November | 2022 | A Dose of Inspiration

Pretty in pink today! I’m all pink, I even have a pretty pink bra/panties/socks/nail polish(it’s chipped though lol)/mask….lol 💕

Ain’t nothin’ gonna to break my stride
Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no
I got to keep on moving
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
I’m running and I won’t touch ground
Oh no, I got to keep on moving
You’re on the road and now you pray it lasts
The road behind was rocky
But now you’re feeling cocky
You look at me and you see your past
Is that the reason why you’re runnin’ so fast?
And she said
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no
I got to keep on moving
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
I’m running and I won’t touch ground
Oh no, I got to keep on moving 🖤

Trigger warning ⚠️: Mention of depression and s*icidal contemplation, may be disturbing or triggering to some, may be slightly graphic details

This post was meant for 11/28/2022 It’s after 12:00am now so the date changed.

Last night I had the STRANGEST dream/experience. Actually, early this morning. It was BIZARRE! I think it may have been mild/partial sleep paralysis, which happens sometimes when I’m depressed, ever since I was young. Usually my sleep paralysis when it does occur (which is not often and even less the older I get), is severe and extremely unpleasant. This wasn’t but was certainly strange. It was actually beautiful and inspiring and just so weird! Usually when I’m experiencing sleep paralysis, I try hard to get myself up and experience a sense of panic and being deeply disturbed and terrified. With this, I was accepting and not trying to force myself awake.

First I will mention for some context that I have a tooth infection that I have had for months now(I’m embarrassed to admit this but over half a year, actually). A few years ago, I cracked my tooth flossing(I have very soft teeth). A few years later (now), that break is infected. I work seven days, morning through evening, sometimes lighter weekends, and we are understaffed so I been doing home remedies and putting it off. My boss doesn’t want to lose clients, and I’m basically the only worker now. We have a few people helping out, but what they do is very limited. I’m a full worker. He said me taking off when we’re so busy would be disastrous for his business. So I been trying to hold off as long as I can. I warned him that it’s life threatening and I can succumb any day(he said ugh! I’ll lose so many clients! I can’t afford that! Just try to stay alive! 😆). Months ago my whole face was swelled up, and I was in agony. I got it under control and swelling down, but cannot get the infection gone. A couple nights I walked myself to an emergency room when it was flaring worse but decided nah I’m not sitting in there for 12 or more hours and don’t want to overwhelm our healthcare workers any more than they already are. Last thing they need is another dental patient running there when they have so many other patients needing them. I just can’t. So I left and got it under control again. One day, at the end of October, I woke up at 3:00am feeling as if it was spreading. I got out of bed and walked to an emergency room then decided I couldn’t stay because I was taking care of someone’s dog and couldn’t leave him alone so walked to cvs instead for some first aid stuff. It helped a bit. I thought I was dying that morning. I had pain & mild flu like symptoms (wasn’t this virus). I was a regular blood donor for years and haven’t been able to donate in so long because of this.

Recently I was very very sick, as sick as I have ever been in this life, and I seriously never get sick. I couldn’t even get out of bed. I had to tell my boss I literally couldn’t work. This is unheard of. In the six years I worked here, I never ever took hours off for being sick. I did work that day, all day, but got too sick by the evening to do my evening work. I thought it was my infection making me sick, turns out, it was just some virus(I wear a mask and don’t go near anyone, don’t work with humans). But being sick like that showed me what can happen but worse if I succumb to my infection. I NEVER get sick like this and it was like seeing another side of myself I did not know. It was so uncharacteristic of me. I am healthy and energetic as can be, walking 10 and more hours a day. I never even get tired. I never just lay around in bed, I’m either out walking or dancing around my room blasting Oldies. My body feels so healthy it’s palpable, the feeling of health I experience each day. And I am very conscious of how healthy and full of endless energy I am/feel.
Any physical sickness/cut/injury I get usually heals in a day and doesn’t take me down. This took me down for days. I couldn’t even stand, and I had to work, but had to keep stopping places to rest. So this was so so unusual and I was taken aback. It was like a wake up call. I don’t want to get sick like that but worse with sepsis, which untreated tooth infections lead to.

Also, I have been struggling with s*icidal depression off and on because of lack of close true friendships for a few years now. This gets me to not care as much about myself, feeling I’m not worthy and my own life doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not a philosophy I hold; it’s the depression. It triggers depression then depression tells me I’m a worthless loser with no friends and no purpose and no accomplishments in life…And it just weakens my will to survive. Recently, a fifteen/sixteen year friendship of mine that used to be close officially ended like Facebook unfriended ended lol That’s how we make it official these days. 😆 I went to unfriend him and lo & behold! He already unfriended me(so I went a step further and blocked his account 😆 good to know we still think alike!)! I guess it wasn’t very surprising. We have been drifting apart for years (on his part) and resentment was building for a while, on my part and apparently on his part too since he saw reason for unfriending. And we were inseparable for years. Even whenever he would get a new boyfriend, he wanted to spend every second with me. He would invite me on dates with them, even on their valentine’s day celebrations. We met at a dance and danced all night and that was it, we were bff’s. He even included me in family only events shortly after meeting each other. He came to visit me everyday during my psychiatric hospital stays for my depression. He became very unhappy with his own life through the years and began acting differently in unhealthy ways. Recently he began showing signs of a midlife crisis. He also has severe depression. I held out hope he would change and go back to being himself, but he wouldn’t. His behavior became toxic to me. It would trigger my depression or make it worse. This unfriending doesn’t help my depression, but I was already emotionally done with him (after so much turmoil over the loss of closeness through the years and having no other close friends – we had mutual friends, but we drifted apart too – we were mostly all friends through him, that’s the problem when one person holds a group together) so it’s not the biggest blow.

Depression makes me very physically ill and fatigued when it’s to a certain point, but I still feel a sense of ingrained physical health. I want to keep it this way.

I finally made a dentist appointment a while ago, but there was nothing available til around a month away. So I can’t get help til mid December. I have no dental insurance so found a place where they give us discounts if we’re poor lol The infection seems to have spread into my sinuses, and my nose has been gushing blood for days on the side the infection is on. But there isn’t a thing I can do about it. Dentists and hospitals are overwhelmed and backed up. So I’m just here waiting to get sepsis and die or for my healthy body to hold me over til mid December. I am extremely healthy. I have a wicked immune system. That’s why I’m still alive. I looked it up, and basically I should have been dead months ago. lol I decided to stop neglecting/abusing my body in certain ways I have been, I’m going to get it the help it needs. It’s strong and beautiful and carries me and keeps me alive. It kept me alive much longer than it should have. I’m going to pay it back with kindness and basic needs.

So this is what happened early this morning.

I woke up, and it was too early for work. So I rolled over and fell back asleep. What felt like only a few seconds later, I woke up standing in the bathroom in my house walking to the toilet to pee. lol I had this general confused feeling like how did I wake up standing in the bathroom. And who wakes up standing? Suddenly I peed my pants a little bit before making it to the toilet right in front of me. lol (I recently read a funny post by a mom who has incontinence after giving birth to three babies, and she peed when she laughed and yelled to her husband “I just peed my pants, this is mom life!” and he burst out laughing at her, and they fell over laughing hysterically together. lol She posted a picture of them laughing together. I thought this was funny and cute but was thinking no thanks I’m glad I never had kids! I don’t want to pee my pants whenever I laugh{and I laugh A LOT, like full on belly laughs}! Not that it’s the worst thing and is very common in assigned female at birth people, particularly those who give birth, but I would prefer not to lol I would be peeing all day!)

So then I sat on the toilet to pee the rest lol I was concerned about the incontinence thinking why would this suddenly happen, but even more concerned about the sleepwalking. I sleepwalked my way into the bathroom which made no sense. I never sleepwalk! I was thinking so is this going to keep happening now, the incontinence and the sleepwalking? The incontinence I can handle, but the sleepwalking just isn’t ok! I also noticed I was wearing blue jeans as I was pulling them down. I fell asleep in soft blue pj’s. I don’t sleep in uncomfortable clothes. So that was off. Did I get changed in my sleep too? I was still wearing my red pj shirt though. Just the soft pj pants turned to blue denim ones.

After peeing (can’t remember if I washed my hands or not – I would in reality though 😆), I was walking out of the bathroom back to my bed and collapsed to the floor in the bathroom doorway. Something was pulling me down so hard beyond my control. Half of my body was in the bathroom still and the other half (my upper half) was in the hallway. (The bathroom in my house is in my bedroom! no hallway! It wasn’t my actual house even though it was supposed to be, but I did not realize when it was happening! For real I live in one of those super small houses with only one bathroom that happens to be in a bedroom where everyone has to walk through that bedroom to get to the restroom, and it’s in my bedroom, my sister did not want everyone going in and out of her bedroom lol This house was large) I wondered why I was collapsing. It was happening in slow motion. I couldn’t stop it. Then I realized I was dying. At first I wondered if I was dying then it hit me that I was literally straight up dying right there half in the bathroom, half in the hallway. It was not painful, and I did not feel sickly at all, could just feel the life slowly draining out of me. I remember thinking so this is what it is to die. And it’s my turn here & now. I felt helpless, powerless, but not really in a negative way. I just wasn’t attaching a negative perspective to it like most probably would. It was a powerful feeling. Not pleasant but can’t say it was fully unpleasant, almost neutral but more on the unpleasant side if it were a scale that was slightly tipped to one side or the other. I was intrigued. As I lay there dying, I was racking my brain trying to understand why. It made no sense. I am so healthy, so energetic, so physically fit (not fit like I work out level fit, but physically active enough), how could this be??? There was some anxiety at the thought of dying since it was a new to me experience and there was some uncertainty about what it would be like.

But my curiosity was more prominent than my fear. And I had a faint feeling of this is too bad that I’m dying and felt like I may be on my way to experiencing full-blown fear, I felt panic potentially arising, but more so I had a feeling of it is what it is, if I have to go now, I do, but why?? My age isn’t quite old enough just yet for my body to shut down because of age. Then it hit me. Oh, sh!t, that’s right! The infection is finally taking me out. I thought of my mom and how she wouldn’t be happy as she has been begging me all year to get it treated now. She said f your job and get taken care of. lol She said she can’t believe someone can choose to go this long with an untreated infection. She keeps asking me aren’t you scared?! lol I’m not. She tried getting me to get antibiotics off family members who had them, but I do not take illicit drugs.

I felt something non physical leaving my physical body as I laid there on the bathroom floor. It was like two of me, the physical body I am so familiar with, and a “spirit” me (I don’t actually believe in a spirit that can leave a body, but this was my experience this morning) leaving it. Both were me but like two sides of a coin. I was laying there unable to move at all thinking this is it, I’m dying. The spirit me was slowly leaving. My consciousness still identified more with the physical body. So it was nerve wracking to be leaving it even though it was still aware and going with the spirit me. It was almost as if the consciousness was a thing of its own, independently, watching its physical self and its non physical self. But it had to go with the non physical aspect. There was some anxiety and unhappiness about the thought that I will never be here on Earth again, all my thoughts, interests, experience… gone forever. The anxiety was just at the thought that it’s an unknown to me experience, and the unhappiness was just like I guess I’ll miss out on all the things I love each day. But I told myself it’s beyond my control and has to happen sooner or later anyway. It has to happen to all of us, and I’m no exception; we all have a time to go, and this is mine. It has to happen someday so why not now? What’s the difference if it’s now or in twenty years or forty years or whatever?? Same thing either way. This may seem wise. But in my case, it’s my depressed view. When I’m not depressed I have clung to life if I ever thought I was dying. Kicking and screaming and clawing at whatever I could to stay on Earth (not that I was ever really dying but a few occasions I have thought so).

Then I had another thought, wait! Could I be sleeping and this is a dream and I’m not dying but waking up back into my reality? I wasn’t sure but strongly suspected that. I felt that it’s dream me who is “dying” as the dream world is ending, not actually me dying. In a sense, dream me was dying as that version of me was ending and would never be again. At this thought, I felt more relief than I was expecting as I did not realize how put off I was at the thought of dying. Consciously, I was mostly indifferent to it. (This happens when I’m depressed and depressed I was both in reality and this dream) But I guess I wanted to live more than I realized. I noticed when I am at my most depressed s*icidal points, I often have dreams about wanting desperately to live even though in reality it feels I don’t. When I am dangerously s*icidal, which is not often but recurring, it’s common for me to have dreams that someone is trying to k!ll me, and I am trying desperately to run and get away and live. I noticed it through the years when my s*icide contemplation is serious. In my dreams I want to live and would do anything to survive. My depression produces very life affirming dreams.

Something was happening I just couldn’t quite grasp. My physical body was getting heavier and heavier and couldn’t move as I lay there sprawled out on the floor. The spirit me left physical me completely. It turned a corner, half walking, half floating, if I remember correctly (I think it meant to float, but since I am so used to being physical and walking, it was trying to walk out of habit – the consciousness was me, it was my sense of self, it felt just like me so still had some earthly ways about it even though it was no longer restrained by a physical body) in the dark hallway and was going somewhere with a strong sense of purpose, like it had a mission to accomplish (in reality I have been feeling I have no purpose lately, but this aspect of inner me felt deep purpose, and it was a beautiful feeling. It wasn’t clear at first what that purpose was, just that there is one, later I discovered the purpose was to wake up and live). There was no fear, only a deep sense of trust. I felt whatever is happening is happening and is ok. If I die, that’s ok, if I live and wake up in my bed where I remember falling asleep, that’s ok too, even better. There was a hint of anxiety about what if I somehow get stuck in this state and can’t wake up and don’t die and I’m just here forever(sleep paralysis always does this to me). But I chose to be positive and not let my mind dwell there, mostly I felt trust in the journey. I could feel myself cheering myself on. I felt that I had this, a feeling of “You got this self, just keep going.” I remember me in the back of my own mind keep thinking that’s right just keep going…and feeling joy each step of the way. It warms my heart now and stirs love & fuzzies in me. ❤️

Suddenly, I felt a strong force pulling the spirit version of me. I couldn’t see it but felt it. It was pulling so hard, and I realized whatever was going to happen, this was it, this was the moment I was either going to die or wake up. I still wasn’t sure which but strongly suspected I was dreaming and going to wake up. I could not move by choice. Physical me on the floor was immobilized or dead. And spirit me was being dragged somewhere by an invisible force beyond my control and felt so heavy. And the real physical me in my bed, was also immobilized. None of us could move, and we were all so heavy. (very typical of sleep paralysis but unlike sleep paralysis, there was no sense of intense fear and dread hanging over me, and no general sense of evil, ingrained throughout the dream, only curiosity, joy, determination, and a slight sense of anxiety and uncertainty, but nothing I couldn’t handle)

I did not want to admit this here (I actually wrote this for FB but posting here also) or anywhere, but I have been secretly contemplating h*nging myself recently, like seriously. I even have a cord I got for the purpose and a remote place in mind where I entertain the idea of going one night soon and ending it all. It helps me tremendously while depressed to know I have a way out and the resources needed; it’s less of a trapped feeling. Before I really did not know how/where I can go. Then it all fell into place the more desperate I got. I thought about getting the cord and did, and my concern was where without anyone around. Then I accidentally just happened to come across the perfect place one day where there isn’t a lot of activity, especially at night and in the cold. It feels so liberating just to have this potential plan even when it’s inactive. It helps ease my mind so much!! When I’m not depressed at all and am my usual happy self, I know it’s not the best idea to have this cord & place lined up for when I decide to go because it makes it much more likely for me to act on it. When I’m depressed, I don’t realize I shouldn’t act on it. When it lifts, I realize how messed up it is. But even when I’m my usual happy self, I know how much it helps me in that desperate depressed state just to have a potential way out, not just in my mind like before, but actually have the physical things necessary whether or not I go through with it. It makes all the difference. The risk of acting on it is greatly elevated though. Happy self isn’t happy about that. lol I’m not in a major episode of depression like sometimes that lasts straight through for a month or more, but keep having recurring waves of it that get bad for a few days then lift a while then return. I have felt for a while that I have no reason to live, that no matter what I do, even when it has practical purpose, it doesn’t matter, has no deeper meaning. And I struggle to give meaning to it because of my sense of inherent worthlessness. This is when my depression is flaring.

My body has been so heavy with depression, and while I still experience joy and some degree of interest in things like photography and movies and books and my work and iced lattes, it’s washed out joy, it’s here but numbed out a bit. Sometimes my depression is so bad I cannot even really tatse anything. With deep deep pain, significantly reduced pleasure and interest in things, a body that is so heavy it’s hard to move, no close friends/social support… it’s like why go on?? I keep getting so depressed about no longer having in person friends. I am very social and my happiest and healthiest when I have friends. Research even shows that lack of close friends can physically and emotionally sicken people and lack of physical touch. I am happy and well in every other aspect of life, but this is enough to depress me off and on, sometimes frequently, and permeate all of life. It eventually lifts and I am very happy again(still feeling the lack of friendship though). But it keeps coming back because I need a friend. I have been starved for the love of a friend, and my body has been starved for a hug of a friend. I don’t even have an acquaintance anymore just to hang out with. No phone calls, no texts, no meetups, no invitations anywhere, no message just to say hello or send a funny meme to make each other laugh… literally nothing. Online friends are real friends/family, but it’s not the same and doesn’t make up for in person socialization for those of us who are social/extroverted. Animals are just as important and loved, but different, animal companionship doesn’t make up for lack of human companionship just like the other way around.

Anyway, I promised into the air that if I wake up in my body in my bed, if this could just be a dream, if I’m not dying, I would try to stop giving into my depression, will get my infection treated, and try to stay alive and keep leaning into the joys all around me. That I would keep going. The spirit me was propelled then lifted into the air, up towards the ceiling. I was flying up up up beyond my control being pulled into the unknown then suddenly ripped back down and was falling falling falling so fast at lightening speed with such joy because I knew, I knew then I was alive and waking up. I knew I would find home in my own body. And dream spirit me crashed back into my body, my real body in my bed in my real house with the restroom in my room, not dream me body laying dead on that floor in that strange bathroom and hallway that isn’t mine, but the me who laid in bed, my actual bed. The real me woke with a jolt. It literally truly felt that something crashed off the ceiling into my body, giving me life. I watched and experienced in awe. Two aspects of me merging into one, making me whole, giving me life. That immobilized body in my bed could move again. I woke with a start and a smile. I was back in my soft blue comfy pj pants. The heaviness of my depression was mostly gone, and I felt immense joy, like I can go on. I fell asleep heavily depressed last night. This morning I was layers and layers lighter with a renewed will to live. I still felt the aftermath of being in a deep depression recently. When a depression lifts, if it was very severe, I may still feel some aspects of it lingering for a day or couple days, like the heaviness or a fog or some lingering self deprecating thoughts…, kind of like if you’re just getting over the flu or other physical illness and aren’t really sick anymore but still feel a vestige or hint or effects of it.

The thing that is so strange is how physical it felt. How it truly felt like a spirit or mind or something literally crashed into my body giving me life, waking me. It was so amazing!

I don’t believe in spirits or anything. I know it was my own mind making it all up. And we can dream something is touching us and wake up feeling as if it was real. I believe it was sleep paralysis. I have psychotic depression and have been hospitalized a couple occasions for it many years ago. It’s been acting up again The doctors said I had psychomotor impairment years ago because of severe depression, which can seem like sleep paralysis if we dream or hallucinate/have delusions with it. But I think it was sleep paralysis. It was still early so I fell back asleep. I had another strange dream. lol I woke up in that dream but woke up into another dream instead of reality and remembered the sleep paralysis dream I just had! So I remembered a real dream within another dream that was within a dream. I don’t know if anyone can follow that but anyway, don’t know what was going on with me last night, sounds like I was on acid or something but promise I wasn’t. 😆

I take no medication or drugs for anything currently. Will be needing antibiotics soon, and sometimes I take over the counter cold meds. That’s about it.

We don’t have to believe in spirits/evil/supernatural…to experience fear of it or believe it/feel it within the context of sleep paralysis. No matter how skeptic/atheist we are in reality, when sleep paralysis takes over and that feeling of evil is all around and we “sense” demons and stuff like that, our skepticism/atheism/logic/reason/non belief can be suspended while we are in that state, and we can feel that we are being taken by evil or a demon or taken to another dimension. Upon waking, we realize it was just a dream/sleep paralysis/night terror… whatever it was. Some people who believe in the supernatural wake up and believe they just had a terrible spiritual experience. A skeptic or atheist, like me, will not believe it during wakefulness. I don’t even necessarily believe it when it’s happening, but that does not make it any less real seeming or terrifying. But this one wasn’t terrifying.

It was a positive and enlightening and inspiring experience. I believe it was my unconscious mind sending me a message. My self sending a self love note, to keep going. I think it’s so funny that it involved a toilet and peeing. lol It’s just like me to bring humor into something and I’m immature like that and think bathroom stuff is funny 🤣 💩

The thing about this dream that was also so unusual is how my reality was incorporated into the dream and dream incorporated into my reality. In the dream I remembered just rolling over in my bed and was wondering how suddenly I got into the bathroom. And as I was walking out of the bathroom before collapsing, I was on my way back to my bed that I was just in. And my dream was incorporated into my wakefulness. The dream spirit me crashing into real me as I was waking into my reality. Like, dream state and wake state clashed, making it so bizarre and interesting. I’m sure there is scientific explanation; I think I read about it before, like when something happens during a certain stage of sleep. Maybe I wasn’t asleep enough and began to dream so wake reality and sleeping dream collided and merged, becoming a very intense, strange experience. I like it! I wouldn’t want it to keep happening or happen often though because it was too intense and engaging and wasn’t peaceful. I wouldn’t get enough rest. And there was anxiety involved. A little bit is ok, but I don’t need anxiety in my dreams every night.

And this seems like it could be a fun short movie clip if any artist out there wants to turn it into some kind of film, let me know! lol 😆 I must say, I’m quite creative while I sleep! 😴 💤 lolz

If anyone is reading and has any interesting sleep/dream/spiritual stories you have experienced, please share!! And if you want to analyze my experience and/or provide any insight, scientific or other, be my guest! I’m not interested in supernatural explanations as I don’t believe in that stuff.

And these pictures are me this morning after I truly woke up once and for all into real reality. lol

Thankfully I wasn’t actually peeing as I was dream peeing 😂

Also, I totally forgot in October to post my Halloween costume here! I will post it soon! Sexy/naughty nuns are in style all year anyway. 🖤😆

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! ❤️ sending virtual hugs to anyone who wants.

Xoxo Kim

A Dose of Inspiration

One Love <3

Archive | November 2022

Sister Sara 🖤

Last night I had the strangest dream…{for real though 🤣 total cray cray 😜}