I don't even really want to go into what has lead up to this. For now, I just want to try to sort out some very messy thoughts and feelings. I would say that I will give more detail later, but I've said that so many times, that you probably wouldn't believe it.
Right now, I'm not living alone like I used to. I was surprised over break with a roommate, and that sent me into a never ending whirlwind of anxiety. Can I pinpoint the cause? Kind of, but not entirely. I mostly blame Roommate.
Here's the thing.
I can't live with people.
Can anyone relate to that? Anyone? I'm honestly beginning to think that I'm the only person on this earth that can have such major problems with living with another person.
It doesn't sound strange to me, but everyone else thinks I'm being a baby about the situation. It makes me terribly uncomfortable to live with someone I don't know. It also makes me uncomfortable to be in the same room with someone, and ignore them.
"You'll get to know each other with time."
Is that supposed to make me feel better? I don't want to get to know her. What I know, I can't stand. It's not something we could talk through either. It's just her, and I can't exactly tell her to quit it.
Besides, I don't think we'll get to know each other. Both of us quite obviously don't want to.
I'm uncomfortable being in the same teeny room with almost anyone, except people I am super close to. Otherwise, I feel like we have to face each other. Like I have to entertain, otherwise I'm just being rude. I don't want to have that obligation in my "home". At "home", I want to feel safe, and be able to relax.
That reminds me, I started thinking about some things this afternoon, and the idea of the REM Cycle came up. I don't know a great deal of the scientific aspects of it, but I do know that when a person sleeps, they undergo this cycle that recouperates their body. This, however, can only be acheived when the person is completely asleep, and the process isn't interupted.
Me being in my quiet place is like my own REM Cycle. That is how I recouperate from the world. But, it doesn't work if I am interupted, not fully alone, or under pressure by something present. Now, you might think that I would be okay as long as I hang out in my room when she isn't around, but this isn't so. My mind knows that there is a "spirit" present. Even when she isn't here, I live in constant fear of the sound of her key scrapping through the key hole to enter my world that she has destroyed.
To be honest, I don't know what to do.
When she first called, the first thing she asked me was if I did drugs. She was also talking to her friend while on the phone with me, so it was a terribly confusing situation for me. Have people stopped practicing manners? She also asked when I was going to arrive at the room, and when I told her the time, she whined and said she didn't want to have to wait around that long for me. She lives in Syracuse, twenty minutes from the school. I live 4 hours away. Could she not comprehend that? Well, we woke up an hour earlier so we could try to make it there in time so she wouldn't have to wait around.
Well, we ran into some really terrible weather on the way here (pulaski), and ended up being late anyway. To my surprise, and sickening shock, when I opened the door to what used to be my room, everything had been moved. Well, to be my accurate, I couldn't open the door right away, because she had mountains of stuff piled up in front of the door. However, when I finally was able to push through the debris, I discovered the tragic reality that my relatively spacious, comfortable room, was gone.
You know, now that I'm really thinking about it, that was terribley rude. I don't care that she had to move in. I told her I would be late because of the weather, and she didn't have any right to touch my stuff. She just waltzed in and tore everything down. The poster that I bought at the beginning of last semester is all bent and wrinkled because she felt the need to pull everything apart in what used to be my room. I had absolutely no say in how I wanted the room. They just pulled things apart, and set things up how they thought might be best.
Did they think it wouldn't matter to me?
Remember how my playstation area was set up so neatly? Ruined. Touched. I hate it when people mess up my stuff. You might say, "Well, considering the circumstance..."
No. Don't touch anything.
Now the mess of wires are tangled and knotted up in a pile in a corner I can't even get to. There is a reason I set things up the way I do, and it seems like no one really cares.
She also moved my fridge, and brought in her own, something there is no room for. Also, a TV. Were these not the same exact objects I said she would bring in, and there wouldn't be room for them?
Please notice in this next photo how she has taken over the half of the shelf that is accessible, and also the extra peice, the peice I was using previously for my PS2 things. Also, the light that I worked under is now unusable, and I cannot reach any of my things on my part of my shelf without climbing on her bed. (I haven't read my Bible since I got here, mostly because I can't reach it.)
As you can see, my life has been slightly condensed. And what exactly is the purpose of that corner on the other side of the desks? I mean, if there is extra space in the corners of the room that isn't being used, doesn't that suggest that if it wasn't so poorly arranged, more space would be available?
Oh, I also can't use the window sill that I used to sit at everymorning to do my makeup. There is so little light in this room, and what we do have is very orange light, that I can't see what I'm putting on my face all that well. I used to sit by the window in the morning so I could get some natural light. Well, now I'll just have to go back to having blotches and smears on my face everyday.
Yeah, my fridge is in my closet now. So is everything else. When people used to visit me here, they would comment on how organized I was, and how I always had everything they needed (scissors, fingernail clippers, q-tips, tape, string...) and I always knew where they were. Not anymore. I have no idea where most of my stuff is. It took me a week to be able to find my garbage bags. Everything is just crammed into my closet.
Besides my room blowing up, I've been really sick since even before I got here, all from severe stress. Every morning still, I wake up hot and tingly, almost numb. The first night, I was so sick that I woke up every half hour after I fell asleep. Several trips to the bathroom were made, and a lot of water spilled on the floor from me trying desperately to get a cloth wet for my face.
Most of last week I didn't sleep in my room either. I slept in here when she wasn't around, but when she was here, especially with friends, I often slept in the basement. Kayla thuroughly reamed me out for that, saying sleeping down there is dangerous(which, I doubt I'm ever going to tell Kayla personal things anymore, since she is so controlling and a blabbermouth). Yeah, probably if it was that rotting school she's going to. I'm basically the only person that goes down there. Ever.
There was one night that Roommate had friends in the room; three to be exact, a number that shouldn't belong in a room so small. Well, I decided that I definately wasn't about to try to sleep in there after I discovered they were sleeping in there. In her bed. All of them. Is that even possible?
So, I returned to what I call the Pit, and went to sleep on the couch. I already wasn't feeling well that night, but the events that came later on in the evening caused me to never want to sleep in the basement ever again.
Here I will write a copy of the email I sent to my mom.
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"I want to call you so bad right now, but I'm not going to for a couple
reasons.
My stomach is in so much pain right now, that I don't want to move
anywhere. I know that if I called you, I would get hysterical and make
my stomach hurt more. It's nearly five o'clock AM, and if I woke you up
right now, I would just mess up the rest of your day. You can't really
do anything from there anyway.
I've gotten one hour of sleep. Maybe one and a half. I have no where to
go where I can be safe.
Just a few minutes ago I woke up abruptly to the sound of horrendously
noisy girls. I think they were probably drunk. Big, drunk, black girls.
They were so obnoxiously loud. All the screaming and cackling scared me
to death and I tried to put my contacts in so I could go in the
bathroom. I only got one in, and took the case with me because I
absolutly could not stay in here anymore. I looked over at them, and was
so disoriented, that I don't really remember who I saw. There were four
girls though, all in their pajamas. Two were sitting, and the other two
standing in front of the vending machine. Their words didn't even make
sense. It was all just loud.
I don't mind saying, I thought it was my roommate standing there. But I
can't say that for sure.
I got in the bathroom, shaking and twitching so badly that I had a
really hard time opening my contact case, let alone putting the other
one in. Then it sounded like gunshots. The idiots were hitting the
machine so hard the noise echoed. I was hoping someone could hear it
upstairs and come see what it was.
The whole time I was thinking, I need to get an RA to come down here.
But I was trapped and basically helpless.
They hit it (or shot, or kicked, or punched, or body slammed)
repeatedly, and everytime they screamed and I jumped out of my skin,
feeling all the more sick. Eventually, they left. It was like a
hurricane.
And now, 20 minutes later, I'm awake, and I'm sick, and I'm shaking, and
I'm basically feeling like I had a heart attack(honestly, I can't think
of any words that describe how terrified I was). My stomach is still
twitching, and all my muscles are tight. I can barely move. I'm
freezing. I want to sleep in my bed. MY bed. In MY room.
It kind of feel like a dream now. In just the short amount of time that
it happened, and the time that has passed since, has made me feel like
it was a dream, mostly because I didn't really see anything clearly.
I can't take this anymore. Next time, I'm going to hide in the academic
building and sleep there. I feel homeless. I have my backpack that has
everything I need in it, and I'm living out of it. I have absolutely no
where to go. I don't even know what I'm going to do the rest of the
night. Right now, I'm really at my limit. I'm just so drained. I can't
even cry now. It would hurt too much, and if I hurt anymore, my soul
will probably reject my body.
Ouch. I'm tearing up a little, and it stings. I just can't handle it
anymore. If my body would stop convulsing and my stomach not have such
shooting pains, I would go upstairs to see if my room was at least quiet
so I could sleep. Even if there were 5 people in her bed.
That's it I guess. Now what am I going to do...? There's absolutly no
way I'm taking my contacts out to sleep. I'm probably destroying my eyes
over this crap. These retards have no idea what they're doing to me.
They all just go on their merry, probably drunk, way and don't even
consider that they've completely destroyed someone's soul.
Well... I guess I'm going to sit here for a while, and toy with the idea
of falling back asleep. I wonder if that's even possible, or smart. But,
I have no where else to go.
I would say "call me as soon as you get this", but I'm in the dead zone,
so it wouldn't matter anyway. As much as I want to go upstairs to sleep,
I physically can't. I can't move. I wouldn't be able to carry this stuff
up either, and then clear off my bed, and then get things situated (like
my laptop). I can't move.
I just hope they don't come back."
------
That could go in my list of "Worst Nights Ever", if I had one.
I'm not as sickly for now (with an exception for two nights ago when I had a bad fever and wandered around the building at 2 am until about 3:30(Roommate was still awake, talking on the phone and watching TV)). Although, I do keep getting panic attacks. Hm, that doesn't seem healthy to me.
Moving on...
The point is, I can't live with someone.
I can't. Why are those two words so incredibly difficult for the human race to understand? There are just some things people CANNOT DO.
Sure, the majority of people in colleges have problems with their roommate(s), and have way more problems than I have. Honestly, she isn't a terrible person. She hasn't destroyed anything of mine yet, she at least makes somewhat of an effort to be quiet when she notices that I'm trying to sleep or study(well, she doesn't scream as much, I suppose), and she isn't in the room as much as she probably could be. But that isn't it. This isn't my room anymore. I have no more safe place to return to. I feel like some random passerby just walked into my home and staked a claim on it. Not just the house, or the room. My home.
Do you know how that feels? Can you grasp any of how trecherous that is?
I am constantly getting lectures from my peers about how I need to do something about the situation. I should respect her, offer her things, sacrifice. I am already! I gave up my comfort for her! I do make an effort to talk to her sometimes! She's sick right now and I went out of my way to offer my time and personal things to make her tea. I've concerned myself over her well-being. I haven't yelled at her for being obnoxiously loud or having the dumb TV on all the time or keeping the door unlocked or the window open or her friends sleeping in here.
Stop telling me what I need to be doing to make her feel better. Are I not the one with the problem here?
I know, I probably sound obstanant and selfish. But I'm just so sick of no one listening to me. I can't handle being so alone anymore.
"Suck it up"
"So what? Everyone has those problems?"
I don't care about other people! Maybe they can handle living with someone, but I can't. I can't live with someone.
The stress over this has been affecting my life outside of this situation too. I'm so confused all the time. I can't remember things. I keep saying things that don't make sense in a sentance. My mind is muddled. I don't want to do anything anymore. I just sit in here or in the basement and work on homework. In class yesterday, I got so confused. I should have known what the answers was, but this stress has been so long and hard, that I can't understand things anymore.
I've been so tense too. I can't fully turn my head or I'll pull a muscle (which I've done several times already). Yesterday I cried for a full 2 hours, and the same the day before. That doesn't sound right to me. How can you say that things will just get better on their own, or that this isn't really a big deal?
Oh, and my immune system has pretty much gone down the tubes.
I have a problem, but no one seems to care or want to fix it. I know I have people that are concerned about me, but they are far away. Even if they were here, what good would it do?
Okay, here is the real point to the story, and why I named this post "Indecisive Battle".
This is serious, and my mom and I seem to been the only people who realize that. What we're trying to do is get a medical reason for why I need a single room. Dumb? I don't think so. From lining out the things that have been going on, I can quite confidently say that I have a serious health/mental issue. Why no one else wants to acknowledge this, I have no idea. If there is something that everyone goes through, and gets stressed, but is still okay, and there is one person who can't get past it, doesn't that sound a little more serious? If you should be able to get past it, but can't? Forcing this person won't help, I don't think.
So far, no one wants to say that I have a problem though.
Here is a copy of another email I sent recently...
-----
"Okay, I'm in the basement. I was actually going to sleep in my room
tonight because I say that she had some luggage stuff and I assumed she
was going out for the weekend.
Well, when I got back to my room, she came in and hung around with two
other girls in there. I came down here and worked for a really long
time, going up once in a while to get tea or something. One time when I
went up, she was on her way in the room. I came down here again for a
long while, and then when I finally decided, I was going to sleep in
there anyway, I went up to a dark, but loud room. I thought she was
talking on the phone at first. But then I heard other voices.
Apparently, the two other girls are spending the night in there. So, I'm
not. I refuse to sleep in there with two other people talking all night
and watching tv. This is stupid. Really, really stupid.
So, I'm going to sleep in the basement again. But I'll have to kind of
hide somewhere down here, because, unlike other RAs, Emelin and Katie
actually do their jobs and make rounds every hour. I don't think it's
against the rules to sleep down here, but with them knowing the
situation, they'll tell me I should just tell her those people can't
sleep in my room.
Great. Three people just conquered MY ROOM. I hate this. This is stupid.
Stupid, stupid.
Eugh...
Who in their right mind does this crap!? She probably figured it didn't
matter because I never sleep in there anyway. Tch. Yeah."
-----
I went to Residence Life monday, and got very little solved. "Singles are reserved for people with medical problems."
Uh... I know.
The only options I have are...
1. Talk to someone(counselor)
Ummm... yeah. That's going to do a lot. It doesn't really encourage me that the health office is practially 500 miles away and it's just a tad cold and windy out. What can they do? I can complain to someone I don't know, about problems they can't fix. I guess I'm going there sometime this week though. To be honest, I don't want to have to explain this all over again.
2. Talk to Roommate and RD to sort out problems you have with each other.
First of all, no. There is no way I'm going to make things way more uncomfortable like that. Besides, what could I say? The major problem I have with her is that she is living in what used to be my room. Yeah, that wouldn't be awkward at all.
3. Move out.
To where?! "We could have you move into a room with someone you like more". Who? I don't know anyone here. That doesn't really sound like a good solution to "I can't live with people" either. I think that might just add to the stress anyway. Roommate would fine out that I hate her, and in turn hate me(and I have a class with her), this new roommate would probably hate the idea that I barged into their room (how can moving in to another room give me my safe home again anyway?), and I'd have to find some way, and time, to be able to move my stuff to wherever. I'd have to try to get to know someone all over again.
That's it. Those are the solutions. Are people just missing the point?
That's my battle.