hahaonlyjoking

[hahaonlyjoking]

simply put, things are strange in my corner of the world. after a summer of entertaining and interesting activities, it's back to a fall of sadness. my 10 year high school reunion was in july and it came with a number of revelations including that everyone is a better person than i think. first impressions are only that and people continue to change throughout their lives, what a surprise, right? haha, it's like our personalities get sharper and sharper until we hit 18-20 and then experience starts to sand down the parts that hurt others. everyone gets a little softer and kinder as we learn more about people and the world. learning is magical and as humans it is out responsibility to be kind to others and make this world as hospitable as possible for our fellow beings.

[hahaonlyjoking]

musings on growth

i should really be more consistent when it comes to documenting my thoughts on myself because there are both a number of things that have changed and those that have not at all. since i wrote my last post i started a full time job at an animal shelter, and felt i was getting better! great! there were a few things that came before that such as breaking down sobbing to my therapist after accidentally accepting the job before i meant to and then being perpetually anxious for the first 6 months bc my co-worker definitely did not like me. but! i settled in, found a rhythm, made it work, became happy! decided to go back to school bc i felt i was in that such a good place now that i could do it! quit my job, went back to school. forgot to mention, global pandemic that started about 6 months before my first lecture, got really into baking. made macarons!

first semester i took world politics and photoshop. loved one hated the other. guess which? i loved photoshop so much i decided that my major should be graphic design, and signed up for three classes the next semester! wow! doing so well! second semester and i stopped doing assignments for art history bc it was 1000 words a week and i simply could not make myself do it. the urgency was not compelling enough. but now i was self-aware about my executive dysfunction instead of me literally almost self-harming screaming whyyyyyy. so growth? hmmmm. finished the other 2 classes! woooo! should be a-ok to sign up for 2 for third semester! half-way into third semester the executive dysfunction picks up and i’m not completing work for either class and send a half-assed sorry! gotta drop the classes! to the professor and then ghost. lol. around the same time i stopped going to therapy. they were video calls at this point (still in a global pandemic) and i ghosted there too. my lack of accountability is really going to catch up with me at some point.

anyway, here i am, over two years later and no more credits done since then. lying to pretty much everyone around me that i’m still in school, still working on a degree, still taking meds, still in therapy, still seeing a psychiatrist. i feel as though my understanding of myself has increased leaps and bounds but that’s not something i can really use to help me change my behavior, just analyze it. and saying feel there is particularly noticeable. meaning that is not necessarily true ahahaaaaaaaa. regardless, first step is getting back on meds. i’m exercising now (growth! working w my trauma!), and my hypothesis is that plus the wellbutrin i think i can get back to arf mood. healthcare is currently taken care of *wipes brow* luckily, bc that was part of the reason i stopped getting meds/going to the psychiatrist. i couldn’t make myself deal with health insurance and i couldn’t explain that to my therapist. i do feel like she could’ve reached out more than twice after she stopped hearing from me though. it’s fine, whatever.

so if i was going to make a goal for this summer it would be getting back on meds and signing up for classes again.

but that should wait actually because for over a year my eyes have been deteriorating and part of the reason i haven’t gotten them checked out is health insurance related. so i webmd diagnosed myself with macular degeneration as a symptom of diabetes, went on a keto/low carb diet and lost a significant amount of weight (we’ll get back to that). since insurance’s figured out, probably, and i got an A1C blood test back saying everything was normal it was hard to keep up with the diabetes idea, but i am bc my eyes are still fucked. so that first. i gotta take care of myself bc i’m not a ghost anymore. i am not in a liminal state of being. i am a person who affects the lives of others. i will die, but before that i need to live.

back to the weight thing though, i don’t think i realized how bad my image of myself was until i lost this weight. i think i really hated myself but decided instead of doing that actively i’d just not care about it. a coping mechanism, but it’s created a problem for me now that i’ve lost this weight i don’t want to gain it back. i’ve noticed this thought and have been working to combat it. i think i was affected in a different but similar way to kenna. i was not fat in high school but i became so in about 1-2 years afterwards. it went hand-in-hand with my depression so i think i’ve conflated the two. it also doesn’t help that i continue to get outside positive reinforcement about it. people will say “looking good” and i want to shoot them and then myself. because it’s nice to get compliments but DON’T COMMENT ON PEOPLE’S BODIES!!!!!! an aside, it’s 2023, i shouldn’t have to say that to people my age. so, i’ve been struggling with self-image quite a bit more than i can remember ever doing before.

growth? we shall see.

[hahaonlyjoking]

i was in therapy today and realized that i was sad at geneseo, very very sad. and i wanted to be happy so that’s what i did. i pretended to be happy. i was so good at it that it took like 2 years before anyone noticed, before i noticed. i just wanted to not be sad but the best way to do that is by realizing you’re not happy. i fooled myself into thinking i could do everything alone but that is the exact opposite of what i needed. i needed help but this mindset and my lack of coping mechanisms left me alone

#ask for help if you need it #it’s not weakness it’s strength

[hahaonlyjoking]

oh wow, there are so many things i’d like to say, but have few words to describe. i made out w/ fabian in august and i feel like my life has been falling apart since. it’s march now. i’m 23 but that doesn’t mean i’m any smarter or wiser than i was before. i’m just scared and small and cowardly. i want to be more than i am, but i’m afraid that i’ll end up worse than i was if i try. i went to riverhead today and bought ud eyeshadow on sale for $10. i felt good. i guess i’m just trying so hard not to feel bad. even these words i’m typing are guessed for me. i’m really nothing special. but i’m drunk now so whether that brings out the worst in me or not i can’t stop now. i need to say things i’ve been hiding. so many things. i hurt but can’t deal with it, so i squirrel it away even tho it never helps. do you want to try? even though i don’t know how?

#idk #i don’t know at all #at all

[hahaonlyjoking]

i’m now seeing posts that are basically accusing therapists of being the same as ““““neurotypicals”””” who tell you that doing yoga will cure your depression

and it’s fucking killing me because ???  the idea of being annoyed by people telling you that stuff is because those people honestly think that doing yoga and “looking on the bright side” will magically cure your depression, because they can’t imagine happiness not coming as easily to someone else as it does to them.  the idea isn’t that getting exercise and practicing positive thinking are useless ways to treat depression.  but that’s what i’m seeing a lot of now and i just want to say…. i got some fucking bad news, cause that is the treatment for depression.

therapists telling you to get good nutrition and exercise are not the same as your yoga-instructor aunt on facebook posting pictures of the sunrise and wondering how anyone can be depressed when the world is so wonderful!!! thats not just an anti-recovery attitude, it’s an anti-treatment attitude, and it’s unbelievably ignorant.

there’s sort of this interesting circular form to dealing with mental illness, where you start in a place of “i just need to think positively and push myself out of this ditch” and then you move to step 2, which is “depression is a real and very serious illness and it’s not my fault that i’m tired all the time, stop telling me to just “think positive” all the time.”

But then there’s step three, which is where you size up your situation and say “look, i understand how serious my illness is, and i’m no longer blaming myself for it.  And it sucks, and I don’t “deserve” this, and I didn’t bring it on myself.  But regardless of how unfair it is, the truth is that I’m the only one who can actually do anything about it.”  And so in a lot of ways, you end up with parallel ways of thinking as before, but this time you’re coming from a completely different source of understanding.  People who don’t know anything about mental illness say “depression is a choice.”  People who are fed up with being depressed and realize that wallowing in the comforting embrace of self-pity is useful to erase guilt, but ultimately won’t help them lead a better life say, “recovery is a choice.”

The first group means that if you’re depressed, you can just magically decide not to be depressed.  The second group means that depression is a crushing weight on your back determined to make your life as miserable (and as short) as possible, and that you didn’t do anything to cause it, but that ultimately you have the choice of giving up and accepting being depressed for the rest of your life, or you have the option of making an effort to improve your quality of life.  Similar statements, totally different meanings.

But I think a lot of people are sort of seduced by the comfort of giving up, and with the good intention of creating communities of understanding and non-judgement between mentally ill people, social media has unwittingly created communities of mentally ill people encouraging each other to give up.  To just accept that this is the way their lives are, and there’s no possibility of getting better.  And that’s how it’s gotten to the point of people dismissing actual mental health professionals as being no different than some ignorant person who doesn’t know the first thing about psychology and thinks an avocado smoothie will solve all your problems.

Avocado smoothie people are coming from the first perspective, that being depressed is a free choice that you can easily opt out of.  Therapists are coming from the second perspective, where mental illness is a horrible reality, but given that you’re seeing them, a provider of mental health treatment, of fucking course they’re going to give you advice on how to treat your mental illness!  Your therapist isn’t going to sit around and say “yeah man that sucks, haha look at this funny meme about how much you want to kill yourself.”  Your therapist is going to give you recommendations of activities and habits that will help you recover.  And they understand that these activities are not easy!!!  They get that!!!  The reason they’re there is to help you introduce these activities and ways of thinking into your life!!!  Otherwise they’d just hand you a pamphlet and walk out!!!

But you can’t access that kind of help - the kind where you say “getting out of the house is a real problem for me, I never have the energy to get out of bed” and your therapist says “okay let’s figure out how to break this down into small steps, we’ll set a small goal for this week, and next time we meet you can tell me if it worked out, and if it did then we can figure out what the next goal will be, and if not then we can figure out why it didn’t work and try a different approach” - if you immediately dismiss any mention of recovery as “neurotypical bullshit.”

Anyways please please please take your healthcare seriously, get treatment, and realize that giving up and normalizing your depression/anxiety/etc as something that will never ever get better (yes, even if it’s a chronic condition that you’ll never fully cure, you still need to treat it) is not okay.  Try to get good nutrition. Try to get sunshine and exercise.  Try to be social.  Making an effort to do things that will help you is not the same as thinking mental illness is a switch you can easily flip.  Getting treatment is not the same thing as pretending your mental illness doesn’t exist or isn’t serious.  On the contrary, getting treatment is taking your mental illness seriously.  I’m not saying you should never make a joke or reblog a fucking meme or anything, I’m saying don’t use social media as your mental health care provider.  Social media can be a way to vent, but venting is not the same thing as recovering.

Honestly it can take a very long time to get to that “step 3″ perspective but it’s a vital step.

#you know #i think i only made it past step 1 in this past year #i'm rather stuck in step 2 currently #i can see the benefits of step 3 but can't get myself there yet #😭😭

[hahaonlyjoking]

This is the money pentacle. Reblog and unexpected money will come to you!

#please #that's all i ask

[hahaonlyjoking]

Hmmhmhmmmm…i spoke to Fabian for the first time in like a year a week or so ago. It was nice, but scary and i think i said too much. It may have been too much at once for a re- introduction to each other. I think I'll probably end up being friendless…my therapy was going well for a while, but recently things haven't been so good. I have to take a step towards something if I expect to improve at all.

#anothertrip #that's what I think i will be doing #but isn't that running away again? #idk what to do #i never know what to do

[hahaonlyjoking]

it’s now almost a year since i last posted to this blog. it’s almost the same amount of time i’ve been going to therapy after being diagnosed with depression in august of last year. i was at a really low point and i think that is what saved me, honestly. but i think the worst thing about all of that was having nowhere to go except home. i didn’t even tell anyone that i wouldn’t be going back to school, except for fabian. and i think i have the least amount of friends i have ever had, which is saying something. or maybe it’s just because i don’t really talk to anyone anymore. i just don’t see anyone, so there’s no conversation. family doesn’t count. so i was stuck at home until i basically forced myself out. i went and volunteered in indonesia where i made a whole new set of friends i don’t talk to. haha, there were some really great times and some really shit times, but that’s how it always is. then i went to taiwan for two weeks on my way back and tried to figure my way out around there. it was something i would actually really like to try again. i did some drawing while i was away, most notably as a christmas gift for a french girl (secret santa). i got back, did nothing for two months except feel bad for myself and then i signed up for a drawing class. at suffolk. certainly it was something to do, but more than that i really wanted to get better at this. for once i liked something i was doing. it made feel good, both about myself and my future. i finally had something to look forward to and challenge myself with. i’ve also learned that unless i have a podcast to listen to i will get a speeding ticket. i still have to go to traffic court for this one. learning experience, right? i just hope that this summer i will be able to make better choices then the last. i understand that there are things i haven’t done, but that’s the same for all people. i just need to accept that i am who i am and the way i live my life isn’t any better or worse than anyone else. yeah. i like that. at this point, if i had to state a goal for the fall it would either be to travel for a longer period of time than the last or move to the city, get a job, and work on my art. just from looking back on the posts i made previously it appears that i have found some focus in my life. although i am still influenced by what goes on around me i think that i have more control over my path and my opinions than i did even a month ago. and more than anything else, that is progress.

[hahaonlyjoking]

this summer has been draining and a whirlwind and a tidal wave all packed into one. i threw four parties at my house this summer and the morning after the first one i had a dentist appointment and then a therapist appointment. when i left the house i was still drunk and drove that way to southampton and went to the dentist drunk. fabulous life choices here. anyway, i didn’t have any water before i left (but we’ll get back to that). when i was done at the dentist i went to tate’s thinkin i’d get a mocha and some cookies and go home, but instead i felt so nauseous and gross because my hangover had just begun. i ended up sleeping in my car in that parking lot for 2-3 hours then throwing up and having some nice old lady in the car next to me offer her water and tell me she’d been there before, but whether she meant she had thrown up before or been sick before or been hungover before i had no idea. so instead i smiled, nodded, thanked her, and walked back to my car. i should mention that the night before i had dropped my phone in the toilet so it wasn’t really working properly and since i couldn’t find any rice on hand i used penne, so in the passenger seat was my messed up phone in a box of penne. and in the driver’s seat a messed up 20-year-old.          

#and that was only the start #but i'm too tired for the rest right now #so maybe tomorrow #or the next day #these are the party chronicles #i'll get to the depression/anxiety chronicles next #perhaps

[hahaonlyjoking]

crying is exhausting

#i don't know #how do they expect me to #stop

[hahaonlyjoking]

Hey mom. You are probably the closest thing i had to an actual friend. Sure i'd tell the people around me about my "secrets" you can't even call them that. I just wanted someone to talk to who wouldn't judge me no matter what came out of my mouth and i thought you did a really good job at that mom. I could never tell anyone from shelter island about any of this. They're all way too good at spreading things and keeping their own secrets. So here i am at 6:17 after crying on and off for 45 mins i am now sitting in the bathtub across from my suite not wondering anymore if i should go to my final at 8 but instead contemplating whether i should fall asleep in it. I brought my x-acto knife and everything. Bye.

[hahaonlyjoking]

um, so i'm about to go back to college (i was on spring break) and i read this book called half the sky. it made everything seem so clear, you know like i could make a real difference in someone else's life. and i think that could help me with my own. i'd help others for selfish reasons, but everyone wins in the end right? ha, now i want to be a doctor. i don't even know if that's possible at this point in my life (you know, with my awfulness at it and everything) but it would be something i would do for others. and i think i would love it.

#i don't even know if i'm depressed or not #oh and i have to take one of those pregnancy tests #you know because i was so wasted when i had sex that i don't know when he left or if he took off the condom during or not #shitshitshitshitshit #ah well

[hahaonlyjoking]

Hmmhmhmmmmmhmmhm.…idek anymore. I’m disappointing everyone again. Yayyyyyyy…(although i get to go to florida, haha). I just don’t want to hurt people and i’m really bad at breaking news to people.

i just suck at life it seems.

#hahahahahahaaaaa #nevahhhh #people just can't trust me at this point #i feel sad #sad is sad

[hahaonlyjoking]

I feel unusually light. The new year has begun and i sent an email to make an appointment with a therapist. I likely failed my last semester, but for whatever reason i am hopeful.

#we'll see how long that lasts #oh well #hmmhmmm #idk anymore

[hahaonlyjoking]

Nevermind. I'm going to colorado in a week for a week. It should be a nice distraction from all of the shit i got myself into goddammit. I'm not trying at all and i don't know how to.

#i'm an adult #what is this shit #i don't understand myself #but i should #and it's sad #and pretty pathetic

[hahaonlyjoking]

oh, and lisa had sex for the first time like a month ago, then did it again like a week ago. i'm feeling left behind i guess. i'm pretty sure all of the girls from my high school graduating class have passed that milestone and i still haven't had a sober kiss yet. haha. 

#feeling more and more cat lady everyday #it's creeping up on me #my life it is #i always feel i should be doing more #and yet

[hahaonlyjoking]

it would almost be simple at this point to start trying. it snowed and gave this dried out dump of a college some sense of purity, cleanliness, a kind of sense that i could begin again if i tried. perhaps this weekend i could do some work? apply myself? that's a solid idea. i should do that. also branch out in my friend groups. maybe become better friends with these neat people in anime club? i enjoy the atmosphere there a lot a lot. 

#it makes me feel better than my everyday grossness #i'm not sure i completely get it #but i like it #it's helpful