Many things about me

I need to start working but I can’t.    I also haven’t blogged because a lot has happened in a short time.  I’ll get around it eventually but the main idea is that I’m working again.  I’m not seeing patients but doing research work.  It’s flexible schedule and I can work from home, seems perfect.  It’s my best chance to graduate, but something is not right.

I’m a little sick of my own complaining.  I’ll just record a few unconnected thoughts for posterity.

1. I often fear I’m going to die before I accomplish everything I want to do.  I don’t want to die without leaving a mark.  And the little scratch I made in a tree when I was 13 doesn’t count.
2. I do like the person I am and what I’m becoming. It is a great help to like yourself.  It is a good feeling, and a good tool to deal with adversity.  I can appreciate it now because it’s not always been this way.  My self esteem is not too great most of the time.  I’ve hated myself.  I’ve disliked myself deeply and for a long time.   
3. I probably only like myself now because I haven’t been around other people in a while.  Know the phrase “I only like me when I’m alone”?. Nevertheless, I think this perception is more accurate than the one I get when I’m around other people, as the latter is a result of social anxiety and lack of assertiveness in many situations that trigger automatic thoughts of self loathing.
4. I often find myself doing wishful thinking about what my life would be if I could live abroad.  And feel frustrated at the fact that I can’t do it now.  It drives me nuts the possibility of dying after only knowing a teeny tiny portion of the planet.
5. However, I also fear to make my dream come true in case I screw up.   But it’s also true that there are lots of places to go. 
6. My ethnicity is not a big part of my identity now, but it might be when I live somewhere else.
7. My looks don’t really worry me much most of the time.  I’m glad my brain is not obsessing about that.
8. I usually think that if I don’t write down my thoughts, I will forget them.  I have a terrible memory.  I’ve read some of my old posts without recognizing what I was thinking at the time.   
9. I wish I was a better writer, because I dislike not being able to present my thoughts in a reliable way.  It’s very possible that the things I remember about my life and myself are not very reliable.  I can remember the retelling of a story, but with each retelling the story changes shape until there’s only a vague idea of what the original thought was.   It drives me nuts.
10. Memories are often linked with emotions.  I suspect I lack some conection between my cerebral cortex and my limbic system, so for any given memory I try to keep, I’ll remember more facts than what the memory is actually supposed to evoke.
11. I’m like a moth to a flame with smart people.  I have low tolerance for ignorance, and sometimes that makes me act like an ass.
12. I fear that because I suffer from depression, the people I care about feel inhibited when they are going through hard times.  Just because I’m not doing well at any given time doesn’t mean I think other people’s problems are less important.
13. In 2008, I, for the first time pictured what it would be like if I had a child and smiled at the thought.  I must have been sick at the time.  
14. I don’t think I’m going to work as a doctor.  It’s not only because it’s hard but because I don’t want to.  I still want to graduate to get some closure and open some doors in the world of opportunities.
15. In two years and nine months I will have lived a quarter of a century. O_o
16. I suspect I might be mildly in love.  For the people who know me, this should be shocking.  Except they probably already know by now.
17. I feel very self conscious when my dogs see me naked.  I always feel they are thinking I’m so very ugly without a fur coat.
18. Apart from that I think my natural state is to be naked.  It’s probably the weather but I’m not too fond of clothes.  I’m dressed right now, because there are people in the house.
19. I would love to go to a naked beach but I wouldn’t like to live in one of those naked communities.  
20. One day I’d like to:  Buy an Eurorail pass and everything else I would need for an Eurotrip; do the eurotrip; do skydiving; visit the Great Barrier Reef and scuba dive.
21. For those who don’t know already, I guess I am bisexual.  In theory, since I’ve never had a girlfriend or slept with a woman.  I know I’m not a lesbian.  I don’t understand why people think bisexuals are fence sitters.  
22. I would like to learn to speak German, to dust off my math-realated brain synapses, and to learn some physics.  For now.
23. I would like to sing Karaoke.  I always picture myself singing my favorite songs in front of lots of people and imagine the euphoria I’d get off it.
24. If I had the chance to go to the space, I’d be very afraid of leaving the planet.  At least without seeing most of it.   I’m very fond of the Earth.
25. I don’t like to feel the sun on my skin.  I’m always thinking “Cell damage! Cell damage! DNA breaking! Ahhh!”
26. I have a very dirty mind and I like it.
27. I absolutely despise bullfighting.  Everybody cheers when the bull gets stabbed but it’s a big tragedy if the bull fights back and hurts the human.
28. I have never seen snow, and I’m currently very jealous of all the people who are enjoying it. 
29. I like water, I am good at swimming.   But I am not fit enough.  You know, sedentarism.  I may drown by getting tired.  I always say I’m going to correct that…

About the circle of depressive blogs…

My blog started as a general kind of blog… the blog of some girl in the world with a lot in her mind.  However, with the passing of time, is been shifting (or maybe it’s always been like that but I only acknowledge it now). I still blog about a lot of things (and will keep blogging about a lot of things) but it’s mostly about my experience with chronic major depressive disorder.  Anyone who’s been reading this for a while would know.  I have people in my life with whom I get to talk about the other things, but the depression stuff is still reserved for the blog.  I’m not all about depression but it takes so much of me.  It doesn’t define me but it stains everything I say and do.  I’ve learned a lot about it – which is different than just learning about it in med school – I’ve survived and grown despite it.  It is worse now -not the worst ever I guess but bad enough, and I’m off medication.  I grow but the depression grows too, it’s a never ending race.

For months I’ve been blogging about it; not thinking much about it, I’ve ended up knowing a lot of people who suffer of mental disorders.  In the circle of depressive blogs, you find people who understand what you’re going through.  To be honest, without the Internet this would be rather difficult, if not impossible.  When I see myself going through he worst, I think “what a pathetic, weak, (insert several other horrendous adjectives) person” despite my clinical knowledge of it.  But when I read other bloggers going through the same, I want to hug them and for a second I see my own depressed self as someone worthy of the same support.  You could say other blogs act as a mirror that is not being distorted by my own self judgement.

We might not know each others little bits of information, even things as big as our first name as some blogs are anonymous.  It’s the opposite to real life acquaintances – we know their names, main hobbies, what sports team they like, where they live and sometimes their birthdays but we know absolutely nothing about what’s going on inside their minds.  In the circle of depressive blogs sometimes we talk about things that would be considered too much information for the regular person.

This leads me to a subject I want to know more about: Triggers.  I’ve noticed some blogs have trigger warnings before they start talking about things like deep hopelessness, suicide or self harm.  I haven’t found information about blogs being a trigger for depressive thoughts or self injury on the readers and personally I haven’t found myself negatively affected by any of these subjects. I can’t say it doesn’t happen because my information is limited at the moment.

There’s a small online community that I’ve belonged to since I was 15 years old. We’ve grown older and most of us don’t even have much in common anymore, but we keep going in there, and recently there has been a talk about the future and whether or not we’d still talk to each other several years from now.  Despite not having that much in common anymore, I’d say it’s not a crazy possibility.   Healthy, active individuals have good chances of being alive in a decade from now, two decades or more.  I imagine that if I’m still around by then we’d have some fun talking about how our lives have turned out to be.

In the circle of the depressive blogs though, it’s hard to even think about it.  There’s this fear in the background that one of them will stop blogging one day, and we’d all know why.  The risk for suicide in depressive disorders pops different numbers everywhere… 1%, 7%, 15%… all depending on the severity, accompanying risk factors and illnesses, and even gender.  It’s hard to tell but it’s always in the air, especially with the kind of things we talk about.  We know better than others about how we can never promise this will not happen.

Some days more than others, the abstract ideas and the numbers in the statistics become more solid.

I don’t want to talk about the specifics right now, all I know is that I hate when this happens.  Everything feels even more real and horrible when it does.  It becomes evident that it is not a game.

“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Source

Me. I am Me.  One person.  Among a couple of billions.  One.

Me. One? No.  More than one.  A lot. There’s one Me in the head of every single person or creature who has ever known of my existence.

A world of mirrors.  A reflection in every eye.  A distorted one.  One of them is distorted.  No, not just one.  I’m sure several of them are.  None are like each other.  They are all different.  Hundreds of them looking back at me.  Back at who?  At what? Me? Which me, again? Which is the right one? They are all different.

How can it be?  They are all me.  One version in each reflection.  A distortion caused by the surface.  Source.  Where is the original?  I can’t see it.  If it exists, how to tell?  I can see reflections.  Distorted reflections.  Reflections that come from a source.  I can’t see the source.  All the reflections are different.  I need a formula.  I need to factorise this.

I have too, a reflective surface.  A distorted one.  Can I see the originals? Can they see me? Every one of them reflect on me.  Hundreds of reflective bodies. How many are we? Billions.  A world of billions reflected.  An endless house of mirrors.

Crossing a Scary Pond

I have been trying to avoid talking about myself as such lately.  It’s just too much.  I haven’t been depressed, not like before.  I suppose the meds are working.  [insert excited exclamation]

But I am reluctant to admit that I’m feeling better.  Because I’m scared.  This happens… my mood lifts one day, but soon I’m in the bottom of the pit again.  I can’t allow myself to build my hopes up.  It is too dangerous.

I dropped out from my medical internship almost 3 months ago.  If I hadn’t I would have graduated already, and I would be a MD, ready to do general practice or go into a residency.  Not only it was the fact that my depression worsened and I couldn’t handle doing the most basic things anymore, but I have never been too certain when it comes to my career choice either.  If I wasn’t even able to do things that I usually liked to do, much less things that I didn’t.   But then I don’t do anything about it either, I don’t quit for good, I don’t study something else.  I have nowhere to go.  A friend keeps telling me that no one really likes to be in medical school because it’s too fucking exhausting, but they do it anyway and they feel rewarded later.

For some reason I don’t think this is the case with me.   They try to motivate with the prospect of money, and I don’t even care.   And I do want money, because I want to travel.   Travelling needs money.   If I had teleporting powers, and an endless supply of coca cola, I would not want money really.  I’m very low maintenance.

But life isn’t magical, and I have already decided in different moments and under different moods, that what I need to do is to finish.  Just graduate and see what happens next.  So that’s the plan.   For reasons out of my control I cannot prolong my break any longer even if I don’t think I’m quite ready to go back yet.

I start again tomorrow.

I’m really scared.  My self confidence is in the floor.  I don’t doubt my knowledge, I doubt my mental strength.   I probably will be able to handle one day, two days… what happens after the first shift?  Sleep deprivation is extremelly damaging for me.   It’s like my neurotransmiters deplete and my brain turns off.  What happens after two or three shifts and after the exhaustion builds up again.   These are the ingredients that have most often led me to morbid suicidal ideation.   What if I don’t really kill myself, but I can’t take it anymore and I drop out again?  To me that’d be worse.  There would be zero confidence to ever ride that boat again.  My self efficacy would be irreversibly dead.

And like I reasoned in my last post, when someone dies, it hurts, but the world keeps on spinning.   I am sure that if I die many people would be incredibly wounded, but it’s only a matter of time and future joys to get over me.  They WILL get over me.  That kinda gives me a green light.   And that is not good.

I’m supposed to start tomorrow and not flip out until Nov the 30th.   I’m supposed to graduate.  And I can’t see anything beyond that.   This is a pond I need to cross, but I feel like I didn’t bring any flippers or lifesavers.  It’s just me and the pond.  I’m not ready to swim, but i’m being throw in anyway.

I don’t know what’s going to happen.  But I’m terrified.

On sick leave

Hi everyone.

Sorry about not commenting lately or not responding to your posts.  It just hasn’t been possible.

1) I’ve been very sick in the past week.  Respiratory infection complicated with asthma attacks and if I’m not bound to bed then I’m at the ER getting treatment.  I think I will be fine, but I’m not sure how long it will last… I rarely get sick, but when I do, it gets horribly complicated.

2) Two or three days ago, I tried to use my computer but my family informed me that it won’t start.  I checked it quickly and I couldn’t figure it out.  I have no energy to get into that now, so for the moment, my computer is dead.

I’ll be back soon, I hope you are all doing well.

I’ve been tagged

These questions were created by Sulz.

1. What does gobbledygook mean to you?

The word? Alright. Well, it means… some crazy, random thing that sulz made up using something with blog and book and another woobly thing made of blue jello.

EDIT: I had NO idea it was an actual word.

2. What do you like about yourself?

Although I have always felt like an alien in my own place, sometimes I really like it, because to be honest, I wouldn’t want to be like most people are where I live.

I like my obsessive interest in knowing all about everything, and how everything works, just for the hell of it. I didn’t go to school to be something, I just liked learning what I was learning and maybe that’s the source of my lack of direction.

I like that I can learn things really fast.

I like that I’m not obsessed with my looks, because life would be much harder if I were self concious about my shortness, my big head, and small boobs.

I like that I don’t see myself as half a person who waits for another half a person to become one person; I am one person. If anyone joins me, well, excellent.

I like that I don’t want to be a mother.

3. What activity do you enjoy doing, that you never thought you would until you tried it?
I don’t know! Maybe I just don’t try things that I sense I’ll dislike. When I jump into something, I generally have an idea of how much I might enjoy it, otherwise I can’t be pushed. If they try too hard, I’ll probably resist even more, and have a horrible time just to prove that I was right.

4. What have you learnt about yourself from your previous (and current) romantic relationships?

I learnt that I don’t like dating. Like, to meet someone for the first time for the sole purpose of going on a date where small talk and a silly movie and dinner will be involved. If I want dinner and movies I’ll take my friends. If I want a romantic relationship, I’ll take someone I already know and trust. Dates have proved to be extremely boring, to say the least.

I learnt that it doesn’t take many relationships to learn certain… um movements. I’m a fast learner, I learned to swim by tv almost unconciously. I learned to dance by watching people dance. I’m not a prude, and I’m not scared of most sexual things. But I won’t have sex with you right on the spot, precisely because I don’t really need it and I’d rather see if you’re worth the investment.

I learnt that I don’t actually have a gender preference. I can’t say I’m bisexual because I haven’t really had a relationship with a woman, or a crush on one, and I generally don’t think too much about it. And I am not interested on putting a label on me or joining a cause.

And I share this one bit with Sulz. I don’t think I can be in a relationship with someone who keeps things from me. When I watch smallville and hear clark telling Lana “Trust me, know that I love you, but this is something that I can’t share”, I say “bullshit”, even thought I know he’s Superman.

5. What physical traits do you find attractive in the opposite sex?

I love a gorgeous smile, that illuminates the whole face, and a very intense gaze. I like the abdomen… like when they’re sitting carelessly and there’s no belly popping out… I don’t care about excessively developed muscles, in fact that’s a turn off. I like soft hair that I can run my fingers on.

In a woman I like the eyes too, and the back and the waist curving when going down to the hips. I find that curve to be very sexy.

6. Do you believe in any superstitions, or have some particular ritual?
Superstition: “An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.” So… no.

Ritual: “any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner.” Not that I remember.  Maybe I should have a ritual, like being disciplined at something and do it no matter what, and maybe that way I’d get something done, but no.

Umm… maybe using the computer and going to the same places online, checking my email and things I know have not been updated but I check them anyway?

7. What’s the nicest thing you’ve ever done for somebody?

I don’t think I have done any major gestures for anyone. I have been there for close friends, but sometimes I haven’t. I have taken the bullet for someone, but sometimes I’ve dodged it and it has hit my friend (methaphor, of course, in case you think Colombia is that bad).

I guess I have listened, and tried to help when I’m aware I can. I am extremelly absent minded and many times I’ve hurt people because I frankly have no idea that I am hurting them. I say the truth which doesn’t equal to be a bitch, because I’m pretty easygoing. I just say the truth.

8. If you could something with your blog (cost, time and other factors irrelevant), what would you do?

I would customize its aspect! I hate it that free wordpress only has skins and no permission to edit CSS. I would use more graphical items (NOT flowers, bugs, and butterflies. Content-associated graphics) of my own to make my point more precisely than I do with only words.

9. Books, chocolates, sex. Make a sentence with it.

I was reading a sex novel alone in my house, when he unexpectedly entered the place, walked towards me, closed the book on my lap, took my hand and led me to a bath of liquid chocolate and told me I wouldn’t be needing the novel anymore.

10. If you were dead now, what would people most remember about you?

People have selective memory, so they would remember the great story of a girl who was always smart and nice with most people, and she was the best student in all of her schooling history, and she was good at listening, never did drugs, and she was perfect in every sense.

Because in general don’t talk bad about the dead. If you die, that’s all you need to have a good reputation. And if you’re young, you’ll always be this great potential. “She could have been the most sucessful woman in the whole world.” They’d say. And it’s only true because it’s not happening.

We were joking about this a year ago with a friend. All we needed to get a mention in college would be dying. Then we’d be the best of the best while people stop feeling bad and move on.

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I liked this meme very much Sulz, you should do it more often.

I don’t like tagging, so you might steal this meme if you like it.