Welcome to Me Land

Friends-only. Comment to be added. :)

( Cut for possible trigger )

P.P.P.S. I like this post and it's not too personal, so I'm making it public.

I've tried to write this entry multiple times, but the words aren't coming out right. I'd like to stop feeling like crap for no logical reason. I'm not depressed or anything, but I feel down, restless, or lethargic most of the time. I feel disconnected. I feel lonely. I feel like I could probably use more varied sentence structure. Right now I should be moving my butt outside so I can go to a Starbucks to study, but I just can't get myself out of here.

I unplugged my TV's cable box in a misguided effort to save energy. At first, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it when I tried and failed to turn it on. Then, I realized I had unplugged it. Smart, right? When I plugged it back in and turned my TV on, initially I was joyous. Despite asking for my mom's grudging help, I figured it out on my own. The TV was working again. Or was it? The automatic TV guide you can get with the push of a button wasn't working on my TV. All it said was endless repeats of "No Data". No fun. I'd screwed up my previously-perfect TV.

A sign I should watch less TV? Or a sign that I'm stupid? Or both? But I'm bored, and I already did more homework than I expected to do today. Actually, I did homework because I couldn't think of anything better to do. I live in a huge city. That's just sad.

ETA: My TV's working fine now. The data just had to load.

I'm done with sociology!!!!!!!! I e-mailed everything to the professor, and all I have to do is physically mail the documents to her tomorrow. She wants them in her inbox by a certain date. The two essays and typed field notes could be better (the pictures I drew on the field notes were super-messy), but they are done. And I did well on the sociology final essay! Yep, because of my extension, the final was due before regular essays. But, anyway, she said I did well on the final, so yay.

I wonder what it means that my boyfriend and I talk so much about what life will be like when and if we have kids. He's not even 100% sure he wants children, but we sure talk about our hypothetical spawn a lot. Heh, we're probably just a typical couple over-speculating about the future, but it's nice that the boyfriend doesn't freak out whenever marriage/kids enter the conversation. He listened to my wedding-dress rant without spazzing. Did I ever write about that?

All this probably means he's not a stereotypical male commitment-phobe. Actually, I was a commitment-phobe myself, to the point of not going out with anybody because I didn't want to break up in the future. Now, I can securely date my boyfriend without worrying about breaking up. (I hope we don't split, but if that happens I won't die over it or refuse to be in a relationship ever again; the boyfriend has made me realize relationships are actually good things.)

My brain makes no logical sense. None. At all. I'm completely loony. For one thing, I'm having "not married" anxiety and I'm only 21! I keep seeing people the same age/younger than I am getting engaged and married and I think that makes them better people. Like, how silly, right? I mean, statistically marriages that start in the mid/late twenties and later have a better chance of succeeding. (I wish I had the official stats for that.)

Writing this out makes me realize how completely absurd it is. I shouldn't be journaling at 4:15 in the morning, should I?

Hello. Academically, life is not so good, but my relationship is moving along nicely. Tomorrow's my one-year anniversary. :D Yay! Sometimes I have to poke my boyfriend to make sure he's real because honestly I don't always think he exists. I asked my aunt (who met my boyfriend when he visited my home city with me) if she could see him, and she said yes. More than one reader of this journal has seen and interacted with the boyfriend, so he must be real, right?

( Cut for mentions of sexual things )

I got my half-sister this. I like buying reasonably socially-responsible gifts, and this site has tons of good items, plus they donate to one of various charities when you buy stuff. I was going to get this cool art set, but they sold out of it before I had a chance to buy it. I asked my dad if he thought the gift was appropriate, and he said yes. I hope she likes it, and if not, at least my dad can grow chives. Chives are pretty. I'm also a fan of Etsy. I got my cousin and my friend gifts from there. I'm channeling my recession-inappropriate shopping compulsion into something productive by using it to buy gifts. I'm also justifying it by saying that it helps the economy. Haha, of course. I know I'm ridiculously privileged. I wonder what will happen to me when I have to survive off the money I make myself. Uh-oh. You all can laugh at me when that happens.

I'm still alive. Not much to say.

I have discovered that I absolutely, positively cannot do homework on my own. The littlest worksheet overwhelms me unless I have somebody studying with me. Unless I have direct support, I just don't function. "Tough love" i.e. saying "do your work on your own or else" doesn't help. I take the "or else", no matter how damaging, because I just can't work on my own. Instead of sucking it up and dealing, if help is withdrawn I essentially stop living and go into apathetic, depressed zombie mode (and get bad grades and have to withdraw from classes).

I realize that I have at least 4 sheets to do by 9:10AM tomorrow, so there's no hope because looking at the sheer mass of work is too much. The only reason I was so damn optimistic before was because I had a homework buddy, who, unfortunately, has now decided to be tired of me. So, I'm stressed, exhausted, and lonely to boot. Being on your own sucks when you're out of energy and in desperate (if unwarranted and undeserved) need of support to get essential homework done. However, I've been too much of a drain on all my friends (who are rightly busy anyhow), so I'm stuck with the mess I made.

Hello ladies, gentlemen, and anybody in-between (children too I suppose, but the little kiddies probably shouldn't be reading this). I am a raging hypocrite. Have I ever professed my dislike for those couples who are always together, to the exclusion of others? If I haven't, well, then, I dislike them. They're annoying, but, guess what? I've become one, half of one, technically. To be fair to myself, it's not because I think my boyfriend is important above all else or because he's caused me to devalue my friends. Rather, he's one of the few friends I have and he lives in the same dorm as I do, making seeing him easy and easy availability is good for a lazy sort like myself. Also, he helps me with my homework and is something of a self-esteem booster. Nevertheless, I've become extremely obnoxious, somewhat clingy, and therefore really, really need to make contact with the friend with whom I am not romantically involved.

This semester is starting off horribly. I've already skipped my first class, because we had homework for it over break and I didn't do that homework. I'm going to drop the course anyway, because I can't handle the day-to-day homework demands of a language class without going super-duper bonkers. (This is unfortunate since I think I need at least a few language credits to graduate.) I will go to my other classes, which are later in the day. Still, my already-present, fairly intense anxiety does not bode well. Is this sort of anxiety normal? Maybe I should ask the psychiatrist, but he doesn't seem to think much is wrong with me (if anything). Maybe I'm exaggerating my problems in order to feel special, but I am most certainly not exaggerating this anxiety, which doesn't have any possible positives. I may have a pathological need to be different and "better" in some way in order to give my life meaning (I am a disturbed mentally-healthy b*tch, I know), but anxiety doesn't give me that, it gives me only, well, anxiety. If anything, this stupid anxiety-engendered inability to work makes me feel inferior and more ordinary. So poo to you, brain. You suck.

Grr...the emotional dullness won't go away. My melodramatic sense of ordinariness won't go away. I don't want to be ignorant, but I guess ignorance is bliss, since if you contemplate your place in the universe you realize you mean nothing at all. It's not a happy knowledge. Even if you scale it back a bit and look at your place in humanity, the outlook isn't much brighter, at least for me. I'm tired of feeling like such a replaceable, insignificant, un-special, dull nothing.

Hi. So far the new year has been full of blah. Horrible, horrible blah. Sure, I've done some fun stuff but every night I still go to bed depressed and discontent. I'm tired of myself. The year doesn't even feel that new. I still feel like me: dull and useless and worthless and ordinary. I'm an un-special snowflake. The problem is I don't foresee things getting any better. To put it another way: the future doesn't look particularly exciting. I guess you could say I'm pessimistic. I just can't get excited about living. I fully intend to live out my natural lifespan, but what's the fun of joining the rat race and watching the planet slowly die of climate change (even though it will probably be okay enough during my lifetime)? I can't see my character changing enough for me ever to enjoy existence instead of sometimes slightly liking it and usually just tolerating it. I feel the dullness gripping my being is permanent, and that I'll never have anything more than a blah life. I have no passion for anything and I don't see that changing any time soon. I want passion for life, instead of my usual anxiety and avoidance.

I never make New Year's resolutions because I have this odd fear that if I make something a resolution, I will automatically NOT accomplish it. It's the same with promises: I hesitate to make them because I'm sure I'll break them. However, if I do make a resolution this year, it will be the same one I think about every year, no make that every day: actually do my damn homework on time! You know what? It's not so much a resolution as a general everyday self-improvement goal that I have yet to realize. Making the elimination [or at least reduction] of procrastination a resolution simply puts extra pressure that won't help. Or will it help? Doubt it.

Starting tomorrow (today technically since it's past midnight) I will be without internet access for a few days. We're going to my web-less country house since we celebrate get-presents-from-under-a-tree-day (Christmas) with my grandma who lives up in the country. I don't usually make these announcements before I leave for the country, but I was bored so I decided to make one. This post is positively riveting, no? No? Okay then.

I didn't talk to any of my friends today. I think I sort of forgot they existed. Don't worry, I remember now! I'm a bad person, aren't I? I feel like a scatterbrained careless airhead. I am definitely an airhead. Who else but a complete ditz-brain would get in a shower and turn on the water while still wearing a bra? Brilliant move on my part. Now I have a wet bra in my bathroom. Lovely. And my psychiatrist thinks I'm saner than I "put on". Hah, I wonder what crazy looks like if my inner state equals relative sanity.

The new "Adult Content" tags confuse me. I wonder how much "Adult Content" and "Adult Concepts" this journal contains. LiveJournal should have created an angst warning. That'd be more useful, I think.

Edit: I found out my semester grade for Psych: B+. I guess that's not too awful, considering I never really studied (except for a bit on the first test, which oddly enough was my worst exam of the three). I got an 80% on the final test, which was actually in the top half or maybe even top third of all the scores.

I leave for home tomorrow, since Winter Break (of Doom) has started. I am so not looking forward to it. Yeah, you'd think being school-free for 4 weeks (actually 3 weeks according to the CA) would be kinda cool, right? Not when you have to spend it at home with a mother who can make you cry from a 10-minute telephone conversation. Plus, I freaking HATE packing. I suck at it; packing's got to be one of the most unpleasant chores ever invented. My mom said she'd arrive early to help, but now that won't be possible because of an impending snowstorm. Screw you, mother nature! Stop ruining my plans! I damn hate when plans get changed like this. It messes with myneat little blueprint of how the world should go.

My CA is wrong: packing is not as simple as putting things into a bag. It may seem that way to some people, but that's a damn lie. A giant damn lie covered in untruthful sauce. Packing is, in reality, a mad scramble to find everything you need and not being able to. Packing is frantically worrying if you've got everything and finding out you don't once you arrive at your destination. Packing is ending up with a bag twice as heavy as it needs to be. Packing is an opportunity to show the world how incompetent you are. Most importantly, packing is f**king boring and slooooooooooooooooow. Actually, it's more than boring. My skin feels like it's freaking crawling over having to do it. Like, I want to throw up I feel that gross, but I can't because my stomach's empty. I'm hungry.

This is yet another exam of why my mother and I don't get along: she finds packing fun. I don't get it. We can't be related. Goddammit, I hope I'm not related to that psycho-b*tch. I hope, hope, I'm adopted or something. Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssseeeeeeeee let my REAL parents not be so horribly not relatable!!!

I passed Beginning Japanese: C-. Yuck to that grade but I can't complain (though I will, of course). Seeing as I didn't attend every class and stopped handing in homework about 5/8 of the way through the semester, I should be glad I passed at all. Oh yeah, skipping an entire TEST didn't help my cause. I did get an extension on the homework, which I (sort of) used by handing in two outstanding (not the good kind of outstanding) essays, which I figured were more important than the regular worksheet-type assignments. I did do the final on time. I wonder what I got on that; I think it went well, but now I'm curious. At least a C- is juuuuuuuuust high enough to use as credit towards any major/minor that might include it. Since I might minor in East Asian Studies, which requires a year or two (can't remember which) in an East Asian language, I'd rather not take the class over again.

Speaking of East Asian things, my Intro to East Asian Civilization final got extended. Now I'm taking it in January when I get back from break. I learned this only five minutes before the normal time of the exam. I'd actually been cramming with a classmate of mine and felt marginally prepared. I'm almost annoyed that I have to wait until the material isn't as fresh in my mind, but it will probably go best for me if I actually read the textbook.

Oh yeah, I took my Developmental Psych final today at 9:15AM. On less than four hours of sleep. No, I wasn't cramming (no helpful classmate to encourage me); I was anxiously browsing the internet, unable to convince my dumb*ss brain to put me to sleep. My gray matter has issues. Oh, and I didn't study or do any of the reading. Go me. Actually, I sort of studied in that at 8:30AM or so I flipped through my Dev Psych readings book and looked at random studies, hoping a few would be covered on the test. I had no idea which parts of the reading book would be relevant, I just randomly went through it in a frantic last-ditch effort sort of way. I think one of my glances may have paid off.

I don't think I have Borderline Personality Disorder, but...

DSM-IV-TR criteria - Yes I'm going to self-analyze, for something I probably don't even have, no less.

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. [Not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5] - I don't know if I've ever made any specific efforts to get people not to abandon me, but I do fear abandonment a lot and so often ask "do you still like me?" or "will you still be friends with me?"

2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. - I don't think I have this characteristic exactly, but with my boyfriend (yes I have a boyfriend, weird, right?) I have been like "don't leave, you won't leave me, right?" to "we should break up" and back again. And again.

3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. - I feel inconsistent and like I have no identity. Sometimes I feel like such a nothing that I must barely exist.

4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). [Again, not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5] - I'm sort of the opposite of this (for example I fear driving and am definitely not promiscuous, having a paranoid fear of STDs and such), but I'll admit to occasional binge eating and a tendency to overspend.

5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-mutilating behavior. - I have done self-mutilating behavior in the past and I often say "I want to jump off a cliff", but I'd never actually do it.

6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). This one is SO FREAKING ME. Oh man, those familiar with me in real life know I have intense, usually-irrational moods that vanish within hours.

7. Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness. - Another big check. I'm feeling this right now, as a matter of fact.

8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). Crying and whining episodes, anyone? I've had a hostile attitude with my psychiatrist on occasion

9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms - Don't know about this, but when I've had exams I'm often convinced I'll fail, be kicked out of school, be disowned by my family, and end up on the streets.

Oddly enough, this has never been one of my multiple "what's wrong with the weird girl?" diagnoses.

Edit: My cousin found out that I have a boyfriend (still can't quite believe that I have one) and is interrogating me about him. Ugh! I know that's normal girl behavior, but I can't quite figure out how to discuss. It's weirdly embarrassing. I mean my boyfriend is full of super-duper amazing awesomeness, but that super-duper amazing awesomeness is difficult to put into words. However, this may all become irrelevant since I think I may have finally pushed boyfriend over the edge with my nuttiness. I sent him a Facebook message apologizing and saying I wanted to see him, but he hasn't responded. Alas, I screw up everything good in my life. I do.