A crash course in insanity

This is my first blog post, which is to say it's about my one billionth blog post, but my first under this heading. I've been blogging on a nearly daily basis since about October of 2003, first on Blurty, then on MySpace. It always surprised me that people I didn't even know stopped to read what I had to say. Maybe I'm getting a little older and a little wiser, maybe I'm growing tired of spending an eternity on MySpace. It's hard to say. In any case, I thought I'd give "grown up" blogging a shot, so here I go. My name's Amanda. I'm a native of Charleston, SC. I just recently turned 25 years old, and my life has been both utterly boring and utterly crazy. "Crazy"... I hate that fucking word. There are only three words in the English language that I truly hate being called. The f-word, the s-word, and the c-word, those of course being "fat," "stupid," and "crazy". First of all, I'm a woman; it's a given that I'm sensitive about my weight. Technically I am about 12 pounds overweight for my height, but I've got a pretty rockin' body for my size, and I don't see my weight as something that makes me deserve to be treated as less than human. "Stupid" was an ex-boyfriend's favorite. I got the highest SAT in my graduating class and had a full scholarship to an excellent university. It is 100% not true, and it gets to me worse than pretty much anything else because I know people are saying it solely to be hurtful. Then we come to "crazy"... and I hate that one for the exact opposite reason I hate "stupid", because it's too true. I am certifiably insane. I have schizoaffective disorder. For those of you that haven't read the DSM IV or whatever addition they're on now, the simplest explanation of that particular diagnosis is that it's a mood disorder and a psychotic disorder rolled into one, basically exhibiting features of both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. So yeah, that's a real barrel of monkeys. :) I went through about eight years of different diagnoses until my current doctor finally settled on this one. My treatment didn't really change too much as a result, but my life changed by leaps and bounds. On the one hand, I was able to get disability from the Social Security Administration, although I still have to fight with them over it here and there because they don't want to give out money to ANYONE right now. On the other hand, the stigma I experience has grown exponentially. Before, when I was diagnosed as bipolar, everyone and there fucking brother either is bipolar or knows someone who is and they are really understanding about it. You throw "schizo-" in front of anything, and people automatically picture you in a padded room spreading your own feces on the walls and talking to people who aren't there. I MAY be exaggerating, but not by much. I take my medicine, I go to therapy... and still sometimes things get out of hand and I land in the hospital. But 99% of the time I'm pretty normal. I'll continue my introduction at another time... I plan for my next entry to focus on the "love" aspect of this blog, and you'll see why I don't believe in the word. Ta for now!