Monday afternoon, feeling good

[cleolinda]

Just as a follow-up to The Longest Entry Ever, I got tired of annotating Fifteen Minutes...es, so I decided to annotate my dream instead, using the Dream Moods dream dictionary. I'll spare you the teal deer, but the reason I'm bringing this up is that

Comments

[laurelin_kit]

My mom would act like she was jealous of my friends. I think she wants us to be all Lorelai and Rory. She's said out loud that she doesn't know why I can tell my "Orlando friends" things and not her. I was so scared when I got out of the hospital that I'd never leave home again. I didn't want to walk too far away from my mother in the store in case something happened. But after spending time with my friends more and more it didn't feel right being stuck home. It was a battle to drive myself to my one class instead of letting my mom drive me. It wasn't until visiting my friends regularly and staying on their couches that I started feeling like I could live alone again.

You have to believe that you can do it on your own. It seemed like this huge insurmountable obstacle, but I had to break it down more. Can I cook? Yes. Can I do my laundry? Regrettably, yes. All the smaller chores I did a lot at home, so it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to do it myself. I'm still worried about handling four classes in the fall, because the two I have now are kicking my ass. I just had to remind myself that I did it before, and lots and lots of other people are doing just fine, and then some of the anxiety subsided.

Of course it helped a lot that my mother and I fight a lot more than you and your mother seem to. If we got along better it probably would have been just as easy to stick around and be a commuter student. But I've had a lot of past history with having to assert my independence forcibly from my mom. As Grant succinctly put it, she can't cut the fucking cord.

[cleolinda]

Yeah, I think we've had maybe one fight in the last five years, maybe, and we didn't even fight when I was a teenager.

My problem isn't so much that I can't take care of myself on a day-to-day basis; it's that I'm afraid of the depression taking over at a given point so that I can't function, get out of bed, pay bills, eat, that kind of thing. Because I did have a spell in college where that happened. It's more that I'm afraid of an illness returning, so to speak, than I am that I can't do household things, because I already do them now.

It's great, though, that you're ready to fight for your independence (and seriously, best of luck with that). I don't want to blame my mother much, because at the end of the day, the responsibility to move on is mine. And I think that's what my dream was getting at, that all the characters in it were really me, and it was about my own conflict.

[laurelin_kit]

It's more that I'm afraid of an illness returning, so to speak, than I am that I can't do household things, because I already do them now.

That kept me back for ages. Still, you can keep your health in check. Do you think you'd be able to have people be like your checkpoints if you lived on your own? Like The Lovely Emily or someone, or your mother who could be able to recognize the signs if you didn't see them yourself, or if you can't go for help? My friends were a big part of my recovery and they watch out for my health.

[cleolinda]

Hmm, checkpoints would be a good start. My only problem is that I'm afraid I'd just lie about it--I have a bad habit of just telling people that no, I'm fine. Of course, it would be up to me to work on not doing that.

[laurelin_kit]

Are there any specific behaviors that you could tell them to look out for? Like I've always told my friends if I ever take up smoking that I'm seriously depressed and need help instantly. Are there any signals like that you could use?

[cleolinda]

I wish I had something like smoking that was that clear a signal (seriously, that's a good one). I got very, very good at hiding depression because I felt so guilty about being depressed in the first place; I tend to be able to pull it together in front of other people. The only way you'd really be able to tell is... if you were living with me. Which is the problem. It really sounds like I'm just going to have to sack up, be more vigilant, and get over feeling guilty about everything.

[laurelin_kit]

Do you have any friends looking for roommates, or who would be able to let you move in?

You seem to be really open about accepting that depression is a disease. I remember you read Dooce, so there's no need to mention all the stuff she's written about it. I know you know there's no real reason to feel guilty for a disease relapsing, so I guess all you have to do is, well, sack up and be vigilant. :)

[cleolinda]

Yeah, I do read Dooce. I think guilt, for whatever reason I decide to feel it, is a huge problem for me. It may go back to everyone treating me like I was some superstar child prodigy because I... what, liked to write stories? It's kind of bizarre when I look back on it now. I guess I grew up feeling like I almost had this legend to live up to, and when I turned out to be a normal human being and not the second coming of Shakespeare by age 16, I guess I felt like a huge letdown. Even though I don't feel any guilt or shame about having the depression per se, I really, really hate for people to see me in the middle of it, like I feel like I should be fighting it harder or something. I feel guilty for being so weak in the grip of it, not for having it in the first place, I guess.

It's funny--the more I talk about things, the more I see that my default response to almost anything, for some reason, is "guilt." And when I feel guilty, I kind of collapse in on myself, like I feel so bad that clearly I'm worthless and hopeless, and then I feel even guiltier for giving up so easily. I mean, seriously, I'm pretty much thinking out loud here, and I don't know that I've ever realized it before. It may be something I need to talk to my doctor about, or start trying to attack that specific thought process in a behavioral sense--you know, come up with some mantra to repeat about how I'm entitled to screw up as long as I'm trying, I don't know.

[laurelin_kit]

It may be something I need to talk to my doctor about, or start trying to attack that specific thought process in a behavioral sense--you know, come up with some mantra to repeat about how I'm entitled to screw up as long as I'm trying, I don't know.

When I was trying to figure out something helpful to contribute, I realized I do that sometimes. Like, um. Right now. I should be working on my lab report, but I'm afraid it will suck. If I don't do it until the last minute, I have an excuse for it sucking, but if I work really hard on it and it doesn't get an A, then it's my ability, not my time-management. That was a problem with calculus this spring, one I didn't tell Bryan about because he'd make me study more. I don't tell people that can influence my schoolwork that particular reasoning because I know they'll be able to call me on it later.

[cleolinda]

Yeah, I have huge finishing-things issues because as long as I haven't finished, I haven't disappointed anyone yet. I mean, I cannot tell you how paralyzed I am right now about Black Ribbon, because what if I finish it and it sinks like a stone and I'm not the second coming of Stephenie Meyer? OH MY GOD WHY DOES THAT MATTER? There's a lot of shouting sense into oneself that has to get done, I think.

Also, I think I owe you for--what, at least an hour in therapy? ; )

[laurelin_kit]

Please. Steampunk-esque vampires? I'd buy that book unironically in a heartbeat. One of the many reasons I ran out of inspiration for "real" writing instead of just fanfiction is that now it suddenly might matter, and have to be good, and not just about Legolas. There's more pressure that way. I didn't think it would be actually good.

How far along are you now on the first novel?

Haha, no worries. I'm sure I'll do something unbelievably stupid in the upcoming months, like sleep with my best friend or something, and I'll need therapy myself then. It all balances out.

[cleolinda]

I don't know, but I'm hoping to get through these annotations and spend the rest of the year finishing the novel. I got really paranoid about not having done enough research on London geography and poverty, and that's what I spent January-March doing. I thought I was going to have it done by last December, but--well, there's the guilt thing again. But I feel like I can see it fully in my mind now.

[laurelin_kit]

Are you almost done with the annotations then? How in-depth are you doing them?

[cleolinda]

I'm hoping to have them done by the end of the month. Since I'm actually asking people to pay for them and all, I'm trying to put a good bit of work into it. Generally 100+ notes per parody (it just worked out that way, I didn't set a quota or anything), and lots of fun links and background stuff, some of it pulled from older entries here and put into context.

[laurelin_kit]

I didn't realize it would be that big of an undertaking when you first started talking about it. It sounds retarded and meaningless to say "Well, I'll totally pay up NOW!" when I would already have shelled out for Phantom alone, but damn.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. I really hate having to wake up at 6:30 in the morning.

[cleolinda]

Yeah, I didn't either. "I can totally crank this out in a weekend!" Uh, not so much.

Night!