Musings, sundry and disconnected

SIIIIIIIiiiiiigggghhhhh. If I never have to shop for a car again I think I'll be happy. (Except, that's totally a lie. Whichever car we end up finding will no doubt be so gnarly that I'll want a new(er) one as soon as can possibly be afforded.) I hate car shopping. Really, really hate it.

This rapid-cycling depression and hypomania is making life completely impossible and incomprehensibly exhausting. I'm either too hyper and unab le to focus to get anything done or too lethargic and unable to lift my head off the pillow to do anything. The past week or more I've been doing well to make it to work and last my shift without a breakdown, let alone contemplate updates.

Speaking of, I was thinking about this yesterday: DC Cheesecake Factory was remarkably patient with me. I never got fired, never even got a write up, yet I was probably right up there for the Most Unstable Employee award. I suppose consistent competence was my greatest selling point or something, whothehell knows.

Sunday morning I nearly didn't make my bus because dragging myself out of bed and into my work clothes was such a completely overwhelming task. Eventually I'd pulled on my uniform and just sat on the edge of the bed crying, staring at my untied shoes, thinking simultaneously how impossibly difficult and pointless it would be to tie them. But, somehow, I still managed. (And literally all day long almost every friend I have there found some way to tell me I "look[ed] like sh*t", which made me feel a whole lot better.) I still got to work on time and made it through the shift intact without screwing anything up severely.

This anecdote actually brings up two points: first, I'm actually quite a bit more stable than I used to be, despite the fact that it feels quite the contrary. Secondarily, it's evidence to the whole DC-was-more-tolerant point... There were several times at that restaurant where I had to call out because of severe depression/anxiety/whatever, faking the physical only to a small extent since I was so depressed I truly felt sick. Beyond that, however, they had to deal with me disappearing mid-shift now and then, emerging from the coat closet or walk-in freezer after a while, all tear-stained, for no discernible reason. A couple times I came in for my shift begging everyone in sight to pick up for me so that I could go home because either I couldn't stop crying or just couldn't stand the thought of six, seven, eight hours with a plastered fake smile, ingratiating myself to people for their money.

And, of course, there were the couple of shifts that I simply could not go onto the floor because I could not stop sobbing. Including one memorable night that they were already short people and refused to send me home, instead telling me to go to the bathroom and try to pull myself together. I called Crystal, panicking and completely distraught for (as is my bent) no discernible reason, who dropped what she was doing and came running to work as quickly as she could. I'm sure I was completely pissing the managers off since I was...wow, how to describe it? totally unhinged? and they couldn't understand why. All they wanted was a reason but no one had died, I hadn't broken up with my girlfriend, wasn't getting kicked out of school, nothing. I think the explanation I gave was a nothing-everything-I DON'T KNOOOW!!! sort of thing, which didn't seem to cut it.

In the end they really had no choice but to send me home. (I think they gave me like two hours to try to pull it together, though, but it was no use.)

And yet, they didn't fire me. If anything, they undeniably handled me with kid gloves for a few weeks after that; they immediately cut back my hours, no further questions asked, and did all they could to help me through it.

I really don't think this location would be so understanding.

Although, an interesting thought connects to all this: had they fired me for an emotional breakdown, could I have sued? :-P I wonder where psychiatric illness falls on the legal end of things...

...arright, I'm all written out, I think. Don't you just love how my entries sort of fizzle instead of conclude these days? Le sigh.

...Okay, actually, I have NO CLUE how to end this. So I'm just going to let it drop... Crystal suggests saying

THE END

Crap. Again.

Sadly, I had a post all prepared in my head but events conspired (as they so often do) to overthrow all those planned out anythings in my life. It was all a normal, routine day (well...ish, considering I'm at my parents' house instead of home). I was down in the city running errands, going to a checkup with the orthopaedist, then on the way back wanted to swing by the old apartment since apparently the people at AU are worthless and have been forwarding all my mail there.

Mail in hand, headed to the bus stop. Waiting at the bus stop, opened the mail. According to a letter received from AES, since I dropped out of school my loan payments start March 1st 2007 instead of five years after graduation. ...WEPDIGAJPAJG?!?@!

Okay, please, help me with the logic here. Loan company refuses to give student loans, forcing student to drop out of college. Loan company then comes sharking after student to repay old loans. They're expecting me to pay with what, exactly? (Blood?) The whole reason I have to drop out in the first place is because those a-holes refused to give me any financial assistance this year and, as such, I can't afford school!!! If I can't afford it now, how am I expected to afford the loans I wasn't supposed to have to worry about until 2014???

It always happens like this. Whenever I'm starting to feel somewhat okay about things, think they're on the incline, another shitbomb falls into my lap. I say it every time: there is someone up there who refuses to see me happy. (Family, don't start. If you're going to say this is god's loving way of pulling me back by making me desperate you can think again. Since god is sovereign over events, all this is his fault in the first place and he'd better stop causing new and improved crap if he wants me to grovel.) Is my life just some sort of f-d up Dick and Jane parable about good behavior?

Over and over I hear people tell me what an enouragement I am, how they are inspired by my story and my strength to keep fighting. Well you know what? EAT ME!!! I need HELP right now, not empty words, and obviously whatever 'strength' people think I have counts for diddly squat when a person actually needs to survive.

I spend my days fighting for air from the moment I wake up, battling and kicking and screaming and demanding my right to live and have a life, and it's never enough. I get trampled, discriminated against, shoved through cracks in policy outlines, mummified in red tape, ignored when I plead for help and hounded when I have nothing left to give. I can't afford a car without working and I can't get to work without a car. I've made t'shirts and just want to give them away and talk to every girl who wants one, to get the message out, and I can't even afford postage unless I receive money. I spend hours writing letters and Christmas cards and e-mails to people I care about, even if they don't know who I am. I walk around all day looking at the world through a writerly screen, searching for things that matter and things that don't. Turning every life event, store manequin, weird commercial into a blog entry in my head, something that might make people laugh or think or feel.

At this point I don't even see the point in school. The bureaucratic torture chamber has driven me mad, I can't see how the education, no matter how beautiful, is worth it. I'll teach myself on my own as I have since grade school. I'd probably get a better education that way. But I wouldn't have a f-ing piece of paper certifying I'd done the study and graduated from the university and so I'd get automatically fed minimum wage.

Bridges are looking mighty damn better than the alternatives right now. Just when I'd finally gotten thinking that maybe I really DO want to stick around.