turn out the light & what are you left with

[erika]

Can't sleep.

Can't sleep.

Can't sleep.

Anxiety will eat me.

---

Doesn't matter that I have something to do starting at 9 tomorrow or that it's getting too late for anyone sane or INsane to be awake, and thus I have no one to talk to. (Note: if you ARE awake and want to talk, contact me in comments.) ETA 2 hours later: Trying to sleep now.

I seriously don't think I can do this—this being school (primarily school) and medications and keeping shit together and life, really.

Maybe I should take the semester off but I just keep thinking about how that would look to the admissions people at the University.

I have so much nervous energy I just want to clean or do SOMETHING to fix all this shit. My room is so cluttered, AGAIN, and it's driving me a little more nuts.

Instead I just sit here, chain-smoking and listening to this song over and over.

Turn out the light
And what are you left with?
Open up my hands
And find out they're empty.
Press my face to the ground
I've gotta find a reason.

The last time I was marginally more anxious than this was before my judge hearing for Social Security.

Seriously. Plain old college classes, which I have attended for almost two years now, are inducing in me a panic that hithertofore was only seen in dealing with GOVERNMENT AGENCIES that could decide large parts of my entire future.

This can't be good.

Comments

[erika]

True, I need moar British/English/Continental friends. :D

Tomorrow ... let's see. Focussing on tomorrow and just breathing.

Tomorrow I have a shift for the volunteering I'm doing* so that's a bit anxiety provoking all on its own. I'm answering phones at home from 9-5pm (it's already 2:30AM here and there's no way in hell I'm going to bed before 4, probably), and they told me there's been a rash of prank callers and just ... ugh. I know I could call them and tell them I'm not in the right mood to do this but I HATE HATE HATE leaving people in the lurch like this.

*(just FYI, details of what that volunteering is actually about to be kept under friends-lock please, not that you would intentionally break friends-lock, but I'm just cautious)

I am seriously about to cry. I'm scared of ... everything, it feels like. People judging me. Not being able to handle the work. Not being able to leave the class easily in case material brings up bad memories. Bryan being in classes with me—hell, just seeing him in the hallway would probably make me freak out. The endless paperwork that goes along with disability accommodations.

Not school related: Being in pain. My breast not healing properly and thus wrecking what I formerly considered to be a nice physical attribute of myself.

There's more but this comment is getting ridiculously long.

[rydra_wong]

Lots of lovely stressors. That's a lot to deal with.

I know I could call them and tell them I'm not in the right mood to do this but I HATE HATE HATE leaving people in the lurch like this.

You're not choosing to leave them in the lurch, if you do; epic anxiety attacks are incapacitating.

I'm scared of ... everything, it feels like.

Yeah, been there. *sighs*

Breathing is good. Distractions are good.

For me, if I can do something soothing and repetitive (online jigsaws or anti-spam work or something else clicky) for an hour or so, sometimes that helps my brain settle.

[erika]

I know, or at least can reasonably assume that they will understand, but a) I just started volunteering here and b) I just feel like a failure for having this problem in the first place. Like, other people do this shit without having major anxiety issues and can get bad grades without spiraling into depression, why can't I?

Right now I'm sort of pseudo-cleaning... cleaning in a way that won't make too much noise. i.e. doing my laundry and rounding up stray pieces of paper and putting them where they go.

And I'm taking time out every 10 minutes or so to meditate briefly. Not too long, because anxious brain desperately wants to break in, but at least long enough to count my breath and make sure I'm not unintentionally suffocating myself.

Right now, despite everything despite everything I've learned from having a mental illness and how it's made me a better person and how campaigning for recognition and destigmatizing MI is very important to me--if a fairy godperson waved their wand and said POOF, you're no longer MI—— so fucking many of my problems would be solved because THEY'RE ONLY PROBLEMS DUE TO THE WAY I REACT TO THEM. IT IS DRIVING ME NUTS.

[rydra_wong]

Like, other people do this shit without having major anxiety issues and can get bad grades without spiraling into depression, why can't I?

Because you have major anxiety and depression. And they don't.

It's real, and you didn't choose to have it, and it's not a failure on your part.

Right now, despite everything despite everything I've learned from having a mental illness and how it's made me a better person and how campaigning for recognition and destigmatizing MI is very important to me

I think de-stigmatizing can go hand-in-hand with acknowledging that sometimes (often) having a mental illness REALLY FUCKING SUCKS. And that magic wand would be really fucking nice.

[erika]

What did we decide we were going to do the other month? Cut up pieces of paper and wave them in the air to catch fumes of happiness? :D

It's real, and you didn't choose to have it, and it's not a failure on your part.

I agree with everything you said up until the part where you say it's not a failure on my part. I don't know if it's the overlying USAn culture (Protestant work ethic whee) or whether my dad really got to me when he said he thought all depression was, was a failure of willpower... (this was recently, btw, I'm not just bringing up shit that happened years ago)

I don't know. Something to talk about with my therapist, I guess.

In other news, I just wish I could actually get a real vacation from this shit--the MI, the sickness, everything. My entire week off has pretty much been ruined by the countdown going on in my brain going "6 DAYS UNTIL SCHOOL. 5 DAYS UNTIL SCHOOL." etc.

And then of course the only real vacation I had all summer was the week that I was in Illinois and my abscess was getting bigger and bigger. -sighs- I can't fucking win.

I'm seriously considering taking this semester off totally. I would still be volunteering and shit, so I wouldn't be totally free-form, but the idea of lifting all that stress from me really feels good right now. Then again in 3 weeks, I know myself, I'd be hellaciously bored.

Luckily I have until Friday to decide whether I want to drop all my classes with tuition fully reimbursed. Hopefully postponing that decision and actually experiencing some of the classes before I go nuts trying to figure shit out BEFORE it actually happens—yes, that would be good, to have actual data to base my freak-outs on, and what a rarity that is.

[rydra_wong]

Cut up pieces of paper and wave them in the air to catch fumes of happiness? :D

We should try that again! Maybe if the paper had origami folds for a better scooping action ... *g*

I agree with everything you said up until the part where you say it's not a failure on my part.

Does it help to consider it in relation to someone else? I mean, I'm guessing you wouldn't say that my depression is a failure on my part. If so, what's the justification for thinking it's different when it's you?

(Yeah, I know, crazybrain is not rational. But sometimes it's helpful to poke it.)

I'm off out climbing in a few minutes, so will be AFK, but wanted to say I'm thinking of you and will be trying to beam good thoughts in your direction.

[erika]

The justification for thinking it's different when it's me is that I am the worst person in the world, OBVIOUSLY. Heh, but ignoring the things that depresso-brain tries to push on me, you're right... it's not all about willpower or I would never have stayed depressed in the first place, because who the fuck WANTS to stay in that situation?

Thank you, babe, I really appreciate it. I'm going to try to get some sleep, or at least some sort of rest.