm not sick, but I'm not well. But I'm a lot farther along the path than I have been. I wish I could talk to Kitty and talk to J. about everything. I know neither of them really trust me. Him? I'm not even really that concerned about. He knows he fucked up, and that's on him. But the two girls? I wish I could just be 100% honest with both of them. I wish they would listen without judging me, and I wish that, if nothing else, we could be friends.

Is it wrong to want them in my life badly enough that I'll settle for less than what my heart truly desires, just so I don't have to lose them altogether?

I really think I need to do something else. Something to show that I'm sincere, and this is not just some stupid-ass game I'm playing. I'm too old and tired for games now. Maybe I can figure something out.