“Where are the blog posts!?” Cleo exclaimed in the middle of our coffee date today and I honestly didn’t have an answer for her then. Cleo is my bad ass friend who has been very supportive of me and my blog since the beginning. Since moving to a different state she has been an avid reader and has confirmed what I had suspected about my writing, that it’s great material for reading while you’re taking a shit. This doesn’t offend me, I do my best reading while I’m on the toilet and often write then too. I don’t care where you read my stuff, if you read it that’s incredible also, I’m glad I could be a part of such a fundamental human experience...too much? It was intentional.
Anyway, back to her question, I’ve been “busy” and when I say “busy” I mean I have a lot of stuff to do, yes, but also it means I’m avoiding my emotions because right now they are too much. Schools starting which is great but, I’m adjusting to the new normal. The community college squad that made my experience last semester so tolerable are gone living their lives either via transfer or graduation. Captain being the furthest away (literally across the country) and Doug is the closest but, also the busiest. And my home friends have all returned to their respective college campuses to take on their senior year. It gets a bit lonely if I’m being real and that change of having more alone time has made it so their not a lot of escape if I do think too much about how I’m feeling. This has resulted in me avoiding, therefore no introspection, therefore no blog posts. But, thanks to Cleo I’ve recognized it.
Coffee with her today was such a breath of fresh air. I get concerned over long periods of time not seeing someone if it’ll be weird but, it wasn’t at all. I’ve also been so weepy (meds I think) so I’ll just randomly start tearing up even when I’m not that sad! It makes me look like a mess and I feel bad for Cleo’s boyfriend, who we will call Jason, because he had to listen to all the “t” of my life but, also probably thought I was insane because I would almost cry 70 times during this interaction. Let me just take this moment to say that he handled my crazy well and I respect him for sitting there and listening to my bullshit. Great dude...SFL approval.
The weepiness has been one of the things that I’ve been juggling, another has been my horrible sleeping pattern. I’m scheduled to have a sleep study appointment soon but, right now I’m struggling. The longer I sleep the less rested I feel and on top of it I think I’ve been having nightmares still and I think they’ve only gotten worse since I quite my job although I was hoping for the opposite. I’m afraid to sleep anywhere but my bed and room and last night went to visit my friends (Olive and Amanda) at their college but drove home at 3:30am because I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep there. I then overslept here but, no nightmares so that’s good. Need this study pronto.
The next piece is the ridiculousness behind my Partial experience. If you read episode 41 you know that the mental health professionals at the lovely institution that is Partial thought that I had a personality disorder. They told me during a meeting though, that it would be taken off my record because they had since talked to my therapist and saw her perspective on my OCD diagnosis. You will also remember that my real issue with the entire situation is not the diagnosis itself, but instead that she tried to put it in my chart WITHOUT TELLING ME. So, you won’t be surprised that my reaction was not pleasant when I found out they had LIED TO ME about taking it out of my chart. Again, if you think I have a personality disorder that’s ok but, stand by your diagnosis. Don’t say you’re going to take it out of my chart! I wouldn’t have even known it was in there if Jazz hadn’t told me! And not only was it still present under my diagnoses but had additional notes. I’m going to paraphrase but, basically it said this:
MIXED PERSONALITY DISORDER
(Rule out Borderline Personality Disorder)
Symptoms:
- Is Grandiose in thinking
- Bases thoughts and feelings too heavily on others opinions
- Underestimates ones own level of attractiveness and intelligence
- Lacks interest and acknowledgement for others thoughts and feelings
These weren’t the only ones but these were the most drastic. The middle two could maybe be true and are related to low self esteem but the other two are WILD.
Grandiose is defined as an unrealistic sense of superiority, a sustained view of oneself as better than others that causes the narcissist to view others with disdain or as inferior, as well as to a sense of uniqueness. You will notice that directly contradicts number three and that’s because this diagnosis is BULLSHIT. But, I literally don’t think I’m better than anyone so this one is so ridiculous.
And then number 4 OH MY GOD. Jazz was literally like “you care too much that’s what we are trying to work on!” We were HEATED over this shit.
So, I called this patient satisfaction committee of the psychiatric section of the hospital. I told them what happened (the lying by omission and then the blatant lying) and they gave me the number of the coordinator of Partial. I called her explained what happened and why I thought it was wrong and she was receptive but, I’ll never know if anything ever changes. I explained that having that on my record but me not knowing about it (regardless if it’s true or not) could directly hinder my care. IMAGINE if I didn’t have Jazz anymore and had to go to a new therapist and they treated me like they would treat a patient with borderline but, I didn’t know! It could be very different than what I need out of therapy. She seemed to get that but, again my overall experience at Partial was good so who knows if anything will change.
I’ve also been trying to work out and eat better...it’s going sub par. I know that I should lose the weight for my self and my health but, I can’t help thinking that I might be doing it to appear more attractive and to make my family happy. I’m not sure I’ve explained in the past but, my relationship with my weight has been a very difficult one. One that has resulted in me absolutely hating myself. I had neighbors that used to say shit about my eating habits and my own family. I eat like shit, but also my metabolism is fucked because I’ve been on psychotropic drugs since I was in sixth grade. We don’t even know what a healthy achievable weight is for my body and that’s what makes it difficult. I already know that they way I am is unattractive and that I will always be the third wheel/sidekick. As hard as it is for me, whenever I attempt to venture out of that role, I get hurt so why would I attempt it. Having this weight has been an excuse for too long so I’m trying to lose it, it’s going ok but it’s hard because I still am sad that I’m doing it for the wrong reasons.
Last week Jazz and I created new therapy goals and I think they would be a good way to end this post. They are in no specific order:
1 - Increase Distress Tolerance
- Utilize up to three skills in the moment
- Work on labeling and purposefully using skills in the moment
- Examples of Skills: Opposite Action, Thought Replacement, and Distraction
2 - Increase Self-Care/Well-being
- Exercising three times per week
- Get at least 8 hours a night of sleep
- Make a daily commitment to be more mindful about food
3 - Process black/white thinking and labeling
- Accept presence of thoughts
- Don’t buy into thoughts, recognize “con man”
- Create a thought log
This is just to prove to you that I’m still working on myself I guess. Goals are very important motivation tactics and I think they serve a great purpose in our everyday life by giving us purpose. I’ve been in therapy for so long and still struggle. It’s not an overnight process I’m living proof of that shit. I’m not great but I’m okay and just because I’m better than I was does not mean this is my baseline. I still have a way to go.
Sincerely,
Your Strong Female Lead
P.S. I feel weird about this post. It does not feel complete and I don’t know why. It doesn’t feel interesting and I don’t know why. Just thought I would express that and opposite action is telling me to post it anyway so here we go but, if you see something weird in the post let me know because I cannot put my finger on it. I guess this is just where I’m at...
