Back and As Much As Ever

I'm not doing well. I didn't go to work today. Although, to be fair, I was worried about my cat since he puked something nasty on my pillow and I thought he might have an intestinal blockage. Now I'm watching him to see if he poops and he has not, all day.

Luckily, my homework got postponed, so I don't need to do it in the next hour.

I have been a mess. Not going to class, not turning in assignments, getting to work later and later. Sleeping all day, all I want to do is watch Golden Girls, eat Reese's eggs, and lay in bed with my cats. I want to get better. I've made some strides; I've gotten a new therapist - I see her online, which is a new thing for me but probably good. I cleaned a little the past few days.

I keep resolving to get out of bed, do my homework, get to work on time, and get things in order. But, I just let the days pass by.

My therapist told me to make a list of the negative thoughts I have and write positive ones so I can counter them. However, I HAVE A LOT OF NEGATIVE THOUGHTS. It's practically constant, except when I'm watching TV, which is why I'm addicted.

She told me to say 'Stop' out loud when I have a negative thought, but once I do that, sometimes I just go on to think other negative thoughts, especially when I'm on a roll. I'm an old hand at this by now and I know that there are no easy fixes and changing the way you think is incredibly difficult. So why am I suddenly expecting this technique to work immediately? Who the fuck knows.

Anyway, I'm writing this because I was searching online for answers, something to tell me step-by-step what to do to get out of this funk and doing a hobby you used to enjoy/express yourself creatively was one of the steps. Yes, amazingly, I did find a step by step thing. Who knows if it will work but I'm giving it a shot because I looked for advice and I found it so I might as well follow it.

Maybe I should make that list of  negative thoughts. She said I only needed a few to start with, so it doesn't need to be comprehensive.

1. My father thinks I'm a failure.

There are unlimited iterations of this in my brain. 

1. My father thinks I should have gone to a different college
2. my father thinks my degree makes me basically unemployable

I am getting chest pains already.

     2. I'm not good enough to get into OT school

     3. I'll never be a good enough student for a master's degree

     4. I'll never get my stats grade up enough to look good for my application

     5. I won't be able to manage three classes next semester

Tell me how to counter these? They seem carved in stone.

I hate this, I hate myself, I hate you.

SCREW YOU!!!!!!!!!!

I'm gonna watch more Golden Girls.

I did take new pictures in Florida a few weeks ago. 

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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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