Still alive and still kicking that dead horse

Jesus H. Is this REALLY the FIRST chance I've had to update my blog since returning from MD on the 2nd? Answer: Yes. Yes it is. Suck.

Our piggy-backed internet officially decided to give us the boot at home, so that greatly limits my ability to update. Then too, working 40+ hours since the first morning I was back doesn't help at all in the free time department... I've been making a lot of money, but, god am I tired.

Today would have been my fifth double shift in a row but for the fact that a friend offered to pick up the AM shift so that I don't have to be in until 5:45 tonight, allowing me time to settle my ass at It's A Grind (BEST COFFEE SHOP EVER), with an iced chai (I've recently become a fan: finally, I'm a true lesbian!), a checkbook to be ballanced (hooray internet banking; I don't want to begin to think about how snarled it is), a blog to be updated (at this point I feel the need for a parenthesis after each statement), and a doctor to be found (I suppose I'm trusting to fate and location since I know no one here). (Parentheses: the new black. Or comma.) Damn but that was the longest sentence ever.

Oh yeah! And also, I have a birthday party to plan if I have time! Old as I may feel, I still am only partially legal. Isn't that lame? It's not even as though I drink, but the mere fact that I can buy and own a car, rent an apartment, join the military, what-the-f-ever, but not get a glass of wine at a restaurant pisses me off. All this will change on September 16th when my last Big Birthday for twenty years will occur. It's weird, planning my twenty-first... Honestly, I've felt so old for so long that it seems trite.

...Wow. What do I have to say? This is nothing but a tangle of rambles, all frustrated before the point of meaning. This is actually how I've been feeling lately about my life in general, though whether or not the two are in any way connected is debatable.

Lately, waitressing has felt even more thankless and dead-end than it already has... Though I'm still bringing in a fair amount, enough at least to pay the bills, I get off a shift feeling more as though I've been begging for change or turning tricks than legitimately being paid for a job well done. Every 5$ tip on a 90$ check (see also: last night) makes perfectly executed service feel like a joke. If the person will pretty much tip what they're going to tip regardless of the service I give or the check they run, why bother? I ruin myself every night trying to make sure each table receives exemplary service but whether or not I'll be paid for that effort is a crap shoot.

My shoulder has been bothering me again, too, increasing with the hours I work. Hell, it's only been about eight months since my surgery and I'm back to double shifts pretty much every day I work... At this pace, the healthy, whole parts of my body won't stay such for long. People don't realize that waitressing takes an incredible toll on your body. Although I've been eating more I can't gain any weight or keep on what I've got because of waitressing so much... I may be eating Cheesecake Factory food every day, but the calories are all offset by the loaded plates I cart all over the restaurant, the trays of drinks, and constant speed-walking. I'm solid muscle, knots, and strains.

Yucky part is, I've got no clue where I'd rather work or what I'd rather do. What job can I get with a year's worth of college that has adequate pay, benefits, and satisfaction? That I'd enjoy? I have no clue. Especially with working in a mall, it seems that everyone here is older than I and stuck working too many hours in a dead end job because it's the best option they got. So many people here in Colorado are working to pay for the homes, cars, and KIDS on minimum wage, yet I'm making at least twice that and complaining about it. Why does it feel like that makes me a terrible person? I don't think it does...

Last night I was mourning my complete lack of connections here. I didn't exactly have the most outrageous network in DC, but I still new enough people that I could know where to go if I had a question about something, needed help. I had a Pulitzer prize winning author, senior literary professor at George Washington U offering to mentor me and help me become a better writer. I had opportunities. Now that I'm half a country away perhaps I'm not completely cut off from any way to improve but I certainly feel the disconnect. I don't know where to go or who to talk to. I've got no school, no professors, no friends outside my dead-end job. The only way up at Cheesecake is to step into management and I'll be damned before I become THAT much of a corporate whore.

...Of course, then I look at complete complete train wreck entries like this one and think that I ought to have learned better by now than to still have literary aspirations. I can't even keep a blog in one piece.

Well, my thought are trickling out at this point and I'm having a hard time sifting through the silt that remains. I'm going to now return to my doctor search... I've finally got health insurance now through Cheesecake, meaning that I can at long last find a therapist to stick with, a psychiatrist, and get back on some medication. With any luck, maybe my thoughts will be a little more cohesive and I'll have a better time trying to plan and think and do anything with some cocktail to temper my crazy thoughts. It's about time, I can tell you that much. I'm tired of crying myself to sleep at night with absolutely no provocation.

Assortedness

It's a bit of a weird day... I'm really homesick for my alma mater (which technically isn't, since I dropped out. but I'll always think of it that way), to the point that I've been sitting around studying textbooks for the hell of it and accidentally typed in my school e-mail address when trying to access my blog account. It's bizarre and painful to think it's only been seven months since all that sh-t happened. I'm all droopy and benadryl-groggy, too... Wasn't feeling well earlier today, took a pill, slept all afternoon, and now just feel disoriented. Hooray! >.<

'Lots been on my mind lately. Not updating makes me feel like a heel, but then when I open ze laptop I have no idea what I want to say. Usually ends up I say nothing, as you've seen. I wonder then if anyone still reads, (remind myself there have to be updates before there will be readers), wonder whether I've said so much as ten meaningful things in the last few months, wonder why I bother. Recovery lately has very much been a story of stagnation. Perhaps my thoughts and entries (i.e. the lack of content in said entries) merely reflect that.


The past couple weeks had me worrying quite a bit about Frank Warren, the PostSecret curator. There was a week's lapse in secrets for no explanation; the only change made to the site was to remove the link to the suicide hotline and one of the encouraging survival stories that's been there for ages now. Being the anxious sort of person I am, I e-mailed him a few times and when I didn't receive a response went so far as to find where I'd put his contact information ages ago and called him. If you followed the facebook drama especially, you'll know that hundreds of people were worried something seriously wrong had happened to him or his family - I include myself in that number.


Thankfully, he reappeared this Sunday with a new batch of secrets and a brief message of explanation. I gotta be honest, though: as a long time blogger, xanga-er, livejournaller, I still feel kind of hurt at the way he disappeared. I mean, a leave of absence is one thing. I've done it myself numerous times when things have gotten really bad. When you've got a huge crowd of readers, though, who have come to anticipate punctual updates, you can't just stop without any sort of reason. In the lj world, that's called pulling a limeybean. It's akin to internet suicide.


Blah.


To transition to something less angsty and pissy... I give you CAT MACROS! We got our two little kittens last Thursday and they're the cutest pains in the ass you'll ever meet. Frankie is a grey tabby, Tallulah is a black-and-white 'socks' kitty. Unfortunately, my bluetooth receiver isn't working (i.e. no phone pics) and I don't have a digital camera, so I'm trying to figure out the best way to tell you what it's like with teh kittehs. Cat macros are my latest obsession and so, without further ado, here's my Life Wif Kittehnz post.






Approximately what Frankie looks like. And yes, that would be Frankie as in Sinatra, because this boy is the loudest whiny little brat EVER. He is a little more grey than this kitty, with more moozlepoof (see the rules of cuteness at cuteoverload.com).

Did anyone ever doubt the trouble and naughtyness of a kitten? Or two kittens...? Yes, they is naughty monkeys. But oh so cute.

Especially at night. When I'm trying to sleep. Only, imagine vampire cat attacking YOUR neck, ot the other cat's.

Tallulah has a problem. She begs. Shamelessly. FOR PEOPLE FOOD.

KITTEN FARTS KILL OMG.

Aww squee. See, at the end of the day, THIS is why we got kittenz. (Cheaper than therapy and meds?)

OH YEAH, and, P.S.

We saw Harry Potter and TOOTP last night!!! God was it awesome. Yes, there were flaws... I mean hell, they turned the longest book into a barely two hour movie. But STILL, it was awesome. Go see. I will see it again.

PPS.

For more cat macros, go to www.icanhascheezburger.com. Kthxbai!

Huh? Whazzat?

God, has it been a week already? I'm such a neglectful blog-mommy.

It's been quite the busy week. I've not put a pen to paper beyond shopping lists or taking orders at work... Forget journalling, writing, or any other form of creative expression. The art supplies remain packed. The shirt that needs to be shipped still has yet to be painted. I've been reading a good bit but that's about all the self-nurturing/development I've been up to.

It seems like I'm in one of those rough points in my life where I'm too busy scratching a living to get to enjoy it. Basically, this sucks. Waitressing really doesn't offer much by way of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment at the end of a twelve hour double shift (re: today). I'm tired, drained, and brain-dead, but have nothing to show for all my work but swollen feet and a wad of ones and fives. No provocative writing or pleasing artwork. Hell, not even a clean house.

I'm too emotional to write well about anything related to mental illness. I'm too tired to research something to write a stimulating entry. Underweight girls, depressed, cringeing girls, girls with scars on their knuckles made me cry today. The weight of the world feels so, so heavy right now...

This entry is making no sense...

In other news... TOMORROW WE'RE GETTING KITTENSES.

Sleep?Yeah... Sleep good... Tina go sleep now...

Incurable cases?

It Gets Better - Jenni Schaeffer

This is my personal inspiration for today, which I thought I'd share with all of you. After actively fighting this disorder for almost a year and a half (as opposed to passively, which constitutes the latter half of my life) I often feel like I should be well now. I should be eating regularly, enjoying it, maintaining or gaining weight --- especially not losing and not caring, or finding vicious celebrity gossip 'thinspiring'.

I do miss being under a hundred. I miss being dizzy all day. I miss the bruises all along every ill-padded bone. I miss regular self-injury. My eating disorder has been nothing but abusive, spiteful, manipulative, selfish, ruinous, and yet perhaps I will always miss it.

Lately, you've been watching me relapse to some extent. Perhaps it's not been much of an active relapse, but I've still not been doing a whole lot to fight it too hard. The past few weeks have been the sort wherein eating somehow feels like an exhaustive, distasteful chore whose purpose is obscure and value inconclusive.

Today I'm trying to reinforce the understanding that it is okay to relapse. Probably this is not the statement most professionals would want me to be saying, but be realistic here. Relapse will happen. I'm not saying it is okay to embrace it. I'm saying it's okay for it to happen. It is okay to accept bad days along with good.

What's not okay is to welcome it, engage with it, actively pursue it and see how bad it can get. Today I'm trying to look at my life and say, all right. I've been having some bad times lately. My eating has not been what it should be and my attempts to thwart it haven't been up to par. Now that I understand this, I can accept it as something which happens from time to time instead of beating myself up about it for being the worst recoverer ever. I can acknowledge the bad and try to pick myself up again instead of saying, crap, I failed again, I must just not be cut out for this health thing. I can let the relapse be what it is and then let it go.

One thing Jenni wrote in her article in particular stood out to me: her realization that the belief she held about being too ill to recover was false. I remember many, many journal entries along those lines and can now realize that even in the midst of a bad spell I'm still able to see how far I've come toward health and that I'm still moving toward it even despite a two steps forward one back progression.

I still often feel that this disorder may always be with me. But I know now that it does not and will not always control me. I AM NOT TOO SICK TO GET BETTER!!! I was not the sickest, I was not the least sick, but I AM getting better in spite of everything!

Be encouraged!!! You probably feel like a hopeless case. Like no matter how many people say they understand, they really, truly don't. They can't see inside you and realize what a horrible, twisted, incurable creature you are. Like I'm full of sh-t for saying that I know what you're feeling. I won't claim to be all-knowing or all-answer-ful. But I will say that I have felt that before. Sometimes I've felt that my core evil was so warped and disgusting and pervasive as to be a tangible force. I've felt that it defined every part of my being so inextricably that all I would ever be able to be was worthless.

So not true.

Please, please don't listen to the lies this disorder tells you. It tells you you are worthless because it makes you easier to control. Would a person who highly valued and loved herself be as easily inclined to destroy herself as one who thought she were worthless? It's all a power scheme. A vicious and effective one, but only a scheme.

It is possible to break from this disorder and grasp the health that seems so impossible.

The search for a cure

My fingers can barely lift themselves from one key to the next tonight. Washing my hair seemed like too much effort, with all the lifting of the arms and the scrubbing of the fingers. My entire body is dead weight.

After a couple phone calls from the new therapist, Patti, last week, I've begun again the search for a new therapist. She felt that it would be good for me to look more for someone who could provide better continuity of care since the CU Denver counselling center takes frequent, long breaks during the semester periods, as well as the fact that since the therapists there are interns they switch out regularly.

Another factor is that they ARE interns there... To be honest, I got the feeling that she was a bit overwhelmed by my needy crazyness (as therapists so often have been when dealing with me). She mentioned that it'd probably be best to find someone more experienced. To me, this means, "Holy hell, kid. You're a nutjob. Go find someone with a doctorate and roughly twenty-five years dealing with clinical crazies and maybe they can handle you." I'm sure that's not the exact translation, but it's close.

All that said, yesterday was intake number one of god knows how many. I really liked this therapist, though I don't think she's the right one, either, unfortunately. Her name is Shelley, she's an LCSW (licensed clinical social worker), been in practice since 1989.

That last bit is a big plus for her - many of the docs I've seen in the past haven't been in practice all that long. I like that she's experienced. On the other hand, though, (and this is a big reason I think it may not be the right fit) her experience does not lie where I need it to. I forgot to ask exactly what her areas of expertise are, but I gathered enough to know that she has not dealt much at all with dissociative disorders and has only had a couple of cases of eating disorders. Both these are rather major issues. In the case of eating disorders, the clients she did have were both well in to their recovery stages. While I think I'm well on my way, Crystal isn't so sure - and I've learned that she frequently has better judgment about my mental status than I do. Particularly lately it's been rather clear that I'm not as recovered as I seem to think I am, as I've been losing weight and eating less and caring less about the fact that I'm eating less.

Really, as much as I liked her as a person, appreciated her method and felt comfortable with her, she did not have enough qualifications treatment-wise, I think. The biggest positive things about meeting with her were things like feeling comfortable talking to her, not feeling threatened by her or condescended to, feeling like I was truly listened to and taken seriously. These indicate that she's definitely a good therapist but don't necessarily say anything about whether she's the right therapist. Follow?

She, like every other brain doctor who spends five minutes talking to me, seemed deeply concerned and quite adamant that I get back on meds as soon as humanly possible. Ironically enough, only when I'm having a saner day can I see the logic behind this. I still struggle with the concept of medication. It feels like a crutch, a fake cure, a symptoms-masking treatment that does nothing to actually cure. It feels somehow, in some not-easily-explained fashion, like the easy way out when I should be able to work my way out. Do not pass Go! Do not collect that two hundred dollars, hippie! You march your ass through each of those spaces and figure it out the HARD way. ....Aand the reasoning itself makes only about as much sense as that poorly planned metaphor.

There's an organization called Aurora Mental Health which I've thought about trying and which Shelley strongly recommends. She used to be on the board there and says they could find a way to help hook me up with medication until my insurance coverage resumes in August. Additionally, they've got a broad base of experience and knowledge for all things crazy, so chances are good that they could match me up with the right doc. So they're my next stop on the mental health errands...

Haha, don't you love how my coherence dissipates the longer I write and the tireder I get? Yes, tireder, you heard me punks. I've got to be at work again in less than twelve hours now. Perhaps next entry will come sooner than the ridiculous break this last has been... Sorry, readers.

This is Frasier Crane, wishing you all a good day and good mental health.

Is this really what passes for a blog these days?

So basically, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am to move to Canada once Crystal graduates. More on that later, I guess...

It's been incredibly difficult to think what to write. Despite having days off and an overactive mind, I can't seem to focus any of these thought trains into a chiseled sort of entry or, for that matter, any form of writing longer than a disjointed paragraph. Additionally, as I've tried to consider topics worth discussion, I've been painfully aware that most of what's on my mind is depression-related and depression at my level is excruciatingly boring. Friends often challenge me to write a book and I can't seem to convince them how any book I could poop out now would be little better than Dr Zhivago right now. The depressive's mind, by nature, ruminates on topics like a cow that ate a bag of mulch and gravel. Endlessly. And often with indigestion. Depression is an endlessly churning sack of monochromatic muck.

Even exciting events can be turned dull when viewed through the depressive lens. I could tell you about the hail we received or Amber's graduation last night or how we almost got killed after a booksigning in Denver a few days ago. All these things, in the appropriately caffeinated fingers of a witty person, could be turned into side-splitting or riveting anecdotes. At the moment I'm more likely to say, "Yeah, we went to see Barbarah Kingsolver talk a couple nights ago and there was this big thunderstorm and then we walked home in the pouring rain and got chased by a raving drunk who was packing heat." (Granted, that one may be kinda interesting REGARDLESS of the bare bones explanation.)

Side note about the experience in Denver: I am about fifty times more frightened of downtown Denver than I EVER was of Washington, DC. I was less afraid walking home alone in DC than I was walking three blocks to a LightRail station with Crystal and Jody the other night. Because damn. People can officially give up on trying to convince me to look for an apartment downtown.

I ought to write about how pants that should be too small are baggy, about how depression kills my appetite kills my motivation kills my giving-a-shit. I should write about how my new therapist broke up with me after two sessions and I'm back looking for a new one again. I should write about the fact that I'm working six of seven days this week.

Sooo many topics to cover! So many books to write and bills to pay and t'shirts to make/send and apartments to look at and the rest and the rest!

Instead, I watch Michael Moore films while crocheting doilies and getting ready to leave for work, and when I DO finally get myself to open ze laptop and attempt ze entry, it looks like THIS.

Mental illness is ridiculously frustrating.

Recovered? Functioning? Surviving?

You know, I wish that my depression was caused by my eating disorder and that developing a healthy relationship with food would heal the depression, too. In many cases, depression is a sort of side effect or symptom of an eating disorder... In my case, the more I look at it, the more I feel like it's either the other way around or they're just unrelated for the most part. Perhaps two illnesses which, while caused by different things, happen to have certain overlapping symptoms. (Probably the most likely scenario.)

Earlier today I was looking over some of my old journals, particularly the one I started while on a week-long stint in the hospital following a series of suicidal acts. For one thing, it was a little depressing to be reminded how much better my writing is during periods of hypomania than straight up depression but that's neither here nor there... It's always heartbreaking to me to read my old journals and see how completely dominated they are by calorie counts, weigh-ins, and self-abuse of all kinds. All I talked about was loneliness, jealousy, constant attacks against everything which makes me human and female and a teenager.

....Train of thought is completely derailing, goddamnit. Frasier's on, my stomach is full, my feet and legs are sore from standing all day, my eyelids are droopy, and I've got t'shirts and debt on the brain. I'm terrified I've ruined Crystal's and my life and we'll end up living in a shack in West Virginia we've built ourselves out of cardboard and cinderblocks surviving off doritos and coke and hamburger helper. I can't keep thinking about all this f-ing debt or I'm going to bring on a panic attack. Like, now. God...

My mental health is so much better, in some ways. I eat, more or less regularly, I don't actively focus on restricting, I function, I hold a job (for which I haven't even called out on account of mental breakdown since I started in January!), I pay the bills on time, I make t'shirts and e-mail and blog and help support others, I even have sort of made a couple friends at work. And yet... "function" may be the key word for my current status.

I've been going through days with a lot of depersonalization lately. Just kinda going it minute by minute and trying to make sure I get done what I need to do. Even when I've had the opportunity to do fun things, when I've been getting honors and recognition, when I've been spending time on dates with my girlfriend, I haven't been all there. I've felt incredibly fatigued all the time and that not-quite-sick-but-still-kinda-crappy meh-ness almost non stop. I've wondered if it's a flare up of the mono I had a couple years ago but now am starting to think maybe it's just depression. (Where does depression hurt? Everywhere. Cymbalta...)

Let's hope that the CU Denver counselling center decides to call me back at some point in the near future. And that I can last without meds until I get Cheesecake Factory health insurance in July. Meeeeehhhh.

A departure into the semi-philosophical

I'm not sure what to do with my life. As of your Sophomore year of college you're supposed to havea pretty good idea where you're going in your studies and career pursuits, which I thought I did. Then the gods and godesses or perhaps just the Nameless Malicious Forces That Be decided once more to give me special attention and mess with me just for the hell of it. Now that I'm in recovery mode, I'm not so sure I want to try to get back on and continue in the direction I was headed.

I hate college. Really, I do. Classes almost invariably feel like a waste of time as dozens of braindead students lock themselves before the flapping mouths of their professors, ingesting the material only to spit it back out on command. There is one acceptable way to learn, one acceptable truth to memorize. College does not accomodate diversionary thinking. Hell, learning is its own flunking religion in this way: one path, one way to believe, blind memorization and acceptance of pre-established theories. The only difference is whether one accepts reason or spirituality as the ultimate guiding force.

The worst part of college study is the grading system. That's what locks students into the right way, wrong way thinking, since if you don't answer with the material desired or the manner proscribed, it's unacceptable. You're forced to abandon independent thought for the sake of impressive grades.

It's a big part of why I was such an awful student, to be honest... I'm afraid I'm rather an impossible person if you want to force me to conform. Damn the chains of religion and the educational system! I shall break them with my wildly rebellious, nonconformist self! (Haha.) I got into more than one quite literal verbal battle with my teachers, even in the midst of their lectures. (Anyone remember my child psychology professor? Or the time we had a guest speaker in my Deprivation of Liberty course?) If I disagreed with the material and the answer I was supposed to supply on the test, I would put my own answer. Sometimes even a snarky comment about how the right answer would be x but here's why I think it's incorrect or incomplete.

Don't get me wrong, though. I adore studying. It's the college system that I reject. For the reason of curriculum I loved studying at a university! It provided me with the resources, direction, and motivation to keep learning. I do a lot of this on my own, true, but not as intensively. I flourished in the college environment and delighted in the abundant resources. I loved being able to approach certain teachers outside the class environment with my thoughts, opinions, questions, conflicts. (Notable awesomes: Professor Reichler, to whom I'll forever be indebted, Professor Mastrangelo, Professor Middents, and Dr Gillespie who actually managed to get me to appreciate the value of literary interpretation as well as authorship.) If I could stay in that scholarly environment forever, all expenses paid, I'd probably do it.

....Where am I going. Jeez. Okay.

I love learning, education, scholarly pursuit. I hate college for its pointless busy work (COUGH, PROFESSOR FREAKING THOMAS, COUGH) and narrow-mindedness (GOD I HATE YOU PROFESSOR THOMAS. I don't know what I want to do with my life.

I'm actually happier right now in my menial job as a cashier and baker at the Cheesecake Factory than I was pursuing a career in psychology. I like a job which doesn't over-tax me and allows me time to think, write, read, and pursue learning on my own. I like to have a job in which I have fun. I seriously don't think I'd be happy as something important, a psychologist or doctor or researcher.

Then the problem comes in. Do I seriously want to keep working these unimportant, going nowhere jobs just because I enjoy them? Do I want to let myself be a nobody forever?

Or... Will keeping these pay-the-bills jobs give me time to become someone on my own? Will I have the dilligence and talent it takes to make it out there, do something, go somewhere without the rigidity of college?

I know that I want to write. Every experience feels like, and is, just a new way to gather material. But am I ever going to USE it? The only thing I ever write is this damn blog. I don't have a growing collection of MS Word documents, unfinished or even barely begun novels, nothing to show for all the things I say I mean to write. For that matter, I can't even think up any plot ideas. The only crap I can think to write about is my own life. Blah blah blah, whine whine whine.

SIGH. So that's my dilemma. College, grad school, doctorate and career or random jobs and endless blog entries?