The Pain of Anger

It's been said that depression is anger turned inward. And it's been argued that this isn't true. I think that in some cases those who are depressed are repressing a ton of anger meant for other people. Sometimes that anger comes out by going in. That is, they turn unbearable negative feelings on themselves. We see things like self-harm, which is a physically obvious manifestation of all this.

Recently, in my own life, I've been accepting some anger that I have. Mostly it is a long-repressed anger. There's this really great book called, "The Drama of the Gifted Child," by Alice Miller. This brilliant psychologist and champion of children's rights describes the process whereby sensitive children pick up on their parents' wishes for them and make them paramount even when it means stiffling their true selves. ESPECIALLY when it means stiffling their true selves. You see, a child is utterly dependent on their parent figure(s) for their survival. Not just their bottom of the pile Malovian needs, but their emotional survival as well. If the parents aren't ok (whatever ok means) then the child will not be taken care of. They will cease to exist. It's what classic psychodynamicists refer to as "fear of anihilation." I won't take too much time to explain how we all develop defence mechanisms, that's been written about extensively and you can find the info easily... but I will just put it out there that we've all got them. For some of us, we repress guilt. Others, it's anger.

Me, it's anger.

I've known intellectually that it's anger for a long time. But there is a huge difference between acknowledging your anger and expressing it. I have to admit, I know exactly who I am mad at and for what. But I've got no idea what an appropriate or healthy expression of my anger would be. I know I don't want it to be my heart stopping suddenly anytime in the next 6 minutes to 60 years...

My Mother-in-Law died a couple of days ago. We've been waiting for her death for a few months now so the grieving has been this slow, uphill process. It's also come at the same time that my own parents have been descending into poor health and addiction. The contrast between my parents and my husband's parents is astonishing. Mr. and Mrs. Husband never fell out of love, laughed often, supported each other, and had a great push and pull between his highjinks and her helmmastering. Mr. and Mrs. Psyche's-Family-of-Origin never were in love to begin with, fought often, undermined each other, and at times escalated push and pull to yell and hit. When we got married, we thought our mothers would hate each other. His mom is a tiny, health-conscious, high self esteem, competent reader. My mom is an obese, judgemental, low self-esteem, meddler. Now I know I'm biased, I spent the first 19 years of my life repressing a ton of anger towards her. But when I sit here now, grieving the death of my MIL, I realize that I wouldn't be this sad if my own mother had died. The unfairness of it all is striking. My mother has never taken care of her body or soul whereas Mrs. Husband has always been the picture of moderation. His mom always saw the glass as half full. Mine always sees it as more than half empty, with spots on from the dishwasher, and never mind because it's Coke and you know I like Pepsi, so thanks a lot Christmas is ruined because you bought the wrong pop. Anyway, we were very surprised to find out two years into our marriage that they'd been having coffee once a week since we announced the engagement.

Why did she have to die when she brought so much joy, kindness, hope, and care to every single person whose life she ever touched? And my mom, who has been miserable, martyring, fear-monger of an emotional abuser gets to live? To my mom, life is suffering and misery and she's only digger her hole of problems bigger every time she pulls the slot-machine arm. To his mom, life was a delight, and the future filled with the assurance of more happiness to come.

With every "why" the anger boils a little higher. And I'm afaid that it will overflow. Again, I've never seemed to find the way to release my anger so that I actually feel better, not without destroying something (I broke a plate once or twice and you all know about the eating disorder). I am afraid that when I have to talk to my mother at the funeral that I might snap and lose it on her. That I might deliver a verbose flurry followed by a flurry of knuckles in no way suitable for a funeral home environment. That I will be embarassed by how my own issues of anger would overshadow the grief of my own husband, who is much closer to this loss, and that THAT will put a wedge between us.

I don't actually want any harm to come to her. I just want her to go away. I want all the memories to go away. I want to be allowed to find solace in my chosen famlily and not be haunted by all the abuse. I also want desperately not to fall back into my childhood pattern of reaction-formation. I can survive now without my parents being okay. Even though no one in my own family will understand it. I want out and I want this anger to fade.

I am very sad that I won't get to continue this relationship. My MIL and I adored each other. I hinted at, but never told her expressly about what I went though with my own mom, but I think she could tell. I wonder if her friendship with my mom was partly to try to understand this. She was always far to respectful to ever pry. But there are so many things I wish I could have shared with her. She made me feel loved and understood. She accepted me the way I am. Never tried to change me.

With her, I always felt "good enough." God, I felt so much more than that. I felt like a gift. I hope she felt the same way. I suspect that she did.

Thank you my wonderful Mother-in-Law, for giving me a second chance at the mother-daughter relationship. I'm glad to have been your only "closest thing to a daughter." I will miss you and remember you, and keep you with us always. And I'll take care of your little boy, I promise.

Love Psyche.

Waiting For The Ten Count

So my thesis is defended and I've made and submitted my revisions to my Dr. Supervisor. And now I'm in this metaphorical game of Perfection -- trying furiously to get all my odd-shaped pegs into their odd-shapped holes before the timer goes off and throws said odd-shaped pegs allover my dust and cat crap filled appartment. It's a world of never-ending deadlines. I have no problem meeting deadlines, but unfortunately, nothing short of a difibulator up the asshole will get Dr. Supervisor to sign off on something more than 5 seconds before it is due. This little habit of theirs causes me to experience heart palpitations, sweating palms, expressive aphasia, and dizziness. So much so that I'm either in love with them or desperately want to go all Ali on their ass.

It's like the defence was punching my thesis in the face and laying it out flat (Psyche! Boom-bai-ay!) -- but I'm waiting for the pasty-white ref to slap the floor of the ring ten times to see if it will stay down or get up for one last swing at my sense of autonomy and control.

I don't really like thinking of my academic life in terms of aggressive and violent metaphors. My second reader and chair of my defence committee suggested that "defence" is too militaristic and that the word should be replaced with "coronation." But what would I be queen of? No matter what, my royal advisor would always continue to undermine me at every turn. Refusing to write a reference letter until 3 minutes before it is due it like to refusing to sign a peace treaty until the enemy has it's troops all lined up with every gun and canon and a-bomb pointed directly at my heart. At best, I'm in a constant state of anxiety. At worst, my internal organs will be vapourized and replaced by a mushroom cloud.

So thesis, STAY DOWN! Because I just KNOW that Dr. Supervisor will have some purely subjective style changes for you and let you know about them with only an hour to get everything printed and bound at Kinkos and then driven over to the University. And then the gloves will be off.

Only they won't. Because unlike every single boxer that has ever entered a ring, Dr. Supervisor expects that no one will ever throw a punch. Start putting bail money aside now, Dear Reader...

DEFENDED

3 minor revisions. It will probably take less than an hour.

Over and out.

The Wa-a-aiting Is The Hardest Part

OMG. Defending in less than two days. Mock oral went well according to those who were there, however, I do not feel great about it. It was so bloody AVERAGE. Sigh. I just want it to be over with! I want to be DEFENDED DONE.

It's such a military term, isn't it? And all of the horror stories I've heard from others mixed with the tales of underwhelming-ness just combine to make me terrified and bored at the same time. How is that even possible?

Well it just is.

I'd better become more coherent if I'm going to pull this off.

Plan for countdown:

Right now - wait for sleep and sleep hard
Wake up late - get up when I feel like it
Lounge about the computer, reviewing presenation and practicing answers to anticipated questions
Personal training session in late afternoon
Epsom salt bath
Wine and early to bed (emergency sleeping pill available if needed)
Get up early, eat healthy breakfast, try not to vomit
Ride to school with Dr. Supervisor
Bribe committee members with homemade lemon butter cookies
Defend
Lunch with Dr. Supervisor
Faint
Accept scotch from loving supporters

(Contact Mr. Husband for deets on the after "party" -- more of a brief therapy session with booze.)

Over.

Let All Who Are To Mirth Inclined

I am very sad.

It's strange because, as a budding psychologist, I spend a lot of my time combatting sad, battling depression and dysthymia in World War Angst. It occurs to me that in our society, we are not just dealing with increased incidence (reported incidence) of depression and other mood disorders, but we are also incredibly intolerant of normal sadness. The pursuit of happiness is part of the American dream... and so often assumed to be part of it's quiet upstairs neighbour's dream as well. So much so, that when life's little foibles conspire to make us understandably, naturally, and normally sad, we tend to pathologize it.

Currently, I am intensely and absolutely sad. But it's okay. A dear loved one is slowly being eaten by cancer, our family is shaken, and we are struggling to make sure that those with special needs who are left behind are properly taken care of. Our car recently gave up the ghost and has left us with a hefty repair bill, not to mention left me lugging 40+lbs of psychological tests around with me on the bus every day. We've recently discovered that another dear (yet immensely more problematic) family member has a gambling addiction and that their partner is either moderately cognitively impaired or entirely codependent. A thesis defence date has finally been set and I have a veritable butt-wad of assignments coming due. Oh, and I've started taking on my own cases (including feedbacks) at my practicum site. A whole helly heck of lotta responsididdlyibility all at once. And a whole lotta sad...

But, uh, pretty damned reasonable sadness, wouldn't you think? I do. And I think I'm pretty damned lucky to have the support of compassionate, understanding friends. I'm lucky because I can sense the intense discomfort of some people who ask me how I'm doing and to whom I tell the truth. It's not just the surprise of hearing something other than the pattented "I'm fine. How are you?" It's the shock of having someone tell you plainly, "I'm intensely sad and here's why." It's also the disbelief that despite being this sad, that I'm okay. That I am okay with being sad right now because given my current (and temporary) life circumstances that I am comfortable with being sad. I am supposed to be. And I don't want to rush into some medical or illicit treatment to numb myself from this necessary emotion.

I've been asked if I need to take time off. (And I might when my MIL's death is imminent or I'm grieving.) I've been offered medication from a doctor and drugs from an acquaintance. I've been told that it's okay if I decide to verbally abuse someone (as if I needed to take out my frustration on an undeserving stranger), and it's been suggested that I could increase my drinking and no one would give it a second thought. While I truly appreciate the definite fact that these people were all entirely well meaning... Their hearts were all in the right the place, but unfortunately their heads were firmly lodged directly up their bottoms. While I might in one of my weaker moments engage in an unhealthy coping mechanism, I'm not seeking permission from anyone to do so. What strikes me is that these people seemed to be minorly panicking to say something meaningful to me... to be helpful... to get me UNsad. They weren't trying to be anything other than helpful, but they were also trying to make themselves feel better. To protect themselves from "catching" my sad.

I understand. I get it. I am a therapist after all. And meloncholy apparently enjoys company. I get that people want to protect themselves from sadness. But, it's okay... ya know... to be sad when something sad is going on.

So yeah. I'm sad. And it's okay. I'm going to be okay. It's going to take a while, and some of my relationships with certain family members are going to take some time and pain to change to be more healthy. But it's going to happen. It IS happening. In the meantime, I'm going to be sad. I will allow the beautiful small moments of happy to also come through.

:)

Sittin' On The Dock Of The Warf

In Charlottetown today, having just done a Bullying Awareness Week rally at a small school on the island. I have to tell you, I do NOT miss having to deal with industry types. Wow do these people love the sound of their own voices...

Pretty good rally, I guess. It was well-received even if the industry people didn't quite grok that excited for an island child is a lot more subdued than the caffinated-ADHD-child-on-ecstacy that is the norm in larger city centres. Still, it seems like a bit of a waste to spend almost a thousand clams to send me out here to do about 8 minutes of work.

Oh, and get this...

PR lady tells me that they can't drop me off back at the hotel becuase their schedule is too tight, so I need to bring all my bags with me and they'll drop me "somewhere" downtown. Okay, fine, I'm pretty easy to work with and low-maintenance. Besides, I have about 5 hours to kill before my flight home so I figure I'll walk around until my bag gets too heavy then find a local pub and eventually call a cab when I need to leave. What do they ACTUALLY do? They drop me back at the hotel (thanks, I could have checked out now instead of at 6am) so that they can all go out for lunch together. Yes, they all go out for lunch together knowing full-well that I have nothing to do for the next 5 hours. Thanks for your hospitality, incompetent douchewad. You really made me feel like a valued member of your little team.

To be honest, I would have declined. I had to listen to these people try to out-name-drop each other for almost an hour in the car on the way back. I don't think I could have done lunch. Besides, if one more of them took a dig at humble little PEI, I was going to shove codfish up their noses and cram their arses with blue potatoes.

So, what did I learn? Not much, honestly, allthough it was nice to speak in front of a school again, and to finesse my ability to talk anti-bullying research without any notes. It's not like the reporter from The Guardian was a difficult interviewer, but you know... it's just nice to do that kind of work again. I also got to rack up a BUNCH of billable hours, so that was nice too.

I've got a couple more hours still before takeoff and I'm full of microbrew... so I think I'll take one last wander, maybe get some COWS brand icecream... and then back home. Thank you, humble and charming isle, for reminding me to slow down. There is no need to rush. Well, unless you've got an arse full of blue potatoes.

Can Anyone Tell Me Where This Is From? (I'd Like to Reference Properly!)

A dear friend of mine sent me this. Ah...

One sunny day a rabbit came out of her hole in the ground to enjoy the fine weather. The day was so nice that she became careless and a fox sneaked up behind her and caught her. "I am going to eat you for lunch!", said the fox."Wait!", replied the rabbit, "You should at least wait a few days.""Oh yeah? Why should I wait?""Well, I am just finishing my thesis on 'The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'""Are you crazy? I should eat you right now! Everybody knows that a fox will always win over a rabbit.""Not really, not according to my research. If you like, you can come into my hole and read it for yourself. If you are not convinced, you can go ahead and have me for lunch.""You really are crazy!" But since the fox was curious and had nothing to lose, it went with the rabbit. The fox never came out.

A few days later the rabbit was again taking a break from writing and sure enough, a wolf came out of the bushes and was ready to set upon her."Wait!" yelled the rabbit, "you can't eat me right now.""And why might that be, my furry appetizer?""I am almost finished writing my thesis on 'The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'"The wolf laughed so hard that it almost lost its grip on the rabbit. "Maybe I shouldn't eat you. You really are sick...in the head. You might have something contagious.""Come and read it for yourself. You can eat me afterward if you disagree with my conclusions."So the wolf went down into the rabbit's hole...and never came out.

The rabbit finished her thesis and was out celebrating in the local lettuce patch. Another rabbit came along and asked, "What's up? You seem very happy.""Yup, I just finished my thesis.""Congratulations. What's it about?""'The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'""Are you sure? That doesn't sound right.""Oh yes. Come and read it for yourself."So together they went down into the rabbit's hole. As they entered, the friend saw the typical graduate student abode, albeit a rather messy one after writing a thesis. The computer with the controversial work was in one corner. To the right there was a pile of fox bones, to the left a pile of wolf bones. And in the middle was a large, well fed lion.

The moral of the story: The title of your thesis doesn't matter.The subject doesn't matter.The research doesn't matter.All that matters is who your advisor is.

I Went Galumphing Back

The largest tax on one in graduate school appears to be of one's time. I've been cultivating the habit of saying "no" this semester, and yet, I find myself back in some old yea-saying habits. My time is lacking. I don't have time to turn around. In fact, this morning I slept past my alarm and missed the first half of my class on adult psychodiagnostic issues... BECAUSE I was up until 1am working on a scholarship application (that I won't get) that is due today. I should have said no to the application. But I didn't. I went, reluctantly galumphing back to my old habits of applying for whatever I'm told to and taking on more work than will pay off.

Why am I such an idiot, you may ask?

Well, it's a bit like an addiction. Like a roulette game, the more numbers you play, the more likely you are, statistically speaking, to actually win anything. In the end, when you tally up your hours, it was hardly worth your time... but there you are with all the other slithy toves. I gyre and gimble in the wabe of hope that something will pay off with sustaining moohlah.

And mostly it is the sustinence funding that drives me. Opportunities to get a chunk of cash, for what at first appears to be "no work" is utterly tempting. Who are you to resist it, angh? But then, when you figure that each application takes about 35-40 hours including writing, editing, fact checking, lit reviews, and most of all tracking down your bloodly references who don't bother to submit anything until the last bloomin' second... and let's say you do 5 of these stupid things... Well, you start to realize that $15,000 from the provinicial government was what you earned at $75/hour. Now don't get me wrong, $75/hourX200hours is pretty awesome. But not if all of those 200 hours are worked in a single 3 week period. And you're also working your part time job of being a graduate student!

Am I whinging? If you've never stepped through the brillig doors of higher academia, you'll likely think so. The fact is that I do all that work without ANY guarantee of getting a dime. That's the roullette part.

There is also a tulgey wood of grad student subservience that I whiffle through to the best of my ability. Sometimes your supervisor, or one of the many glorified administrative assistants of your supervisor, will "ask" you do something that you get a kind of frumious feeling about. Something tells you that although this request was posed in the form of a question, that there is no room for saying "no." You have to do it, no matter how time consuming or bizzare the request. I mean, unless you have two family members who have recently suffered strokes and have cancer of varying degrees of severity AND are suddenly thown into taking over your parents' finances (bingo!) you canNOT say "no."

So why didn't I?

Ungh... why the fucking hell hell hellish hell didn't I say no? I owe backtaxes to Father Time and I still went galumphing back to my "Sure I'll Do That Thing Everyone Else Is Too Smart To Do." So I'm getting up at 5am on Friday to drive many many miles to a school rally for Bullying Awareness Week on Friday, THEN cancelling my nice, easy PAID shift at The Org on Sunday so that I can fly to our nation's most quaint island province for another rally on Monday morning.

For the love of DOG, what the hell is the matter with me?

I do have hypotheses other than I'm just an idiot.

1. I need to get away. Even if it is for work, things are just way too stressful and serious on the home front and physically getting away will give me some much-needed psychological distance from my problems.

2. I want some alone time and the best way to get it is in transit.

3. Doing public speaking events taps into an area of brain that has been starved for oxegen since my theatre MA.

4. It gives me something else to think about in a crisis mode other than cancer and money.

5. I'm punishing myself for not being something-enough. Smart enough to win internationally acclaimed scholarships. Thin enough to fit in with the "girls" in my program. On top of it enough to have prevented the financial downfall of my parents. Medical enough to manage their care and prevent them from getting life-threatening diseases.

Breaking free and saying "no" requires constant reevaluation and reaffirmation that you are doing the right thing by leaving your yes-man life behind. It means valuing your own measures of whether or not your life is successful more than other people's, even if those people are instrumental in your day-to-day life or upbringing. Like gambling, it is a monkey that is very difficult to get off of one's back.

C'mon red 75.

So I'll take my vorpal blade in hand... and hopefully something other than me will go snicker-snack.

In Reference To References

I forget to mention something. When the faculty asked to rework the scholarship application, I had to get my references to rewrite their letters. They both agreed and I gave them the changes and the timeline. I also got the head of the department to contact them to impress upon them the importance of this being done in a timely manner. You see, they have to upload the letters to a website, and only then can I go in and validate the application and make sure the page numbers are correct.

Did I mention all of this has to be done by 8am tomorrow? Oh, and that I'm basically managing a giant TON of family illness stress and looking after my husband and FIL as they await news of their mother/wife's possibly untimely mortality?

Yeah, I've been up a lot lately, worrying and trying not to worry so much, and I WANT TO GO TO BED. So hurry the fuck up, Dr. Reference#2! I'm waiting on you to do your letter so I can go crash and mentally prepare for what might be an incredibly difficult day tomorrow. You've had a week to freaking do this... why must I white-knuckle to the very end? I do not trust myself to wake up on time, nor the application website to function tomorrow morning, so make with the positive yak yak and let's go for fuck's sake, shall we?

"I'm Loosing My Perspicacity!!!"

As you all know, I am Lisa Simpson, and she uttered this line in one of my favourite episodes ever - when the teacher's went on strike and she became anxious, withdrawn, and depressed as a result.

Well, don't worry, there is no strike (not until next year, at least). But I do feel as though I am losing my keeness of mental perception and understanding, as well as my ability to dredge up more than a single synonym for any one word required on a scholarship application. The good news is that I have been contacted by my faculty of graduate studies because they want to forward on my application to a very prestigious (and financially grand) scholarship. I made it to the final round of this application process last year and was disappointed when I didn't win it. So I am extremely grateful to know that the department and the university support my application. They asked me to tweak some of my submission, however, and requested my references rewrite their letters to focus more on my specific leadership experiences and abilities.

Honestly, I can only think of so many ways to say that I led something or someone. I've used words like created, spearheaded, inspired, facilitated, liaised, managed, supported, presidential, chairperson, guided... I'm out of words. I really don't know how much more I can hammer home the leadership thing. I'm careful of not revealing my Clark-Kent online, otherwise I would tell you all in great detail what my leadership acheivements are... but those of you who know me know them anyway, and I can say this: They kick the ass of the two other people I know who have one this thing...

I WANT it.

Oh, but lordy, I know better than to get my hopes up. These things don't work by the normal rules of deserving. You don't "win" a scholarship any more than you "win" the lottery. Winning implies some sort of competition in which there are sane and reasonable rules that all parties invovled are aware of. No, with scholarships, your A averege gets you to the evaluation committe. After that, it just depends on whether someone evaluating your application happens to like your area of reserach, your supervisor, or the way your name looks in 12 pt arial font. The process takes 9 months, but it's just that random.

So wish me luck, I guess.

In other news... trying to finish your annual scholarship applications before the deadlines is difficult for anyone in full time studies. Doing it the same week your supervisor gives you a hard deadline for your thesis is upping the ante. Having all that going on at the same time you are dealing with your own ailing parents making the biggest financial mistake of their lives AND your MIL having a stroke is another thing all together.

Awesome MIL has been in the hospital for 6 days. She been sick with what I can only describe as a wasting disease all summer. She's a tiny lady to begin with and now almost 20 lbs lighter than she ever should be. She fell in the tub and hit her head and instead of waking up her husband who was sleeping in the bedroom, she called MY MOM! Yup, Mummer was dispatched to Awesome MIL's house and (in a rare moment of her catastrophizing being correct) suspected she had suffered stroke and took her to he hospital. Husband and I have been at MIL's, helping FIL keep his shit together all week. And hey, we are happy to do it. We LOVE and ADORE MandFIL. Seriously. LOVE them. But I have to admit, the timing is a little crazy. In the past 4 days I have done two scholarship applications and wrote my entire results and discussion sections. Which brings me to my next and final piece of news:

The thesis draft is finished. It has been sent off through cyberspace to Dr. Supervisor (who is sympathetic to the family stress but can't do anything about my timelines). They get one more edit, then it is off to second reader, outer-university committee member, then we defend and DONE. I only hope that I (and by I, I mean Dr. Supervisor) didn't miss the departmental deadlines for me to have my draft in to the university for me to graduate and actually keep my scholarship. I just found out that drafts have to be in by Oct. 29th or somesuch, and that each of my readers is allowed to take up to 4 weeks with it first. So yeah, that's not going to happen clearly. Tomorrow I will make a panicked phone call to the department to figure out what the dilly-o, but until then... family worry + thesis worry + hard unfamiliar bed = another sleepless night.

We're supposed to get a formal diagnosis for MIL tomorrow. If you believe in gawd, please pray. If you don't, well, maybe pray anyway... there is a lot of stuff going on right now for which I have enormous concern and very, very little power. Any good vibes are appreciated, acknowledged, recognized, valued, treasured, prized, aprehended and comprehended.

Some People Are Master's Students AND PhD Students: Get Over It

As I sit in the computer lab, attempting to tune out the incessant noise of 2 illegal phone conversations, I'm left to ponder my status. I officially started my PhD on Sept. 1st of this year. I started PhD classes and my first PhD practicum. But I haven't defended my Master's thesis. This leaves me in a kind of graduate purgatory from which I soon hope to escape. But first I have to get through, what is it? seven circles of hell? Or risk becoming the dreaded MA year 3. NO one wants that. Not me, not Dr. Supervisor, not Mr. Husband, nobody.

In order to help me finish this hellish task, I have enlisted the help of minions. I have two, very perky, slightly professional undergraduates working away at my behest to qualitatively code a giant pile of data. They claim to be virtually done, and I will meet with them soon to go over their work and resolve their reliability (statistical) issues. I would be excited about this if I had actually slept more than 3 hours at a time in the past week.

Yeah... apparently sleep isn't something that happens easily in graduate purgatory. This is likely a combination of things all stemming from various forms of stress. New school year. New profs. New responsibilities. New practicum. New schedule. Old anxiety disorder, old family dysfunction, old pillow. Now, the pillow I replaced as soon as I realized it was a problem. But I'm not convinced it is the right size or shape for the bizzare curvature of my poor widdle neck. I went for xrays the other day and discovered, lo and behold! that not only is the space for nerves to flow through C3 rather diminished, but I have also lost pretty much all of the curvature in my cervical spine. (Huh, huh. Cervical.) Doc says it's a problem. Great. He sees a lot of this with Dentists and lifetime academics. So get your computer screen up at eye level, get an erganomic chair, practice good wrist and spine posture. I'll get right on it.

Also contibuting to my nocturnal remission is the anxiety caused by concern over my family. I have a real love-hate relationship with these bastards. But when one of them has two strokes in a row (father), another one tells you that they foolishly drove themselves to financial ruin (mother), and another one has worse anxiety than you do and finally decided to open up to you about it after 35 years of bullying the shit out of you (brother) -- well... you feel conflicted. At this point, I have such an intense mixture of genuine concern and cow-combusting anger that I'm surprised I have not held hostage an innocent passerby, demanding that I be given an airplane and directions to Belize lest I remove piece of them and mail them home to mother.

I suppose the fact that I am shutting down by not sleeping is better than shutting down by sticking my head in the toilet or in a bottle of scotch (OMG, SCOTCH! Why didn't I think of that?)

Do you want to know what is keeping me going right now? It is a beautiful memory I have tatooed on my brain, of an absolutely essential 24 hour getaway I took to visit an old dear friend at the end of the summer. It's just past dusk, there is sand a lake so dark our voices disappear into it as we shout across the water. In the background, rolling hills, deep green with trees pointing upwards at the invading stars. It is water that at first is freezing, then warms one deeper than the skin. The converstation is familiar, heartfelt, and joyful. Hearts are as bouyant as the dock and this time sits on top of them staring out into the night.

While I pull myself out of this hell here, my mind is in heaven there.

I keep asking myself why I am here. I know that there is a reason. I just can't think of it right now.

So it's off to a meditation class tonight, to try to keep me sane. I feel ike I need this thesis OUT OF THE WAY before I can feel refreshed. That's fine. Come minions...

Back To It, Whatever The Hell IT is.

Clearly a lot of time has passed since I last wrote to you. This was due to the fact that I just SHUT DOWN for about 3-4 weeks. I turned off my laptop and cellphone and let what hell come as may.

Hoooooo-Nelly! Did it ever come. And it's name is PhD year 1.

What kind of world do we live in where a scholarship application is due on the first day of class? And what kind of world do we live in where one's supervisor can submit your reference letter to said scholarship application's website 11.5 hours AFTER you asked her to get it in because you knew ahead of time that you wouldn't have time to work on the website's formatting because you were running a mini-conference on that aforementioned first day of school?

I ask you.

I'll tell you what kind of world it is. It's a world wherein all of your classmates and colleagues have annoying up-speak accents or valleygirl-vegan patois. It's a world wherein giggling and saying, "Whoops! I'm so stupid!" when you make a totally idiotic mistake eases your professors' insecurities that you are somehow going to overshadow them. It is a world wherein you have to pay up to $20 a day to park on fucking campus. THAT is what kind of freakin' world it is!

I've been back to school for less than four days and have already clocked one major panic attack (see scholarship application, above). The rock garden has reinstated itself between my shoulder blades, and I'm considering deliberately cultivating alcoholism.

Maybe I just have to get used to the water temperature... because it's not the heat that'll kill you, it's the stupidity.

Would You Think Any Less Of Me

... if I took a full bottle of Bombay Saphire Gin from my supervisor's basement? Because really, I was doing them a favour. They'd had enough...

:)

The Never Ending Pile

So... just got back from a meeting with Dr. Supervisor.

My dream of finishing my thesis draft by this friday and having 2 solid weeks off is fast disappearing. My composite scale does not hang together, so that means I have to throw out some of my analyses and start over seperating out and reporting on all three questions that previously made up the scale. (It's actually very common for scales with less than 10 items to have this problem.) I need to find an undergrad or two to do some reliability coding for me. AND Dr. Supervisor wants me to report all kinds of shit from the qualitative analyses. This means that she wants me to go back and work on the analyses in such a way, let's call it "sensible way #1" which is exactly how she told me not to do it when I set up the database.

"Oh, no, Psyche! I know you've never done qualitative analyses before, but whatever you do, don't organize it in a way that makes sense to you! Take 80 hours to free code everything and THEN end up taking another 40 hours organizing it the way you wanted to afterwards." That is more like the "So un-sensible you must have a pickle soaked tea towel for a brain way #62." Dr. Who said that time is not linear, that is more like a big egg filled with wibbly wobbly "stuff." I wish I could go back in time and leave myself a note to kidnap David Tennant and make him write my thesis for me.



Sigh... I know it is NOT Dr. Supervisor's fault. It is the nature of the beast. And this beast is just a malevolent ontological paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_(Doctor_Who) that has me trapped in a never-ending do-over.

I also had a clinic assessment fall in my lap this week. Normally, I would be thrilled. I'm the only student available, so no working with anyone incompetent, annoying, or competitive. And it is with one of my favorite profs EVAH, Dr. Second Reader. BUT... now that I have all this extra thesis work to do, it's going to be hard to find the time to learn some new tests I have to administer. So, if anyone wants to join me, maybe on Saturday or early Sunday before work, and let me practise administering some memory and executive functioning tests to them over a pint, let me know.

I think I need to just select a two week block of time before classes start in September, block them off in my calendar, and if necessary, pretend I was hit by a truck and am in hospital while I really take a much-needed vacation.

Who wants to hide me at their cottage or beach house?

Uh, Psyche? Who's Flying The Plane?

"Who's flying the plane?" is the phrase we used back in my camp director days when a group of overtired, overworked staff taking a break on the patio would suddenly realize that no one was supervising their dorm groups. It was a terror-blinding moment of realization that Lord of Flies could very well be taking place right there in the middle no-where, and that whatever the wee beasties had got up to, it would be entirely your fault.

And it was usually hilarious. Like the time one of the counsellors rushed into the unsupervised dorm to discover that all his 8-10 year old international (ESL) campers were experimenting with drag and had used some (poisonous) berries to fabricate lipstick. We had the most hilarious trips to the wilderness ER.

But these days, I'm more concerned about who is flying this plane, MY plane, the LIFE plane. Nine years ago, I left performing behind me because I didn't want to be in a career where I was judged for my appearance. I chose psychology because it had always been interesting to me and because I really didn't know what else to do with myself. I figured it was better than just tending bar until I figured it out. If I never figured out what I wanted to do with my life, at least I would have another education. I'd be able to get a job. I'd have accomplished something. I could contribute to society. Yeah, well, I may not be judged for my height, the size of my boobs, or my hair colour -- but boy howdy do those psyc profs ever know how to be judgemental! At the end of each school year, all the profs in the department get together to "discuss" each student's progress. It is supposed to be an academic evaluation, but often it becomes a venue to vent about students and discuss their thinly veiled anxiety about younger students threatening them in some way.

So yeah, Dr. I-love-CBT, choke on my psychodynamic fireball! You don't like me because I am close to your age, don't kiss your ass, and have a backbone. Your issues about "professionalism" are the epitome of projection. Suck on your own defense mechanism and move on with your life.

I now have a rather elaborate Scott Pilgrim-ish fantasy where I must fight 7 evil professors; one for every year of my grad skule experience. Because Psyche is the GREATEST FIGHTER IN THE WORLD!!! Or maybe the fantasy could be a Alan Moore-ish reconceptualization; The League of Extraordinary psychodynamicists! I could team up with... oh forget it. I'm off topic again.

The point is, recently I've begun questioning why-the-fuck-I-am-doing-this. Why am I in a university structure that claims (falsely) to encourage new thinking and challenge minds to debate and explore existing dogma -- when clearly all professors want is to dangle their power over you and make you subscribe to their way of thinking without every questioning it? And why can't I get a decent gewurstraminer anywhere on campus? I'm going to need a lot more gewurstraminer if I'm going to survive this thing!

Right, so the question before me is: WHO is flying this plane? I spend many hours each week working on projects for Dr. Supervisor. I am not in a position to do research that I am actually interested in becuase I have to please Dr. Supervisor and negotiate with The Org and other real-world institutions without their support. I have a very limited selection of courses to choose from that are mostly CBT focused, taught by profs who seem to hate the psychodynamic outlook and who can't come to terms with the fact that CBT was brought into being by (wait for it) psychodynamic theorists (see Ellis, Beck, etc)! You know what, dipshits? (Not you, Dear Reader.) Theories evolve and grow. No one sits around taking piss out of Aristotle or calling Plato a hack, despite their theories being grossly out of date. Yet ignorant, modern psychologists think nothing of calling Freud a sex-obsessed idiot. Why are you all so fucking ANAL? Okay okay... don't get all in a tizzy, Psyche... The point in all of this is just to question your decisions and check in with yourself. Is this really what you want to be doing? Will the ends justify the means? Is it possible to be happy WHILE doing all this? If not, what the heck else do you want to do with your time? Take flying lessons?

Psyche?

Internal Valium

I need one.

I'm taking a short break during my shift at The Org right now becuase I am feeling a bit wrangy. I have a coworker that whistles and sings throughout their entire shift and it is maddening... especially when you consider that I've asked Bflat to please not do this as it is difficult to hear my own counselling conversation and that, well, whistling grates on me like the Devil's own fingers on a chalkboard. I've lost count of the # of times I've asked and just got laughter in return. That's right, Dear Reader, this person is a counsellor for children and youth and enjoys knowing that they are pissing off 50% of their coworkers. I seriously hope that a dog pees on them. Hand to Gawd, I hope this with all my heart.

I liked it better when I worked in the theatre and whistling was considered bad luck by all. I want to just run up to Bflat when they are on a really challenging suicide call and just start screaming into their face (and phone), "MACBETH MACBETH MACFUCKINGBETH!!!" But I doubt that they would get the reference. I wonder what the telephone counselling equivalent is to the Scottish Thane? Are there any great Scottish therapists or theorists? And does my tonally challenged colleague actually have any exposure to theory anyway? Judging by the way they play Tetris and Bedazzled during all of their counselling calls, I somehow doubt their education or dedication to the field.

But I do feel better for getting it out.

The Psychology of Conferencing

Every now and again, my life permits me some undeserved and unexpected joy. On my current trip to the Banff Television Festival (tagging along with someone who is actually attending - whoo! free press hotel room!) I had the pleasure of sharing a scotch with the Canadian correspondent for a famous hollywood-type newspaper. Mr. V is possibly the only person in my three years of hanging around this conference that hasn't made me want to grab them and demand to know how they can stand to live with themselves. Trust me... this is high praise for someone in the entertainment industry.

But Mr. V was much more than tolerable. He was pure delight of discourse -- someone born outside the Matrix of fake boobs, iPhone addictions, and $20 martinis. While most of the industry people my husband has introduced me to can barely sustain eye-contact with me once they realize that I have no power to grant them fame or fortune, Mr. V actually TURNED OFF THE RINGER of his crackberry when I told him that I was studying to become a clinical psychologist. He wanted to know how psych conferences compare to the gaudy showiness of entertainment networking... Here are some interesting comparisons:

1. Mr. V noted that beautiful young people often want to talk to him, and while this makes him feel good, he understand that they want to talk to his magazine, not necessarily to him personally. I have noticed that at conferences, I want to talk to professors/doctors who are "famous" or with whom I share a research interest. They rarely want to talk back. Unless of course I happen to let slip who my graduate supervisor is... then they are all ears.

2. Apparently, there are as many ways of "doing TV" as there are TV professionals. Despite the stench of gin and desperation, there seems to be agreement here that no one really knows what they are doing or why anything really works. Why is Wheel of Fortune a 3-hour long daily show with bellydancers in Turkey? Why do people cry when the get money on Dragon's Den in Japan, but the show never got picked up in the USA? Why, although Paul Gottlieb Nipkow has the first patent on a television-like contraption, can no one agree on who actually invented the darn thing? Despite the fickleness of our eyeballs and money, these conference goers all seem reletively at-ease with the ambivelence that pervades this industry. They make peace with it and still try to make and sell entertainment. However, in psychology, Freud is generally credited with bringing the science into the world, many psychologists hate and despise the man to whom the owe their livelihoods. But much worse, psychology proclaims to be a science, while all the while, scientists cannot agree on what seems like a damn thing. Psychologists proclaim that their research base, their theory, their mode of therapy is the key, the ANSWER... that they KNOW HOW TO DO IT! As a profession, psychologists are very bad at admitting what they don't know. Hmm... the only exception I can think of to this might be the rare breed of psychodynamicist who doesn't have a pickle lodged firmly up their rectum. So far in my short graduate career, I've been told by countless professors that "CBT is the only thing that works for depression," or "people with Borderline Personality Disorder are a hopeless bunch that will never improve and can only be managed," or "anti-depressants should never be given to children under 16." Psychologists proclaim their hypotheses as if they are truths with more conviction than lawyers. The one wonderful exception that I have encountered to this phenomenon lies within Dr. Art Caspary, who told me quite plainly, "If anyone ever tells you that they've got the answer to anything in this business, call horseshit and run out of the room!" TV people seem to know that they don't know anything and freely admit it, while it's questionable how many psychologists either know this or are willing to admit it.

3. TV people tend to be narcissists, psychologists tend to have god-complexes. Both are overrepresented on the addictions front.

After some delightful and witty banter, I eventually got around to posing a question that I always like to ask TV/movie people: Do you know of anyone in this industry who is using their power for good? Honestly, with the exception of Jim Henson bringing on Sesame Street, and a handful of educational/documentary shows, I really can't think of anyone who uses media exclusively to do good in the world. Movies and fashion prey on our insecurities and young people in particular tend to internalize their values in ways that leave them open to psychological and relational problems. Documentary makers take advantage of editing to further their politics and take advantage of people with alzhiemers to make them look like one-dimensional idiots (I'm looking at you, Michael Moore!). Even Sesame Street, the most psychologically researched TV show in history pepper their developmentally sound educational bits with advertisements for the latest diabetes-inducing cereal. After my rant, I think that Mr. V is going to need counselling. He concedes that no, no one is doing anything that is actually GOOD. Well, maybe a few people in Northern Canada or Sweden.

And then he brings out the spinach metaphor. It's true that no one is really doing anything good for us on television. But then why, he remarks, are we watching television in order to get our spinach? Why don't we just go eat some spinach?

Touche.

Mr. V freely admits that he doesn't have children, and that if he did, he would probably have a harder time justifying the monster from which he makes his living. It's remarkable that as a television writer, he actually watches very little of the box himself. "Are you kidding?" he says, "If I watched this stuff, I wouldn't be able to actually talk to the people who make it. And I have to talk to them to do my job!" Perhaps this is the most delightful difference between Mr. V and the Louis Vutton wearing lackies that surround him: he does his job to live, he doesn't live to do this job. He has perspective. And while I cannot shake the feeling that everyone in this industry might as well be working for a tabacco company, and he thinks that William Shatner actually deserves to be famous, we can share a knowing wink and understanding.

Everyone here is crazy but us.

I'd Like To Take A Moment To Tell You All How I Sprained My Thumb

Indeed. Today I proudly wear a thumb splint, a little something I picked up at the behest of the emergency doctor less than 12 hours before heading out on my vacation-that-will-not-die. It is a shiny metal, four-pronged contraption, covered in virgin-white velcro straps. It has bright blue padding on the inside, and nevertheless cuts into my chubby little digit. It is my thumb splint and it prevents me from doing again what I did before.

And what did I do before?

Well, I'd like to preface this by saying that I've been hitting the gym pretty lately, and that despite uping the weights on my flies and incline flies... that thumb stretching has never been my #1 priority warm up. I have recently made a return to competetive thumb wrestling after a prolonged absence to hitch-hike across the country to raise money for thumb research... Oh, and I'm so positively lately, every movie, play, standup show or psychology convention I've been to recently has recieved an overly enthusiastic two thumbs up! My thumbs are exhausted... Really, it's no surprise that what happened happened.

I pulled up my tight jeans too hard.

That's when I heard the snap echo throughout the washroom at the movies, and I felt the pain of someone stab the appendage that seperates me from the animals with a rusty knitting needle. I did scream. (No one came to my aid...) And the knitting needle assailant must have run off because when I looked down the blood from the puncture must have been cleaned up and my thumb was still, miraculously, attached.

Now, I've never given birth to a human child who was 4 months overdue. But I imagine that what I felt is exactly like having a 30lb screaming infant pass through a small hole that someone has dug out of one's thumb with a small push pin. I have been punched in the face by a grown man. I have been hit by a car while (helmetless) on my bicycle. I have been forced to projectile vomit out of my own nose due to an abcess on my tonsil. But I have NEVER felt pain, physical or emotional, that even came close to rivalling this.

It also makes it very hard to type on this tiny netbook keyboard. But I will never be silenced, Dear Readers. However, I do think I'm going to lose 5lbs before trying to haul my ass into that particular pair of jeans again.

Now to find a bedazzler to trick this MF out! Oh, and figure out how to drive with only my left hand!

I'm Tired Of Making You Laugh

Every time I re-commit to not taking responsibility for other people being "okay," I realize that I'm doing it again. One of the biggest ways that I do this is by not allowing any emotional tides that I am going through to affect someone else. They say that the Asian countries are super-polite in and overly communally focused in that people shove down their own feelings in order to not bother other people. Well, they ain't got nothin' on me, sister.

I had a shitty birthday. Not like absolute gorilla shit that's been licked off of a baby gorilla's arse and then re-shit by its mother. Not THAT bad. There were some kernels of undigested banana in that simean poo. But by and large, it was poo. My parents FORGOT my birthday. This is something that has happened several times since I was a teenager, with my Dad forgetting almost every year, and my mom only forgetting up until it's that day, and then somewhere between breakfast and bed realizing that she has forgotten and making some lame attempt to make me feel better. Once, this involved unceremoniously thrusting a cheque at me in the line up of a MacDonalds. No card... just, "here." My brother did his best impersonation of EYORE on my voicemail, and chose to repeatedly comment on how my husband was laid off recently. My partner, who is a delightful person, who genuinely tries at these things and knows what a touchy subject each trip around the sun is for me, was actually really sweet. He gave me an incredibly thoughtful gift that I love.

Wanna know what it is?

It's a t-shirt with a picture of the middle child from The Simpsons, and it says quite simply beneath it: "I am Lisa Simpson."

This simple phrase sums up how I feel on a day to day basis. In fact, change the rampant alcoholism for smoking in Homer, and you've pretty much got my family down-pat. For while there, I suspected that Conan O'Brien and the others were sercretly filming childhood in some creepy direct- psychological-observation-to-cartoon conspiracy. The similarities are EERIE.

Anyway, I had some people over on the weekend, and with the exception of one guest that I insisted on seeing so badly that I bought her a bus ticket, I wasn't really feelin' the love. Have you ever hosted a party only to realize that absolutely none of your guests has asked you how you are doing, or inquired about your life in any meaningful way? I feel like I spent the night babysitting introverts who couldn't figure out how to play duck-duck-goose while all the cool kids went in the kitchen to drink. "Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck... you know Jimmy, you need to actually say 'goose' at some point or the other toddlers won't have any fun."

The next day, I went to a petting zoo with my partner, and I could feel myself getting antsy... I was a bit hungover and feeling VERY thin-skinned about things... little things that don't normally get on my nerves were lighting fire to every last one of them. And when we pulled in to the farm, I saw lots of families carrying grocery bags of lettuce, celery and apples to feed the animals. I looked around the car. No veggies. I got out of the car. I looked around the farm. No veggies... I walked over to a goat and heard a daddy ask his little girl, "Do you want to feed a carrot to the pony?"

And that's when I started to cry...

Not only did my daddy not have anything for me to feed the pony, he didn't even call me this year. And my partner, wonderful as he is, had dropped the veggie ball on this one. I could tell that HE could tell that I was upset, and he immediately went into damage control...

So I made a joke. "Hey, are you kidding? These are the chubbiest bunch of geese I've ever seen. It's not that they won't fly away, it's more like they CAN'T!" Ba-dum-bum- CHING! Hey don't worry about ME... I'll make a joke so I don't have to worry about YOU being made to feel uncomfortable that I'm upset.

That's what I've done my whole friggin' life. Oh, don't worry that you forgot whatever incredibly important and special to me thing, family! My birthday, my graduation, that time at camp when everyone's families jumped out from behind the curtain to surprise us and you didn't even bother to show up. Don't worry about it! We can't have you feeling guilty or sad just because your little girl is down in the dumps. Besides, she'll get over it.

Wow, I'm a downer, aren't I?

Good.

I don't have to make you laugh all the time.

You Take The Low Road And I'll Take The High Road

Sometimes taking the high road is very unfulfilling. Like, someone insults you and you have the world's greatest zinger at the ready, but you hold off to let the other person save face and address them in private. It takes calm, cool, collectedness. It means being unflapable and trusting that other people can see their idiocy without you having to point it out.


Unfortunately, I just don't have that high of an opinion of other people. Too many "other people" are idiots. Half of the population of the world, by definition, is below average - and I don't like those odds.


Psychologically speaking though, we're ALL idiots. We are terrible at accurately recalling what we have just seen or heard, emotions cloud our judgement, and apparently we spend more time shopping for key chains than we do for car insurance. Our eyes are easily fooled by optical illusions, we can't inhibit our responses... hell most of us can't even remember where we put our cars keys (behind the orange juice?)


I guess that's why I'm simultaneously understanding and annoyed beyond all bullshit when one of my fellow human beings (or ME) does something that betrays our all-too-human idiot-ness. Recently, I started taking a class for people who wanted to try their hands at standing before an audience of people and attempting to make them laugh. It's obvious from day one that the instructor couldn't organize their way out of a wet paper bag. Classes start late and finish early. There is always some excuse. They have to perform at another show. The rest of the students aren't here yet. In fact, InstructorB does very little instructing at all, preferring instead to have us talk our ideas into a small camera and give us "notes" along the way. So less than 6 hours before our last class, InstructorB emails us all to ask if we want to go on a $field $trip and have class at different bar/comedy club than the one we paid to have our classes at.


Uh-oh.


They say that majority will rule and since everyone else is agreeing, I reluctantly go along with it, despite the club being a much farther trip for me, and not really wanting to stay out late, since I have work responsibilities in the AM. Then after closing down my computer and heading out, InstructorB emails the group again to say that the commedy place we were supposed to meet at doesn't open until half way through our class time so we'll meet at another bar.


Let me get this straight. You're taking a bunch of students who paid Bar 1 for classes to TWO OTHER BARS for their class? Uhm... does the management know that you're taking a sizeable group of customers to what is essentially a competetor for the class you are supposed to be doing there? Uh, I'm a therapist, so I'm going to ask a very cliche question: How do they FEEL about that?


Oh, but wait. It gets better. Of course, a bunch of people were late, because they didn't get the 11th hour emails and went to Bar1. But then InstructorB can't REMEMBER if they have downloaded their other class's videos of their camera, so they can't record our bits and give feedback. Cut to Classmate6 trying to film us with an iPhone in a noisy bar with honkey-tonk playing over the speakers and using a table candle for a spotlight. Half way through this "class" we have to leave to make sure we get seats at the other comedy club/bar. The performances were meh, and the MC was so mean to almost be Yuk-Yuk's worthy. I realize it is getting late and decide to head out between sets. Of course, I get picked on by the MC, but I expected that. What I didn't expect was for the InstructorB that I am paying good money to learn something from would insult me in front of the entire crowd. "Where are you going?... Aw, you guys SUCK!"


Of course, InstructorB denies this particular verbal characterization of the events... and I DID have two glasses of wine over the 4 hours I was seated in a bar that evening. I don't know how many double whiskey's they had.


This person has left a class I paid for half an hour early so that they could go work in another show. They've changed the class schedule so that we'd finish on the same day as another class despite people having booked off certain nights at work. And more than halfway into the course, can still not get their head out of their own genitals long enough to tell us when the performance night is... or where. They are starting to rival StoopidClassmate.

JournalistHusband keeps telling me that organization is not the strongsuit of the average comic. That there are huge problems with publicity in particular. He can't understand why they complain about not getting any publicity and why no one comes to their shows! After all, they did send out an email blast on $facebook 3 hours before the show started! Shouldn't everyone have dropped what they were doing, left their dinners half-eaten, their babies without sitters, and their coitus interrupted to run across town to sit in a dank hall with pissy, unwashed waitstaff to listen to them tell the 108th variation on why men and women are SO different (back me up ladies!) to the same crowd of mutually masturbating other comics? There's a real Peter Pander syndrome thing going on here... I'm not convinced that if you can make an audience (populated largely by other am-comics) laugh at one of these things that you can make an actual audience laugh. And why the hell are MCs so often SO mean?

Don't get me wrong. I really have no idea if I could even make a bunch of really nice drunk people laugh. It's not so much a judgement as plain old scientific bewilderment. I want to know why...

Also

I dreamed that I was testing a kid who sneezed directly into my face at close range. So I hand-sanitized his face.

Comedy Ain't No Joke

I've been taking a comedy class and last night our "teacher" had us go to see a show (great way to not actually teach for the money your class is paying you). But I had to leave before the show was over. I knew I would get reverse-heckled for getting up to go, so I waited for a break between comics and went for the door. At this point, the MC totally started digging at me, which hey, I expected. But then, when I was about to leave, the stand-up comic teacher of my "class" yells out to everyone, "You suck! You're stupid! Where are you going?"

Uh, I'm going home to bed so I can get up in the morning and go to my big-girl job.

Douche.

Urge To Kill... Rising...

Today sucks.

Basically, all I had to do was go get my eyes checked and go to the U to get my advising worksheet signed. Not too difficult, huh?

Except for the fact that I must have driven under a ladder to avoid a black cat and accidentally crashed into a mirror warehouse, knocking over a salt silo, in a previous life. Because the luck is something I do not have.

I left with plenty of time... but I took transit. And that was a good clue that my day was going to suck right off the top, cause really, it demeans us all. Got on the bus... oh great, no juice in the ipod, so that means I get to listen to the winners of the city's "Definitely Not Our Best And Brightest" Contest listen to Justin Bieber at 90 decibels and have domestic disputes on their cellphones all the way downtown. Awesome! My pen broke, leaving me unable to finish the crossword ("way out" is an "exit" you witless baby-boomer across the row, not "cool.") Apparently B vitamins make me nauseated if I don't take them with food -- add the gentle and graceful lull of the city bus lurching like a horny jackrabbit every 15 seconds, and you have one very pukey Psyche. So I get downtown, find a place to eat and try to order something somewhat healthy. I get a quinoa salad (a VERY expensive quinoa salad) and some quiche, only to discover that the salad is full of parsley. Seriously? People actually eat that shit? [One time my brother was told by his girlfriend's father that if he finished his entire plate of food he would pay for anything on the menu, so Brother ordered the most expensive steak in the house, and an hour later finished it in great pain. When the cheque came, father of the girlfriend said he wouldn't pay because Brother didn't eat the parsley garnish... so, Brother got the plate back, ate it, and then barfed in father of the girlfriend's trousers.... it was awesome.] So I paid about 10 bucks for a quiche... dammit. Then I head off to the Optomitrists, only to discover, I've gone to the wrong mini mall. I'm now going to have to get back on transit and be late. As it is, I got there only 3 minutes behind schedule... but only after sharing a bus with 20 screaming teenagers here on some sort of cultural dumbass exchange. I seriously pitty the country who got our dumbasses, btw... And take solice in the idea that somewhere in Eastern Europe, there is a stressed out grad student dealing with Canadian teens screaming nonesense about Kraft Dinner and beavers in her ears. Now the eye appointment is done and I have precisely enough time to get to the U to meet Dr. Supervisor who just needs to sign my advising worksheet. That's all.

I get there, I rush over to the office...

I sit down, get out my paperwork...

I wait patiently...

I get bored and decide to check my email...

Oh, there's an email from Dr. Supervisor...

Oh, they just realized that they told me to meet them at the U when really they were going to be in their home office. But that's okay, because I can CALL them. Really? I can CALL? Well that's just fucking great because I need your SIGNITURE, and the last time I checked it was impossible to send your John Hancock through 25 kilometres of fibre optic cables!!!

Ok, Psyche? Maybe you're overreacting? It's not that big a deal? No... I suppose not. It's just the sooner I get this signiture, the sooner I get in line to register for courses which fill up very very fast. And for once, just once in my life, I would like to get the decent course, with the prof that everyone likes, instead of the demonic succubus masquerading as a purveyor of higher education. It's complicated... I'm trying to get into a course with very limited enrollment, and I just figure... hey... it's not gonna happen, not because of anything I did, but just becuase the path of life is mine field of dogdo.

Gonna go meet a fellow slave to other people's idiocy now for an herbal tea or something. Bitchiness loves company...

Pinching Out A Loaf

I knew that title would get you.

Look, I like Meat Loaf. A LOT. Okay? You're just going to have to get used to it. Meat Loaf helps me cope with life's little annoyances and injustices. And it reminds me of what was great about being a teenager, which wasn't much if I remember correctly.

I dreamed about my teen years last night and had one of those hypnogogic wakings in which I actually decided to pinch myself to see if I was still dreaming (I wasn't) -- and there you go folks, We have a title!

As you know, I've been doing a lot of driving back and forth to another city these days to do giftedness assessments with grades 4 and 5. I'm averaging 1.5 hours commute in the morning and about 2 hours on the way home. While cars have many advantages over public transit, one advantage they do NOT have is being able to read while travelling. My sign language has got better due to the abundant numbers of douche-drivers I encounter on the road. But other than that, I'm falling behind in all manner of reading, both school and pleasure... and email related. As a result, I did not know that there is a fun party to go to tonight. But that's okay, because I also didn't get the email from Dr. Supervisor telling me that I need to do another rewrite on a proposal EVEN THOUGH THEY'VE PUT THE MARKS IN ALREADY because they want me to have the "learning experience of the process." Please note that no one else in the class is being directly supervised by this prof, hence, I am the only person who is engaging in this learning process by staying home from a fun party on her Saturday night to rewite a paper for the umpteenth time. I feel like a dog that when all the other dogs are out on a beautiful day chasing birds, cars, and cats, is stuck at home practising the violin. It's not fair! Arf! Arf! Howl!

Umpteenth... huh huh huh... that's a funny word.

Anyway, it kind of feels like being a teenager (the not so awesome part) when I had to stay home and work on something boring when all of my other friends who didn't live in ultra fundamentalist christian wannabe households were out partying, experimenting with catnip and being disappointed by the sexual prowresses of teenage boys. But I digress... like in my teen years, Meat Loaf is making it all better.

And now that I have a car at my disposal, I realize that I can make my very own Meat Loaf Mixed Tape and listen to Paradise by the Dashboard Light by the dashboard light. And I will... as a way of procrastinating and not doing my assignment until it is too late for me to get a decent night's sleep and I've already missed the party anyway! Teen angst rumination -- here I come!

Come to think of it, the last time I had a car, I was in highschool. I did love and listen to Meat Loaf with my barely 17 year old boyfriend, although I was far to modest to be barely dressed.

Oh! Oh! Another thing I have to tell you about is that while I was driving to work the other day, I saw, and I'm crapping you negative on this, a liscence plate number that read: 911 KKK. I'm not even making this up. It was a super old plate, all beat up and clearly from the days that predate vanity plates and vanity plate censorship. OMG, I tailed the truck for a while, but didn't have time to follow and find out WHO owns such an unfortunate auto-moniker! But I wish I could have. I mean, really? This person... there can only be 3 possible scenerios:

1. They are too elderly/sheltered/out of touch/stupid (not that elderly people are stupid) to realize the horrorhilarity of their liscence
2. They DO realize the connotation of their liscence and LIKE it for some reason -- which is really the most horrifying possibility... or
3. They DO realize the significance of such a plate and are just too tired or don't care enough about the visiting Americans with "God, Guns, and Glory" bumperstickers that pelt them with trash from White Castle (if they're LUCKY) enough to stand in line at the DMV to change it.

Wait. There is a 4th possiblity... that the DMV won't let them change it. That they've visited the endless liscencing line up on several ocaissions with their tail-pipe between their legs, and practically BEGGED some Patti and Selma look-alikes to please let them trade it in for a vanity plate that reads "USA OK" or "NOTAH8ER" or even the Canadian classic "SRRY."

Oh well. That's my time. I'll be enjoying crazy piano licks and multiple references to fenderstrats and car engines for a few hours now. Have a good night folks!

Creating Insecurity in Health Research

Sigh...

Did NOT get funding for next year.

Feeling pretty gosh darned dejected, and the massive head cold I picked up from a kid this week is not helping me bounce back. If I hadn't already slept all day, I'd just go back to bed. Ah, wtf, I'll go back to bed anyway! My eyes feel like two piss holes in the snow.

I just think that they should stop calling them scholarships and just refer to them as a lottery. The reason I got turned down is because, "the candidate has changed field of studies at least twice, which raises th econcern that this candidate does not have th eperseverance to complete a PhD and move forward towards an academic career." They also claimed that my referee said that I don't "criticallly evaluate [my] own research plans and proposals." Interestingly, my referee's letter states explicity that I DO think critically in the evaluation of my research plans and proposals! So yeah, my reader #2 missed the point that finishing two degrees in the SAME discipline and then switching disciplines because I needed to recover from an ED means that I am MORE likely to persevere and finish something. Add two more fucking degrees to that, now in psychology, and for fuck's sake!!!

I was warned that these "competitions" are very much like lotteries before I applied. That they will look for any "excuse" to disqualify you. But I didn't think it included what appears to be deliberately misreading what an applicant wrote. I had that application checked by two supervisors, the application clinic, and the fucking dean. They said it was air-tight!

So yeah, I guess I'm bitter right now. I know it will blow over and I'll cope and deal. I just really did not want to have to deal with a TAship next year. I didn't want to have to work my ass off the Org. I feel like I work at the MacDonalds of counselling centres sometimes. Well, minus the scholarship opportunities, clearly. I made way more money when I worked as a booze jockey... and I was allowed to drink much more at work for that matter. And Jeebus, considering the two TAships I've had so far... I'm primed to expect some kind of hollocaust denier who frequently mistakes their cock for blackboard chalk.

I will call him Professor Chalky-Dink.

See, Psyche? You're feeling better already!

You know, I'm just so sick of worrying about money. I just got a big chunk of $$$ from my supervisor for work I'm supposed to do next semester and I was going to use it to go to a conference in Zambia. But now I feel like I should save it for the slim-pickings of PhD1. Sigh...

You know, one of the reasons I left the theatre was because of never knowing if I would have enough money... But I seem to have changed it for a career where the audition process is just as dubious but instead of preparing a monologue, I spend 40 hours putting my heart and soul into a research proposal. It's just that now, instead of not getting the role because I'm 10 lbs heavier than a twig insect, I don't get the scholarship because some egghead with a god complex can't slow down enough to read the difference between "does" and "does not."

So yeah, I guess this week's lesson in grad skule is that life is not fair. And that really honks. But I'll deal. And we'll just have to see what happens. There's always another surprise around the corner. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. Platitude platitude platitude.

Driving the Bell Curve

So I’m now working on a spring contract for a board of education about an hour and a half drive away from home. And before I start going on and on about how much fun it is to high achieving kids for giftedness, let me just tell you that having access to a car frickin’ rocks! This is seriously total and complete awesomeness the likes of which I have not known since I was 18 and my brother and I shared a car in my last year of highschool. Yeah, we had OACs back then...

It’s like you can drive around a really large briefcase and clothes closet. I’m staying with my parents for a few days, because they are MUCH closer to the schools I’m visiting... and I don’t even mind the excessive intrusiveness and house full of clutter that would rival any OC type on the show Horders. I have a CAR. I have hundreds of pounds of steel surrounding me and protecting me from having to deal with the cesspool that is commuting. With the bottom feeders that are my fellow commuters! I don’t even get riled up when someone cuts me off, tailgates, or decides that stoplights are a modern convienience they can do without. As a pedestrian, I get sidewalk of the extreme that will eventually see me living out my final days in a cold, dark cell. But as a MOTORIST! Well, you could pretty much do a shit on “my” hood and I’d bronze it and call it a hood ornament.

Sigh... it’s my father-in-law’s car... and he’s a veteran, with one of those veteran liscence plates. So yeah, I’ve had about 4 people so far stop me as I get out of the car to ask me where I saw action. This is understandable, because I do not look the army type. But I also look considerably younger than I am. At times it is not understandable, when said stoopid lady from a few posts ago asks me the same question. “Seriously, Stoopid Lady? But... you KNOW me. You know I was a PERFORMER before I went back to school. You know my whole sordid life story. And you know that I FREAKIN BORROWED THIS CAR!!!” So yeah, I told her I was in Nam, and please don’t tell anyone else, because I’m really older than I’ve been telling everyone. Sheesh. Her IQ is so low it could walk under a snake with its high hat on.

But I digress in ways that only Psyche can digress. I want to tell you about the delightful gifted children! Now, look, I pride myself on giving a very standardized but “human” WISC-IV. And I am completely flabbergasted by some of the incredible responses I get. Now, I can’t actually tell you any of the questions because putting them out on the Internet would give little Jeezurs like the one I tested today an unfair advantage. This kid, who was NINE btw, told me that he knew what we were doing. I said, oh? What? He says, “this is a memory subtest and I suspect that you are testing my working memory and not my long-term memory.” He had been online “practising” at the behest of his helicopter parents. Another kid, who was doing a test that measures their ability to use logic to find patterns in a series of pictures, got to the final item and when I turned the page to reveal the last (and most difficult) puzzle, he said, and I quote, “JEEBUS, Psyche! This is reDONKulous!”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my share of shy, and slow to warm up kids. I don’t know if it’s because I am some sort of super-rapport machine, or if kids today are just more outspoken than when I was being tested, but Jeebus, they are a lot more outspoken that I remember being.

Having said all that... I’m loving giftedness testing (except when you get some kid whose parents you suspect of bribing the learning resource teacher). They are so bright, articulate, and for the most part beginning to bloom with some self-confidence. They seem so happy to be in a situation where someone is talking to them like an equal instead of talking down to them. And I’m happy to do so. I DO remember what it was like, after all.

I’m rooting for all of them. Really hoping that they will meet teachers who realize that just because they may be “gifted,” that doesn’t mean that they “will be just fine” if left to their own devices. They need guidance, they need help to build and grow their skills, but also their personalities, their citizenship, their mental health. I pray for excellent teachers. These kids need and deserve as much special attention as those who are on the other side of the bell curve.

Speaking of bell-curve... one of the girls I tested this week was a fellow Triple 9er. I desperately wanted to tell her! This information will probably never actually get to her (unless she tries out for Mensa or the actual Triple 9 society – bastions of superior intellect and poor social skills) and that’s probably good. I suspect her EQ of being far too high to feel at home in either of those clubs. I’ve noted her name. I hope I run into her again someday. Bless her heart. Bless all their hearts. Geez, I’m starting to wonder if I should leave the clinical field to advocate for the gifted?

I was identified as gifted when I was in grade 5. I went to a small school with less than about 80 kids in K – 8. There were only 7 kids in my cohort. There was this weird rivalry between myself and a guy in my grade so each year, instead of giving an award to the top student, we always got “top girl” and “top boy.” It pissed me off more than you can know. I mean, surely they were just being nice to him, right? HAH! In retrospect, this fellow definitely skooled me in reading and verbal, and I kicked ass in anything to do with numbers or visual-spatial problems. Exact opposite of what you’d expect considering our genders. I’m going to see him in a couple of weeks at my grade 8 reunion. We both went into the gifted program in grade 6, and I got to leave my childhood “bully” behind me (cause she was nominated for gifted but didn’t make it!!!) WIN! Rot in hell enormous BITCH who cut my hair off while I was asleep at a birthday sleepover party! Whoooooot! I revel in my relative superiority! I have no idea what’s become of you, but can only think of you as my pint-sized tormentor and the girl who thought it was a cool insult to call me “dickless.” What can I say? You were technically right.

I, ladies and gentlemen, am a dickless woman. Well... let’s be honest. I DO have a dick. It’s just that my husband has it most of the time...

In other news... I’ve just emailed off my final take home exam for the year, and I’ve decided that if my partner for my other course’s paper (Ms. Stoopid) doesn’t get her act together, that I’m just emailing the prof and saying I’m done. So really, I’ve only got my thesis and this teachers’ guide to work on now. That and work. Summer is coming. Relaxing time is almost here!

More news to surely come soon. Stay tuned!

Ack!

Really? Remaking Nightmare on Elm Street? Is that necessary? Could they at least add some Freudian "Interpretation of Dreams" stuff into it?

Sigh... kids these days.

Have You Ever?

I wonder sometimes if my admission into this program is really all that much of an acheivement. Sometimes when I consider the adaptive skills of some of the people I see around me, I loose faith that the process by which we were admitted had anything to do with intelligence, acheivement, likelyhood of success, or indeed basic hygeine.

There is a "person I know" who doesn't seem to believe in showering. So much to the point that I am starting to suspect that they are the Wicked Witch of the West in disguise. They always smell BAD... Bad like the B.O. of a week old corpse bad. With just a hint of some sickningly sweetish musky perfume. OMG, have they been Febreezing themselves instead of washing? How can I get a skin swab without them noticing? I have to know...

And there is another person who so seriously gives the impression of an IQ so low that they'd have to stand on a chair to raise it. I'm not just talking about being slow... I'm not talking about the silly mistakes we all make because we are nervous, or tired, or HUMAN. It's not just that they aren't the "sharpest knife in the drawer." It's more that they are an EGG in the KNIVE DRAWER. And you open up the knife drawer, looking for a knife and you're like, OMG, who put this egg in the knife drawer. And you have to call your mom and your friends because you just need to tell someone about how absurd their stupidity is.

This person has:

asked me if a banana peel is bio-degradable
got into an elevator and waited a full 3 minutes before pressing the button because they hadn't noticed it wasn't moving yet
inquired if there was meat in the peperoni pizza
freaked out about the possibility of sushi style "dragon rolls" being made of real dragon
wanted to know what "closed captioning" was (Their excuse? "I don't watch a lot of TV." Me: "Yeah, but you are aware of an invention called TV, right? And that on this invention called TV that they have things called shows? And you are aware that there is a population of deaf people in society, right?)

I should also mention that upon doing any of these or other borderline brain-injury induced behaviour, that this individual will say something like, "Hee hee hee! I'm SO STUPID!" Then giggle obliviously that they are making themselves sound even more stupid with every second.

How did this person get into a highly competetive program in clinical psychology? How do they manage to STAY in a highly competetive program in clinical psychology? For that matter, how do they manage not to fall out of windows without child locks on them? Or not choke on their tongue in their sleep? Or not mistake their car's exhaust pipe for the straw in their Diet Coke?

OMG... and why do I always seem to draw these people as project partners, office mates, or accept rides home from them? Okay, clearly that's ME being stupid. No matter what the cold Canadian lousy SMarch weather brings, I wouldn't ride with a drunk driver, so I shouldn't ride with a clearly stupid-person driver either, right? Imagine the PSA for that one:

The pirate on the pack of zig-zags takes off his bandana and replaces it with a mortorboard and says: "Don't do it please! I'm begging you. YOU are stupid. WAAAAAAY too stupid!" Followed by a shot of the same confused/dazed look on the stupid person's face as was seen on the blitzed teenager.

Ahhhhh.... so much less angry now. Thank you, dear reader.
Psyche.

Update

I suppose there is not much funny going on. I've got one major presentation tomorrow, then two tiny ones, a rather large assignment, a 10 page paper (grant proposal), and a take home exam to go. Then classes are officially over. Then all I have to do is collect my data, run my analyses, write my thesis and write a teachers' guide for a school product -- THEN I'm done for the summer.

I was not selected to win a rather large scholarship for next year. A bit disappointed about that. But I'm still up for another rather large scholarship so keep your fingers crossed. I start a spring contract at a school board next week.

I guess things are coming down to the wire and getting a bit hairy.

I keep shaving though... preventative measure.

It's my sincere hope that when all this pressure starts to ease off that I will return to something resembling sanity. Wish me luck.

Oh, I also have a bunch of practicum interviews this week and next. Oy.

Like I said, not much funny. Just an update.

Psyche

They Don't Prepare You For This

My left hand tingles all the time now. I've had two hospital visits, one day, during which the staff inserted needles into my body and sent electric charges down them. I've seen a physiotherapist who can only tell me to "watch my posture" in various non-specific ways, the chiropractor, and of course I go on and on to my therpist. My nose runs almost constantly and my poop is green. And I'm serious, it's not even St. Patrick's day and my bowels are clearly longing for the Emrald Isle. I'm jittery, I have no sex drive.

All anyone can tell me is, "Well, you are a grad student. Try to watch your posture."

Seriously? WTF? My ocaisionally slumping after 9 hours at laptop is causing me to shit shamrock shakes? Why oh why is ANYONE under the illusion that medicine has anything to offer the average individual?

So I'm wadding a bunch of Kleenex up and stuffing it in my schnoz, putting on a wrist brace, and working near the bathroom. Because I seriously do not have the time for this.

Besides, I'm feeling all little and mopey and abandoned sitting here looking out the window and the glorious sun, feeling like the little dog who has to stay in and practice the violin while the other dogs chase squirrels. I am open to suggestions for gratuitous self-care and selfish self-love.

Fucking ides of March.

This Is How Tired I Am

This morning, I fell asleep duirng my MRI.

Sunday March 7th, 2010

The Prodigal One

I’ve just returned from a week long trip to another province – where the hats are tall and the beef is prevalent. I went as a speaking to do presentations for the Org. Thinking it would be fun and well-paid, I even took the week off of school so that I could stay for the full week, speaking to groups of students, parents, and community mental health professionals about the Org and online safety. It was indeed, Online Safety Week.

I worked my ass off. I actually had to ask for a cushion on the plane ride home because I had worn off so much of my ass as to make sitting painful. Actually, that may have been due to the fact that I stood in high heels for most of the week and my butt muscles were screaming in protest. But try to put that aside. The point is, the term “working holiday” is utter bullshit. Even if you have a light official schedule, you still have to be ON all the time. You are expected to have lunches and dinners with people from the regional office, or contacts you are supposed to schmooze. (Seriously?? I’m a counsellor! I have to schmooze? WTF?) For a counsellor, this is dreaded stuff. We already spend all of our professional time listening to clients talk about their problems, now all the people we meet KNOW that we are a counsellor and corner us, admitting with teenage sincerity that they “don’t know why” but they “feel like they can trust” us and just “need to open up to someone.” In the course of a week, I had the ED of a large company tell me in detail about their childhood abuse, a computer specialist discuss at length how they were traumatized by images of illegal child images, a media specialist disclosed her many pregnancy scares and drunk driving, and an employee from a rather large airline disclose the multiple suicides in their family. I was surprised that only one employee from the ORG asked me for advice on a parenting situation (they were worried that referring their emotionally disturbed child to therapy would make the child think that something was wrong with them!) because usually I get asked a ton about this. Oh, and did I mention that absolutely none of these people were actually participants in any of the talks or presentations I gave? These were just people I met professionally – other professionals working for the Online Safety Week.

Naturally, by the end of the week, overworked, having let my schoolwork slip, and quickly slipping into an Alberta Beef coma, I wanted nothing more than to pass out on a plane (thank you lorazepam!) and wake up back home. But no... a lady I met during one of the presentations was on my plane and wanted to chat. I pled sedation and kept her well-meaning, over the top, and loud voiced self a few rows behind me.

Honk-shu.

Pills, Chills, And Bellyaches

Hello Readers.

I knew that grad school was going to be hard work. I knew I was going to come up against passive-aggressive personalities, and I knew that it was going to place hereto unforseen demands on my schedule. But I did not bank on it being this socially isolating or triggering the fuck out of me.

It's no secret that I've struggled with my own mental health issues. Anxiety progressed from depression to eating disorder and back to depression in my past. I've been in therapy for most of the past eight or nine years (with a couple short sabaticals) and figured that I had most of my shit figured out. I didn't understand that some of what I called "worked out" might really just be a purely intellectual understanding. And if learned anything in my former career, it's that knowing something in your head and knowing something in your body are two very different things. I've likely being using intellectualization as a defense mechanism for some time. Maybe a couple decades.

I have a very heavy theory-based semester where I am learning out 1. cognitive and behavioural assessments of children and adolescents, 2. psychopathology from a developmental-contextual perspective, and 3. theories of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic change with children, adolescents, and families. I've always been very big on working through my own personal issues so that I don't bring them into my role as a therapist (as much as possible). But I realize that just studying this stuff so heavily this semester has left me feeling very vulnerable and broken. I am aware of old psychological scars that I thought had healed. Or, perhaps the dressings have been pulled off before they were healed enough to withstand this process. Or, more likely and moderately, perhaps this is just a natural and necessary part of the learning process that is brought on more by my developmental age. I am between six and eight years older than the rest of my cohort, and even older than the people in my lab who are at the end of their PhDs. So it is very possible that I am at a more reflective stage, with my defenses more relaxed, 8.5 years of therapy and self-awareness under my belt. Perhaps it is only logical that I would be feeling triggered by memories. Feeling ripped off that the level of awareness the profession and society in general have now, the help available, the increased success of helping interventions... that all of this was not available to me as a small child -- not available to me as a teen -- and that I had difficulty trying to access help initially as an adult. If I were a client seeking my own help, I would likely point out the differences that exist for children today compared to when I was growing up.

To increase th intensity of this difficulty, I have a loved one, a very young person in my family for whom I am "God Mother," who is stuggling with their own mental health issues in a difficult family situation. On one hand, I feel this intense frustration on their behalf, wanting to support them and force their families to see clearly what I can see now in terms of the benefit of early intervention that targets the entire family system. On the other hand, I feel intense jealously that my own parents are doing a MUCH better job being supports to this child than they were to me. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that they have improved on their own journey. But I do grieve the loss of what was never available to me. And I fear for this child. They are geographically distant from me, and I feel quite powerless to influence or help the family in any concrete way.

All of these things, combined with my lack of a social life these days, are certainly affecting me. I realized about a week and a half ago that I needed to say aloud to my therapist that I am worried that this might be capital D Depression. My therapist is awesome, and the one real stoke of luck that I have had on my own journey to mental health (for reasons too numerous to mention, one important one being that I can afford him). He brought up the idea of medication, and reluctantly I've decided to go that route. It's not a med that I have taken before, but one he claims will have a minimum of disruptive side-effects and be more energizing than relaxing (seeing as I am complaining of always being tired no matter how much I sleep). I didn't want to go on it, mostly because I didn't want to admit that I'm depressed. For someone who works and studies in mental health, I sure do have a double standard! I feel like a failure. I feel weak. I feel like I need a crutch to help me through something that others are doing without the same help. I also worry that I will have withdrawl symptoms when coming off of it, and a few other things in terms of the meds keeping me from doing some things that I want to do in the near future. But I've decided to put my immediate psychological health first and make sure I can complete my semester.

I'm not gonna lie to you, the side effects are bothersome right now. I feel quite nauseated and tired. I also get really keyed up around 5pm and have a bit of trouble sleeping. But I need to remind myself that I would be much gentler and offer more compassion and understanding to ANY client I've ever worked with than I have been offering myself. This double standard has to go.

I'll try to keep you posted on how things are going. I promised I would stop working at the computer 15 minutes ago, and I need to do that. I hope self-care is the way to go, and that I don't need so much of it that I never stop and can't get back to work when I need to.

That's it. If you love me, thanks for loving me. If you care, I appreciate that too. If you were hoping just for humour, give me a few weeks til the meds kick in! :)