Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The (Official) Last One

I can't believe it's been a year already.  It's true what adults tell you - you don't know where the time goes.  It has been one hell of a hard year for me.  And for my family.  Let me see if I can recount all the big stuff that's happened in the last 365 days of my life that has been life-altering...

-My sister left her husband, moved in with my parents, lost and regained custody of her kids
-I moved out, lived with Tiffany for a couple of weeks, then moved to Lafayette
-I got the job I have now
-I broke up with, and mended fences with Kate
-I broke up with Jen - my last single, unattached close friend in Colorado
-I went back to school
-I went on a lot of first dates

I think that's the big stuff.  The stuff that affected me.  You know, aside from the depression stuff.

I wrote a LOT.  This is the 384th post.  I'm sort of tempted to attempt to print out everything I've written just to see how many pages long it would be.  I poured my thoughts out every day, holding very little (but some) back.  I cried and laughed and probably felt every single feeling possible within the myriad of feelings one can feel, aside from the elated, head over heels, crazy in love feeling that I so desperately want to feel for someone.

I feel like I've grown a whole hell of a lot over the last year, made leaps and bounds in terms of learning about myself and how to control my emotions and how to handle things all by myself.  It's been really difficult at times, really easy at times, and overall a really good experience for me to try and record the ups and downs I feel while trying to gain control over my life, learn how to be an adult, maneuver through relationships, and everything else.

I am terrified of the future, but spending my time worrying about it is not helpful.  I know that.  It's just a matter of being able to accept that there are things that I don't have control over, but that if I can go to bed each day knowing that I did my best, worked my hardest, and just was the best version of myself that I could be, I will be okay.

Tomorrow is my 27th birthday.  I don't think that I have ever had a bad birthday, on the actual day, and I don't think tomorrow will be that day.  But I have no plans to have any kind of celebration this year, after the catastrophe that was last year.  I just want it to come and go.  I'd love to go out and celebrate but I have no one to go with.  I've pretty much alienated everyone who went last year.  But like one person.  Which kind of hurts to think about.  It's amazing what can happen in the course of a year.

I've been hopeful and hopeless.  I've been really happy and really sad.  I've been scared and felt invincible, and I've been hurt and I've felt loved.  What more could anyone ask for?

I think I will be just fine.  I think I need to do a whole lot more work, and I plan to keep writing as I need to.  If there's a day when my irritability is about to get the best of me, or if I need to try to work something out, I'm going to write.  Writing has been my greatest outlet and it has been the best thing I could have done over the course of the last year to help me heal from the inside out. 

I still have a lot to learn, so stay tuned.


Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Back to Therapy. Again.

Oh holy God.  I posted on Twitter last night that if I have to see 2am again without it being because I am out closing the bars, I'm going to lose it.  That feels pretty accurate.  I have been waking up around 1:30am for weeks now, excepting the nights when I've taken Ambien, and not being able to get back to sleep until after 3am.  By the time I get back to sleep, I am able to get into my REM cycle right about when I have to wake up for school or work.  It's really frustrating.

Last night I went back to sleep and dreamed about Brian.  I fucking hate dreaming about him.  In this dream, he and I had been corresponding by email, about both of us having an upcoming trip to Greece.  I was supposed to be going for a wedding I was in, and he was going for a band or writing thing.  We agreed to meet up.  In fact, I'm about 50% certain that we were going to share a hotel room and all that means.  I got on the plane and was really apprehensive.  In the dream, I was going mostly for him, and the wedding was sort of a convenience.  I got there, and got dressed and made up for the wedding and was participating in the before-wedding pictures when I texted him and he walked around the street corner.  I was elated to see him.  I'm not really sure what exactly happened after that, except that he and I were talking to another girl who was in the wedding and he said something about spending a nice evening with "his girl" and taking her to a nice dinner, and the girl we were talking to assumed he was talking about me, as did I.  She asked how long we'd been dating, and he stopped and said, "Oh, I'm engaged to someone else."  I was floored and really mad, and couldn't even look at him.  I again am not sure what happened after that but I remember that Kate was also in the wedding, and the girl Brian and I had been talking to was dating someone that Kate had dated before.  The girl found out that Kate had dated her boyfriend and got really pissed at Kate for not saying anything, and for still being friendly with her ex.  At one point, though, Brian and I brought it to the girl's attention that he and I weren't together anymore, he was marrying someone else, but we were still able to be platonic friends.  Then I woke up.

I was obviously really into the dream when I woke up because I can remember so many vivid tiny details even after everything I did today.  Dreams like this really upset me emotionally because they really screw with my perceptions of reality.  I wake up and it's like I've lost him - or someone - all over again.  I've said it 100 times that I am well aware that the Brian in my dreams is not the same Brian who is out in the world right now.  It's been 5 and a half years, for Christ's sake.  He's as different from who he was as I am from who I was.  But in these dreams, it's as though there is relatively nothing different, aside from the fact that it's always a shock to me that he's with Bryn.  I really hate it.

What I think helped get me through the day today was knowing that I was seeing a therapist.  I had a lot of trouble waking up, and seriously considered just going back to bed and waking up just to go to therapy and to lab, but by the time I got out of bed I was awake enough to start getting ready and just forced myself to keep moving.  So I went to classes this morning, sat and talked to my class buddy, and even found both my morning classes to be pretty interesting.  In Judaism we discussed our experiences with the Rosh Hashannah services we attended and I learned a lot.  It was at the end of Social Psych that I realized that I hadn't brought my running shoes with me to school (they weren't even in the car, I'd left them at home altogether) and realized that I couldn't do any kind of exercise without them.  After Judaism I sat outside in the sunshine for about half an hour and studied Anatomy.  I left early for my appointment with the therapist, intending to talk to someone about the appointment with the nutritionist I am supposed to make.  I had to fill out some paperwork about my eating habits and what I feel might be a possible eating disorder or an image disorder, and went down to therapy.  I'm well aware of what goes on during the first therapy session with a new therapist, which is usually a really shallow overview of my mental health history, a little family history and my current symptoms.  I'm such a talker that it takes the entire 45 minutes or hour to get through that little bit.  I liked the therapist I had been assigned (and to give credit where it's due, the girl who scheduled me a couple weeks ago worked hard to pair me with a therapist that would fit my schedule and my illness), except that it turns out she worked with my mom before she began her doctoral work at CU, and they know each other.  Generally when this is the case, the therapist is supposed to pass me on to someone else, but since she and my mom no longer work together or see each other, she said it was up to me if I wanted to change therapists.  I really don't - I like her, and I think she could be helpful, and in all honesty I don't want to go through another initial consultation with another therapist because that will just put me that much further behind on whatever work I need to do - but my mom is pretty uncomfortable with her being my therapist so I think I'm going to have to change.  Which is disappointing.  I do understand how my mom must be uncomfortable with my seeing her, though.  My mom doesn't deserve to have all our family's dirty laundry aired to someone who talks to her coworkers and such.  I must be really tightly wound, though, because in just this first meeting, I cried about some of the things I had to talk with her about.  Which upsets me, even now, because I really wanted to think I was in control of my emotions.

Anyway, I am glad that I got the ball rolling with the mental health clinic on campus and at least got in to see someone today.  I finished the session not wanting to go to my lab AT ALL, but I forced myself to go anyway.  I'm glad I did because I really feel like I solidified my knowledge of the names of all the muscles and their locations.  Now all I need to do is get a grasp of the origin, insertion and action and make sure that I study the joint capsule anatomy and the microscopic muscle histology and I'm set.  I do feel really good about my understanding of the muscle names and locations, though.  I was waaaaaaay less certain the last time I took this lab and did horribly on the test.  I am making it a point to do well this time.  What I like about the lab is that I am not afraid to get involved and ask questions and I'm even in a study group with some of my classmates to make sure we're all ready.  It's kind of wonderful.

Although I didn't get to work out today, I'm completely exhausted.  From lack of sleep and from emotional stress.  I'm so tired of being emotionally stressed out, but I'm seeing a psychiatrist next week for my med eval and am going to continue therapy on a weekly basis for as long as I feel that I need it.  As much as I feel like a failure for needing to do this, I know it will help.

As for the nutritionist appointment, I'm starting to accept the possibility that I have an unhealthy body image and relationship with food.  It was something that the therapist sort of caught and focused on a little more than I thought was necessary, but she probably also saw that I'd just filled out the nutritionist questionnaire with some information that might be kind of troubling.

And tomorrow will by my last post of the year.  I'm sorry in advance for how much it's going to disappoint as a closing for a year's worth of thoughts about my feelings.   Maybe that will make a good transition to making my blog not be so depressing and serious.

Also I am going to cut swoopy bangs soon so my forehead doesn't look so huge.  But I might wait until school is out so I still don't have to do my hair those two days every week.  Because I don't do anything to it now except pull it back sufficiently enough to last through two classes, the gym, and a lab.

I need to go to bed now.  I took some Tylenol PM to try to get me all the way though the night without waking up.  We'll see.  I have my sports medicine doc appointment on Thursday so it's going to be another non-two hour gym session I can feel guilty about.  But then maybe I can alleviate that guilt in therapy next week.

Yay mental illness!

Monday, October 3, 2011

The Beginning of the End

I so want to write about how annoyed I am with my boss this morning.  I realize that when I let her stupidity annoy me, it's just adding unnecessary stress to my life, and that I could totally be a bigger person and just let it all go, but for some reason - maybe it's the fact that I have to be in close proximity to her three out of seven days a week - I can't.

I dread when she comes into the office in the morning.  She's so awkward when she says good morning to me.  I don't know what the quality it is that is so weird, but it just is.  This morning she came back upstairs to add some fabulous old copies of Reader's Digest to our menagerie of reading material here in the lobby.  She felt the need to tell me that her husband's father has gifted them with a subscription to it.  I don't fucking care where the fuck they come from!  I'm not going to read the damn things!

Then, just now, a new tenant who moved in last week called me to tell me she was locked in her office.  For some reason, the lock on the door was sticking and it wasn't unlatching from the inside.  I told her that sometimes the locks stick, but I went up to take a look at it myself and see what was going on.  It was, in fact, sticking, but it wasn't something I could fix.  So I called my boss to let her know that something was wrong with the lock, and her response (as was the response last week when another door wouldn't unlock) was to comment on whether or not the lock had been giving her trouble recently.  I wanted so badly to say, "What difference does it make whether or not it's ever given you trouble before?!  It's not working now!"

I sort of want to start a list of "Stupid Shit My Boss Says," but out of context, it just looks like a bunch of inane sentences that don't look as stupid as they actually are.  I shit you not, though, it would not surprise me to have her come up to me to tell me that her watch stopped working and give me the run down of how she investigated what was wrong with it.  This is the kind of excitement she has in her life.

I hate that I hate my job.  I hate that I dread coming to work each day.  I hate that I don't know ahead of time how my attitude toward my job is going to be until I've been at work a little while.  I hate that I have to interact with stupid people on a daily basis, including the "no thanks, I'll just call back later" people I have to answer the phone for 18,000 times a day.  I thought about dressing up for Halloween, just to throw a wrench in my daily monotony, but then I thought about how dumb it would be to waste an awesome costume on work, when I'm not doing anything else with said costume.  So instead, I'm going to be "A receptionist who likes her job" and just wear what I normally wear.  I'm considering telling my boss what I am when she asks why I didn't dress up.  If I have another job lined up by then...

Perhaps my bad attitude today is the fact that I got just around 3 hours of solid sleep last night.  I could not fall asleep to save my life!  I just kept flipping over from one side to the other, and dozing off just enough to wake up pissed off that I had waken up.  Either way I feel hungover, sick to my stomach and about to fall asleep at any given moment.  I would give just about anything for another day off where I didn't have to feel guilt about not going to class, or about not working for the money I'd be missing because I don't get paid sick days or vacation days. 

In fact, as I am thinking about it now, I am considering requesting a meeting with my boss to let her know how unhappy I am and that I'm looking for a new job.  Some things she could do for me that would get me to stick around for awhile longer are: hire another receptionist so I am not working with Anna anymore, give me a significant raise, and make it so that I get a long enough lunch break to go grab something off Pearl Street and bring it back.  Luckily I have an appointment with a career counselor on campus next week so hopefully that will give me a little more hope that I won't be stuck in a job I hate for the rest of my life.  I'm obviously not super hopeful as of right now.  Coming to work every other day makes me want to shoot myself in the face.  Which is not good.

This might be the only post for the day, which is crappy because I only have today, tomorrow and Wednesday left to write and I was kind of hoping to go out with a bang.  C'est la vie, I guess...

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Moving Along

Wow.  Being a responsible adult is hard.  I bought Calcium with vitamin D today.  Now I have to remember to take it.

When I woke up this morning, I had the choice of whether or not to just show up at my former team's soccer game to see if I might be able to play.  I decided to wait until this morning to see how I felt about it instead of deciding last night about what I'd do.  I wrestled with it a lot this morning because I knew it would probably be kind of awkward (I was wrong, it was REALLY awkward), but I wanted to get out and do something and I'd probably have beat myself up if I hadn't tried.  Plus, I pretty much knew they'd let me play because we were always short before.

The weather was gorgeous, and it was pretty hot outside for a soccer game, but that's my favorite way to do it.  I thought I was in decent shape for a game, but I was real wrong.  Apparently soccer is a whole different kind of cardio exercise than just running for recreation or doing the stairs or the elliptical or riding my bike around Boulder.  I told the manager that I knew there were only a few games left in the season, but I only live like 5 minutes away so she could let me know last minute if they needed people to play.  I'll email her my number so she can text me.

What was awkward about it was mostly Jen, that she wouldn't even look at me let alone talk to me, and since I haven't been there for effectively two seasons, I'm out of the loop and so no one talked to me.  However, I went with the assumption that because I'd been gone I would be the low man on the totem pole and so that is what would probably happen, so it wasn't too surprising or disappointing.  Just kind of sad.  As I watched everyone interact (Jen was never really a part of the social part of the team), I got even more sad because they're all right around my age and a lot of them hang out outside of soccer as a group, and I'm not a part of that, or of any group.  I've had times in my life where I was a part of a group, and so while I don't feel left out in that I've never been a part of a group, I'm sad because I'm no longer a part of any group.  Group stuff is really fun.

But I've made it that way.  My Colorado friends - Jen, Mischa, etc., are all people I've alienated out of my life mostly because I have had such a hard time getting out and doing things because Depression is an asshole like that and just pretty much wants you to hate yourself and your life and not have any friends.  So I have a couple of choices - I can try to mend some fences and do it the hard way, or I can sit around being miserable and bitching that I don't have anyone to do things with.  It's going to be hard, but I think I might be ready to finally live the life that most people without mental illness live.

That's what I've spent most of my day thinking about.  After the game, I came home and napped for a little while, then got up and did some stuff around the house and then went over to my parents house to meet them when they got home and hear about the wedding.  I still really wish I could have gone, although my mom said it wasn't as much fun as other family gatherings she's been to.  It probably doesn't help that she wasn't in a great mood to begin with, and road trips with family are difficult, but my little sister is a rather emotional person and can be really hard to deal with without stepping around her feelings (like I'm one to talk).  Anyway, they're home now, my mom is off work all week, and things seem to be back to normal.  That's one less thing we all have to worry about.

So onward with the week.  My birthday is on Thursday but I have no plans for it at all, whatsoever, except to be kind of creative with what to make for myself.  I'm thinking about carrot cake with apples in it with my cream cheese/whipped cream frosting.  Maybe I'll add some chocolate protein shake to it to give it some supplement.  I may not have time to do the workouts I want to this week - I've made appointments with so many different kinds of doctors - so I'll need to make do with what I've got.  Next week is going to suck because it's midterms and all three of my classes have big tests.  I think I'll be most concerned about the Anatomy test, then Social Psych, and Judaism last.  She's already given us our assignment for Judaism and it shouldn't be too hard and I can work on it just a bit on each day I'm at work this week and hopefully get it done before the weekend.  I think I've mostly gotten my computer set up now so I can start using it to it's full potential.  Which is nice.

I'm watching Hocus Pocus to get myself in the mood for Fall and Halloween.  I really love this time of year.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Last Hot Day of the Year?

Today was actually quite lovely.  Phoenix and I woke up at about 8:30, laid around for awhile and then went to the bank to deposit my check.  We came home and napped for awhile and then when we got up, we went for our run.  We did the 3.5 mile loop today, which felt extremely difficult, but I pushed it as best I could and did it.  Afterward, my ankles felt kind of wobbly so I sat and read the newspaper at my parents house while I sat with my feet in a bucket of ice water.  After I took them out, they felt like they were made out of glass.

We went home, and I got the hammock out and grabbed my laptop and a glass of champagne and watched a movie outside.  After that I came in and warmed up my leftovers from last night and ate those, then played a little Super Nintendo, and that's where we are now.

Aside from the fact that I'm not in Iowa with my family, attending my cousin's wedding, I'm in a pretty good mood today.  I didn't sleep for shit - I'd sleep for 3-4 hours and then wake up, so when I woke up in the middle of the night, I played some Super NES and went through the music from my old computer that didn't transfer over and spent some time moving my illegally downloaded discographies over.  I feel like I at least accomplished something.

Tonight, I am taking an Ambien with the hopes that I'll be sort of resetting my sleep schedule in preparation for the week.  I have a headache, I'm assuming from dehydration and champagne, so I'm going to take my meds and hop into bed for the night here soon.

More tomorrow!