Monthly Archives: December 2015
There will be a dawn
(Beauty From Pain–Superchic[k])
The world still spins as if nothing has changed. Everyone goes about their life as if everything is okay. Life just got flipped on its head and no one noticed. Everything carried on as if nothing had changed, but nothing was the same.
I know they are joking but they blame me…and I listen and blame me…even though I know am a reason she held on.
One minute I was happily in position number two along the counter on my first day back confidently slipping back into position as if I had never left. Hanging out with my friends. Just living and loving life.
The next my manager was crying and I was frozen in shock. Life was moving around me but I wasn’t.
How do you scream no you can’t leave while also saying congratulations, you’ve held on for too long? You can’t. You are paralyzed. Slowly everyone else catches up and fills in the void where our reaction should be, and I fade into my processing silence.
Look at all the pretty things that steal my heart away I can feel I’m fading
(All the Pretty Things–Tenth Avenue North)
So yeah…I have a half written blogpost left from finals…so I’m going to finish it…
Speaking of finals…half of them went well and half of them didn’t…things that are frustrating: when we were told we would not need to know any concentrations for the exam because it would all be given to us…and then it wasn’t…and I’ve got a lot of more important things to cram in my brain than what the concentrations of stuff are in our “classroom stock solutions.” The world continues to spin and I still passed even if I didn’t get the grade I wanted so I’ll still move on and get outta here…
During finals I saw a cafeteria worker leave the restroom without washing her hands…I don’t think it is OCD related if I complain that we have a lot more important things to worry about than getting stomach flu because you couldn’t be bothered to take 30 seconds to wash your hands…
Friday morning I went to IT…because the Friday before school started I went to get a new sticker for my computer because I lost mine over the summer, and they said to come back on Monday for it…so I did…and on Monday they said they’d give me a call when it was ready but it would be a few days…and fast forward to the end of the semester and I still didn’t have it…so I went back thinking they’d tell me they’d have one for me after break…nope, instead they took my computer for nearly a half hour and also restarted it before giving it back to me…umm…do I even want to know why it took you that long and why you were restarting my computer?
So I know that I used to have really bad OCD and that I sometimes needed help because of that…but when people who didn’t even know me then try to accommodate me sometimes it just makes a mess…not to mention that most of the time I’d rather just be treated the same way that you’d treat anyone else. I don’t want to be different, so unless I really need help I don’t want to be different. If everyone else is doing it then I wanna do it too (unless it is skipping classes…I don’t wanna do that)…so yeah, one of my friends and I were sharing some napkins and food on Monday…and she claimed her allergies were acting up…and on Wednesday she admitted that she was tired because she had a cold but she hadn’t told me because she didn’t want to stress me out…umm Thanks?…I don’t expect people to announce whenever they have a cold, but I do expect them to say something if we were going to share food and I’d be happy to get an extra bowl and napkin so we each have our own…and right on cue on Thursday I woke up with a cold…
Also, I spent some of my day on Thursday worried about one of my friends…because she had said the night before that she was really worried about one of her exams so I agreed to talk through it with her on Thursday among other things we were going to do together…and I emailed her and I texted her like 20 times including a text that just said “are you alive?” and by like 2pm I hadn’t seen her even in passing on her way to the cafeteria, and I hadn’t gotten any texts or emails from her…and then I remembered the way she had talked about taking her medicine the night before and started thinking that maybe there was something going on…so I was trying to write an email to someone to check on her without feeling like I was violating her privacy…and then at almost 4pm she texted me that she overslept and had just woken up…crisis averted…I always approve of sleeping, because if you can’t wake up to your alarm then you probably needed the sleep…
On Friday, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t eat lunch on purpose…sometimes you have to pick your battles and when you suddenly become stressed out about your last final and another thing that is happening the same day, throwing away a couple of slices of pizza instead of eating them sounds like a better plan to ensure that they are thrown away without the addition of the rest of your stomach contents…I haven’t thrown up due to stress since high school, and I’d like to keep it that way…and it was pizza with way too much cheese and I don’t even like cheese so it wasn’t much of a loss…and yeah, I totally am justifying, but I figure I’ve had enough snacks this week that while nutritionally it might not be great, calorically I am doing fine…and I took a multivitamin in the morning so it isn’t like I am going to be horribly nutrient deficient…I regretted throwing it away once I got hungry, but considering it had already been at room temperature longer than it probably should have been more than once and had been heated up in the microwave already I didn’t have much of a choice…
Partly because I still don’t always stick up for myself and am your yes girl, and partly because I LOVE to make people happy, I’ve been giving a lot of things away…and I caught myself telling myself that it was because I was a bad person…umm, no…not going to believe the lies that my bad grades and the things that contributed to those bad grades make me a bad person or that not saying no enough makes me a bad person…Making people happy makes me happy, so I am investing in myself every time I say yes…and like the song goes “it’s only when you share that you will see your heart to be rich beyond compare.”
I made it home…at 5:15 in the morning my stupid tire pressure light came on again…but when I pulled over and determined that all the tires definitely had air in them, I ignored it all day…I should probs stop by the gas station to fill my tank and tires today, but I’m kinda lazy…and I know I am a stress-eater…’cause I tried to change into jeans after church yesterday and had to try a different pair because the first pair I put on was too small…well, I finally got my wish that I would grow so that more of my pants would fit…two good finals and two not so good finals this semester…one more semester of classes and I won’t have to take tests anymore !! So excited!! (Well, except for the licensure exam, but if it is anything like the pharm tech exam it is kind of a joke…yeah, I read the prep book for the exam…once…but I definitely didn’t know it…I was in luck that a lot of the exam was just can you multiply 6 times 5?…or like super duh moment things like if someone presents a fraudulent prescription should you give it to them anyway…)
Better get busy, got lots to do
(I don’t remember the name of the song, but it is from the musical the Plane Truth…it might actually be the theme song…)
“Better get busy, got lots to do. We’ll tell the truth tonight at 7 at gate 22…”
I hate finals…especially when I feel like I’m not ready but also that it won’t matter anyway because my gpa is lousy anyway so who cares if it gets worse…I know that is a bad attitude, but sometimes I am frustrated. (And I will not give up, because I am stubborn, and because I know that while some of the time I feel like it isn’t worth it, there are also many more times when I am thinking logically and realize that I need to get the best grades possible to keep my grades from slipping any further than they already have.
I saw a quote on the internet that I really liked yesterday…God only gives us what we can handle…apparently God thinks I’m pretty awesome. I loved that quote, and upon some more thought, it is very true. I’ve been up against a lot of things in life and I have learned that I am strong. I am a conqueror even if I don’t always feel like it.
Which reminds me of the song Toy Soldier…”So can I rest on your shoulders? will you carry me home?…and tonight if it’s okay with you, can I put down my armor and just be a daughter to you. This warfare waged has worn me thin. There’s shrapnel underneath my skin. Sword is stained. My hands are red…but I don’t feel like a conqueror tonight.”
Also: Anthem…”Here’s to the ones, the ones, who don’t give up. This is your anthem…here’s to anyone who never quit when things got hard. You’ll never let them say you’ll never get that far, never get that far. We are fire inside we are an army asleep. We are a people awaking to follow their dreams. We don’t have time for your games; we have our own goals to score. We have trophies to win instead of being one of yours.” I don’t have time to be upset over your games and I refuse to be one of your trophies so I need to reach my goals to prove you wrong…
This is what finals looks like:
Pretty posters reminding me to shut mouf (yes that is a pearls before swine reference).
A cup of milk in the morning because I seem to always go overboard buying milk and fruit so that I don’t run out and then end up with way more than I need and try to eat/drink as much as I can before I go home so it doesn’t go to waste…
And the picture of a candy wrapper represents talking to my friends…’cause one of my friends gave me some study candy this morning…and also I learned at the same time that there is construction going on over there…which explains why there is a bunch of construction supplies in the entry way of the building…
Yesterday I got my #OCDvocate bracelet! So exciting! Also, have you seen the international ocd foundation logo? It is so cool. I’m kind of a fan.
Some mornings you have to realize that even if you’ve only worn your sweatshirt once or twice, that if you’ve been carrying it around for the past month for cuddling with that it still needs to be washed, ’cause it will start to smell like it hasn’t been washed…well, actually it was carried around except for right after the T3 final when it was shunned for a couple days because it failed me…and then I wanted it again…but when it is like almost 70 outside there isn’t any reason a stinky sweatshirt needs to be carried around like a security blanket…
I hate finals so much…mostly because I LOVE learning but I HATE proving that I learned…
Thought I had it all right ’til the road went left
(Backseat Driver—TobyMac)
There is a Christmas musical called Fear? Not! that I adore…so this is what studying sounds like at my apartment (interspersed with the granny rap from The Plane Truth)…I wish I had the tape with me except I don’t so I found mp3’s online, ’cause apparently I currently only have Truth Works and Sermon on the Mound…sports themed musicals are okay too, but the Christmas ones are my favorite (at least for the moment)…If I could listen to the entire musical of Fear? Not! and The Plane Truth all day every day I would be one happy girl for a long time…
http://www.lorenz.com/Med/Sample/65_1906RA_3.mp3
I saw this on a blog last week: Don’t be discouraged when you have a setback—a setback means there was progress! Celebrate the success!—this is such an awesome reminder that saying oops and moving on in super important! Yeah, I messed up this time, but I worked really hard and if it was possible to forget the information then clearly there was learning that took place even if my mind went blank when the time to put that learning onto an exam came up…and so many other arenas in which I feel I face setbacks a lot, and this is just a really good reminder that a setback means there is progress.
I’m one of those people who looks at my school print account and realizes that I have over 450 pages left and the extras don’t roll over to the next semester…I have literally printed books first year when there were a couple books I had been reading as a pdf for a class and decided that perhaps for the final on which I could use notes I might like a copy of the book…
I think it is super dumb that the pages don’t carry over from one semester to the next…just going to say I’ve seen people print blank pages or pages that are just completely black just for the sake of feeling like they got their money’s worth since it is use it or lose it…perhaps we’d have fewer issues with the printers constantly being jammed or out of paper or ink if the pages rolled over to the next semester…I am fine with just losing the prints since clearly I don’t really need them, and also don’t really want to bring reams of paper home with me, but it would be nice to keep them so just in case I had more printing needs one semester and thus needed more prints I wouldn’t start having to pay for them…
Sometimes I am very childish…inside my head a few days ago I said to myself “hey look! She has shoes to match her personality” when I saw someone wearing little-girls-style dress shoes…but I found it kind of hilarious because my mom has tiny feet and therefore has trouble finding dress shoes that aren’t that sparkly black of childhood and this person with feet that are definitely big enough to shop in the adult section was intentionally wearing a children’s style.
Also, when I am stressed out my inner child becomes more apparent…impulsive, uncontrollable giggling, talking too much on random topics…this is why people don’t like me…
On Friday there were free cookies at hot box. It was kind of exciting. I also almost got myself killed because I was s excited that I forgot to look both ways before crossing the street…see paragraph above about impulsivity…
Sometimes when I am talking to someone I start to realize that I probably should actually listen to myself sometimes…some of the stuff I say is actually really good truth…Last Saturday I was talking about grades and I said a lot of things…but the ones that are really smart that I need to be listening to where the facts that if you take all the stuff that is an opinion out of my grades then I have really rocking solid grades…I just need to work on better reading my teacher’s minds and I’ll do super awesome in school…anyone know how to learn ESP? JK…what that really means is that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself because if I rock the objective stuff then clearly I know the stuff even if my overall grade disagrees…the other really smart thing that came out of my mouth was in reference to my therapeutics grade…I did really lousy on the first exam (because I made one mistake that caused the entire rest of my answers to be wrong) and the first quiz I got a 0% (because I didn’t understand what they wanted me to do with the grid in the question) and another early quiz I got 40% (because there were some other things going on that needed my attention and while physically I was in class, mentally I was miles away…approximately 5 miles…so to be able to go from that to on the border of an A, clearly I do know my stuff (and it is really really scary to post anything that tells anyone what my grades are on the internet, because in the past people knowing my grades has allowed me to be hurt, but I am going to admit that every exam since the first one I have done fine on including 98% on the third exam which would have been 100% if I read one of the questions more closely…it is scary to post my grades on the internet, but at the same time it is freeing to not have to keep them secretly locked up inside)…and while grades are important to prove that you know stuff, once you are in the work world long enough, people care if you actually know stuff, not if your grades in school showed that you knowed stuff so eventually I have the things I need even if my grades make me feel dumb…and yeah, the final didn’t go so hot, but after seeing it to verify what I did wrong, I know that I definitely knew the material…isn’t great when the explanation as to why your answer is wrong is that actually that might be a really good idea, but we didn’t teach you to think like that…oh well…the world continues to turn whether I get an A or an F or anything in between.
Happy Christmas Merry New Year and whatever other holiday you want to celebrate, happy that!
If you were a balloon what color would you be?
(Balloon Song–Debra Lynn La Lima)
Yeah, the song is not at all related…but I couldn’t think of a title I liked for this post that goes fifty billion directions so I let spotify choose me a title…
It’s what I’ve started doing…study and be frustrated for my lack of focus while studying for therapeutics exam (in this case the final), go to study session, get yelled at to shut up (because I am a let’s get through this question and move on kind of person so I talk too much), feel frustrated (usually sulk inside my head comes next, but once in a while like last night I can just be mature and do my best to keep my mouth shut and ignore the comments that I am talking too much)…continue to study…however, in this case I shouldn’t have gone to the study session, because I really think if I hadn’t gone that with the way I was working through the material that I would have done better than I did after having gone to the study session…I totally did know the material until I got freaked out and forgot things…I am beginning to be ready to believe RAE that I might have test anxiety…so…umm…yeah, it isn’t normal to be so stressed out before exams that regardless of hydration/nutrition status the world feels like it is not just metaphorically but physically spinning and needing to use both hands to stabilize myself when standing up and stuff…also, yeah, no, this was a good reminder that I might have had some pretty bad flares this semester into OCD, but that same spinny feeling can happen when the OCD anxiety gets really bad—I guess I forgot about that because it had been so long since I’d felt that anxious, and it definitely never got this bad related to OCD this year…woulda shoulda coulda…it’s all over now and there is nothing I can do to change it…maybe this is God’s way of telling me that I was on to something with that social worker thing and this pediatric clinical pharmacy thing that has been my plan A since early elementary school isn’t really God’s plan A. I am still going to work hard and get my degree, because it would be really stupid to quit now with absolutely nothing to show for all the time I’ve been out of high school, and I can figure out whether to go back to school for social work or whether to continue to work as a pharmacist after I’ve finished actually becoming a pharmacist…and who is to say that I couldn’t do both? Or do something totally different…God has really funny ideas sometimes that completely don’t line up with what I think my plans are.
But I was super proud of myself last night because someone posted on facebook something that I strongly disagreed with and instead of posting a snarky comment in response to their snarky post, I was a big girl and just pretended I hadn’t seen it. Then I saw this person and he asked me a question and instead of the crabby response I wanted to give (umm, we have a final tomorrow so you can back off, and I was also just on virtual ems and you most definitely do not have this room reserved tonight unless you have changed your appearance greatly ’cause I know the people who do have this room reserved at any time this evening…and even if you were one of them, no one at all has the room reserved at this particular point in time) I was polite and friendly and helpful. I wasn’t going to touch anything ’cause I am not going to get in any way at all involved in that particular group of people…partly for my own safety and partly for an immature “so there” factor…, but I can be nice to people who aren’t. At the same time though I was ashamed of myself because I “liked” a post I saw on facebook about it being okay to cut-off your abuser that same day…so yeah, like post about it being okay to dissociate from people who don’t treat me right and then being kind anyway…yep, I don’t think I am capable of being mean or intentionally hurting anyone…which I suppose in most circumstances isn’t such a bad thing…
You know that perhaps bedtime should have come a bit earlier when you are laughing so hard you can’t sleep…see, there is this feral cat that has been living outside my apartment building. Some idiots built it a Rubbermaid home that the leasing office said they would remove but never did. It actually does usually respond to the word NO, so I have been getting a lot of practice with that word, which is good, because it is one that I don’t use often enough…but repeatedly saying the word NO as I walk up to my building makes me feel like quite the contrarian…which made me think about how when my brother was learning to read he would sit in the car saying no no no. At first my parents thought he was just being negative, but then they realized he was reading the signs along the road, but only could read that one word on the signs…
Thoughts in my head: I’m okay…at least until the last bag of emergency skittles from my car runs out. Then I’m not sure if I’ll be okay…but until then, I’m okay. (Yeah, sugar has a really powerful effect on helping me hold things together…which is why I really can’t do the whole intermittent fasting or even modified intermittent fasting that would require me to abstain from sugar completely during certain periods of the day. I’d rather have problems with distraction than go through life upset).
I just drew a cartoon. I am really proud of it, but I ain’t sharin’ it, ’cause cartoons in which the character representing me is saying hahahaha ain’t really internet appropriate.
10-year V-v-v-v-v-veterans serving up the medicine
(Loud’n’Clear—TobyMac)
I got an email a couple days ago with the subject line of: silence kills so we speak. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. The actual email wasn’t so exciting, but I so agree with the sentiment in the subject line. Silence is the worstest thing ever. There are two reasons. 1. Like the video I have pinned on pinterest elucidates, being excluded hurts just as much as being physically and verbally bullied if not more because no one can really see how you are being mistreated. 2. Shame breeds in silence and silence drives away connection. The very worst thing for someone who has experienced something difficult is to be unable to talk about it. Words are powerful and by association, lack of words is similarly powerful.
Thank you guys! I reached 50 likes this week! IDK if that is a current prevalence estimate or an incidence (that is, whether it includes people who clicked like and then unliked a post, or if it only includes people who actually currently like one of my posts), but either way that was kind of exciting! My stats stopped being useful back in June/July 2014 when a bunch of views was really more likely to mean one particular group of people were looking for anything they could twist than that there were really people liking what I was writing, but I feel that likes are a more reliable way of measuring if I am having an impact, because I read a LOT of blog posts, but I click like on very few of them. (although I also don’t go looking for posts I won’t like…unless you count the germ stories I compulsively read when struggling)…
I am really proud of this ice cream cup. It turned out so pretty (well at least until I dropped the plastic bag I was carrying it in a few times on the way out the door this morning). It still wasn’t too messed up at lunch time though as you can see…haha, not pictured: the mess of drips on my kitchen counter involved in creating this particular bowl of ice cream with pretzel flavored magic shell on top…magic shell does not harden on the kitchen counter…
Today (Tuesday) I took a field trip to stupid new building to get my quizzes both to find out what my score was and to make sure I was doing the problems in such a way as to earn points…I came back without a quiz, but I wouldn’t say it was completely a failure, because I did come back with cake with Christmas tree sprinkles on it in my stomach…right after I re-listened to the video about how sugar and carbohydrates are the enemies of concentration…but how could I possibly say no to cake?! Someday I’ll get my quizzes…and even if I get a D in all my classes I’ll still eventually become a pharmacist even if I can’t get my ideal job, I still have my whole life ahead of me and can work my way up to where I really wanna be…
It’s one of those weeks where I really don’t have time for a bunch of extra things even like my favorite Bible study…which basically means that I really need to make the time, because if I am going to lose study time, I’d rather lose it to something that makes me happy than to an OCD flare.
One of my aunts called with a medicine question. I really like playing pharmacist…except, I am one of those people who prefer not to hurt anyone’s feelings…which makes it hard when someone wants to argue over whether a particular disease actually exists…Do I believe it is real? Yes. Do I believe that it is often over-medicated or over-diagnosed? Yes. But do I want to tell you that I disagree with your opinion that this is a made-up disorder? No way…the drug-info I am very happy to impart, but I’ll leave you to make your own decision on whether or not the disorder exists…
This rocks my socks: http://www.today.com/parents/university-president-blasts-students-being-too-sensitive-not-daycare-t58811 . True that! Are there some things that are true injustices on college campuses? Yes, but do people freak out at things that are completely fine? Also, definitely yes. Like the blog I wrote for a project first year said, blessed are the flexible for they will not be broken in two. I can’t remember what the point of that statement was in the project, but I know that it fits here pretty well…listening to the video I was outraged. Every person deserves respect. Students were screaming at reporters in the video. To the reporters credit, they remained calm and either dusted it off their shoulders and ignored it or calmly responded to the students, but that is completely unacceptable behavior on the part of the students. Another part of the video showed students screaming in the hall of what appears to be an academic building. Also, completely 100% unacceptable. There are acceptable ways to show your positive and negative emotions and screaming is not one of them…unless your child is about to walk into traffic and you need to immediately get their attention…
I have a final tomorrow. I hate finals. I really do know stuff right now…but I know that when I am there it is really a roll of the dice whether or not I’ll know it…Story of my life…which is why I try really hard to study to the point that I know my notes inside and out to minimize the chance of forgetting everything…yeah, when I say I know nothing, sometimes that might be true, but more often it means I know the material but not yet to the point I will still know it and be able to recall it fast enough when faced with a big scary exam that makes the downstairs brain kick out the upstairs brain (yes, this is an analogy I learned when I totally wasn’t on pinterest this morning…)
A journey through trauma & triumph 