Crossroads
I feel like I haven’t written in a while, so I guess it’s time for an update. I finished all my schoolwork on Saturday and came home that night. Being home is nice, I guess, although I haven’t really been able to motivate myself to do anything. I sleep all day (usually until 4:00 or 4:30) and have been spending my time awake playing the new Pokémon game. I guess I really should get a job or something.
It feels good to be done with my schoolwork, although a bit of anxiety has set in regarding graduation. There are just so many things I need to do before I can graduate (exit loan counseling, purchase and pick up my cap and gown, attend graduation rehearsal at a ridiculously early hour, etc.), and I’m so afraid I’m going to mess something up and not be able to graduate. I guess that’s kind of ridiculous. I mean, I’ve made it this far, and I don’t think anything’s going to happen at the last minute. Still, I can’t help worrying.
I don’t think cum laude is going to happen. I really think I did a poor job on my final paper for Literature of the Later Middle Ages, and the professor is known for being perhaps the hardest grader in the English department, so I doubt I’ll get a good grade. I feel so stupid. My sister’s graduating summa cum laude, and I just feel like such an underachiever next to her. (It’s not like she goes to an easy school or anything either. I mean, she goes to Tufts.) Sometimes I wonder if my parents are disappointed that I don’t do as well as she does. They’d never say it, but I can’t help feeling that they might be. Recently I commented on how it seems like my sister studies a ton, and my mother said something like, “Well, that’s why she gets all A’s.” I couldn’t help but think that she wanted to add, “and you don’t” to the end of that statement, but maybe that’s just me being paranoid. I just feel like my parents don’t think I work hard enough, although, again, of course they’d never say that. It’s probably true, though.
I guess I just have this fear of going back to the way things were in high school. In high school I became so obsessed with getting straight A’s and achieving and getting into a good college that all I did was study. I slept an average of three or four hours a night…every night. (I usually went to bed around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and got up at 6:00 to go to school.) I was not manic (never have been). I did not take Ritalin or caffeine or anything. I was not an insomniac. I just did it…and it sucked more than I can explain. Living on that amount of sleep for years is just so difficult. Words cannot express how tired I was all the freaking time. Honestly, starving is far easier (for me) than living on that amount of sleep was. All I thought about was sleep, perhaps even more than food or weight. I had fantasies about sleep. My world simply revolved around it.
I lived in constant fear of getting a bad grade and of having something go wrong at school. I have an anxiety disorder anyway, but my anxiety in high school got to the point that it was really unmanageable. My teachers sometimes asked me to leave class because I was an anxious mess. I never want to go back to that kind of life again, although it’s hard to say if my life now is any better-it’s definitely different, though.
This is why I promised myself that I would cut myself some slack when I went to college. I think I did a good job of doing that, although it’s hard to say what was intentional and what was just my depression taking over and controlling everything. Whatever the case, I studied far less in college than in high school. Yes, my grades suffered as a result, but it’s not like I have bad grades. I have a 3.49 at a very difficult and competitive school, but I know to a lot of people that’s not very good. I haven’t figured out if I’m one of those people or not yet.
Speaking of anxiety, mine’s in full force right now because I started tapering off the Abilify last Saturday, so, theoretically, tonight should be my last night taking it. I am so freaking scared. I just don’t know if it’s the right decision or not. I do think that I need to get off of it because I can’t gain more weight and because it causes me to starve myself every chance I get; honestly, the amount of misery this medication has caused me because it has made me gain so much weight and has made it impossible to lose despite not eating cannot even be explained. On the other hand, I’m scared that I’ll become a completely nonfunctioning, suicidal mess again and, more than that, I’m scared because my mother is going to be beyond upset and angry when she finds out. I’m so afraid that going off of this med will jeopardize my ability to go to graduate school in the fall.
I need to look at the positives, though. I have over three months before I’m moving to New York, which gives me plenty of time for trial and error. I can see how I do off the Abilify and hopefully get in to see a psychiatrist who specializes in EDs, someone who might be able to suggest an alternative, and then I can see if the new medication works. I can work with my therapist on ways to cope with unmanageable thoughts and feelings aside from cutting and sleeping all day. Maybe I can do some kind of program that works on teaching people how to deal with anxiety and (more importantly, perhaps) depression. I can always go back to the behavioral health program at McLean, or I can try the women’s day program at Arbour Hospital. I can get a job that forces me to stay out of bed. I can be more open about my feelings and reach out to my parents more for help instead of retreating to my room and engaging in bad behaviors. There are lots of things I can do, I guess.
Of course, it’s up to me to do these things. Whether or not I fail or succeed this summer, whether or not I can go to graduate school is largely in my hands. (Obviously it’s not completely in my control, but I like to think that I have a lot of say in what happens.) Even whether or not I take Abilify tomorrow is my decision and my decision alone.
I guess I’ve reached a crossroads again, reached another point where I need to decide between the right thing and the wrong thing (and, of course, what’s right and what’s wrong isn’t always clear). Of course, I haven’t even touched upon one of the most important choices I’ll be making in the upcoming months, and that’s the one regarding my eating. Do I attempt to eat more normally now that I’ll be off the Abilify, or do I continue to restrict in an effort to lose weight? I’m so torn. I need to lose weight, but I’m so afraid that I won’t be able to stop and that I’ll jeopardize school in the fall. I keep telling myself that if I start to lose weight this summer that I’ll stop around 105 or 106 (which, frankly, isn’t even the healthiest goal…a weight of 105 or 106 is considered clinically anorexic for someone who’s 5’5”, although just barely so), but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that. I still have a goal of getting into the seventies in the back of my head, even after all of these years. I’ve never made it past the high eighties, and I’ve always, always wanted to make it to the seventies, and I feel like when I’m at graduate school I’ll be able to finally do that (maybe). At what risk, though? Do I really want to jeopardize everything? I just don’t know what to do.
Anyway, I suppose I should wait and see what the next months hold. I can’t help feeling very nervous, though.
***
I had a pretty good appointment with my therapist today. I mentioned that I’ve been a wee bit worried about my heart, which is still pounding and beating super, super fast all of the freaking time (I have permanent palpitations, it’s like), and it turned into an interesting conversation. I said I really wasn’t that worried about it because no one else seems worried or to take it seriously. She asked if that made me angry. You know what? It kind of does. I’m not saying that people should worry about my heart (although it strikes me as kind of weird that they don’t, given how bad my vital signs are), because there probably isn’t anything to worry about, but I do get upset that no one takes my ED seriously anymore because I’m not severely underweight. ED treaters constantly talk about how it’s not about the weight and how the weight isn’t important, but I feel like that’s just BS and they know it. The only time people tend to take eating disorder sufferers seriously when they’re not emaciated is if they’re purging, like, fifteen times a day or taking an insane amount of laxatives or diet pills. That’s just wrong.
I’ve been in the hospital and various treatment centers for my eating disorder numerous times, and it’s just so rare to see people there who are EDNOS; usually they’re either anorexic or very bulimic (mostly just anorexic, though). That does kind of piss me off, and not just because in my own experience my ED has never been taken seriously except for when I was very underweight and anorexic, but because of the danger people with EDs are in regardless of their weight. This can be a life and death situation. Enough preaching, though.
I still haven’t heard anything from Sarah Lawrence regarding housing or classes for next year, and I’m getting anxious. I really hope I hear something soon.
Now for something totally different, I’d like to talk a bit about Pokémon. (I know, I know. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.) First of all, the Grand Festival has been very exciting. I’m surprised by the amount of subtle Appealshipping that has been included in it. I’ve always liked that relationship, but it seemed Penguinshipping was the way the writers were going to go. Plus, there’s the whole issue of it being a lesbian relationship. (Yes, I know that’s perfectly fine for a children’s show in Japan, but I thought maybe the writers would shy away from it because Pokémon has such a large audience in America, where, unfortunately, it’s not perfectly fine.) I’ll be interested to see what happens between Dawn and Zoey in the next episode. Who will win it?!
Then there’s the new Gen V news. I wasn’t that excited for it (in terms of the anime, anyway-I’m always excited for the new games), but the possibility of a time skip has definitely made me interested. An older Ash could be very interesting, and he could even develop romantic feelings, maybe even for Misty. (Of course, part of the reason I like Pokeshipping so much is because they’re kids and they’re sweet and cute, so I have mixed feelings about this.) Don’t get me wrong, because I’m excited about the possible time skip for many reasons that have nothing to do with Pokeshipping, but I can’t help but wonder how it might affect my long-time OTP.
Well, I guess that’s it. I should probably head to bed soon so I don’ sleep until 4:00 or 5:00 tomorrow.