Bleurgh.
I need to pull my socks up. This degree isn’t going well, and as if I don’t work hard enough anyway? What am I doing wrong? I’m flowcharting a lot, to work out what and where to improve. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling more able to work, everything opens up and I have to wonder what to do and when. Reading, vocab and improving writing and grammar. But time, and keeping it up over time is the hard thing. To keep up the motivation that I failed that exam so need to work harder and to do better to do well. It’s just keeping this up. I’m really tired. I had no Christmas, I had no break, and now this, now having to keep it all up and work even harder? I want to do this, but ach, seriously, I have done nothing but work since the middle of November. I need a break at some point, surely?!
My sleep is being unrestful, and I’m having strange dreams about meeting people that have inspired my in the past…
I don’t know what else I can say, I’m tired and in overdrive.
It appears I let myself slip through the eating net again, to take comfort in stomach growls. The realisation is horrible, let alone having to actually do something about it. A full stomach is uncomfortable, a growling one leaves a gap in me where the food should be, something to cling on to and feel good about, and I guess it takes my mind off my mood, something I hate to admit. So now, I’m eating normally, feeling rubbish and apathetic to playing with my new camera, in contrast to hungry, happy and productive. Great trade off…
Maybe my sleep will become better, though? I don’t want trade- offs, I want everything… And unlike one of the dilemma diagrams in the CAT file my Psychologist gave me to look at, I won’t feel guilty. As I will have what I want, and what I deserve. A few years too late, maybe, just in time to have basically traded off my teenage years, but still give me time…
Avoidant perfectionist, 19, Birmingham, seeks female GP at uni medical centre who doesn’t try to tell her she’s pretty or intelligent or force God down her throat. Preferably seeks old doctor who left, or someone good as.
Or rather, you know.
I don’t like ‘real lifers’ knowing about my illness. And those who do, I expect them to treat me like a ‘real’ person- no molly coddling; no ‘how are you’ but with added meaning; I am still a person, your friend who is at lectures, the pub, climbing etc- I do not expect any different treatment. And so many people get this right, as well as those who are, quite frankly, way off the mark.
So, today in therapy we were discussing whether I’d ever be able to tell my parents things. I don’t think I would- I hate being molly coddled, I hate how they would keep checking up on me; the time for that has really passed. Their time to care was when I was younger- I really don’t feel like I got the same relationship, binding like other have with their parents, or even my sister and my parents. I’m a lot more independent, maybe because of this, maybe because that’s just my character.
How do I know this? The time I tried to tell them stuff and they called me a liar; the teenagerdom in the loft whilst my sister and them watched TV and I wasn’t ‘invited’ so just stayed alone (I know the notion of having to have an invite is traditionally British, but shouldn’t exist for some things, well they do!). Therefore I felt kind of rejected… I’m just not close to them.
Am I jealous of my sister and my parents? No. I’m just different, independent. They didn’t know I wanted to be invited, or that I felt left out; I didn’t say anything, shy as I was. Things are set now, this is how I want it to be: I don’t particularly want to suddenly start being all over them- that’s not what I want. That’s why I didn’t want this to be a goal for therapy. We did talk about one goal; I can’t *actually* remember what it was. I think something about placement. I need to write stuff down earlier; the first half of this post was written directly after the session, this is now 10 hours later and I’ve forgotten.
I’ve been given some Cognitive Analytical Therapy sheets to read; diagrams that may be useful etc, bit of light bedtime reading!
I’m still here. I’ve not had time to write, and now I don’t know what to write. I wrote some things down, some things that I could just type up and be done with, but instead I’m going to try and use my brain. So, it might be a while before anything interesting comes out. Where do I even begin? With my landslide exams, my extreme laziness or what? Although strictly speaking, the exam fail comes under laziness. People have begun asking me if they should bother working with me, if I’m like this. It hurts. Yet it’s true. I finished an essay at 7.30 am, when I had an exam at 9am and did no work for it. This is the kind of person I’m becoming. People are wtfing, my reputation has been destroyed. At least there’ll be a reason for doing badly this time, but it’s still no excuse. Bad time management, handing in late and not caring at all, it doesn’t bode well. I keep napping, then getting offers to go out, then sleep in; it’s a vicious circle that hopefully tomorrow as term starts will be broken. I’m really embarrassed. I am constantly requiring kicks up the bum to get things done, leaving things until the last minute, just not actually caring one bit what happens. My brain is running in slow- mo, I’m reading a book and the words pass by so slowly, yet if I go any faster, I don’t remember what’s happened. I’m just running on reserve power, perhaps I could say. Only do necessary things. Maybe it’s the fact that I had no holiday, I’ve just kept on going… and even with all that, with the best will in the world, it didn’t happen, the work got done badly, but on time. Then the lecturers will find out who wrote this, and… I get to tarnish my name further. I want to write on it, to make excuses, that this isn’t my best work. But, it’s always the case, I’m always mediocre, and maybe it’s me, not anything wrong with me. That’s why I refused to let the doctor write me a note. I should be past this stage; last year I was ill Ill, but I did the work. This year… I’m not and I’m not doing the work, logic fail? I’m kinda past trying to prove anything, past effort, too jaded to care. I did okay last year, considering. This year I’ll do worse, and for no reason at all.
But, if like my doctor (who I will never be seeing again) says, that God loves me, then I’ll be fine. Everything will miraculously be solved, will it not? It was an interesting trip to the doctor’s I never wish to repeat again. There are some times you want to take your prescription and run, but she made me sit through a lonnngggg consultation with her, asking questions, her talking about her personal experiences (which although meant to be helpful really annoyed me. I do not wish to know, I’m afraid to say. Then the prize card: God loves you… I controlled my anger well, you’ll be pleased to know. I’m used to my elongated string: 2 months prescription and come in if you need to… like my old lovely doctor who disappeared into the ether; she wanted to only give me a month’s prescription so I’d come back and see her, I begged for two, as moneywise it’s better that way… I got the good old HC1 form lecture, which, to my continual embarrassment, it seems I’m too rich for… So I blagged it from her, said I’d go back in a month, and if I do… I will not be seeing her. WILL NOT for definite. I need a new doctor, and I don’t know who it’ll be… They haven’t updated their website with the new ones, providing they get some new doctors so I’d have to make a decision over the phone… I doubt I can ring up and say ‘Hi, I don’t want to see this doctor, but can I see a nice one please?’ All I want, in reality, is my old doctor back. We were like a jigsaw: we understood each other and fitted together, unlike all the other ones who didn’t fit together at all. I would stress, but there’s no point. I have 2 months’ worth of citalopram in my drawer, so there is no problem at all. And maybe by then it won’t matter, as I want to come off soon. Indeed threatening all this is not good, but over preparation for next year ftw- if only 2 months worth can be prescribed, and I’m out of the country, well hopefully you see my problem!
I keep rambling. I have work to do. Epic procrastination? I think so… On the other hand I now know what I want to do after my degree (see the optimism?!) Psychology conversion course…
At least I think it’s Irony…
So, having been contemplating dropping out of uni, it seems that it comes round to the whole perfection thing: My psychologist showed me a flow chart on Monday and the flow chart could go two ways: give up or try hard to reach something unrealistic. So basically, because I’m not achieving perfection, I want to give up. Better not conform and fall into perfectionism’s grasp then, and instead keep flogging this horse. There’s so much in my head. Part of me wants to give up… part of me doesn’t… and the rest is worrying about what others think, maybe I should make an informed decision off my grades when I get them back. I don’t want to be a statistic, I don’t want to give up… but I’m not sure I belong here. I fit in with my peers, but I’m not sure my mindset is right. Maybe I should leave it a few years, until I know what I want to do, maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should stop saying maybe!
It’s my last exam tomorrow, and up until about an hour ago, I wasn’t worried, enough to pass et al… But then I realised that I actually have a chance with this exam, to do better than pass… But out of the 5 days to prepare I’ve had, I’ve used like 2. Not good. So now I’m lying here wanting to do well and being all nervous (but strangely not berating myself for not having worked harder either… Progress?) but knowing I need to sleep now to be able to get up in the morning… I finally have the fear, something that I had during the holidays but not last week when I needed it… So what will happen? Questions may be possible to predict, so I know what I’d say but… I now have motivation and no time, a will too late…
So tonight, I cried for the first time in over a year. Does this mean I’m getting better, and my physical faculties (tear ducts) have been reinstated; or was I just so upset they all made a break for it? As a present, my head is now splitting the atom (why does your head always hurt after crying?!) so I am going to try and get some of that non- existent stuff- sleep. I will be bringing this up with the doctor on wednesday, no fear!
I have cried for the first time in over a year. Wallander has made me think. And I miss my grandad. Terribly much so. Why does this happen? I don’t even know what to do. I miss him. It shouldn’t have been a time to say goodbye. He was still active, right until the end. Until the cancer claimed him. He was just brilliant. I miss him, I really do. I want to see him, I want to go round. But the house is sold, the new owner moved in about 6 months ago. I love him, I want to see him, I don’t know what else I can say.
I don’t see, or appreciate my family enough. And I don’t want anyone else to have this happen to them. It always happens when you don’t see someone enough. Pattern? Grandma mid term, 6 weeks after xmas, other grandma end of september, hadn’t seen her in a while, grandad not seen for a while and I knew he was ill. I saw him in hospital about 2 weeks before he died. And then, he was gone. And he still is. And, And, And. His legacy? The telephone stand that’s mine stored in the loft until I get a place of my own (it’s lovely), his printer, the camera I got for my 18th that I never got to thank him for, he died later that day, and now, now I’ve used some of my inheritance from him to buy another. And I want to show him, for him to see it, for his eyes to light up because it’s technological. I want for it to be summer, to go and visit him and us all to watch cricket on his sky box. But it’s all too late. It’s gone. Blew away a year and 7 months ago and hardly ever spoken of. I cried like this at his funeral, too. And now I am again. Because I miss him. I miss him a lot.
This post is getting really repetitive, I’m sorry.
