To Admire

It occurred to me a few minutes ago, “Maybe I should just get out of the house.”

And I thought, “To do… what?”

So much accumulated worry, I feel like I just want to sleep it into oblivion or vomit it out.

Maybe I’m hungry. Maybe I’m dehydrated. Nothing really sounds too good, and I spend enough money on food anyway where I work, in between shifts. I’m thinking of Indian food now, or maybe a big greasy Penn Station sub. Yeah, that sounds kinda good. Maybe Qdoba. Maybe I just eat here (make a veggie burger?), and then get out of the house. Maybe I should count my money first, and organize it to make a deposit at the bank, and check and see how much money I have in checking right now, and go ahead and pay off some bills in advance. I also want a new computer. I also want to fly to France to visit Griffin next semester. I need to help pay for school, somehow, wherever. I should start saving up an emergency cushion of money, for whenever I am truly on my own. Car needs air conditioning, it’s getting hot. Two pairs of jeans now with holes in the same place.

I have a dress (it’s actually my sister’s) that I like to wear when I am feeling not great. It’s a nice color and comfy jersey fabrice, with a halter top and built-in padding in the bust. When I feel like this, I don’t like to wear a regular bra.

success, yes, in this family, in this posse of women, a lot does rest on the wrangling of menfolk in order to become housewives and have babies. 

Now, you all would clearly take me for a liar if I said I had no such interest in these things. I want babies. I would love to have the luxury to be a housewife. (Or really, if I were a full-time housewife, it would be more a way of me very much avoiding my own potential harm/success/risktaking; I am very acutely aware of this as my own personal weakness and lack of courage.) But—so— I very much desire to have my own space, and a loving partner to create it with and beside me, and I have a strong affection for lovely linen closets and spice cabinets and baked treats and little… feets. 

but attaining this sort of “success”—of marriage and house and children, as these are things I do want for myself (I want to reiterate these are not my universal ideals to which i judge the “success” of others by)—it is absolutely terrifying.

sometimes I feel so bad and so unworthy I went to melt through the floor, become the dirt, I am mud, I am dead and forgotten and taken for granted. I want to fail fully so badly that I am physically out of this futile toil waste and consumption so many call “life”. i want to be disgusting to you. 

the last thing I want, in my utter fear and lack of courage, is to feel important to someone else. Being wanted to someone else, as through a partner’s love, is, I don’t know if you realize this, a most terrifying responsibility. My heart may be broken or defunct or lost, but I dearly do not want you to hurt if I become physically or emotionally unavailable to you, and that is an impossibility. If I lack the confidence that I will ever really, truly feel meaningfully better and lastingly purposeful, my attempts at personal improvement will fall hollow to me. I can only dissapoint and drag down and sleep.

And children? Oh lord, oh children. How even more terrifying. Another obliging force, to persist because one’s own children must need them. It feels like a very sad trap. A very sad trap for everyone. 

i think my brain is obviously in peril right now, and so I should go to bed

I need to make myself unafraid to love COA (I know this sounds very cheesy.)

But life makes the most curious turns, and this might be the most curious and wonderful yet. Just what the doctor ordered.

I am, in fact, afraid of returning to college courses.

I am afraid—to a ridiculous point—of writing papers.

Academics played into a large part of my identity prior to beginning college: I was voted “Most Intellectual” of my graduating class, for whatever that is worth. Now I feel a whole lot like a phony.

- - -

Today, I was home. I went to the grocery store to pick up cream, chocolate, and tea. I came home, made ganache, sorted tea, added to my beer cheese, painted, made a cloth air freshener for my car, sorted pyrite chunks into pairs for making earrings (maybe), cleaned up, watched The Squid and The Whale (which has put me into a funk.)

Save for the movie, which has kind of unsettled me, I’ve felt really good today. Really content.

I feel as if I should feel more of a burn to go back to school. Some days (or nights, more like), I do. I’ve compiled a list, by some mad method, of 15 schools I want to do more research on. I feel up for moving anywhere. Realistically, though—school itself is, um, terrifying for me. Being a creative homebody is really enjoyable, I find. Agh.

On A Practical Wedding, a blog I follow regularly for its smart and sassy consideration of marriage, family, growing up, and all those delicious things, there are occasional “vintage wedding” posts, wherein the parents of a current reader of the blog write a post overviewing their wedding, its significance, and you know, general good-life good-marriage -type advice.

In one such post, a mother urged readers: “Resolve to be content.”

This is brilliant. I’ve been wanting to paint this onto something or embroider into something for ages, to frame and display prominently, lest I forget.

-SO-

I’ve got to say, I’ve been feeling really just… content recently. Content with a lot of things. My relationship with my boyfriend is warm and fuzzy. My eyes have been opened to all the lovely things my own home has (as in, my father has a lot of antiques from his parents’ place collecting dust, and truly, they are amazing and special to me.) I feel a warmness towards my relatives and their personal histories. I have the project of making my bedroom into a lovely, welcoming guest bedroom. I am not making -much- money, and though I would LOVE someone to swoop in and take care of my bills (coughcarinsurancecough), I am not in actual need of any real material thing. My cats are sweet. I have nice blankets. I have peppermint soap and a big glass jug of local milk in the fridge. I am very glad!

It does make me more agitated, and often it manifests in gratuitous angry thoughts that I step back from and marvel at:

“Why the fuck have we no more FUCKING RITZ CRACKERS?!”

etc.

Also, gratuitous self-hate-type language. Scary thoughts.

Like.

Why.

I’m not taking it tomorrow.

Since I spent last Friday night up late making sure my cupcake and cake order was completed, I opted not to take my Vyvanse at 8 as usual that morning—it would be like chugging a 5-hour energy drink before bedtime, really.

Naturally, I was exhausted, but I had no nagging headache, no artificial buzz. Just, you know, regular-type exhausted. It was nice.

The next day, I didn’t take the Vyvanse again. Caught up on sleep, but didn’t sleep in past 11:30. Felt fine.

Didn’t take Vyvanse Monday or today.

Thoughts:

-I don’t have a headache! I generally feel, uh, well!

-I feel significantly less OCD/trich-y

-I do feel more daydreamy.

-I do still feel that familiar, constant fatigue.

This is the second day I’ve slept past my alarm, left my house late, and was yawning all through the day, only for a glimmer of feeling finally “awake” at dinner time. I felt drowsy all through work. I felt I would be quite happy to take a nap. These are not unlike how I felt all of last year+, except I do think I am generally less depressed than I was then (yay!).

The daydreamy feelings are a part of the drowsiness. I am less keen on detail, and really float past busy work nonchalantly.

More thoughts:

A recent post in A Practical Wedding reminded me of—get this—the hypothyroidism that runs in my family: both my father and maternal grandmother have it.

Even though I fear sounding like a hypochondriac, I did call my doctor’s office today to see when I was last checked for thyroid imbalance. Well, it was last year, and apparently at “normal” levels.

I don’t know.

I don’t frequently have racing thoughts, racing heart rate-type anxiety.

It’s more like a total body shut-down for me. Last night, when I was feeling awful, sitting up in bed, feeling totally unable to get up and go Do Something besides pick at my hair and glance nervously and stubbornly at my journal, at a clipboard with sheets of paper, that I could use to make a list. Lists help get my thoughts out from swirling in m head, forgetting, reemerging, new anxiety. But I couldn’t. I feel a tension in my head—this sounds strange: it’s like an animal is curled up, sleeping in the cavity of my skull, squeezed there because it’s just a bit too large. I can’t make connections from thoughts to actions. It’s a funny feeling to convey to others, because, on one hand, I know it’s anxiety, and I am worried and overwhelmed, trying to mentally juggle so many things in my mind. On the other hand, it’s like… I really am not having a typical, physical anxiety attack. If someone asks what I am anxious about, I could just as easily say it’s nothing as I could say it’s everything. It’s a tense blankness right there in a most critical portion of my brain. I often visualize that my head would feel so much better if I could have a portion of my cranium removed, some sort of weird medieval-like remedy to directly relieve the tension.

And, it’s coming on again.

When I first started Vyvanse, I did feel this haze lifting, like a pair of new glasses. Is it just being home that aggravates my anxiety so much? Let’s say… yes.

I’ve noticed, while on Effexor, that I have many really vivid dreams every night, and that I remember multiple dreams fairly well upon waking. It is extremely odd, and while at first it was kind of neat, now I wish they would subside. I lose track of time because apparently I am dreaming so hard or I am so caught up in a dream—and, well, tonight, for example, I slept over 12 hours. This is not at all helpful, as you can well imagine the negative implications of sleeping too much—which is one part of how I struggled when I was first diagnosed with clinical depression. 

It’s really frustrating, because over all, I’ve otherwise noticed the most positive effects from Effexor than any other medications I’ve tried. I am less anxious and more sociable and bubbly, which makes me feel like, you know, my “old self”. But, last night, my boyfriend expressed concerns about the medicine and how I act when I accidentally miss a dose, and for my own part, as you can see, I am indeed concerned. I’m doing poorly in some of my classes largely for attendance problems, and this bothers me quite a lot. I want to say, “Hey! I’m really not a bad person, nor am I inherently less intelligent or dedicated than other students at my college.” I want inform them that I graduated as the valedictorian from my high school class, and that I  am passionately dedicated to starting my own business, to feminist issues, and to discussions of marriage and family life in the current environment. I want them to know that I  am not merely lackadaisical or lazy or think I am somehow above the system.

In fact, I am finding that perhaps this system isn’t working for me as an individual. What I really wish I could do (that is, I am unable to be so flexible in the traditional four-year private small liberal arts college I attend) is to be registered for just 2 or 3 classes a semester, while also living on my own and working part-time (not at a bakery, methinks, damn non-compete agreements, but perhaps I would attend pastry school.) Attending college has become yet another life experience a person is expected (and taken for granted) to do in a particular way—like, say, getting married —> moving in—> having children was years ago, with no acceptable alternative order or acceptance of omitting one or several of these activities. I love this college, and I love many of the people here. I even love Danville, even though I realize it is no Mecca of college student delights. But if I am going to graduate from this institution, I want to graduate on a high note—and though through this semester I have learnt and grown so very much, my transcript certainly does not illustrate this. I am contemplating taking a year or a semester off, but logistically, I have little idea what I would actually DO during that time—perhaps move to Louisville (with all the imaginary money I have?) and, you know, work somewhere neat and take 2 classes at UofL. Like I said, I am terribly proud and passionate about my little baking business and having started a feminist alliance on campus and being a resident assistant and all that jazz, but I want to know that that counts for something in the mind of People Who Are In Charge (and my parents…) and currently I feel like they have no compelling reason to keep me here.

I marvel at how quickly this week has gone by. Only two classes tomorrow, and then it is time for the weekend.

This afternoon, after my morning class, I’ve been feeling absolutely listless. The day is not dragging by, nor do I feel particularly depressed or ill or any of those things. I am quietly unmotivated. I am less than content, and I ought to feel bored, but I feel alright.

These new meds are okay, I think. Ha! I can see that the above paragraph might seem to hint that the meds are really taking off the edge or something. That may be true. But I have been more giggly lately, and more generally more affectionate, and perhaps more confident. I have been waking up better in the mornings. I am feeling the side effects of having dry mouth a lot or occasionally my face will feel flushed… but I am optimistic.