The Massive Once-in-a-Blue-Moon Everything Update
It is getting to that point where Kat would probably start leaving me threatening messages about needing to update my journal... except that she's been in Michigan for the past two weeks so she probably hasn't even noticed! Hah! But now she's back in Alabama, so before she starts bugging me...
I'll take "My Pet Neuroses" for 5000, Alex.
Things I've Learned
Contrary to anxiety's paranoia, the semester ended on a pretty good note. My statistics professor must have curved our grades like no other because I ended up with a 3.0 in that class. Trust me, I'm not just being modest... I probably should have gotten more like a 2.0, but whatever. Between that and a 4.0 in my online judicial administration class, I managed to maintain my 3.6 overall, for which I am ecstatic.
Now I am interning with the Lansing Family Courts for the summer, and absolutely loving it. I am working with a Juvenile Court Officer (JCO) in the Truancy Intensive Probation department, which means that the kids we are working with do not have formal delinquency charges but are at risk for out-of-home placement because of all the other sh*t they pull. Mainly they have problems with missing school, being late to classes, drinking, drugs... etc. I have been interning for about two weeks now, making school visits and going to meetings with my JCO, attending and observing court sessions, learning about the paperwork needed for different procedures, docketing contacts with the kids, and helping out wherever I can. Today Melissa had me do the school visits by myself. It feels really good to know that she trusts me to do this, especially since she said that doesn't normally happen this early in the internship. She also said that she is impressed with the fact that I was willing to talk to the kids and give them advise right from the start. I'm really thinking that this career is something that I would enjoy and excel at... I don't notice the hours passing throughout the day, I enjoy talking to the kids, and I hope that I might actually make a difference in someone's life at some point.
Next semester it looks like I'm going to be taking two classes - an online management seminar (required) and an on-campus course on adult and juvenile court practices - and continuing my assistantship, although with a different professor. I'm also thinking that I'm going to start enquiring with local agencies related to the juvenile court system to see if there are any openings. I want to keep my assistantship since it pays for my tuition and gives me health insurance, but I'd also like to start gaining more experience in my field so that I will be more prepared to find a job when I graduate. I know that the Ingham Academy (the school run by the court) is expanding in the fall, and they're thinking about hiring graduate students to help run it, so that might be a good possibility. Another option would be the juvenile detention center, and I'm sure that there are many more that I just don't know about yet.
My Pet Neuroses
Since my last mental health update, I was able to get in to see someone in the MSU Psych Clinic. She diagnosed me with acute anxiety disorder, and prescribed Celexa (sounds like a stripper) and Ambien for my anxiety and sleep. The Ambien has helped a lot with getting me back on a normal sleep schedule, which has been especially important since I've started my internship. I think that the Celexa is helping a lot too, as I'm starting to feel a little more normal... for the most part anyway. Last week the psychiatrist upped my dosage, having me take two pills a day instead of one and giving me a new prescription to fill when I needed it. I ran out of pills over the weekend though, while I was in Hillsdale with no way to fill it until Tuesday. I think I missed Friday through Monday's doses, and I think that might have effected me a little bit. Monday I felt really lethargic and a little depressed... it could have also been TOM though. I'm leaning a little more toward that, because Tuesday I was all motivated, running errands and cleaning the apartment and what-not... not in a manic gotta-get-this-done-right-now-before-the-world-comes-crashing-down kind of way, but in a normal running-errands-and-cleaning-because-it's-my-day-off kind of way. It felt good.
On the other hand, it's still driving me one-third insane that the bookshelves don't conform to the Dewey Decimal System, my jewelry box looks like World War III, and I have not one but FIVE junk drawers (is that enough junk drawers, Kelly? I know you were worried that we wouldn't have one).
I'm Wasting Away to Practically Nothing
My weight-loss efforts have been nonexistent over the past few weeks. I feel ashamed to say this because I haven't been going in to the clinic to weigh in, I haven't been tracking what I'm eating, and I haven't been exercising. The only time I watch what I eat is when I'm watching my food's path from the plate to my mouth. I'm wasting money, time, opportunity... all wasted and gone. The only thing not wasting away is my waist, and it really should be time for me to turn that back around. I think that it might be easier now that the general madness of graduation and the extreme influx of friends is over.
Tomorrow morning I am going to wake up at a decent time, have breakfast, work out, go to the clinic to weigh in, and have a healthy lunch before I go to the courthouse. I don't have to be there until 2:30 PM, so I have plenty of time to do these other things. I need to run a couple of errands over in Okemos, so I really don't have an excuse to not go in to the clinic. And I have plenty of time in the morning and should try to keep waking up at a decent time anyway, so I don't have an excuse not to work out. My workout clothes are even clean! And I have plenty of healthy food in the house, and I found my journal, so I have no excuse to not eat healthy food tomorrow.
No more excuses! I still have a little over a month before Colin gets home, and my goal is to lose 10 lbs by the time he gets here. That should be perfectly manageable. I just need to remember that I want to be healthy, and I don't have any excuse not to be.
Messages from Iraq
Colin has been gone for almost five months now. Looking back on previous separations, I think that I cope through numbing myself to the emptiness, however ineffective that numbing might be. When Colin left for the first time, for Basic Combat Training (BCT) and Advanced Individual Training (AIT), I wasn't medicated by any means, and I was struggling to find the ambition to finish my senior year of college while planning a wedding and applying to graduate programs. During that time period I gained back the 40+ lbs I had lost on Weight Watchers over the previous year, losing touch with my self-esteem and self-assurance. I still feel the aftershock of that loss, although it has begun to resurface through new accomplishments in my life.
This deployment has brought about a renewed, or at least intensified sense of anxiety and depression in my everyday life. When people marvel at how well I handle being alone, half the time I want to laugh hysterically until I break down in a giggling, sobbing mess on the floor, quite possibly rocking back and forth in the fetal position. People don't seem to believe me when I tell them that I spend the vast majority of my time curled up on the couch, staring at the television until I fall asleep because I don't feel capable of doing anything else. When I have homework, it is done at the last moment, in a severe rush of anxiety-driven adrenaline. For all intents and purposes, I probably appear pretty normal and happy to friends and family, because I am more at peace when I'm not alone, but when I am alone?
My current round of therapy and medication has helped immensely, as has my new schedule brought on by my internship. I feel more at peace, more capable of taking care of myself, more... like myself. If I can just maintain my current course, I think I will be able to handle the rest of this deployment without driving myself privately insane.
Hm... I'm not really sure how this section turned out like it did. All I meant to talk about was the fact that Colin calls me nearly every day, and that he sent me an adorable stuffed camel with a camouflage hat. I named my camel Abu, although I'm really the only one that gets the joke. You see, Colin told me that if anyone ever tells you their name is just "Abu" then they are probably a terrorist. Abu means "Son of"; an honorific, not an actual name. Terrorists use our lack of knowledge to their advantage, using different combinations of the words in their names to hide their true identity. So... by naming my camel Abu, I'm basically saying he's a terrorist. Heh...
Anyway, that was a fun update. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
I'll take "My Pet Neuroses" for 5000, Alex.
Things I've Learned
Contrary to anxiety's paranoia, the semester ended on a pretty good note. My statistics professor must have curved our grades like no other because I ended up with a 3.0 in that class. Trust me, I'm not just being modest... I probably should have gotten more like a 2.0, but whatever. Between that and a 4.0 in my online judicial administration class, I managed to maintain my 3.6 overall, for which I am ecstatic.
Now I am interning with the Lansing Family Courts for the summer, and absolutely loving it. I am working with a Juvenile Court Officer (JCO) in the Truancy Intensive Probation department, which means that the kids we are working with do not have formal delinquency charges but are at risk for out-of-home placement because of all the other sh*t they pull. Mainly they have problems with missing school, being late to classes, drinking, drugs... etc. I have been interning for about two weeks now, making school visits and going to meetings with my JCO, attending and observing court sessions, learning about the paperwork needed for different procedures, docketing contacts with the kids, and helping out wherever I can. Today Melissa had me do the school visits by myself. It feels really good to know that she trusts me to do this, especially since she said that doesn't normally happen this early in the internship. She also said that she is impressed with the fact that I was willing to talk to the kids and give them advise right from the start. I'm really thinking that this career is something that I would enjoy and excel at... I don't notice the hours passing throughout the day, I enjoy talking to the kids, and I hope that I might actually make a difference in someone's life at some point.
Next semester it looks like I'm going to be taking two classes - an online management seminar (required) and an on-campus course on adult and juvenile court practices - and continuing my assistantship, although with a different professor. I'm also thinking that I'm going to start enquiring with local agencies related to the juvenile court system to see if there are any openings. I want to keep my assistantship since it pays for my tuition and gives me health insurance, but I'd also like to start gaining more experience in my field so that I will be more prepared to find a job when I graduate. I know that the Ingham Academy (the school run by the court) is expanding in the fall, and they're thinking about hiring graduate students to help run it, so that might be a good possibility. Another option would be the juvenile detention center, and I'm sure that there are many more that I just don't know about yet.
My Pet Neuroses
Since my last mental health update, I was able to get in to see someone in the MSU Psych Clinic. She diagnosed me with acute anxiety disorder, and prescribed Celexa (sounds like a stripper) and Ambien for my anxiety and sleep. The Ambien has helped a lot with getting me back on a normal sleep schedule, which has been especially important since I've started my internship. I think that the Celexa is helping a lot too, as I'm starting to feel a little more normal... for the most part anyway. Last week the psychiatrist upped my dosage, having me take two pills a day instead of one and giving me a new prescription to fill when I needed it. I ran out of pills over the weekend though, while I was in Hillsdale with no way to fill it until Tuesday. I think I missed Friday through Monday's doses, and I think that might have effected me a little bit. Monday I felt really lethargic and a little depressed... it could have also been TOM though. I'm leaning a little more toward that, because Tuesday I was all motivated, running errands and cleaning the apartment and what-not... not in a manic gotta-get-this-done-right-now-before-the-world-comes-crashing-down kind of way, but in a normal running-errands-and-cleaning-because-it's-my-day-off kind of way. It felt good.
On the other hand, it's still driving me one-third insane that the bookshelves don't conform to the Dewey Decimal System, my jewelry box looks like World War III, and I have not one but FIVE junk drawers (is that enough junk drawers, Kelly? I know you were worried that we wouldn't have one).
I'm Wasting Away to Practically Nothing
My weight-loss efforts have been nonexistent over the past few weeks. I feel ashamed to say this because I haven't been going in to the clinic to weigh in, I haven't been tracking what I'm eating, and I haven't been exercising. The only time I watch what I eat is when I'm watching my food's path from the plate to my mouth. I'm wasting money, time, opportunity... all wasted and gone. The only thing not wasting away is my waist, and it really should be time for me to turn that back around. I think that it might be easier now that the general madness of graduation and the extreme influx of friends is over.
Tomorrow morning I am going to wake up at a decent time, have breakfast, work out, go to the clinic to weigh in, and have a healthy lunch before I go to the courthouse. I don't have to be there until 2:30 PM, so I have plenty of time to do these other things. I need to run a couple of errands over in Okemos, so I really don't have an excuse to not go in to the clinic. And I have plenty of time in the morning and should try to keep waking up at a decent time anyway, so I don't have an excuse not to work out. My workout clothes are even clean! And I have plenty of healthy food in the house, and I found my journal, so I have no excuse to not eat healthy food tomorrow.
No more excuses! I still have a little over a month before Colin gets home, and my goal is to lose 10 lbs by the time he gets here. That should be perfectly manageable. I just need to remember that I want to be healthy, and I don't have any excuse not to be.
Messages from Iraq
Colin has been gone for almost five months now. Looking back on previous separations, I think that I cope through numbing myself to the emptiness, however ineffective that numbing might be. When Colin left for the first time, for Basic Combat Training (BCT) and Advanced Individual Training (AIT), I wasn't medicated by any means, and I was struggling to find the ambition to finish my senior year of college while planning a wedding and applying to graduate programs. During that time period I gained back the 40+ lbs I had lost on Weight Watchers over the previous year, losing touch with my self-esteem and self-assurance. I still feel the aftershock of that loss, although it has begun to resurface through new accomplishments in my life.
This deployment has brought about a renewed, or at least intensified sense of anxiety and depression in my everyday life. When people marvel at how well I handle being alone, half the time I want to laugh hysterically until I break down in a giggling, sobbing mess on the floor, quite possibly rocking back and forth in the fetal position. People don't seem to believe me when I tell them that I spend the vast majority of my time curled up on the couch, staring at the television until I fall asleep because I don't feel capable of doing anything else. When I have homework, it is done at the last moment, in a severe rush of anxiety-driven adrenaline. For all intents and purposes, I probably appear pretty normal and happy to friends and family, because I am more at peace when I'm not alone, but when I am alone?
My current round of therapy and medication has helped immensely, as has my new schedule brought on by my internship. I feel more at peace, more capable of taking care of myself, more... like myself. If I can just maintain my current course, I think I will be able to handle the rest of this deployment without driving myself privately insane.
Hm... I'm not really sure how this section turned out like it did. All I meant to talk about was the fact that Colin calls me nearly every day, and that he sent me an adorable stuffed camel with a camouflage hat. I named my camel Abu, although I'm really the only one that gets the joke. You see, Colin told me that if anyone ever tells you their name is just "Abu" then they are probably a terrorist. Abu means "Son of"; an honorific, not an actual name. Terrorists use our lack of knowledge to their advantage, using different combinations of the words in their names to hide their true identity. So... by naming my camel Abu, I'm basically saying he's a terrorist. Heh...
Anyway, that was a fun update. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.