(no subject)
Well, I have the time, so here's a fuller, better post. Current location: the green room at PRC. Which will probably make no sense to most people and not particularly convey anything to the rest! So here's random information: there's a course for the Drama major called "Production Practicum" where you tech for a Playmakers show (Playmakers Repertory Company is the professional theatre here at school). It's a bummer in some ways, as you're there 6 days a week for a month, and since you come in at tech, your schedule starts out as "wake up, go to theater, come home, sleep." I'm enjoying the crap out of it, though. I'm on wardrobe crew (check the costumes in/out, address problems the actors have with them, dress for changes, etc.), which is pretty quiet for large stretches (which is why, since I got my laptop in here and registered for wireless, I'm sitting here typing this); this being tech, the stage techs are busy and lighting/sound people are busy, but the quickchanges aren't and the moves during the show are verrrrry spaced out (hold! Let's run that transition again). Coolest part of my duties, although also a little freaky; I am now an amateur body art person. The main character guy has five tattoos, which will be airbrushed on by Jaime, the head of wardrobe, and painted in by me once I get the hang of it. There's lots more info I could give on this stuff, but it's sort of just random anyway. The good mood Friday night was a result of my first day of "work." I got the biggest high from it; I think I'd forgotten how great it feels to be doing something, one of the people who makes something happen, in the right place at the right time with the right things. By an hour in, my supervisor was happy with me; she came to find me at some point when I was going to need to do my first hand-off to James (the actor) and she said "I was going to find you, then I thought she's so efficient she's probably already in the [place where I wait with the jacket]." Fucking goddamn good feeling, that. Of course, the brilliant spot-on-ness I operated with was the end product of the sheer enthusiasm with which I go into things like this. It's very hit-or-miss on the two days since; I still love the feeling of doing the things, but it's impossible for me to be really focusing on where I am and what I'll be doing when I have these huge stretches of nothing, and when I'm not focused here, I'm someone else. I actually had a near-fuckup yesterday (on a very small, non-intense scale used only for self-evaluation), as in the wait to go down with a sweatshirt for a minor change, someone was actually coming looking for me when I needed to be there, at which time I was in fact headed down the stairs, but (a) should have already been there, and (b) wasn't carrying the sweatshirt I was going down to deliver. It was no big deal, as the change isn't particularly quick and we were doing the stop: go back 5 times thing for the transition, but I still fucked up my very, very simple task.
And then there's the meds. I'm going off of one antidepressant and onto another. The one I'm quitting is notorious for the crap, crap withdrawal effects, which is pretty much why we decided on a change, because something like forgetting it at night and taking it the next morning will in fact fuck you up, especially if it happens a couple times, which it always does, because I'll be damned if I can maintain my med schedule when I'm on a vacation or otherwise bouncing around with disturbed routine. The plan for tapering was a week at half-dose and then off, and I was terribly optimistic, because the half-dose week felt completely fine (given, the flu you often get for going off this med wouldn't have stood out much from the death-plague I had when I started the taper). The last day of that, however, was last Thursday or so, and yesterday and today we've gone into the dizzies. There's been only one despair bit, last night, and I'm still hoping I'll avoid ever, say, bursting into tears in front of the cast or crew, although I did mention to Jamie (supervisor) that I was switching meds, just, you know, in case.
Improving that situation is the fact that I still haven't picked up the switch-to drug, which I was supposed to begin last Sunday. It's a once-a-week (what a wonderful concept! I have no idea how that's even feasible, but apparently it is), I didn't fill it in time to do it Sunday which is the day I'd really prefer to be the day, so it'll line up with another medical thing I need to ask my Mom about getting more of before next week (which reminds me, I'll be having return o' the cramps when the thing hits this week, since I had to leave off for a month because Mom couldn't get to the base before I flew to Dad's. Joy.). SO. I'm vaguely hoping that I can somehow either drop the thing off during dinner break today (I think the pharmacy may be closed at that point, and I have no idea when I'd pick it up), or somehow fill it tomorrow on the non-tech day. Meanwhile, I've made two trips to campus and back on an empty tank, which needs remedying probably pretty desperately, but I'm always either needing to get there on time or too damn tired to detour or there was at first a thing with not being sure about the money and the bank being all weird.
In other news, I've wasted tons of time this weekend, because I haven't managed to get all my textbooks (some of which, admittedly, weren't in the one of the stores I managed to go by on break yesterday) and so can't do the readings and such, and can't figure out what else I need to be doing/how to arrange it so I can do it here (theater).
Meanwhile, I need very badly to get more cat litter as the pitiful remainder we have now doesn't cover scent anymore.
And I'm almost out of peanut butter, which is the only food I have other than microwave popcorn (thank god for microwave popcorn).
I'm tired. I got home at 12:30 last night and needed to go by the party all my friends were having, which was in fact fun, but I couldn't bring myself to enjoy it for a good portion and when I wasn't planning to have anything to drink, and couldn't feel right leaving when I hadn't had fun yet, as I telegraph that sort of thing very obviously and I refused to be morose person who drops by for a bit, glums around a bit and goes home, having pooped the party. Ended up drinking a little, also finally loosening up and enjoying myself a bit. Anyway, got around 7 and a half hours of sleep, incredibly fucking tired.
I have no idea what's going to happen this semester. I mean that with all the possible blankness and vague attendant terror it can accommodate. I could be finishing my last full semester, only a summer course or two from the end of college. I could be going to crash and burn. Again.
There are literally dozens of things I have left undone, am not attending to, am stalled on. I could be ending college in half a year, am supposed to be, and I am still non-functional. I've been on anti-depressant medication since spring 2002. Because I've been in the grip of a four-year depressive illness? Not so much. Because it's only seemingly safe to take me off when my life is in order.
It's not. It hasn't been. For any decent stretch in the last 5 years. Think of how much of my life so far that is. My friends, graduated and graduating, have been trading thoughts and reactions to graduation, so glad to get out of here, going to miss it, etc. There are a lot of cultural associations with "the college experience" and finishing it. I don't fit them. It's not that college "wasn't for me." It's not like I'm some practical type who always itched to get away from academia and triviality and has seemed ready and suitable to step into a job in the real world since birth. That pretty much couldn't be less true. I never in a thousand years would have guessed what my "college experience" was going to be. I seemed made for it, for classes in basketweaving, extracurriculars, hours of reading, new ideas, whatever.
Anyway, I wasn't. My "college experience" has been, more than anything, pain. Shame and pain. Anxiety and pain. I haven't formed close relationships with teachers beyond my bizarre superpower which makes a lot of them love me for no reason. My sister mentioned the other day finding out that one of her favorite professors had died, wishing she'd kept up with things more. I won't have that. I have, somehow, managed to become very close to a small, small number of people, so I will have "friends from college," I suppose, but even my friendships are pretty fucked up, maintained mostly by bonds formed out of air, sympathy, and having been there for each other in some bad times. I don't know how to put it; I have a best friend, with whom I almost never manage to do anything. This last semester, we couldn't even be there for each other as we wanted to be, because things were so fucked for both of us. There are not really any midnight adventures. There have been pretty few long, engaging conversations. I was built for those things, but they're perks. They're perks of surviving, of getting it close enough to right. Even the friends I have are indirect results of having had an automatic circle in the friends my Science and Math (high school) friends made the first year here.
I always assumed that the "glory days, ah I miss college" thing would happen with me. I couldn't imagine I would end up in any life with the opportunities and adventures of a campus, although I did assume I'd be happy in whatever life that was. But I didn't have those good days, and that train has sailed. I have to squeak my way out of here, short on good memories or particularly bright prospects.
Crap. I really want/need to explore this, put it down, think it through, but at some point Jamie joined me in the green room, and I can't make it any further without breaking down.
Well, repaired a bit in the bathroom, but better not try any more writing, really.
A philosophical note to leave off: I was talking yesterday to a girl with OCD, who'd been on Zoloft for it. I mentioned I'd been on that at one point, but, you know, for depression, and she was like yeah, it's an antidepressant, of course, but that was never really an issue with me--I've never been depressed, I'm just a happy sort, I guess, even when it was at its worst.
I hated her more in that moment than I can say. Because I was jealous. That was me. It had always been me, was always supposed to be me. I don't recognize the me that grew up, I don't like her, and I don't like being her. And I hate the disappointed hope of it, the (text leaves off because I couldn't stop the tears that time and made another bathroom run. Inconvenient to get the sniffles when you already have the sniffles, but hey at least that way the nose-blowing should seem less suspicious).
Clearly a bad idea to get into any of this again. To conclude, it's not that I'm ignoring the fact that this is very influenced by the medication state, it's that I'm acting on the internal certainty, which may or may not be due to the med thing, that while I'm sad because of the withdrawal, it's not that the withdrawal is making my life bleaker, it's that it's making me actually think on the life. Happiness for me has tended to consist in ignoring the unpleasanter bits of life, which is, of course, essential for functioning, but it means that these occasional despair purges are not so much inaccurate as normally not something I decide to focus on. I don't know what I'm saying. I never know what I'm saying (sorry, couldn't resist the reference).
Consider the userpic choice ironic.
And then there's the meds. I'm going off of one antidepressant and onto another. The one I'm quitting is notorious for the crap, crap withdrawal effects, which is pretty much why we decided on a change, because something like forgetting it at night and taking it the next morning will in fact fuck you up, especially if it happens a couple times, which it always does, because I'll be damned if I can maintain my med schedule when I'm on a vacation or otherwise bouncing around with disturbed routine. The plan for tapering was a week at half-dose and then off, and I was terribly optimistic, because the half-dose week felt completely fine (given, the flu you often get for going off this med wouldn't have stood out much from the death-plague I had when I started the taper). The last day of that, however, was last Thursday or so, and yesterday and today we've gone into the dizzies. There's been only one despair bit, last night, and I'm still hoping I'll avoid ever, say, bursting into tears in front of the cast or crew, although I did mention to Jamie (supervisor) that I was switching meds, just, you know, in case.
Improving that situation is the fact that I still haven't picked up the switch-to drug, which I was supposed to begin last Sunday. It's a once-a-week (what a wonderful concept! I have no idea how that's even feasible, but apparently it is), I didn't fill it in time to do it Sunday which is the day I'd really prefer to be the day, so it'll line up with another medical thing I need to ask my Mom about getting more of before next week (which reminds me, I'll be having return o' the cramps when the thing hits this week, since I had to leave off for a month because Mom couldn't get to the base before I flew to Dad's. Joy.). SO. I'm vaguely hoping that I can somehow either drop the thing off during dinner break today (I think the pharmacy may be closed at that point, and I have no idea when I'd pick it up), or somehow fill it tomorrow on the non-tech day. Meanwhile, I've made two trips to campus and back on an empty tank, which needs remedying probably pretty desperately, but I'm always either needing to get there on time or too damn tired to detour or there was at first a thing with not being sure about the money and the bank being all weird.
In other news, I've wasted tons of time this weekend, because I haven't managed to get all my textbooks (some of which, admittedly, weren't in the one of the stores I managed to go by on break yesterday) and so can't do the readings and such, and can't figure out what else I need to be doing/how to arrange it so I can do it here (theater).
Meanwhile, I need very badly to get more cat litter as the pitiful remainder we have now doesn't cover scent anymore.
And I'm almost out of peanut butter, which is the only food I have other than microwave popcorn (thank god for microwave popcorn).
I'm tired. I got home at 12:30 last night and needed to go by the party all my friends were having, which was in fact fun, but I couldn't bring myself to enjoy it for a good portion and when I wasn't planning to have anything to drink, and couldn't feel right leaving when I hadn't had fun yet, as I telegraph that sort of thing very obviously and I refused to be morose person who drops by for a bit, glums around a bit and goes home, having pooped the party. Ended up drinking a little, also finally loosening up and enjoying myself a bit. Anyway, got around 7 and a half hours of sleep, incredibly fucking tired.
I have no idea what's going to happen this semester. I mean that with all the possible blankness and vague attendant terror it can accommodate. I could be finishing my last full semester, only a summer course or two from the end of college. I could be going to crash and burn. Again.
There are literally dozens of things I have left undone, am not attending to, am stalled on. I could be ending college in half a year, am supposed to be, and I am still non-functional. I've been on anti-depressant medication since spring 2002. Because I've been in the grip of a four-year depressive illness? Not so much. Because it's only seemingly safe to take me off when my life is in order.
It's not. It hasn't been. For any decent stretch in the last 5 years. Think of how much of my life so far that is. My friends, graduated and graduating, have been trading thoughts and reactions to graduation, so glad to get out of here, going to miss it, etc. There are a lot of cultural associations with "the college experience" and finishing it. I don't fit them. It's not that college "wasn't for me." It's not like I'm some practical type who always itched to get away from academia and triviality and has seemed ready and suitable to step into a job in the real world since birth. That pretty much couldn't be less true. I never in a thousand years would have guessed what my "college experience" was going to be. I seemed made for it, for classes in basketweaving, extracurriculars, hours of reading, new ideas, whatever.
Anyway, I wasn't. My "college experience" has been, more than anything, pain. Shame and pain. Anxiety and pain. I haven't formed close relationships with teachers beyond my bizarre superpower which makes a lot of them love me for no reason. My sister mentioned the other day finding out that one of her favorite professors had died, wishing she'd kept up with things more. I won't have that. I have, somehow, managed to become very close to a small, small number of people, so I will have "friends from college," I suppose, but even my friendships are pretty fucked up, maintained mostly by bonds formed out of air, sympathy, and having been there for each other in some bad times. I don't know how to put it; I have a best friend, with whom I almost never manage to do anything. This last semester, we couldn't even be there for each other as we wanted to be, because things were so fucked for both of us. There are not really any midnight adventures. There have been pretty few long, engaging conversations. I was built for those things, but they're perks. They're perks of surviving, of getting it close enough to right. Even the friends I have are indirect results of having had an automatic circle in the friends my Science and Math (high school) friends made the first year here.
I always assumed that the "glory days, ah I miss college" thing would happen with me. I couldn't imagine I would end up in any life with the opportunities and adventures of a campus, although I did assume I'd be happy in whatever life that was. But I didn't have those good days, and that train has sailed. I have to squeak my way out of here, short on good memories or particularly bright prospects.
Crap. I really want/need to explore this, put it down, think it through, but at some point Jamie joined me in the green room, and I can't make it any further without breaking down.
Well, repaired a bit in the bathroom, but better not try any more writing, really.
A philosophical note to leave off: I was talking yesterday to a girl with OCD, who'd been on Zoloft for it. I mentioned I'd been on that at one point, but, you know, for depression, and she was like yeah, it's an antidepressant, of course, but that was never really an issue with me--I've never been depressed, I'm just a happy sort, I guess, even when it was at its worst.
I hated her more in that moment than I can say. Because I was jealous. That was me. It had always been me, was always supposed to be me. I don't recognize the me that grew up, I don't like her, and I don't like being her. And I hate the disappointed hope of it, the (text leaves off because I couldn't stop the tears that time and made another bathroom run. Inconvenient to get the sniffles when you already have the sniffles, but hey at least that way the nose-blowing should seem less suspicious).
Clearly a bad idea to get into any of this again. To conclude, it's not that I'm ignoring the fact that this is very influenced by the medication state, it's that I'm acting on the internal certainty, which may or may not be due to the med thing, that while I'm sad because of the withdrawal, it's not that the withdrawal is making my life bleaker, it's that it's making me actually think on the life. Happiness for me has tended to consist in ignoring the unpleasanter bits of life, which is, of course, essential for functioning, but it means that these occasional despair purges are not so much inaccurate as normally not something I decide to focus on. I don't know what I'm saying. I never know what I'm saying (sorry, couldn't resist the reference).
Consider the userpic choice ironic.