Crashing

We discussed another topic in General Psychology today and I took a ton of notes in class and stated my opinion. It was important and I don't' want to forget the stance I took. It's what I normally would write about, but I don't want to anymore, and I think it's finally important that I say why. It's because I'm crashing. And from here on out that's gonna show on this project.

Last year I crashed. Hard. I slid into an intense depression and I can still remember it being bitter cold outside as I stood against my back door, hiding under the bay window hoping no one would see me, listening past the sounds of the cars going by on the highway across the wilderness of the backyard. I remember talking to my sister on the phone and the more she spoke the farther I slid the phone away from my mouth so she wouldn't hear me crying. I shivered and sniffled and hid and felt so poor. Felt so low.

I couldn't study. I would sit and stare at my work and try to focus and I couldn't. There was a wall there. My sister has gone through the same thing and I've never felt so comforted as when she told me that I wasn't just lazy and unmotivated, but there was something wrong with me. Thank God I'm not just stupid, thank God I'm not just lazy, thank God there's something wrong with me. I sat in class and felt the anxiety and the panic attacks and fought to hold still. I felt too unhappy to function. I started to fail classes for the first time in my life and for the first time in my life I swallowed my pride and scheduled an appointment with a counselor.

We did not talk about God. She let me ramble and rant and would stop me and focus on one thing at a time. She kept going back to the reason I was there: I had told her, "I just need to get through this year." She taught me what I needed to change in my lifestyle that would help and I tried, sometimes with little success. She helped me realize that the more thoughts I had and the more jumbled and unorganized they got, the more overwhelmed I felt by what I couldn't understand or conquer.

This year I am not dealing with the same problems I was last semester: the damage and remnants from relationships are left over but the trauma's not fresh like it was. I recognize the damage that's been done to my emotional well being and ability to relate to people, but that's not my problem right now. I don't believe so at least. I feel scared and intimidated by the work I have to do with class, but I'm still hanging on.

For a reason unknown to me, I am crashing. My emotional well being, my happiness, my motivation, it's slipping away and I can't control it and I don't know how to fix it. This is what happened last year. But I see a remarkable change in myself: I am not the same person I was. My counselor told me to start a steady workout plan: I have started working out three times a week again. She told me to get a steady sleeping pattern: I've started trying to get up at the same time every day no matter what like she had told me. I see myself making changes to my lifestyle because I want to be fixed: I want to gain control. I've been prioritizing and making lists. I've been keeping a firm grip on my myself: I have not locked myself in my room, slept days away, or cried myself to sleep: I'm not panicking. There's a control and a strength that was not there before. There's a desire to persevere that did not exist before and despite the fact that I can feel myself going down, I am actively working against it.

I'm having many side affects though: I am quick to feel inadequate and quick to run from people when I get even the slightest hint that they disaprove of me in any way. I'm quick to feel boring and undesirable. I have trouble focusing and maintaing the ability to stay on task. I have trouble staying patient or being willing to work through things with people: I want to push them aside. I have trouble smiling when I'm alone. I have trouble putting in effort.

And when I think of this blog, I don't want to write anymore. I passionately love A Study In Honesty and I want to see it completed. I don't like the idea of not continuing and writing. But I sit down to do this and I don't want to. I feel the negativity oosing out of me, I read what I've written, especially my compilation with Ben Holtrop and I am shocked by how heavy and dark it is.

I remember being in this place before, and once again I am writing about emotions: something I've hated doing in the past but still feel the need to do. This time around I feel a difference in my attitude and my willingness to work against it. This time around I do not want to keep writing as opposed to spilling my heart online. So even if the posts that are to follow are simple or strange or pathetic, they'll still be there, reflecing who I am as low, dumb, boring, embarassing, inadequate, or totally emo teenage as they may be.

I didn't want to write anything tonight: it's always a surprise what comes out.

But I just thought it should be acknowledged and said: I am mysteriously crashing. And I feel like I should give a disclaimer and a warning because I don't know what this project will look like as I honestly strive to cope. I do know that this time around I'm gonna make it though, and just knowing that helps me make it.

11/2/11