Must. . . kill. . .
Hate everyone. Life not worth living. Random crying already started. Dreading tomorrow. Want violence.
No headache, though – I bought some diet coke to ease the lack of caffeine.
Still want to kill folks. Especially if they come within three metres.
Nothing works as a substitute for chocolate. Nothing.
Being my own therapist
Yesterday I had an especially fun lesson with a student, just going through the five main schools of psychology – Behaviourist, Psychoanalytic, Biological, Humanist and Cognitive. Today I’ll be thinking about applying each of these to myself, and perhaps finding something useful.
Behaviourist: Our behaviour is a simple response to past or present stimuli eg If a dog once scared us, we react negatively to all dogs. The stimuli can also be observed – eg If we see someone else getting ice cream for being good in class, we are more likely to be good in class.
Felicity: My behaviour responds to almost anything as a negative stimulus. If I can observe other people getting positive results for being involved in the world, I am likely to be less afraid of everything (I can also re-train myself by finding positive stimuli for myself).
2. Psychodynamic: Our rational self (the ego) tries to find a balance between our id (unrestrained desires) and our superego (social and moral rules without joy or life). Too much id power makes a person psychotic, and too much superego power makes a neurotic.
Felicity: I am clearly neurotic. To solve this, I need to let my id out of the box a little, and enjoy life. One obvious way is to spend more money on fun and less on savings. I’m already committed to that process because of the Daily Awesomeness at http://twittertales.wordpress.com. The fact that I “have” to write my blog soothes my superego.
Biological: Our psychological problems stem from chemical imbalances in the brain, as well as genetic and evolutionary predilictions.
Felicity: My own chemical imbalances respond well to chemical medication. After some medical tests on 8 April, I’ll be going back on meds for a bit.
Humanist: A person needs love and a sense of belonging to develop into a self-actualised human being. Before that, basic needs such as food and shelter must be met.
Felicity: My basic needs have only just been reliably met by CJ’s income (and life insurance) but my needs for love and belonging have something blocking my ability to believe any love for me is real. If I hang around friends who love me for who I am, perhaps I can become more actualised over time. It’d probably also help if my self-identity was less negatively skewed. I think self-identity is helped by work (of almost any kind) and I think the Daily Awesomeness will make me feel like I matter.
5. Cognitive: Our interpretation of stimuli dictates our responses. If we change our thought patterns, we change ourselves.
Felicity: I feel way more insane if I start telling myself things I don’t believe (eg Repeating, “I am a worthwhile person” over and over. . . bleaugh!) but I can attempt to minimise the repetition of negative thoughts.
Conclusion: The easiest useful thing for me to do is have more fun (thanks, Sigmund).
I also need more self-esteem and better thought patterns, but that will be more difficult to achieve (I know from experience that taking meds makes negativity suddenly seem as foolish as I know it is). But I’ll try and improve a little bit.
Every Dog has its Way
Today’s daily awesomeness (http://twittertales.wordpress.com) ended well – but it started badly.
My friend Hannah is staying with her parents, who are Dog People. My SO and I picked her up from there to have lunch.
I developed a strong aversion to Dog People when I lived with a pregnant woman who wanted to have a home birth so that her dogs could be there. That was some years ago, but I haven’t recovered. I don’t like LOOKING at dogs. To me dogs are like desperately insecure people who make you feel wretched just by looking at you. (I like cats, because when cats look at you they don’t look needy – they look like they’re thinking about whether your belly or face will taste nicer when they eat you to death. Refreshingly honest, in my opinion.)
Hannah’s parents have two dog calendars in their kitchen, two life-size stone dogs in their yard, and two rather neurotic real dogs. The dogs are looked after VERY well. Each has their own armchair, which sits facing out the front window so they can harass passers-by in comfort.
One of these dogs, Rocket, hates me.
He likes Hannah. He loves my SO. He HATES me. And I hate him.
Dogs often dislike me because I wear long skirts, and when I walk the movement freaks them out. So as soon as my SO and I walked in he growled at me, and didn’t stop growling despite my best dog etiquette (crouch down so I seem smaller, don’t meet their eye or show my teeth, hold out my hand palm-down, speak quietly). No; I lie. He did stop growling sometimes – to bark outright. I speak enough dog to understand the tone of, “Get out! I hate you! You are not welcome here!” All this while simultaneously fawning at my SO’s knee (which I admit is a nice knee, but REALLY).
Did I mention I dislike dogs?
So eventually I was able to get past the foyer and sit at the kitchen bench. Rocket stayed on the other side of the bench, growling without pause as Hannah told him off, took chocolate slice from the fridge, cut it up and generally prepared for a picnic. I attempted to dominate Rocket by deliberately staring at him in hopes that I could be the alpha dog, but that didn’t work either.
The second dog doesn’t like me much, but it had gone over to its seat to stretch out in the sun. I came up with a cunning plan: I stood up (slowly and carefully) and moved over to the other dog.
“What a GOOD dog!” I exclaimed. “Aren’t you a good dog!?! Good good girl. Aren’t you just SO GOOD!”
Within two minutes Rocket was sitting at my side, silently pleading for a pat.
Because even bullies just want to be loved.
PS Does anyone have a fish tank (or a large salad bowl. . .)? S#78: “Adopt a Pet” is my planned awesomeness for 2 April, and since I have two cats, I plan to buy some fish.
Precious Bodily Fluids
Yesterday would have been so much easier if I was a heroin addict.
Since I’m still sick (as evinced by the way I stopped taking nausea pills and immediately felt bad again) I went to the doctor – again – and he let me know my second giardia test also came up negative. I always thought it was a little odd that I’d get giardia on the one Indonesian trip in which I DIDN’T drink any water.
After a brief discussion of my bowel movements, he set me up for a variety of other tests. On 8 April I’ll have an ultrasound and X-ray (both of my belly) – confirming my notion that this is all just a giant sympathetic pregnancy (so much so that, despite being perfectly regular in my cycle, I’ve done four pregnancy tests. . . just to be sure).
The first tests were blood tests, which I could do right away.
Or could I?
I briefly remembered my disastrous attempt to donate blood, but since I’ve successfully had my blood tested before, I wasn’t especially concerned. Not rationally.
Unfortunately, my body doesn’t answer to the rational part of me – just the wacky, insane part. So my blood simply wouldn’t flow.
I have been blood-tested before by the exact woman who repeatedly stuck me this time with no success. Eventually she gave up and sent me to another medical centre. By then I was bleeding in three places (two on my hand, one on my elbow).
Since repeated failure, another person’s professional embarrasment, and my own pain and bleeding isn’t conducive to relieving my blood’s pathological shyness, I called in the big guns: food. chocolate. husband.
My husband and I ate an enormous lunch at Black Pepper cafe in Belconnen, and I drank vast amounts (which is what you do before donating blood – it makes it flow better), then we bought a ridiculous quantity of junk food, plus a Wendy’s choc mint shake for me to sip in the room.
My husband gave me a neck massage as we waited, and literally held my hand as the lady tied a cord around my upper arm (switching arms every so often), and pushed and poked and prodded various veins. She made an actual attempt at my other elbow, which also failed. Then she passed me on to her more experienced counterpart.
The experienced counterpart squished my arm for a bit and then got a “baby needle” and used that – successfully.
After 4.5 hours, three medical professionals, a husband, $50 of food, and five injections, I was able to go home and have a lie down.
I bet it’s lupus.
Cunning Plans
I’ve now had a headache for two weeks, and intestinal parasites since January. Oh, and insanity for six years. The world isn’t looking good.
I’m about to launch into a wild adventure on my other blog (since its current form – as handmaid to the twitter stories, with ever-decreasing relevance, is starting to bore me), by doing SOMETHING interesting every day (except Fridays, when it’ll still have the “current story so far” plus anything actually relevant to that tale).
Some of the list includes:
-Playing a play-dough role-playing game (make your own monster, then fight everyone else).
-Making a sandcastle.
-Eating a whole meal of one colour.
-Going to Catholic Mass
-Various top secret activities to be slowly revealed.
And EVERYTHING – absolutely EVERYTHING – from this list:
http://steffmetal.com/101-ways-to-cheer-yourself-up/
(which my partner isn’t allowed to read yet).
If you can think of something life-affirming (and/or odd) for me to do, put it in the comments and I’ll almost certainly do it. Especially if I can work out a way to do it for free.
This all officially starts THIS FRIDAY. Massive mood swings, here I come!
SkyFire
SkyFire is a word familiar to every Canberran.
Every March, the radio station FM 104.7 hosts a massive free fireworks event that can be viewed from all around our main central lake (acting like a huge natural amphitheatre). Cars fill roundabouts, traffic islands, and every scrap of dirt for kilometres in every direction. The shores of the lake sparkle with glow-sticks in blue, pink, yellow and orange. People gather throughout the day, and picnic in one giant mass as the sun sets.
Fireworks start at 8pm, and traffic is deadlocked for an hour before and afterwards.
Skyfire is a scary thing for a mental such as myself – even going to church is scary (because there are “lots” of people – perhaps one or two hundred). I spent a large chunk of yesterday with a stress-headache, lying in bed wishing I could calm down enough to read the excellent book sitting beside me. I thought about giving it a miss this year – but I think that every year.
We left around 6:30, surprised and pleased that a friend visiting town was able to come with us (that helped me considerably – she is someone I consider “safe” along with perhaps ten others on earth). We’d already stocked up on a ridiculous pile of lollies (Maltesers, Mars pods, natural confectionary party mix, and Lindt intense orange – plus our friend brought Starburst fruits and red frogs), which is always good for calming me down, especially when the thing that’s scaring me is that I’m meant to be happy.
The sunset last night was beautiful – one of those ones that fills the sky. There’s been a lot of smoke around Canberra lately because of backburning (burning fire-prone areas so if a fire happens it dies out for lack of fuel), but that just made the sky prettier.
We settled down on a grassy slope at the lake end of Anzac Parade, looking across to the many 104.7 barges, and Parliament House (and more crowds) on the other side. This is a particularly good area for families, with a festival atmosphere, some extremely sought-after public toilets, shops selling greasy deliciousness, and very few drunkards (they tend to gather near the exclusive VIP area, making the most of free performances – Vanessa Amorosi performed this year).
The family in front of us was playing cricket, and the family behind us was attempting to join glow-sticks together to make hula hoops. Both overlapped onto us frequently, but that only added to the feeling of being part of one giant picnic.
It’s both extremely expensive (for the organisers) and free (for everyone else, except the VIPs) and it’s just a brilliant and expertly-designed event.
The concept behind the event is that the fireworks are programmed to be in sync with a soundtrack designed during the previous year (including lots of recent hits, very heavily leaning toward the happy and party-like). We didn’t need to bring a radio, because very powerful speakers were set up everywhere.
The first song was “Feeling Good” and the fireworks built slowly to crescendo at the chorus.
Later on they had a “Lady Gaga” medly (fairly short, since they left out all the rude bits) and they used shaped fireworks that exploded in cubes (no reason but freakish to see), sunnies (for the lady herself), and faces for “Poker Face”. When she was singing, “Let’s Dance” they used fireworks that move in random directions after the initial explosion – like dancing fireflies.
On another song (the “End of the World” I think) it has a line about, “Look up and see the stars exploding” and they used all yellow and white fireworks for that bit. Later it had fireworks that fell in hundreds of tiny comets – all with their own flaming tail.
It’s a freakin’ brilliant night, and I love three things:
1. Poor people (including poor families) get a seriously good night out.
2. Everything is done well (it’s planned for over a year).
3. Once, in the distant past, someone sat in a room and had an idea. . . and SkyFire was born from that small moment.
Driving away took a while, but everyone was very understanding (stopping for pedestrians and ignoring normal road rules to let cars in who would otherwise have been stuck for hours). We did see two accidents on the way home, but no-one was hurt.
Engineering My Nightmares
Sometimes I have nightmares. Often, they’re pretty good stories (one inspired me to write a full-size young adult book – in two weeks). Other times they come with real emotions, and that’s not good. I’ve had more nightmares than usual lately – the kind where I wake up frightened and/or grieving – which is either part of my Flagyl allergy, or a more direct side effect of simply being sick for so long. That, and being a mental.
But lately I’ve developed bizarre strategies for “solving” my nightmares.
I recently dreamed I was somewhere in Africa, doing charity work, when a natural disaster destroyed the whole area and everyone had to flee for their lives. I was already emotionally close to a number of children, and had a vehicle big enough to (just) fit them all. Everything was chaos as the nearby lake flooded, and people were so desperate to survive they didn’t care for anything but themselves. Many of the children I cared for went into shock, and no-one was looking after them. I wasted a lot of time searching for a particular girl who was wearing a faded floral dress (the kind someone would have thrown into an op-shop bin in Australia twenty years earlier). She was so terrified she hid inside an abandoned (and doomed) house.
Finally I found her, loaded my vehicle with all the children (all extremely docile, and unable to even understand me yelling for them to move across the seats inside the car so they’d all fit), and was about to drive away. All around me people yelled at one another in a desperate traffic jam as everyone but me drove uphill to safety. As I grabbed the last of the children, the girl in the floral dress snapped and jumped out of the car. She ran back down the road to her swamped village. I’ve never seen someone so frightened. She was like an animal. The other children simply stared, not even understanding what was happening.
Then I woke up – filled with horror, grief, and an overwhelming sense of futility and failure. It was about 2:00am.
That’s when a brilliant thing happened. I came up with a cunning plan. The emotions were with me because I wasn’t truly awake. Rationality wouldn’t help. But I could use my non-waking state to manipulate my subjective reality.
So I physically got out of bed and walked to the door – telling myself I was chasing the girl. Then I told myself I was carrying her back to the car, getting in, and holding her on my lap – as I went back into bed. I wrapped my arm around my husband’s real-life warmth and closed my eyes, telling myself the warmth was the rescued girl. She didn’t escape to drown: she was right here, in my arms.
And I fell back into sleep and drove all the children to safety.
It worked.
A few nights later I had what I think of as an anime-style nightmare, in which a black amorphous evil mass threatened to KILL EVERYTHING. This also, in my addled 3am state, was truly frightening. So once again, I used the real world to defeat the problem.
“You’re nothing but an amorphous mass,” I said – aloud. “You’re not even written well.”
This worked just fine. It also made my husband laugh in his sleep (not that he remembered anything later).
I like to think of this skill as a new-found superpower.
Blurk
I’ve seen the doctor again, and they want to retest me for Giardia (the first test was inconclusive). I don’t have to take any more Flagyl pills (since I’m allergic) but I was meant to go straight onto Imodium and anti-nausea pills (which I didn’t, because the habit of putting off any unexpected expense is too strong – I’ll get some tomorrow).
I improved overall since I stopped taking Flagyl, but I’ve now regressed to being roughly as sick as I was before going to the doctor (plus the still-fading allergic side effects). Sidebar: I also have small sores at the edges of my mouth, which usually indicates malnutrition. I remember I had them in early February, too. My diet’s not THAT bad.
Today is the 11th, which means it’s exactly a month since I was told the children’s deparment heads are discussing “Stormhunter”. I estimate they’ll reply 1-2 months from now. (Last time this happened it took two weeks, but that was a different company.)
I had another look at my records and realised that the company (a different one to the above two) that has “Farting my ABCs” once took eight months to reply to just the first three chapters of a book of mine. If they take the same amount of time on this book, they’ll reply in late April.
I think the main reasons creative types are so much more prone to mental illness are:
1. They’re alone a lot.
2. They don’t have regular pay.
3. They know their pay depends on luck more than it should.
I can combat this by seeing friends, by living off my husband’s regular-as-clockwork wage, and by giving myself as many solid and reliable things to look forward to as possible. (Instead of the airy-fairy waiting for publishers, which will probably end in tears anyway.) Tomorrow I’m going to see a movie, and on Saturday me and mine are going out to dinner for a friend’s birthday party. So yay for that.
And I’ll buy chocolate with my medicine tomorrow. A shovel-full of sugar makes the medicine go down.
Smorgasblog
2am. Can’t sleep. Random blogliness ensues.
There’s much gratuitous cuteness today at http://twittertales.wordpress.com
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A couple of nights ago, my cat was sitting on my husband’s chest, purring loudly as my husband snored. I slid out of bed and crept around to the other side to get his iphone to record them both. My attempt was foiled when my partner woke up and helpfully passed me his flashlight.
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I have to take another 21 anti-parasite pills. It’s at the point now where I’m pretty sure the pills are worse than what’s left of my giardia. They leave a permanent bad taste in my mouth (sore throat, too) as if I’ve just thrown up. It vanishes for about five minutes after I eat, then reappears.
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My husband and efficiency don’t get along, so I’m attempting to write a sort of will – more a set of instructions for if I suddenly die (stuff like the phone numbers of all my students so someone actually tells them why I don’t show up). If he dies, it’s a lot simpler for me, because I AM efficient. All I need to do is:
1. Get his insurance money to pay for the funeral. Register for the dole to pay for rent and food.
2. Throw stuff away (mostly his) and move somewhere smaller.
3. Take happy pills and/or avoid human contact.
I wish I knew the statistics for how often spouses drop dead/are killed in the first, say, ten years of marriage. Pretty sure rational data would help dissipate my conviction that SOMETHING bad has to be about to happen. My marriage really is the easiest thing about my life.
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Avocados: so delicious, but so risky. Does buying a rock-hard avocado EVER result in an edible avocado? I think not.
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World’s most terrifying slogan (for Kresta blinds):
Windows come ALIVE!
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Wish I could sleep. This is silly.
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Mental illness is a lot like PMS, plus having a vital assignment due at 5pm, and also being naked.
It’s all about incoherant rage, a sense of doom (and guilt), and humiliation.
It’s also a lot like being a teenager (is there any experience more horrifying?) or being old (when suddenly you can’t do things you used to be able to do).
Still can’t quite convince myself I’m not making the whole thing up. What kind of s*** would that make me, after all these years?
It’s just so. . . stupid. I should be able to walk it off.
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On Monday I made oat cookies with brown sugar, butter, flour, oats, cinnamon and vanilla. The raw mixture was infinitely better than the biscuits. Why is that always the case?
Luckily I mostly just ate the mixture.
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Yesterday I had a D and M with a student about boys. She’s stunningly gorgeous, but doesn’t want to get into a relationship until she’s well into a degree. That was cool. Especially finding out people actually still say, “D and M”. Wow.
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I wish I was friends with Queen Elizabeth, so she could tell me how to sell my writing. I think she might be the greatest self-promoter ever.
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Pretty sure that if I just go into cryogenic suspension, one of my books will be published.
But not completely sure. Got to keep writing more better-er while I wait.
That I am a Barometer
I think the high rate of Westerners falling mentally ill is indicative of deep problems with our society. It’s partly that we have too much stuff. Even without knowing other people are starving, that’s not good for us (people need a certain amount of struggling toward a goal to be happy). We also do too much – constantly driven to get MORE stuff, so we have as much stuff as everyone else.
Bring back the eight-hour day.
Don’t work all weekend (and be aware of what “work” is, eg for me going to church is work so I have a rest day on Saturday, not Sunday).
Give away more money.
And then the world will be full of hugs and puppies.
Or not.
Felicity Banks 