I went into my advisor’s office this morning with my Change of Major and/or Minor form. She saw me waiting in the Social Work office and motioned for me to come in. She asked that I shut the door, and I did before I handed her the form. She said she wanted to talk about my interview, so we did a little. She told me that she wasn’t going to sign the form. She wanted me to understand that I couldn’t go directly into counseling after getting my BSW, which I knew. I told her I had planned on getting my MSW before getting my LCSW. When she heard that, she said she definitely wasn’t going to sign the form until I had researched the difference between a LCSW and a LPC. She told me that she thought I could do more with the LCSW and that she wanted me to take some time (or until April 15) before I truly made my decision. She doesn’t want me to switch programs, and thinks that I’ll be able to do what I want with the LCSW. I left her office with some tears, but I was mainly crying because I was feeling a bit unstable again. I don’t deal well with the instability of some situations.

When it was time for my Intro to Social Work class, my teacher (who is also my advisor) seemed to be dedicating the lesson to what I wanted to pursue. She would look directly at me when she was explaining things, gesturing towards me. At one point she did a “theoretical” statement, where she said something about if I got my LCSW and PIP that I could do therapy in a private setting. To everyone else it was just in theory, but for me it was more of a practical thing.

I also have to look into Social Security Disability and SSI, but not for Social Work. This was something that was recommended by Gulshan during therapy yesterday. I had thought about going on Disability starting last fall, but I hadn’t done it because I wasn’t sure that I should. It’s one of those things where I feel like I should do it, but I’m a bit afraid to go through with it. I mean, if I got approved, then it wouldn’t have to be something I was on forever, but it might keep me from moving forward because I might start thinking of myself as disabled. Then again, if I didn’t go through with it and my problems got worse, then I might be too far down to do it later. Or if I went through it, and I didn’t get approved, then I might feel like they didn’t really pay attention to my problems. I barely remember when my mom started on it, so I don’t remember all of what she went through, but I remember when she had to go through a checkup thing and had to go to doctors who didn’t even know her…that would be a bit scary, especially since this is a mental thing, so I would have to tell my problems to more people and explain my problems for the umpteenth time to professionals.

Speaking of talking to new doctors, tomorrow is my appointment with my new psychiatrist. I hope it goes well. Of course I’m a bit worried that he’ll recommend certain meds that I don’t want to ever go on again, i.e. Paxil, Celexa, and Zyprexa. I don’t think he will. I’m a bit afraid of the possibility of not being on Effexor anymore because its the only anti-depressant that has ever worked for me, so thinking of being taken off of it scares the Hell out of me.

I heard that Terri Schiavo died this morning. She can finally truly be at peace. I hope that her husband and the rest of her family can find peace as well.

I wanted to thank Jennifer from kiss-my-kitty.com for getting me the Friends Series Finale DVD. I was very shocked and happy to see it yesterday afternoon. Thank you so much, sweetie!

Plugs: AbandonedHero, Ally, Barb, Becky, Deb, Gill, Jen, Jeni, Lien, Marie, Sarah

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What do you do when your whole life gets flipped upside down in a single moment?

That’s the question that was facing me after my interview this morning for placement in the Social Work program. It was not a good interview. They started out by asking me what I wanted a Social Work degree for, and I explained that I wanted to go into counseling. Well, from there, it got worse because they thought that I should be in the Psychology program instead of Social Work. Needless to say, I didn’t get approved for the program. I can be reinterviewed when it gets close to the beginning of the Fall semester, but I think I may just go into Psychology. I didn’t realize that A&M offered an M.S. in Clinical Psychology. Admittedly, I’d need to get the B.S. first, but I think it might be better for me to go through the Psychology program, since that would better prepare me for solely doing counseling/therapy.

I hate that I’m going to switch. I hate having this kind of instability in my life. I had a feeling that something “bad” would happen at the interview, but I figured that they would kick me from the program for having psych problems. (I know, Social Work is supposed to be accepting, but they emphasize having “strong” people and a lot of people view psych problems as a weakness.) Right after the meeting, I had this strong urge to go pound (not just bang) my wrists against something or go cut myself, but I had to go straight to World Lit and there were already people in the class, so I had to stifle the urge. It was very difficult to sit there and not do anything like that, but I managed to get through that class.

Do you know what really sucks about having to switch, other than the lack of stability and that I was really set on getting a Social Work degree? I have to take another semester of Physical Science and, even worse, I have to take 2 more semesters of Spanish. Now, Physical Science I can handle pretty easily, but I barely understand English now (I was looking at a poem in World Lit and I was staring at the word “death”, only I had no clue what it meant or how it was pronounced), letalone having to continue in a foreign language that I (at one time) was good at. If I had taken all of my Spanish before my depression got worse, then maybe I wouldn’t be dreading this so much, but now its almost impossible for me to do it. I can’t get out of it, though.

So, aside from being kicked from the program that I had my heart set on and losing my ability to comprehend even the simplest of words in English, I guess things are okay. I have my moments of wanting to cry (mainly over this whole interview thing) and moments where I want to throw my shoes at people and start screaming. I did cry at the end of the interview, and instead of saying that the reason I was crying was because they had basically put me in a difficult situation, I told the 2 people who were interviewing them (one of whom was my Social Welfare teacher from last semester–who I didn’t exactly like) that it was because my nervousness had gotten to me. I figured that if I ever did get back in the program, being nervous was better than being borderline psychotic.

I finished The Bell Jar on Sunday at around noon. I thought it was pretty good. I wasn’t able to completely concentrate on it, and she kind of jumped from certain things to other things, so I had re-read certain parts. I’m now reading Fourplay, which is totally different. It skips from parts, too, but the skips are very quick and I can keep up with what’s going on. I used to be much better at reading. Or at least, I was better at reading when I was on Adderall. I’ve always had a little trouble with things that skip or require a lot of concentration, thus why I took Adderall for so long. (I was taken off the Adderall because my last psychiatrist thought it was causing the hallucinations to get worse, but I don’t think it was, since I’ve had more hallucinations since I went off the Adderall. Maybe my new psychiatrist will put me back on it or something like it.)

After all of this turning things upside down, I definitely need to go to the therapist. I should probably tell her my moods have been rather swingy today. I don’t know how much they’re allowed to swing to be considered “normal”. I just know that it was really good for the interviewers that I wasn’t in the room with them when I wanted to throw my shoes. Maybe that was good for me, too, because I could’ve gotten in some trouble for throwing things at teachers.

Plugs: Becky, Doreen, Giselle, Jen, Jeni, Jo, Karoline, Kelly, Larry, Lien, LiYan, Maria, Marie, Marilyn, Merryn, Rowan, Sarah, Tara

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I’ve had what feels like a migraine 4 of the last 5 days. It has not been pleasant, and its been difficult for me to look at things for very long because the pain is just too intense. All I can take for it is Tylenol, which I hate to take because I’m afraid I’ll get back into the habit of taking it and have my little addiction come back. Of course, I think it will get better soon, since I get to go back on my Seasonale tomorrow night. My migraines and back pain should get much better as I get back onto the Seasonale. Then, I shouldn’t have many problems with them for 3 more months. Or at least, that’s my assumption.

I finished Shopaholic Ties The Knot this morning. Absolutely awesome book. I think the next book I read will be The Bell Jar, but I may read something else. I haven’t exactly decided yet. I read light-hearted books over my break, but I guess I get to read not-so-light-hearted ones when I go back to school. Maybe that’s a reflection of my moods when I’m in and out of school.

Yay! My dad just found my other pink-sequined platform sandal. Now I don’t have to go with only one shoe to my interview, or worse go shopping for shoes. Admittedly going shopping for shoes isn’t as bad now as it used to be because my feet seem to fit in shoes a lot better since I’ve lost 100 pounds, but I still hate going. I have no idea what size my foot even is anymore. I used to wear a 10 Wide, and now I think I wear an 8 1/2 regular. My foot hasn’t gotten smaller in length, just in width.

It’s just a few more days until my first appointment with my fourth therapist in the past six months. Well, the third therapist. The other was a psychologist, and I miss him. I think her name is Gulshan. I hope that she’s nice, but I don’t plan on getting very attached to her. I try not to get attached to them anymore, after what happened with Lilian. She was my therapist in 2001, and she abandoned me because of my insurance. She didn’t even have the courtesy to call and tell me she couldn’t see me anymore. She just refused to return any of my phone calls. So, now, I don’t expect for therapists to stick around. I did get attached to my psychologist, though. He was my doctor for over a year, and he was just so nice & accomodating that I couldn’t help but get attached to him. Then, I had to leave him to go to the Mental Health Center, and there’s no stability guarantee there. Kathy left, which I was okay with because I knew I (or, at least, my problems) scared her. Beth got me moved to the Comprehensive Care side, so I barely knew her, but I am grateful that she switched me over. Now, I have Gulshan, and I hope we get along and that there is some stability, but I don’t plan to get attached.

Technically, I’m an Avon lady again. My mom wanted to sell it to make money, but she got me to sign up. I have to help sell it, which sucks because I’m horrible at selling things. I was good at fundraisers and stuff when I was a kid, but now that I’m grown and am no longer some cute little kid, people don’t want to buy things from me. My mom is going to get me to try to sell things at the dorm. I don’t know how well that will work. I don’t know that they’ll trust the white girl with their money.

Plugs: Ally, Chelsea, Daneris, Deb, Gill, Jen, Jen, Jessica, Laur, Lien, Mandy, Manila, Marie, Normies, Sarah

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Well, I had my appointment with the Comprehensive Care nurse yesterday. She ran an hour late, but was really apologetic and explained to me why she was running late. Apparently, when she went to check and see if her 10:30 appointment (me) was there, the receptionist told her that I hadn’t shown up, which wasn’t true. So, she did some errands and finally found my chart when she went back in there. She got me my Effexor and Risperdal, and she said I needed to get an appointment with a Comprehensive Care psychiatrist. Oh, and she was very nice, and didn’t tell me that I could die if I didn’t go in the hospital. I liked her a lot more than the Evil Bitch Monger from Hell.

Guess who I got for my psychiatrist?! My mother’s psychiatrist. In a way, I’m cool with that because I know that he’s a good psychiatrist and that he knows what he’s doing when it comes to my condition. On the other hand, I don’t particularly like the idea of sharing a psychiatrist with a family member. It’s just rather awkward to go to someone to tell them some deep dark secrets (okay, maybe not really secrets since I share a lot of them on here) and know that they hear the deep dark secrets of a family member. Oh well. At least I don’t have my old psychiatrist anymore.

You know what’s really ironic about the Terri Schiavo case? She was Bulimic, which is what brought on the heart attack that led to this whole being in a persistent vegetative state. She basically deprived herself of nutrients to the point that she almost killed herself. Now, people are debating the whole starvation/dehydration thing and some are saying how cruel it is that she’ll be deprived of nutrients to the point that she’ll die. Wasn’t that what she was doing in the first place? She may not have meant to nearly kill herself doing it, but the ramifications of her Bulimia included her nearly dying. I don’t know if she had tried to get help for her eating disorder, but if she wasn’t, then it seems like she was almost okay with dying/killing herself. Thinking like that kind of throws the whole case of her parents out the window. Of course, I think a lot of things throw her parents’ case out the window.

I got my outfit for the interview. It’s a black jacket, white top, and a black asymmetrical skirt with diagonal pink and white stripes. It looks pretty nice. Well, the jacket doesn’t really go with the whole ensemble, but it’ll do in a pinch. Now, I just have to wear the outfit and get through the interview without totally freaking out. I’m afraid I’ll either start crying when they’re asking me questions or that they’ll say something that upsets me and I’ll end up screaming at them. Admittedly, I don’t usually scream and I’ve pretty much learned how to control my crying, but I never know which emotional extreme I’ll be at…and I always prepare to go through situations at an extreme emotion because I know its very rare for me to be at a baseline emotion.

Plugs: Ally, Becky, Breasier, Chelsea, Doreen, Jen, Jeni, Jo, Lien, Marie, Sarah

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Today is my first official day of Spring Break and I’m exhausted. I didn’t get much sleep last night. My back was in a lot of pain, and I kept tossing and turning like crazy. That didn’t leave much time for sleeping peacefully.

I think I’m doing a lot better with my whole stomach problem as a result of that bug I had last week. I still get nauseated if I eat certain foods, but not as much as I had been. I can actually eat real foods for the most part now, so that’s good.

The federal judge should determine soon whether or not to reinstate Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. I hope he decides against putting it back in. It’s time to let her go. I listened to some of the Congressional debate (it shouldn’t have gone to Congress or the President) last night, and it just furthered my belief that keeping Terri on a feeding tube is wrong. Some people say that taking her off is wrong and that its unnatural, but being hooked up to a machine for food for the rest of her life doesn’t seem very natural or right to me. I’m also tired of seeing some conservatives saying she talked and responded to having the tube removed. The majority of her cerebral cortex (which is responsible for things like perceptual awareness, thinking, and consciousness) has been destroyed and has been replaced by spinal fluid, I doubt that she was able to comprehend what was going on. Why can’t people be realistic about her case?

I have an appointment tomorrow with the Comprehensive Care nurse to get my Effexor. I hope she’s nicer than the Counseling Services nurse. Maybe she won’t tell me that I can’t go to school if I’m dead.

I dread the weather tomorrow. It’s supposed to be all stormy and severe weather, and I know that a lot of people like it when its stormy, but I don’t. I have big fears when it comes to stormy/severe weather. I have legitimate reasons to have those fears. Hopefully, there won’t be any tornadoes. If there are, then I guess I just get to take some extra Klonopin.

I finished reading The Da Vinci Code on Saturday night, and it was really good. I liked the twists and turns that it took. At first, it was kind of easy to easy to put it down after reading a chapter or two, but I finished off over a half the book on Saturday night. It was just that good.

Jo, thank you so much for sending the Shopaholic books and Fourplay. So far, I’m really enjoying Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, and I LOVED Confessions of a Shopaholic.

It is almost Easter, which means that it is almost time for my least favorite holiday–Good Friday. I don’t like the name. I don’t think I ever will. I understand that the “sacrifice” of Jesus’ life is considered to be a good thing by the Christian Church, but I don’t consider murder and torture to be a good thing. I don’t believe Good Friday should be called Good Friday, just like I don’t believe that the Cross should be used as a symbol for the religion, when it was originally used as a way to murder not only Jesus, but countless numbers of people who the Romans chose to massacre for various reasons. So, what have we learned from this little rant? I don’t like Good Friday being called “Good” Friday and I don’t like the Cross because of the badness that is associated with both. I prefer one of the original Christian symbols–the pentagram or the triquetra.

Plugs: Becky, Chelsea, Danielle, Elerah, Jen, Jen, Jo, Kelly, Krista, LiYan, Lola, Malin, Manila, Marie, Marilyn, Merryn, Mojo Shivers, Sarah, Shannon, Terry

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So, are you wearing green? I am, but I was the only person in my Social Work class that was. Apparently, St. Patrick’s Day isn’t very big at A&M.

I’m doing better than I was the last time I blogged, but I’m still sick. I’m still just on juice/water and crackers for the most part. I tried to eat some noodles with a little bit of parmesan cheese on them, but those made me sick. I missed school completely on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and I missed English class today. I feel bad that I’ve missed quite a bit this week, but I know I couldn’t have made it through the classes that I missed. My mom came down with this stomach thing last Wednesday (not yesterday) and she still has some of the symptoms, so I guess it just takes a while to get better.

I received my interview date for Social Work today. It is March 29 at 9:30 am. I have to find something “professional” to wear, which probably means that I’ll have to go shopping. I’m really nervous about this whole thing. Some people had their interviews today and I didn’t get a chance to ask them how the interviews went.

I finished reading Get Me Out Of Here, which was a really good book. My other three books from my first order came on Tuesday, so I decided I’d read I Think I Scared Her, which was interesting, but towards the end it got a bit dull. I think it had to do with the antipsychotics. Things probably weren’t as vivid, so they couldn’t be written that way.

Plugs: Babz, Chelsea, Chris, Danielle, Elerah, Gigi, Jen, Jeni, Jenna, Jess, Krista, Lola, Malin, Manila, Maria, Marie, Marilyn, Mez, Miss Sass, Mojo Shivers, Normies, Robbie, Sarah, Valerie

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I’m sick, and probably should be in bed right now instead of updating my blog. I’ve got a wet cloth here to keep me from feeling too nauseated, and that’s about the only way any moisture is getting into my body. I can’t eat or drink anything. I feel absolutely wretched and I’m in a good deal of pain. My ribs feel like someone has cracked them all. It is not a pleasant time to be me.

I finished my camping project a few minutes ago, and after I finished it, I realized that I may not be able to go to class tomorrow. (My mom had this same bug and was really sick for 4 days.) So, I e-mailed my teachers and let them know that I had a stomach virus and that I may not be in class tomorrow. Hopefully, they won’t be too upset.

I got an interesting comment in my Q&A page and I almost deleted it. I probably should have, but you know me, I just have to say something to rude people who leave certain comments in my Q&A page. I need to learn to not be so reactionary.

it seems you as well as many other posters have some serious issues. i am assuming majority of you are small (or mid) town USA just creating issues due to a lack of interest or serious lack of ambition. after studying a few years within behavioural sciences it seems that many of you need to regain a sense of focus not from anti depressants or complaining, but getting our there and having experience. i am worried people from such backrounds can be so depressed…

I took this quite personally and was very annoyed. I’m not from a small town, I don’t even know if Huntsville would be a medium town. It has almost 200,000 people in it, and is certainly not lacking in things for me to do if I wanted to get out of the house. A lack of interest? I have many interests. A lack of ambition? Clearly, I don’t truly lack this. I may not feel like completing certain things, but something certainly drives me to do things. Something drove me to get my GED after I dropped out and something is driving me to go to class when I’m in the middle of having lots of problems. If that’s not ambition, then I don’t know what it is. Perhaps, my problem isn’t a lack of interest or ambition. Maybe it could actually be genetic, since it seems to have happened at the exact same age in quite a few women in my family. Also, I don’t think my depression purely qualifies as just depression. I have psychotic symptoms, which I don’t think you’d find in someone who was just bored with their life. I also have had other diagnoses, like panic disorder with agoraphobia and borderline personality disorder; and some therapists/psychologists/nurses have suggested that I may have obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. If I didn’t need anti-depressants, I wouldn’t take them. I used to have days where I thought I could go without them, and the days after those days has always been one of the hardest things to go through (except when I was on Paxil and Celexa because they didn’t work). Without my meds, my physical symptoms (extreme pain and lack of ability to move) get worse and my psychological symptoms really intensify. I once sat in the floor and picked my skin off because I missed my medicine for a while. Medicines are a necessity for me. I don’t think it is fair for someone to just assume that because people don’t live in a huge town like NYC or LA that those people don’t have clinical depression and don’t need meds to help them out.

I checked Fuzziness (the fanlisting for me) and noticed that there will soon be 30 members. I never thought it would grow that large. I always assumed that people didn’t like me. Thank you to those of you who have joined. I really appreciate it.

Now, I am off to go feel like crap offline.

Plugs: AbandonedHero, Becky, Chelsea, Cindy, Jessica, Jo, Lewis Moten, LiYan, Lorenz, Mandy, Manila, Marilyn, Mojo Shivers

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