I had therapy today, and the first things out of my therapist’s mouth were about Comprehensive Care. She remembered that at my last appointment I wanted a new psychiatrist, and I figure she also got the letter from my mother. She had to assess me, and I had to tell her about my symptoms. I told her everything. I told her how I felt last Monday night, even down to physical details. I told her about things the voices had said. I told her about other things, too. She asked me about how long I’d been on my meds, and I told her that it ranged from 4 years (Effexor) to 6-7 months (Klonopin). Then, she told me that she’d have to go over my case with her supervisor before I could officially be turned over to Comprehensive Care, but she was going to make the recommendation. I told her how relieved I was to hear that and how I had worried about her saying no. She kept asking me questions about why I wanted to go into Comprehensive Care, and I told her why. I kept worrying that what I would say would end up keeping me out of it. She told me that she should know whether or not I’m being transfered to Comprehensive Care within the next few days. Just in case, she had the secretaries set me up with an appointment with her for a month from now.

So, now, the waiting begins. Beth told me that usually when a recommendation was made for Comprehensive Care that the supervisor okayed it. I hope that I’m not the exception to that. I’m always afraid I’ll be the exception to the rule, so I’ll be sitting here anxiously awaiting the response.

While I’m anxiously awaiting the response, I need to type my literary critique for World Lit, study for my Social Work test, and prepare for the group presentation/debate that will happen tomorrow in Biology. Why does everything have to be due at the same time? And why do teachers automatically assume that their assignment is the most important and therefore deserves the most time? Have they forgotten what its like to be a student?

Chelsea, the library phobia is interesting, I guess. I have tried to find information on it, but I’ve come up with nothing. I think it may be a combination of several phobias into one.

I’m stalling. I’m trying to think of things to do to keep from writing the paper. I used to love writing papers, but I don’t anymore. It requires too much thinking and concentrating. I have to do things a certain way, and I’m always certain that the way I do them will be wrong.

Plugs: Chelsea, Jen, Manila, Marie, Pia, Stella

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I did 5 hours of volunteer work today at The Ark. I can’t believe I only have 5 more hours to go before I meet my 50 hour requirement. I don’t know how often I’ll go after I finish my 5 hours, but I doubt that I will go as often as I have been going.

I have to go to the school library tomorrow at 4:30 to work on a group assignment that is due on Tuesday. I was annoyed with everyone when they picked Sunday to do it. I’d wanted to wait until Monday, but they wanted to go tomorrow because they just didn’t like the idea of doing anything on a Monday. I didn’t figure my vote would count for much. I was the last person picked for the group, so its not like I was really wanted in the first place.

I really don’t want to go to the library. I said in an answer on my Q&A page that I’m afraid of libraries, but its a little more complex than that. When I go to libraries, I feel like I’m being drained of my mind and of my soul. I just feel really strange when I’m there. They don’t have many people in them, which makes me nervous. (If they’re full of people, I also get nervous.) Then, they’re usually really big and open, and that makes me feel all soul-sucky scared, too. I also get scared when I’m at a library because usually my mom has taken me and dropped me off. (She’s really afraid of libraries, so she doesn’t stick around them for very long at a time.) If my dad takes me, sometimes he’ll hang around the library, but he’ll never be near where I am, so part of me gets panicky and worries that he’s left me.

Oh, that reminds me. My mom works with someone who thinks that I shouldn’t be at A&M. Why? Because I’m white and A&M is (according to her) a school for blacks and blacks alone. Most people at A&M don’t say anything negative to me about my being there, but I remember one of my first days of class last semester there was a guy who was talking about preserving A&M as a black school and keeping “others” out of it. He was talking to someone in the class, but he said it loud enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I can’t say that people like that make me understand what its like to be black in this country, but they do make me understand what its like to be a minority and to not really be wanted because I’m a minority. I guess being at A&M really has taught me some important things, hasn’t it?

I think I get to stay home on Monday night, which is a good thing. My mom asked me if I want to. I think it may have to do with my pounding my knuckles on the floor this past week, though it may be that she’s worried about my reaction to whatever Beth says on Monday at therapy. It may also have to do with the fact that she would have to drive me back up to A&M from the Mental Health Center after we were done there. Or it could be a combination of things. I could probably ask her, but I’m not sure that I want to know the answer.

Plugs: Abby, Albert Leyva, Alexis, Ally, Chelsea, Deb, Jenny, Jo, Krista, Manila, Pia

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I feel bad that Jennifer is now having to watermark all of her pictures of Alyssa to keep anymore people from stealing them, but I wasn’t really shocked that someone stole the images and tried to pass them off as their own daughter. When I used to post on OpenDiary.com (back in 2001), people would do that sort of thing all the time. They would take pictures from the websites of other people and claim them as their own. They would do this with baby pictures, ultrasound pictures, and even pictures of themselves. I had people who I thought of as friends who did this, and I was always shocked when they were caught. I wish it were shocking to me that people did this sort of thing, but I’ve seen it happen in the past, so I don’t think of it as shocking anymore.

Today has been a big day in the Terry Schiavo case. A judge ruled that her feeding tube should be removed on March 18. I’d say that that’s not soon enough. I know that there are a lot of people out there who think that ending her life is cruel and unusual punishment, but I don’t think it is. I know a lot of people think that her husband is being selfish, which he may be, but I think her parents are being selfish, too. I think that they’re just keeping her alive because they don’t want her to die and don’t want to “lose” her. I think that they’ve already lost her. They claim that she should be kept alive because she grunts or she blinks, but these are just natural reactions that even people with extremely limited brain function have. Terry isn’t going to just magically wake up. She’s left this world, and all that remains is a shell. Her parents are fighting to keep a shell alive. They’re saying that pulling the tubes will cause her pain, but I saw a doctor on TV today say that she wouldn’t feel the pain. She’s too far gone.

I, for some odd reason, surfed over to Cao’s blog, even though I have a strong dislike for that site. Cao was talking about how cruel and unusual it would be to remove a feeding tube and allow someone to starve to death. I asked if that’s cruel and unusual, then wouldn’t pulling machines that aid in breathing be considered smothering and wouldn’t that be cruel? Of course, Cao said yes. So, I guess we should just leave everyone on machines against their will. Admittedly we don’t always know what a person wants, but does that mean that we should automatically keep them alive even though their “life” has ended? Aren’t we just keeping them alive for our own selfish reasons? Do we even care about the person at that point?

People say “we can’t starve a dog to death” and that’s true, but we can put animals to sleep. We aren’t allowed to do that with people, except death row inmates (who don’t seem to qualify as people according to some). We’re allowed to inject criminals and animals with drugs to end their lives because they committed a crime or (in the animals’ cases) they’ve gotten some disease or illness or are in the way. We can’t do that with terminally ill people, though. I think its weird that one of the justifications for keeping Terry alive is that we can’t do the same to animals, when if you pointed out all the cruel things that you can do to animals without getting punished or without getting much punishment, while you’d end up in jail for doing the same things to a human, then these same people who are using the argument would go “well, animals don’t deserve the same rights as humans”. Why, then, do humans deserve the same rights as animals?

So, how do you feel about life support, the right to die movement, etc.? Would you ever want to be put on life support? Or would you rather not be hooked up to machines/tubes?

Plugs: AbandonedHero, Alx, Ally, Aurora, Cori, Jen, Kat, Lien, Manu, Marie, Marilyn, Nat Marie, Pia, Terry, Trang

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I nearly was sent to the hospital yesterday afternoon. Not because of my psychiatric problems, though. We had to check our blood pressures in biology lab using an electronic machine and the first time I tried to check mine, there was an error. That didn’t shock me. My blood pressure is hard to read, for electronic machines and for people. The second time, my partner for the class started the machine pretty quickly and this time there was a reading. It was around 212/156. My blood pressure is NEVER that high (its usually 100/70), so I knew something was wrong. The teacher was called over and everyone had these concerned looks on their face. I think they were honestly about to call 911, when I finally was able to tell the teacher that there was an error that first time, so I thought something was wrong with how the second reading was done. She said it probably hadn’t completely deflated, so we waited a minute and checked again. The third time it came out at 140/90, which concerned me more than the 212/156 reading because I knew that this time was more realistic. I talked to my mom about it today and she said it was probably because it was a wrist cuff and the cuff was almost too small, so it got a high reading. Of course, my pulse was kind of high, too. It was 99 sitting down, which is higher than what it was last semester. I would check my pulse a few months ago and it would be 60-72. Maybe all of this stress stuff is putting more stress on my body.

I had another mini-meltdown last night (not as bad as Monday night), which I didn’t expect. I thought I was going to make it through the whole night without breaking down. I even took half a Klonopin after dinner so that I could take another half later, so that maybe I could extend the effects of it. It didn’t hep, though. By 9-10, I was crying. At one point, I was sitting on the floor pounding my knuckles into the tile. That was before I collapsed onto the floor and just kept crying. I finally got up and called home, but by the time I called home, I had calmed down some.

I’ve learned something. I may be able to express my depression and other problems really well through my blogging, but apparently, I’m doing a good job masking it offline because no one (except my family) suspects anything. I talked to that guy who asked for my phone number and we were talking about how the stressful stuff from schoolwork can drive you insane and I said something about being insane, and he said something to me about how I sure did hide it well.

I guess I’m just used to pretending that I’m fine because I don’t want to seem so crazy that I need to get locked up and I don’t want people to be afraid of me. I would love to be honest with everyone and say how bad I feel, but I don’t think people are ready to hear it. I think its easier for people to think that I’m okay than for them to see me how I truly feel. I don’t smile as much as I used to, so people who kind of know me, know something is up, but when I say, “I don’t feel good”, they just accept that. They don’t really push, and I don’t really just blurt out how I feel.

It’s amazing, I feel so free to talk about my problems on here, but I still am afraid of the possible repercussions of my roommate finding out. I don’t mind 6 billion other people having access to my thoughts and feelings, but I worry that if she finds out what her roommate really thinks and feels that I could be roommateless or roomless.

Jen, I have thought a lot about how I would carry out my suicidal thoughts. I sit in class some days and, while I’m taking notes, I’ll go through different scenarios in my head. Usually, its slitting my wrists, which I think is probably just because I’m familiar with razors and knives. Sometimes, my plan includes pills. If I’m in a really desperate situation, I’ll think about jumping off the roof of a building.

Oh, I have kind of decided something. If Beth doesn’t agree to put me in Comprehensive Care, then I may come clean with my Social Work advisor (who is also my Social Work teacher and who worked as a Social Worker for several years) to see if she has any advice for me. I figure that she should know some way that I can get the help I need. I do realize, though, that if I do that, and I go into some of the symptoms, that I may risk getting kicked out of the program. (She may recommend when I go for my interview that they don’t accept me.) I don’t know if she’s allowed to do that or not. It’s one of my fears, though.

I also want to thank everyone for their support and kind words.

ETA: I forgot to write about something interesting/scary that happened yesterday morning. Before I left for class, my mom and I were taking Xander, Molly, and Gretchen out to walk and there were 4 police cars outside the house. A police officer asked us if we knew who owned a Maroon car that was parked next to the house. We said we didn’t. We walked the dogs around the house and as we were getting to our side yard, we saw a police officer pull a bag from the car. It looked like it could’ve been marijuana. I thought I heard one of the police officers say something about the car possibly being stolen. I was a little worried. So, my mom and I headed back in to get my bag so I could go up to A&M. As we were about to head down the street, another police officer stopped us and asked us whether we knew who drove the car and if we’d let him/her into our house. We told him no. He asked (in an accusatory tone) if we thought anything would happen if dogs sniffed the yard looking for the driver. We said no. He let us go. It was really confusing, like he thought we automatically had to know who had driven the car because it was next to our house. Also, if there had been someone in the yard, then Molly would’ve tracked him. If there is one thing that she can do (as a Basset Hound), it is track things/people.

Plugs: Ally, Aurora, Chelsea, Christine, Cindy, Deb, Doreen, Jen, Jeni, Jennifer, Jo, Marie, Nat Marie, Pia, Shasta

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I had a bad night last night. It’s amazing that at about 9:00-10:00 at night, I just get really bad. I think it has to do with my Klonopin wearing off at that time because when I take it at school, I take .5 mg at 3:30 and then .5 again at about 5:00. So, it wears off, and by 10, I’m not only depressed, I’m extremely anxious. I start crying and wanting to be at home.

At one point, when I thought about hurting/killing myself, I was actually okay with it. Most of the time, I’m too afraid to die or I’ll think that it will upset someone, but last night I thought about it and I was okay with it. And when I was finally able to calm down a little, I realized how lucky I was that I didn’t have razor blades or lots of pills with me.

Last night was probably worse because my roommate never came to the room last night. I guess she’s out of town or something. She’d mentioned something about she might see her grandmother for her grandmother’s birthday, but I didn’t know when that would be. She may have just been at a friend’s place, though.

Even if she had been in the dorm, I couldn’t have talked to her. I don’t talk to her about my problems. And I can’t really say that I feel like crap and not go into why. I need someone I can talk to about this stuff when I’m up there, but I don’t have anyone like that up there. So, I have to call home, which is rather difficult when I barely get 1 bar in my room. At some moments, I’ll get 2, but soon after that, I’ll completely lose service.

Oh, yesterday at lunch and dinner, I didn’t eat as much as I normally do when I’m in the cafeteria. I got down about 1/2 of what I normally eat, and even that was too much. My mom said that may be a sign that I’m about to start losing more weight. I hope so. So far I’ve lost like 112 pounds, but I still need to lose about 90 pounds. Maybe I’ll be able to lose that.

I didn’t start losing the weight fast enough for my knees, though. When I walk up the stairs from the Science building to Bibb-Graves (where my Social Work class is), my knees creak and crack the entire time. It’s quite disgusting. I knew that they could get worse (I was diagnosed with chondromalacia when I was 14), but I didn’t realize that they were going to get bad that fast. Of course, I guess 7 years isn’t that fast, especially when I weighed so much for quite a while. That had to do more damage to my knees and other joints.

My mom is at work, but not as a substitute for the Extended Day Program. On Friday, she got “promoted”. The Kindergarten Extended Day teacher quit and my mom asked for her job. She was interviewed and it was determined that she could have the job, so she has a permanent job now, too. I just hope that working with Extended Day doesn’t pay too much. I know that sounds weird, especially when we’re having money troubles, but if it pays too much, then she loses her disability and her Medicare. I don’t think it will pay too much, though. It didn’t when she worked for the same program back in 2001 & 2002. I doubt with the lack of funds for Alabama schools that they’ve upped the pay for ED teachers.

I wanted to call my mom yesterday afternoon during the storms, but I thought she’d be busy working. I had forgotten it was President’s Day because A&M had classes yesterday. I don’t think I’ve ever had class on President’s Day before. I was a bit annoyed that on a major holiday, we had to go to class. Blah.

I’m glad my last post wasn’t seen as begging. I understand that many of you don’t have the money to donate, and I understand that.

Oh, go wish Aurora a happy birthday. She turned 21 yesterday. I would’ve pointed you in her direction yesterday, but I was at school. She’s a former hostee and a sweetheart, so just go give her some love.

Plugs: Angela, Alx, Anwamian, Brittany, Gill, Jem, Jen, Jen, Jo, LiYan, Manila, Marie, Michelle, Nat Marie, Nez, Normies

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I just upgraded the WordPress to 1.5. So far there don’t appear to be any problems, but if you see anything wrong, please let me know. Normally, I don’t install new versions this quickly, but something just said to me to go check WP to see if 1.5 was ready yet and it was.

I get to go to my cousin’s son’s birthday party in a few hours. His 5th birthday is today. I used to be really jealous of him, but now not so much. I try to remember that he’s little and I’m grown, but sometimes I still can’t help but get jealous. I was pretty much the baby for 16 years, so not being the baby has been rough, but I think I’m almost adjusted to the role.

My blood work results were fine. My doctor wants to check my B12 levels next time, though. I figured that was coming. I guess I just have to make sure I take the B12 pills between now and June. That way my levels will be fine. Of course, I should make sure I take the pills without worrying about some silly test results.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes. I really appreciate them. And thank you to Aneesah for the birthday gift. I need to add a special page for the gifts I’ve gotten.

Oh, and I received one more gift last night. My mom and dad got me a pair of jeans, a green shirt, and a Care Bear hoodie jacket that says “Lucky” on it. Very nice. My mom said it would be good for me to wear on St. Patrick’s Day.

ETA: My Nana just called. Apparently, my Aunt and Uncle won’t be at the party because my Uncle has come down with the flu. This means my Nana won’t have anyone to ride with, so she’s coming over here. She doesn’t know about Gretchen, though. We haven’t told her because she tends to not like it when we get new pets. I would call my mom to let her know, but I left my bags in the car yesterday and my phone is in one of the bags. My mom happens to have the car at work with her. So, Nana will arrive and meet Gretchen, and I have no way of letting my mom know because I don’t know her number. I guess I could go rummage for the boxes the phones came in because the number is somewhere on the box. Oh well. This should be interesting.

Plugs: Ally, Aneesah, Angela, Aurora, Doreen, LiYan, Kimberly, Kristin, Mindy, Sarah

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