Common adjectives about yourself that make you sick

Okay, I’m sure this happens to most people to some degree.   After all, you’ve been with yourself for years.  Uggh, boring.  But it’s enough time to perceive certain patterns.

Have you discovered certain “labels” that people who don’t know you very well tend to use to refer to you? They are usually very polite, common and nice.  I mean the ones they say in front of you.  I know a lot is said behind your back that is not polite, maybe is somewhat common and definitely is not nice.

And by “you” I mean “me”.

But no, I’m talking about the out-in-the-open labels.

Maybe you have taken part of one of those silly group excercises where the participants are asked to say “what do you like/think about X person?”  

X being you of course.  Gosh I hate those excercises.

Maybe you been in a family meeting where they refer to you for some reason? Christmas stories? Anything? 

Well in my case it’s always been about the academic success. 

“Well, Nessa is 15 and already in university!!!”.

“I think Nessa is very good at school stuff.  You’d wish she were more social though.”.

“She’s very cute, quiet and smart.  Aww sweet stuff.  You want to pinch her cheeks.”

Even when crazyness arised, after uncomfortable silences they say again:  ”well, she’s in med school… very smart.  uh… yeah”

“So very good in school, quiet and fragile… awww”

Not to mention that I can’t get angry because the response is still “Awww!!!” and that usually makes me more angry and then the cuteness gets to irresistible levels.  But that’s another story.  And lately I don’t look so much like an 8 year old, so it’s getting better.

Note that these things annoy me only because they have been with me my entire life.  You might think is not a big deal.  It’s not really.

Now think about your own labels and tell me if they don’t bother YOU.

No, seriously, tell me about them.

Drag yourself to work with a coke as bait

Well, tomorrow it’s Friday and I have to work. It promises to be very easy though, so for the most part stress is ruled out. Boredom is not, but most things have fell on that category lately so I’m used to it. I’m using coke as motivator. I’ll take my bike out so I can do some excercise. Around 9 am I’ll be able to get a 5 minute break to go to the corner store and get a freezing coke and eat a snack. I’ll be back home around 4 pm to take care of my baby.

I’ve set these “hooks” that can get me through the day. I can’t keep on missing work any longer. At this pace I will never graduate. I care nothing about working or learning now, but I care about my freezing coke, the fun bike ride and the pup. The superfluous motivators… will have to serve a higher purpose: To get me out of the house.

Today I did visit my grandmother though, I love going there. I lived around 5 years there since I was born, every sound and smell reminds of nice childhood things, so it was good. Nothing has changed in that house. It’s the same house, the same grandmother, the same plants. It’s a frozen piece of living memory. Everything seems happy there.

I still have a rant though. It’s not that I don’t love anything about that place, but my family always seems to find their way back to talking about the same things. I have several cousins, like over 15 cousins of all ages. But most of them don’t matter, because the family has three stars: three cousins of the same aunt, now 28, 26 and 21; bright as no one, perfect in every sense, went to private schools and always excelled, currently all abroad with extremely impresive resumes and lots of money.

I believe this is a very immature rant of me, but I think it anyways: “yeah, I get it, they’re perrrfect, you don’t need to bring it up EVERYTIME!” Jealousy for success… the family jewels… it makes me feel like nothing I’ve done is good enough. It’s not a big deal, it’s understanding to feel this way about them, but still ashamed of it because for real is not justified. I feel like a 4 year old when thinking these thoughts.

But I can deal with myself thinking that… okay, but it is much worse to hear your own parents saying things like “I wish I had raised my kids more like she (my aunt) did”. It turns my brain from thinking “I feel like a failure in comparison, but I understand is a silly thing to think” to “Wow, my parents themselves think I should be more like them… we’re not good enough.”

Besides my multiple tripping along med school compared to their awarded excellency through college and grad school in physics, engineering and politics, one of the recurrent comparisons seem to be that of discipline and obedience. My aunt and uncle in law are very though, apparently they always pushed their kids extremely hard, never indulged, their home had strict rules from eating and sleeping schedules to grades and behaviour. My cousins always were cordial, likeable, never in trouble, obeyed their parents and elders… man, the dream come true for any parent! (I say “were” because I don’t see them since I was probably… 10 years old. All I have are stories… more than I care to know). My mom always struggled with me. Although I was always a “brilliant kid”, and always did well in school (before uni started), I have never been obedient; instead, since the womb, I didn’t clean when asked to, didn’t say formalities if I didn’t wanted to, I never went to bed at any imposed schedules, I never brushed my teeth when they told me to, sometimes went by the day without taking a shower… I rolled around the floor and climbed up trees and rode my bike to dangerous places. My parents always yelled a bit, but to be honest they never really showed that much anger at my behaviour. Or they did but never stopped me.

Today my mom said one thing that got me pretty upset. She said she’s to blame for being so nice to me all along, for letting me stay on her bed when I was little, for telling me so many stories, for never punishing me when I was “bad”, and indulging so much, that now I’m a such a weak excuse of a person.

I’m upset, but I’m not alluded. Well not really… I AM alluded, after all it’s my mom saying this, but I am more upset than that. She has this habit of letting her anger and frustration go in any way… like a tornado. She could say the worst things to you in the worst situation, and later reflect on it and realize she was wrong… but the damage is done. It’s not too cool to feel shitty, bored, not caring about getting up, or eating or showering… and hear this from your own mom confirming your fears and frustrations.

I resent my cousins, but I know it’s not fair because I don’t know them. This is a combination of idolization from my family, and my own frustration.

It is not the worst day of all by a long shot. I currently have friends who are going through real and tangible hard times, while NOTHING bad is happening to me, and it’s awful to still feel like this. I feel in responsibility of transfering my problem-free life to someone who really can take advantage of it.

I know I have good things, I know I’ve done a lot, and will do more. I guess it’s part of being in the depression limbo… it’s been a long time since I feel I’m about to get better, but nothing gets better, and nothing gets worse… so I’m just in a boring place.

Just to balance this entry, I am mentioning a few things that are making me smile today:

- My baby. Who is not allowing me to sleep at nights but I couldn’t care less.

- New music to look up and keep me entertained for weeks thanks to Seaneen and her radio program.

- Qu ni sheng er kual le! LMAO! You tube is better than ever now that this is up! (you know who you are)

Distorted Darkness

Life continues being good. There’s a little shiver in my spine telling me that when I go back into stress, life won’t be so good anymore. And a bigger shiver all over my body making me aware that if it happens, maybe… what?, will I never deal with anything big and stressful anymore? No way, I have so many plans… I can’t quit and move to the country to watch clouds all day eternally.

I’ll waiiit… and I’ll sit and watch the clouds as they go by…

Luckily, another part of my mind keeps trying to balance the thing, and the result these days is that everything has definitely been good. Extremely good, I could say.

It is funny that when I feel the least depressed, it’s when I truly become aware that my depression has been real all the time. This is not an epiphany, I’ve thought this before, I’ve reasoned about this a million times. Unfortunately, logic seems to vanish into the fog when depression covers you with it’s dark, thick, and eternal shapeless material (<<haha yay for dramatic effect). Then all you see is distorted by this; every single experience, good or bad is viewed through its lens, and if you’re unlucky enough to still be aware, you will most likely get to the point where you can’t tell what’s real and whatsnot.

In the point of confusion, you also become pretty susceptible to any argument pointing to one or the other direction; and especially gullible to those who “confirm” how much of a faker you are, and how flawed and horrible you are.

I was recently struck with an image a friend created and published, not sure if it’s directed at me or not and that’s not really relevant at the moment. The image used to be posted here, but I couln’t keep it (person later pulled the card of “copyrights” to make me take it off). Anyway, I can describe it for you: it was one of those “demotivational posters” you see on the web; it was illustrated with a box reading “Suicide booth”, with the tags “in use” in bright letters. The message below was “DEPRESSION” and in smaller print “Because there is always a solution to the lack of guts”.

Well, I’m aware these popular demotivational cards tend to be harsh and are not to be taken seriously because, frankly, the original ones are absolutely hilarious. I’m sure you have seen a few already al around the web. Maybe even made one.

If not, click on the image above to see a bunch. Enjoy.

Anyway, my friends demotivational card just helps me point out how people usually view depression: as a character flaw.

I believe that any reader that has been dealing with any sort of mental disorder that is accompanied with a big sense of introspection, will recognize the mental fight of “Is there something really affecting me?, or am I just flawed, weak, and broken?

Easy prey of stigma and judgement from other people.

After all, there’s no Gold Standard to precisely diagnose a mental disorder. What makes one think they’re not mere illusions for the confort of weak minds? or an excuse to justify erratic behaviour?

I know it’s pointless to pretend that, when I rant about how little people understand mental illnesses, I will make them automatically know what I mean, empathize with me and end the conversation with a big emotional moment with crying, hugs, apologies and indulgence. I also don’t mean to consider myself a misunderstood victim, part of a misunderstood group of crazies with varying degrees of severity. I just think that the mind and its disorders are so personal, so different from each other, and the limits so blurry, that you just have to be there to know what it feels. Only you know, so it makes sense that you don’t allow any other person to judge whether what you’re feeling is real or not, even if you can’t quite tell yourself.

I know that when I was much younger and very sane and innocent, I used to think suicide was the most stupid thing in the world, and that crazy people were scary and always “other people”. If I had not experienced what I’ve experienced with depression, I’d probably stick with that idea.

I don’t mean I should also experience schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in order to understand people who suffer from this. All I’m saying is that I hope that my blink of experience helps me not to do the same with other people. To be more open and not judge the millions of different paths a mind can take, no matter that I can’t really put myself in their shoes.

Among med students, psychiatry has a pretty bad reputation. It’s seen as a “pseudoscience” and the psychiatrists are seen as “the doctors of the nonexistent diseases”. Also, it’s said you have to be crazy to become one. It’s an example of how little understanding of mental disorders there is, and we’re talking about a supposedly well educated community of people.

However, I agree that you might be better suited for the job if you have suffered or someone close to you has suffered a mental illness. Because I believe it would be a little difficult to empathize with your patients, or even be interested on them if you have no idea of what it is like; and worst, if you don’t believe that what they’re going through is very real in their minds and affects all areas of their lives. Books are one thing. Books are not enough. Maybe that’s the problem with the current mental health workers I’ve had to deal with; maybe they went into this discipline because someone told them they should, or because they ran out of options, or whatever other stupid reason.

Alright everyone, the loooong blah blah blah is finally over. I’m not sure if I made any point at all, or I just spitted my mind out and made no sense.

Oh well, take care.

Pie izquierdo

Do you ever wake up knowing it’s not going to be an especially good day?

Today it was one of those.

There are of course reasons for it, it’s not like “ohh I see the future, today is going to be baaad”.  I just woke up feeling like crap and that reflected on my work, which earned me lectures and wasted time.  And also reflected on my relationships with people, increasing my fear of interacting with them and making things worse.

Sometimes I can be so shy it is like I was truly AFRAID of people.  When I think about it rationally, it doesn’t make sense to be afraid of them.   If I was going to tell somebody “hey, right now I’m feeling very afraid of talking to anyone, even a random person”, the logical answer would be, “You shouldn’t. What’s the worst that can happen?, if you get a mean answer you can ignore them, it’s not the end of the world”.  Of course it’s not, I’m not stupid.  But knowing things sometimes doesn’t make a difference.  How then, can you change a behaviour? Is it possible?

There are people with phobias who can get better by slowly being exposed. But my thing is not really a phobia, because when the shyness o-meter goes down, it just does and I can do anything.  I’m not really a social inept, I know how to handle these things.  I can be such miss-congeniality sometimes.  It’s such a fluctuating thing.  It’s just shyness, or is it?  Avoidant personality disorder all over again? maybe, but I don’t want it to be, because personality disorders are like, the terminal illnesses of psychiatry.

Not all is bad, I accept I’ve gotten better.   I am so much better.

Tomorrow I start working on a different section of the hospital.  I used to be at infectology, and I’m going now to the ER, which is much more chaotic.  Maybe I’m just preoccupied with these things.

Less Abstract complaints…

- My cellphone Got Stolen (again)!

- One of my new med books, that I had not paid for yet, also got stolen!

- I had 8 babies…. all at once. Well, at least I did for 15 days, while I was at the neonatal ICU. My 8 preterm, incubator-dependant little lizards. I start a new rotation tomorrow and wanted to take pictures of them but…

- The batteries of my camera are dead and won’t return.

- I’m too broke to buy new ones.

- I’ve had to eat hospital food all week, due to being broke.

- Been watching pirate movies with bf instead of going to the cinema due to us both being broke.

- Still 9 months and 12 days until I at least have the possibility of getting a job that pays… even by selling hand puppets.

- Watched The Simpsons-The Movie in English!!! That’s just not right. Ever since the Simpsons started in my life I’ve associated them with the voices in spanish. I didn’t laugh the least bit… I ruined the damn movie!

- What the fuck… wordpress has a word count… now I’m obsessed… 187

- I have to do a presentation… for the first time in 3 months.. I thought homework time was over… It’s late and I haven’t started.

- I have shift tomorrow and I don’t want to!

Oh, life is good. Yay! 222 words!.. damn, I ruined it.

Sleeping with the enemy.

Yes yes yes, this blog couldn’t be more ruined already, so it doesn’t matter what comes next, does it? I’m shameless now.

Thought it can’t be all about self pity. This crazy person needs a break. Just to clear some things out.

No matter what you say, or what arguments you use that I can’t fight back sometimes (that goes to my own head too)… I am not a weak person, I am not a pathetic girl who is scared of everything and makes a big deal of everything.

I just have this thing, and I’m not entirely sure what goes wrong inside my brain, not because I haven’t read everything about it, but because it’s probably not known by humans yet. We have to wait and see. It’s probably like having the flu at the time microorganisms were unknown, like “why the fuck do you cough so much?!”… “ehh, I don’t know, I just do it”.

It’s not that I’m a victim of something either, I just have a disease, that’s all. It’s like being epileptic. Listen to me. I can’t control my seizures. Stop telling me to control my own seizures… Actually, it’s more like an autoimmune disease. Tell a person with Lupus: “dude, just tell your cells to stop attacking your other cells! They’re like, your own cells, just order them to stop, duh”

And I just felt guilty about it because I have a super woman complex. I think I should be able to do it all, control it all, know it all.

But I can’t, alright?. Things are fine. I can live with that… right now. Time will come again when I will think that this is unbearable and I’d rather not live, and then spend another entire day unable to move, blah blah, but I’ll probably get a hold of myself again like it always happens. If I don’t, then I’ll be just another human that passed by this earth. It’s not that tragic, really.

So, yes, I’ve lost a big deal of experiences in this life due to depression. I’ve lost friends and family members to it, and it sucks. I’ve lost a big part of my own mind, and maybe became a bit more retarded than I used to be.

But I can’t fight it, because it has deeply infiltrated my every tissue. I can maybe just… lock it inside a capsule… and accept the fact that it’ll break free from time to time and lock me in instead.