Friday, September 24, 2010

listening to paramore makes me want to listen to new found glory.

i think i'm supposed to be doing classwork.  or something.  but i'm not.  i have two projects due sunday that i haven't done, but i can do them tomorrow.  i wasted my afternoon finding a library locally, which was fun.  but they didn't have any of the books on my list, save for one.  which is not fun.

so i told awesome husband to go ahead and play his video games and i'd do my work.  by the way, he beat halo odst in like 7 hours.  and that's HORRIBLE hours-to-dollars ratio.  i paid like $40 for mass effect two.  it took him 26 hours to beat it the first time, and he played it through two more times.  he's already DONE with halo odst, it cost us $35, and he doesn't really want to play through again.  i might make him.

anyway.  so i keep checking on my 'class forums' and watching these people post grammatical abortions.  i mean, really people.  it's an ENGLISH 101 class.  we had like two assignments on grammar already.  it's one thing if you confuse like passive and active voice.  but seriously, like keep it in the same tense.  and use proper punctuation.  and stop misspelling 'definitely' as 'defiantly' because it totally means something different.

i was 'defiantly' going to do my classwork, until i realized that i don't have a word processing program on my laptop.  so i can't.  so there.  i'll blog instead. 

i have a doctor's appointment on monday.  i've now been on pristiq for like 7 weeks.  and it's okay, i guess.  i still freak out sometimes.  i still get fidgety and anxious and whatever.  but awesome husband and my mom both say i'm doing better.  i guess i am.  but it's $50 to see the doctor, and pristiq is $60 a month.  that's with awesome husband's insurance.  and i'm not working.  would i rather be batshit crazy, or spend $110 a month i don't have?  i was thinking of asking if i could switch to something else.  zoloft used to help, and it's available generic.  maybe if i get that and some xanax, i'll be able to maintain.

i know medication is not a cure-all.  i know that i should be going to therapy.  but i can't afford it, and blogging is as good as therapy.  i've spent years in therapy.  i've already learned all the coping mechanisms and shit like that, i really have.  but it's like my brain conspires against me to not allow me that choice.  like, when i get frustrated: i can CHOOSE how i react to the situation.  batshit crazy steph gas wants to fucking pull her hair out, throw shit at walls, and scream (i have done that, too).  trying to be an adult steph gas wants to take a deep breath and figure out why she's frustrated, and get over it. 

but my brain doesn't give me that millisecond to choose.  i get frustrated, my fucking brain goes onto autopilot and does what it wants.  and it wants batshit crazy.  if you've been to cognitive behavioral therapy, you know that trauma and shit in our childhood and young adulthood kind of forms how we make decisions and how we react to things.

well.  when you have a seriously fucked up child/young adulthood, you choose and react inappropriately, irrationally, or just ridiculously.  so with cognitive behavioral therapy, you go back and figure out WHY your brain has trained itself to react that way, and learn new ways to give yourself that CHOICE.  i actually did like a meditative pathwalking with my last therapist, whom i loved dearly and miss terribly, where we went back to this shit in my young adulthood.  i imagined it, and visualized it in my head, and he told me he wanted to be there.  and i visualized him there and he protected me.  it sounds completely lame and ridiculous, but that incident DOES NOT have power over me anymore - he helped me get over it.

for me, medication seems to force my brain into NOT going on that autopilot - i get that millisecond to choose.  and that seems to be just enough to keep me on the functioning side of batshit crazy. 

i just feel a bit flat - flat affect.  i don't feel like i feel things.  i laugh at some stuff, i get sad at some stuff, but my main two 'emotions' seem to be 'nothingish' and 'frustrated'.  mostly 'nothingish'. 

oh mah gawd, sorry for the heavyishness of the last couple of posts.  i'd rather be real than real funny.  of course, my brother and his girlfriend will be visiting in like ELEVEN DAYS so that's super awesome.  we'll have a short week of ridiculous fun and shit.  and i bet you'll all like that.  i promish to blog about going to disney and harry potterville and shit like that.  until then, keep your unit on you.  STEPH GAS, OUT.

9 comments:

  1. I say if the meds help, why WOULDN'T you want them? If you had a broken arm, would you not want to wear the cast? Okay, then. I just so want to hug you right now. You'd probably throw ME at the wall, but I'm a hugger, so I wanna hug! There's no telling what a therapist would make of me!

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  2. Going on antidepressants can be a whole new exploration of what it means to feel. So many people talk about feeling cushioned in the middle, somewhere between up and down, high and low. And it's a tough question, the $110/mo. cost-benefit ratio. Might be worth it to try a generic. Isn't Lexapro out in generic now?

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  3. Good luck with the meds, Steph. And with school... Making headway in college is an empowering feeling. :-)

    Also, it sounds like you've come a long way on your personal journey. Congrats!

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  4. fanks, guys. vicki, i'm all about hugs, so no problems there :D

    yogurt: lexapro is out. i was on the real thing when it first came out with horrific side effects. i did well with zoloft. so i may ask for a combo of that and xanax. effexor is one of the only major ones i haven't tried so far.

    liz: i'm definitely enjoying school so far. i already have a problem with a professor, so it's just like high school, but without the cliques and dress code.

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  5. I've tried typing about five different things, but nothing looks right. Lol. Anyway, glad you are enjoying school. Hopefully you can find some meds that you can afford and don't make you shit your pants. I always thought it was funny how pills, especially diet ones, always make you have "loose, watery stool." It's like, "Would you rather be fat or go out and possibly shit your pants on your date?" Hmm...I'll take Fat for $500 Alex. haha.

    Oh, and thanks for following me! I'll try to update more often, with better material, since I'm getting more followers.

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  6. gah i always wondered about that. alli helps you lose like 50% more weight, so i would have lost 75 instead of 50 pounds. which i like. BUT at the cost of shitting my pants if i dared to ingest a french fry? i don't think so.

    i'm with you - i'll take fat, happy, and shit-stain free for $500.

    plus, i'm totally getting hooked on big girl clothes at torrid. being able to only shop at like two stores makes me less likely to buy DUMB SHIT. well. sort of.

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  7. Meds can help and they are good when you need something to help Right. Now.

    Therapy definitely has its place, too, and it helps for the long term solution. The important thing is finding a therapist who you connect with - easier said than done, unfortunately.

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  8. My little brother's been on meds for years and I always wondered if our parents made the right decision for putting him on them so young--especially because I often notice the "flat" thing in him. But reading this made his prescriptions make a lot more sense--it gives him a second before a potential meltdown. Makes him more in control. Sorry. Babbling. But anyway, reading this entry gave me a whole new perspective on his meds, so thank you for sharing.

    And good luck with the grammatically challenged classmates!

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  9. @nicki - it is also hard for some people to find a good combination of drugs, if they need more than one. a flat affect as it is commonly referred to is a pretty common side effect to many anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medications.

    strangely, so are problems urinating and suicide attempts. but anyway.

    i think that many of us tend to prefer the flat affect than the major fucking meltdowns that can occur if we don't take them. however, i find that having someone (awesome husband) force me to do things makes me more excited about some stuff. and it always helps to have something to look forward to, like a concert, a vacation, a trip to the zoo. something that you can get sort of excited about.

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