amathaine

Yay teacher gave me an extension until Tuesday the 14th. So I've been sitting here for the past few hours shuffling and reshuffling the content I'm meant to write up on, and I'm drawing a total blank. There's only so much procrastinating you can do before you simply have to sigh and admit this isn't going to accomplish anything. I KNOW I'm making this more complicated than it is, for goodness sakes its only 2000 words and a first year paper to boot. Its not likely i'm expected to write a world changing thesis. I've decided one of my future research projects will be finding out what causes the start-of-the-assignment hump. You look at all that information, all neatly sorted by introduction, cause, statistics, yadda yadda, then you sit for three days wondering where to start and in the end not starting at all.

The depression clearly is a mitigating factor in the writing doldrums. I'm tired, frustrating, anxious, and fed up. My poor husband had to take three days off of work again just to help me keep my sanity as waves of random panic and depression took turns battering me into an unrecognizable pulp. Oh, and btw, apparently being at the edge of sanity makes you look like shit. I have that on the authority of every friend that has stopped by to see how I am just to tell me how horrible I look. Our GP, bless him, has given me a change of medications... he knows me well enough by now to not bother trying to send me to a psychiatrist, because the amount of time I've spent on research for both psychology classes and my own interest has made me able to quite confidently diagnose and medicate myself. So out has gone the Aropax and in the Citalapram. Anything has to be better than this, and the aropax has clearly lost its edge after 2 years. Cross fingers!

Ah, lovely, my daughters nanny has cancled her weekly care, so I now suddenly have 3 hours less work time for that assignment. Pardon me while I go off on a screaming and crying tangent and continue to get nothing accomplished.

So, here I am. I have another blasted assignment to do - what the hell made me think I could handle three a semester rather than my usual two? It doesn't help that two of the 3 papers are level 100's, so a bit of a snore. I know how that works, they catch you out not because you couldn't grasp the content, but because you fell asleep trying to drag through it. No valid complaints mind you, the content is (what I consider) very relevant to my goals, but seriously, I"m done with learning already. Somehow, there is little comfort in the thought that the end of my academic adventure is only 5 or 6 years in sight.

I've found myself forced to do a sort of test on just how open minded my lovely teachers are, considering they head up rehabilitation papers that focus on getting around stigma and how to support people with disability (including psychiatric). How embarrassing is that, contacting not one but two complete strangers and telling them "I'm really sorry, I had a nervous break down, can I have an extension?". One has been very supportive and understanding, just waiting for number two to chime in. Not that an acceptance really matters, whether or not I get an extension, that paper doesn't look like it will get there until two days after the due date regardless. My creative flow seems to be more interested in whinging on here at the moment!

Man, its been a looooooong time since I've posted anything. I guess the futility got to me, but the truth is, my scribblings on this page are unlikely to be noticed among the trillion others, so whats the difference if I post or not?

I'm listening to my darling girl play outside and feeling intensely, painfully alone right now. I'm surrounded by friends, but do you think I can bring my head around to that reality? I often wonder if other people feel like this, hating being around themselves as much as I hate being with me right now. I feel like I'm an unwelcome friend inside my own head - you know the type, they always whinge about everything but never seem to get the motivation to DO anything about it. Shit, if I was me I'd boot that bitch out on her ass and tell her to get her act together.... <sigh>. Too bad I am me.

My 'generalized anxiety disorder' took a plunge for the worst a few weeks back. Hubby even had to stay home on doctors orders. Personally, I'd have committed me. But, anyway, I couldn't face anything. How do you tell people why you can't deal with them right now? Say the word "anxiety", and even I, who lives through it, scoff . It doesn't do justice to this intense, overwhelming, terrifying, uncontrolled hell that the reality is. They need a stronger word, seriously. If I go out and say "not today please, I'm having a long term psychotic episode", at least that would get me respect. Looks abound too, but at least some level of understanding (and fear, mwahahaha). But I say anxiety and people just tut and say 'buck up' , "its all in your head' (no duh, genius), and 'it'll pass'. Yeah, of course it will. I know that intellectually, I'm a psychology student for goodness sake! But the here and now agony doesn't ease with simple platitudes. Believe you me, in the center of the malestorm called a panic attack, you don't just get over it, you survive it. The physical exhaustion at the end of a truly impressive attack gives proof to all those hypotheses and theories about the psycho-stress model.

Anyway, I'm heaps better thanks to a raise in medication, and my new best friend Ativan. But I still keep having these damn panic attacks, and (thank you textbook case!) those lovely islands of anxiety over the mere idea of facing another inevitable attack. I'm going around those spirals and circles so quick its no wonder I get dizzy and disoriented. I'm also finding myself withdrawing further and further from social contact, not because of fear of attack so much as becoming sick of explaining myself. When I'm on a really good roll, I rock back and forth, clench my arms about myself, scratch an imaginary itch until I bleed, unless someone notices and brings my attention to it. Thats not normal - you know it, I know it. Who the hell wants to explain that? I've just spent the last 3 years studying mental health conditions, not to mention living through one for most of my life, and I can't face others without feeling self conscious and, quite frankly, stupid. It isn't possible to explain it in any terms other than physical - a tightening in the chest, a feeling of shaking so deep inside that you're surprised it hasn't registered on the Richter scale, a sense of everything closing in, widening out.... no, nothing could do it justice but experience. Any attempt just falls on deaf ears anyway. After all, it really IS in my head, but it is also very real. Its amazing how many people assume that its a matter of choice. "Doh, silly me, I got all worried for nothing, lets get on with it".

Bite me.