My TV addiction

Let's talk about how boring writing is and how much I've needed noise in my life since college.

So, lately my obsession has been watching vlogbrothers videos on youtube. John Green is a novelist who writes YA books like Paper Towns, which I just read on vacation. I discovered John's videos before reading his books and I think the main reason for my obsession is just that he is very mature while also being very silly. He is smart but humble and the one picture that caused me to look him up from the start was this;

 

As a person who has been struggling with questions of the dating realm for a few years now (and probably should have struggled a bit more with those questions earlier in life) this really struck home for me. Suddenly I thought, well... this guy exists and has this awesome opinion so maybe men aren't all bad. I know, I don't ever want to come across as the 'Feminazi' but if you read my previous blog posts you have to admit I've had it pretty rough lately and I've only written about a fraction of it, you guys.

Hopefully he's not a unicorn.

Dating sucks ass, you guys, but I'm not really wanting to talk about that right now.

The point is that John Green and his brother are awesome, smart, and compassionate, and they are just the sort of people that I am looking to try and surround myself with. AND it turns out they actually have a whole community of fans called nerdfighters that maybe I can get involved with. I haven't seen anything IRL as of yet, but I will be keeping an eye out.

ANYWAY, the thing I actually wanted to talk a bit about was how I was watching one of John Green's video's today and he was talking about how boring writing is and how reading is not really conducive to our multi-tasking, immediate-update culture. That made me think about how since college, I have needed noise in my life. I've just needed to have some kind of TV show running basically at all times because when I don't, I start to think too much and get into depressive thought cycles. College was one of the more difficult times of my life because of how depressed I was and how early on I was into my diagnosis and treatment. I have done so much work since then on my thought processes;

Meta-cognition; thinking about thinking, and then changing how you think, is incredibly difficult.

Anyway, when I was so sick with depression, TV was a fantastic balm. Books didn't work because my anxiety level was so high for a year I physically could not read any more. But I could lose myself in television. My boyfriend (this is the Jack from my earliest posts) thought it was pretty sick: a Fahrenheit 451 level of distasteful. But, when you have cancer, don't they shoot poison into your veins? Most people don't understand just how bad my illness got.

I'm not at that level of depression anymore but I still watch TV like it's my job. I feel a little uncomfortable without it being on. Maybe it was my methadone? But now I'm still addicted to it. And, it impairs my ability to be quiet and to do things that require quiet such as writing. I even do my yoga while watching a TV show (one that isn't yoga). When I was living with my parents I think I sought out quiet more because it was so loud there with my sister and my dad. And, of course, going to high school there was so much noise there.

Maybe I don't really like the quiet as much as I used to think I did and when I moved out on my own  I ended up being a lot more lonely than I have cared to admit. And so, I just like to hear the people talking on the TV even if I'm not really paying attention to the show. Maybe if I balance my life out a little more and have more people in it then I will seek out the quiet again and write and read and play music and do yoga without needing TV.

I am working on my life balance and most of the time I feel so unsatisfied because I am 29 and things are not where I want them to be. But it has been good today to remember where I used to be. I'm glad I'm not there anymore and I have come a long way, I have made progress. But, I probably will continue to watch John Green videos while I finish my laundry because he inspires me. He inspired me to write today. Thanks, John.

Jane               

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THE UPDATE

     A lot has happened in my life over the past 6-8 months. I got fired from my crappy job for really crappy reasons, spent maybe one working day unemployed and then started a new job in home health care. After about four months of that, I was promoted to supervisor and even though I'm still down about $10,000 a year from what I was making at my last job I have to say it's completely

WORTH IT

     Is my food budget $25 a week? Yes. Do I now consider buying clothes at Goodwill a splurge? Yes. My life is completely turning around and it's all because I got pushed into a situation that looked incredibly terrifying and could have resulted in the more terrifying situation of moving back in with the parents (I would have needed more medication but I still don't know if they would ever condone treating my mental illness to the point of helping me get meds for it; and who knows if they would have let me keep my cats - thank God this didn't happen).  But then my supervisor thought that maybe I could do more for the company and a position opened up at just the right time as I was letting her know that I was available to work more hours so she put me up for an interview.


    I have also stopped dating. There are many reasons I can say that I am doing this but at the end of the day it is because I am tired of men trying to push me into things I'm not ready to do, sometimes literally and physically. Maybe I choose the wrong guys - even though when I am choosing them many times I barely know them, having just met them through a site or maybe 5 minutes of speed dating or something - or maybe there are just a lot of assholes out there. Either way, while I'm healing and growing and exploring my own psychology, I just want to stay safe and the best way I know how to do that is to stay single and 'off the market.'


    I am doing better psychologically. Working in home health care has been great for me. My hygiene has improved, I even clean my apartment more. I've been taking my meds really regularly, maybe something about telling other people to do it makes me feel I need to be really responsible about it. Taking care of people is really therapeutic and has made me feel really connected to people. I usually feel like such an outsider, but my social anxiety is really lessening. Well, besides it being a very busy office where I have to make phone calls RIGHT NOW and I have no time to ruminate about things (well, less time), knowing that people's health and well being, and sometimes their lives, are in my hands has made me step up and somehow past my own insecurities. When it's about me, it's not as easy to give a shit. But I've started to become a bit of a mother hen to a collection of very random people, some of whom I may see only a couple times and then never again and it's VERY COOL.


note: sorry about the grammar, my computer is very slow right now and it's seriously throwing me off.

   Jane                

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Time for a Change

I’m having a hard time this morning. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a billion times;

MY JOB SUCKS!

I hate coming in on a Monday morning and having absolutely nothing to do. Now, some people say, ‘oh, I had nothing to do today,’ but what they mean is they had light work all day. They probably came in, read some emails, did a little work, made some phone calls, maybe paid some bills. In reality they got some shit done.

I came in to work today to nothing. Zilch. Nada. Nary an email or phone call or item of business to attend to. So what do I do? Well, I haven’t had breakfast so I go get a bagel and some water.

Now that’s done. Now what?

Let’s do facebook, see what people are up to. Okay… self-indulgent status updates… pinterest stuff… a few political items… interesting, attention moving from the fact that a friend is blowing me off now even though she posted a status asking if anyone wanted to do a writing project with her and I volunteered, to a poorly written article about ISIL fighters returning to the US; this probably isn’t healthy and is certainly mildy upsetting. Let’s do something else. 

Maybe I should read a book? I’ve got my kindle with me so I’ll download something.  There’s that Jim Butcher book I’ve been meaning to read and I’ve got a few extra dollars, I’ll buy it on Amazon. Crap, my kindle’s not charged and I don’t like reading books on a computer screen. So what now? Time for lunch? I just had that bagel, I should probably wait a little longer and it’s only 11:30 am. WTF am I going to do for the rest of the day?

This would be an ok thing to happen every once in a while. But, this is my life way too often and it’s not good for productivity or my state of mind. I was actually feeling good at home this morning, which is something that hardly ever happens. But once the ‘work’ boredom set in, I was nearly immediately lethargic, depressed and uninterested in doing anything. You know things are bad when you are so bored you find yourself just staring at your desk because there is just nothing at all to do. There is only so much internet content you can consume before your brain starts to feel like mush. And, after 2 ½ years of this job I’m sick to death of it. I want to feel like a real person again.

At least we have laptops and I can leave my desk in the awful dreary basement to come upstairs where I am now and try to write a bit a feel like I’m not a zombie. Plus, at my desk I have to sit next to Bitchy McTraitor, and even though we have professionally ‘made up,’ I do not like how she is always very aware of what I am doing and I still do not trust her. Her presence stresses me out so I’ve come upstairs to see daylight and write and be alive.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about applying to graduate school to become a therapist. I know that might be a bit shocking, and it might be scary and maybe even abhorrent to some people. But, I have been thinking about it since high school and it was actually my first choice before becoming a biologist. I decided not to go get my PhD because I wanted to marry that asshole I was dating and I thought it would get in the way of having kids and whatnot. 

But, now that biology is off the table due to my injury, I’m thinking psychology again. And, there are other psychologists with mental illnesses, the most famous one being Kay Jamison who was a PhD with bipolar I. But other than her, there’s even a school of thought that believes that you can’t effectively help someone through something unless you’ve been through it yourself, and when you’re in school for psychology you’re required to go through therapy yourself.

I probably will think it through to death, I probably already have. The fact is I need more from my life and I’m feeling that one thing my breakdown last spring taught me is that this life I’ve been living is not sustainable. It’s time to stop giving myself to things and people that are absolute shitheads, like this job. 

I have an endgame plan. Next February, if nothing else, I will apply to become an occupational therapy assistant. It’s not an occupational therapist, so there are fewer restrictions on things like GPA and prerequisites, so I’ll have a better chance of getting in. Also, it sounds like a pretty kickass job and it makes decent money. My only concern is that I’ve been out of school for a few years now and I’m not sure if I’ll be entirely interested enough to learn all the physiology I will need. But, I’ve decided that in February I will HAVE to learn it, come what may. Because I need a change. Unless, of course, I get accepted into a school for psychology where I’ll be fascinated by the material and it will therefore be much easier to learn it. But, psychology comes with a few other anxiety points;

• I need a therapist myself. What if that fact compromises my patient care?
• What if I am triggered by the things my patients say?
• What if my social phobias interfere with interacting with patients?
• Will the competitive nature of graduate school be too stressful?

I don’t know how to find the answers to these questions. I mean, I think I would be a kickass therapist. I am compassionate and a good listener, I’m able to identify important details in what people say and use them to help people understand themselves and others, I am able to see things from other people’s point of view and help people understand each other, I am passionate about issues such as domestic violence, proper mental healthcare, and women’s issues. I am also a careful scientist and enthusiastic researcher. I have already worked with participants in a psychology clinical research study and the PhD candidate I was working with said I didn’t seem nervous at all working with them and that I did a good job. 

Yea, I think it’s time.

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Dealing with Dr. Dickhead

A few posts ago I wrote about was what I was thinking before my appointment with my psychiatrist in February, when it had first been brought up that I might have Bipolar Disorder. That appointment was a turning point in my treatment.

For the worse.

This is what I wrote in my journal afterwards;

Cried a lot after meeting with Dr **** because he was dismissive and very disrespectful. I cried on the way to work and tried to text G and when she gave me a very PC answer and said she couldn't talk I cried more because it seemed like no one was treating me like a human being. At least the girls in the psych office were nice and helpful. I was so frustrated. Dr **** just wanted to write me a script for lithium and not listen to anything I had to say. But I sat in my car when I got to work, waited until I could speak clearly, and called my insurance company and got a referral for a new psychiatrist. I called their intake line and hopefully they will call back soon. I will not see Dr **** anymore and I want a second opinion on my diagnosis from someone who won't tell me “I don't want to talk about that anymore” when I’m trying to list my symptoms, or “you're OCD, people with OCD tend to worry a lot about new medications but you'll just have to trust me” and “every medication for bipolar causes weight gain, do you want me to give you a different medication that causes weight gain?” when I brought up legitimate concerns about the lithium.

I'm an intelligent person and OCD or not, I deserve to be listened to when I ask questions, not dismissed! And no, I will not just trust you, you old, white dinosaur!

…..

He constantly interrupted me, told me to stop talking, and raised his voice to me several times. Here I thought psychiatrists were supposed to be good listeners or at least caring individuals. Not Dr Dumbass. I got the feeling I didn’t even need to be there really except to pick up whatever script he had decided on for me. I basically had to shove information down his throat, but trying to force him to hear my symptoms was like trying to search for extraterrestrial life by hiding under a blanket and trying to ‘think’ my message to the stars.

After talking to my friend and some people from my online support group, I decided it was best to go with Dr Fucktard’s treatment plan for the time being, although I dropped my Cymbalta dose more slowly than he said to. Cymbalta has little white beads packaged in a capsule and there are 200 beads in each one. I took 60mg and I needed to taper off to 30mg, so every 5 days I took a few more of the beads out of the capsules. I went down an eighth of the capsule at a time, and then once I got to 30mg, I started taking the Lithium. 

I have a mail-order pharmacy but I wanted to be sure to talk to a pharmacist when I got the Lithium because there are some warnings online about it that worried me; such as the weight gain, making sure to eat salt, drinking more water, and not sweating??

Since I could get a sixty-day supply from Target for $10, I just went to Target and not through my insurance for at least the first supply of pills I got, so that I would be able to talk to the pharmacist. I suppose I could have called my mail-order pharmacist but I’ve never really done that before and I preferred something this important be discussed face-to-face.

So far, officially, I have Bipolar Disorder, OCD and Social Phobia. 

I also believe I have Anxiety, Dermatillomania and Binge Eating Disorder, although I wasn’t able to talk these over with Dr Loser, since he was done talking to me.

I think when I fall hard into depressions it’s usually because I’ve slipped and there was no one to catch me. I talk a lot about how lonely am I and it’s really key to my disorder. When the people who are supposed to care for me and help me fall through, that’s when I fall down hard.

 

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Spring and Summer in a Nutshell (TW-suicide)

TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDAL IDEATION

I haven't been posting much lately; I'm not really good about getting things done or following through on plans. I have a box full of dirty dishes in my dining room and actually it's not the only one.

I didn't go to work today. I actually just looked at the clock, realized I was ridiculously late and I knew I didn't give a shit about going in or even trying to get ready much less booking it to get there on time.

So I called in sick. It's not like I had a lot of work to do anyway and I'm not sure I would care if I did. I think something that was said at work yesterday triggered me. We are trying to improve our processes and there is a woman helping us; we had a meeting with her yesterday and she said she would be meeting with all of us to ask basically which tasks we like about our jobs and which we don't. One of my braver coworkers spoke up in the meeting and said it best, "I come to work, but not to work, because there isn't any work for me to do!"

I'm not sure I like anything about my job. But it's hard for me to look for new ones. I look through positions online but when I see open ones they usually do not excite me. Mostly it looks just like more tiresome bullshit. The ones I do get excited about and apply for, it's really difficult for me to write the cover letters because I get so anxious. But then I don't hear anything back and my self-esteem and motivation take hits that they can't really afford.

I tried to look a little for jobs today, but I couldn't do much. I got a headache and laid back down. There was a bit of sunlight that was very bright shining in my eyes and sunlight triggers my headaches. I think perhaps I am a vampire now. I've worked so long in a basement that I just can't handle being above ground during the day. It's probably a thing.

Anyway; to break down the timeline between my previous postings and now,

In a Nutshell

• I saw my psychiatrist (hereafter known as Dr. Dead-Inside-and-Mostly-Outside); he was a horrible person. He deserves for me to sue him because he messed up my meds and upset me repeatedly; often yelling at me and all but telling me to shut up when I tried to tell him my symptoms.
• This spring I was horribly depressed to the point of suicidal ideation. I would come in to work fresh from thinking about walking in front of traffic. 
• I didn't have much of a support system. For various reasons I basically have no one to talk to about this. And because I was becoming desperate and because my coworker (hereafter known as Bitchy McTraitor) and I had started becoming closer friends, I confided in her that I was having a rough time and that I had been recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. 
• She said I should tell my manager about my diagnosis but I disagreed. I didn't tell my employer about my diagnosis because I was afraid of giving them another reason to fire me. I know it's illegal, but they almost fired me before for a workplace injury that happened there so why not depression? They're shady, horrible people, and they proved it with all the shit that happened before with my injury. I have never trusted my manager and I told Bitchy McTraitor that.
• Bitchy McTraitor was initially sympathetic but soon distanced herself from me, and then began talking about me behind my back to other coworkers and complained about me to management. Apparently, she told management she was 'concerned about me,' but the stuff I've heard that she told other people does not support that at all. Mostly I think she was upset because I wasn't getting work done right away and she has always been one to look over my shoulder. But she should have also noticed me crying next to her at work most days. She is a heartless bitch. I mean, what kind of person sees a person, presumably a friend, who is in real trouble and says, 'man, look how this is affecting me? Look how much my workload has slightly increased because there's obviously a serious problem going on in my coworker's life. Instead of saying anything to this friend of mine and seeing if I can help her in any way, maybe I should go to management who have shown in the past that they have zero actual investment in the happiness of their employees and see how that works out.'
• This complaint led to me being written up for creating a 'hostile working environment,' and other work mistakes that were a bit shady and left mostly unexplained. I was given a week to 'improve the situation' or be terminated.
• By this time I had left Dr. Dead-Inside-and-Mostly-Outside's practice and found someone new (an NP we'll call NP Flowers) who had straightened out my meds and explained (as much as I could understand) why Dr. Dead-Inside-and-Mostly-Outside was obviously an incompetent prick. NP Flowers and I had a bit of a rough start but we're getting along fine now.
• So; once I got written up I kicked my working mode into high gear, I was mostly on time every day (as good as it gets), I quadruple-checked all my work before it went out, I did all my work right when I got it, and most importantly I scheduled time with my manager to discuss how to deal with Bitchy McTraitor. 
• There's a lot more to this story, a LOT. But bascially, I kicked ass and I took fucking names and one of them is Bitchy McTraitor's. I am now back in my manager's good graces and I cover my ass every time Bitchy McTraitor makes some new bitch move against me, so that my manager can see what a complete bully and horrible person she is. I am friendly to them even though neither of them are in MY good graces.

Maybe I will tell the rest of that story some other time. There are a lot of stories here but I think it's time to admit I'm not good at getting things done and I just want to get some of this hurt written down. Maybe it will help me sleep tonight, I don't know. I'm really considering making cookies. Or going out to buy cookies. I don't know, I feel like I need cookies.

I think I may be on a downward turn again and that is not good. Maybe it was the adrenaline and anxiety keeping me going this summer and now I'm spent. I'm finally getting a new therapist and I have made the appointment for next Friday. Hopefully she can help me get enough confidence and motivation or whatever I need to get the right stuff to finally get out of this job.

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