ahhh, so tired... but I keep saying at night that I'll write during the day, and now the days are starting to add up more than I'd like. soon I won't even remember all of the superheroic goals I've achieved well enough to brag about them. and we can't suffer a loss that deep. not even if it means postponing rest - and today's effort on the NaNoWriMo I'm not working on... which of course, I want to toss aside today. yesterday, I pulled out of my "day behind" status for the first time; I'm at about half-a-day-behind now... so of course, I want to give myself tonight off. I haven't decided whether or not that will actually happen. I need to sleep, but I need to write here, but crazy as it sounds, (not) participating in NaNoWriMo has actually been very, very cool so far. I don't remember the last time I wrote this freely; I think this is the roughest, most awful rough draft I've ever written. not in the sense that it lacks potential, but in the sense that I've written it almost blindly. on the days when I don't want to write, I've written about not wanting to write. on the days when I didn't know what to say next, I wrote about that. to be honest, I don't think it's much more than journalling through fiction, but I almost wonder if it's working. a couple days ago, I felt stuck, but wrote about not knowing what the hell to do with it. the next day, I found myself picking it up again, able to work with it, but was unhappy with the results... they were too forced, too similar to other things I've written. so I wrote about that. I keep thinking of this Anne Lammot quote that says something like, let the first four pages be shit because on page five, you'll hit gold. I feel like the transitions and the mistakes and all of the sub-par ridiculousness of it - including but not limited to my normal issues of not having any real plot - (to be honest I don't have much in the way of characters either) - lead into other things. I feel like when I finish this crazy-weird rough draft that actually is a rought draft, I might know what the hell I was trying to say. I don't yet. I think the only thing I ever write this freely is a play script. and since those have reached production now, I don't think I even manage it with them. plus, I've been writing more regularly - for a good amount of time, every day - than I have in my entire life. I tried so hard... Anne Lammot said I had to, Natalie Goldberg said I had to... but I could never make myself stick with it. so far I've stuck with it, and that's pretty sweet.
unfortunately, I only have 24 hours in a day, and since I won't allow writing-as-play for the first time in centuries to keep me from actually living in the non-fictional universe, I've lost track of everything. Time, journals, my own life. it's honestly crazy. the past three days have just been packed full, and honestly, as tired as I am, and as crappy as I feel (physically) right now (I have a bad headache - probably a migraine with the decency to stick to my head) ... I truly believe it was worth it. not worth it in the sense that I'll put up with having migraines every time I try to do some normal-life-thing, but worth it in the sense that - knowing I didn't do everything I could have to prevent the stress from physically attacking me - I recognize that I'm feeling the consequences and... granted it's a low-grade migraine, but... something making that worth enduring? seriously? I did not know that was possible without involving key, splendiferous people. rock.
so what have I done. right. Monday I went to the doctor, as I do (love bless it; I'm actually starting to feel like the appointments are stable and scheduled again), but I had the hardest time leaving because I was writing and enjoying myself. I ended up leaving late because I lost track of time, and you can't see the total disbelief on my face as I say that, but seriously, enjoying myself that much, in this apartment, doing something that has been so twisted and painful for years... rocked. but anyway, I went to the appointment, and despite leaving late was still early, so I sat in the park for awhile, catching my breath after the twenty minute trek to his office. I went in, we had a session (and you know, I think everything I just said about leaving late Monday actually happened Friday, but that only matters because I'm remembering Monday morning now), and I didn't cry. Not crying made me happy because for once in my life, I was not in the mood to cry. I wasn't even frustrated with needing to cry; I just honestly didn't want to be in that space. (which strikes me as weird because, let's face it, that is not the most common of emotional circumstances for me.) anyway, we started out talking about [the person I'm worried about getting into residential], and what an enormous relief that was... which led into some strange and kind of scary territory about my own admission. we were just talking about the logistics of it; he asked me how I narrowed down my choices and chose Rogers, and I told him... part of it involved not wanting to go to the facility my mom was hoping I would go to - which was near where two of my three brothers were living at the time, and he said something about maybe I didn't want them to watch me die. which is just a freaky thing to have someone say to you when you're walking around all physically stable and not expecting anyone to bring up the fact that you almost died. but I sort of caught my breath, and "yeah, I don't know, exactly"-ed my way out of it, talking about how it's true, I didn't believe I could get better, even when I went into treatment. and then I tried to shrug it off with a quick, "but- I was wrong... yeay. I'm glad. I was wrong. I didn't die." ::insert extremely uncomfortable moment here::
he said again that I almost did. joking in my head so as not to freak out entirely, I thought - dude, this is why I don't see Tammy; you are not supposed to pull out the frightfully frank statements about that shit for no apparent reason. and then he said something that was not at all Tammy-ish, that was very much Dr. R... he said, "you were at death's door." it's just the unnecessary poetry of it, restating what he said plainly in this unnecessarily literary way. which is fine if what he's saying is something I don't mind having repeated. but hi, who wants to hear about - that - when it wasn't even something we were working on or discussing, just something that came up randomly that we later moved away from? I finally gave in and told him it's still scary to talk about, struggled to breathe for about a minute, and then, at pretty much the exact same moment, we both tried to change the subject to the exact same thing. hooray, new topic.
we started talking about the fact that during Friday's session we talked about certain possibilities for me to get out, and he gave me a list of options he thought were viable. at first, the whole thing made me really anxious - which felt crappy because (well, anxiety always feels crappy, and) I don't want to be afraid of something that I want so much. I want to work to take away the external barriers between me and social interaction, and then I want to go into the world and interact. I don't like the idea of having an opportunity come my way, and not seizing it because I'm scared. I don't want to be the obstacle in my way, a statement this here Superdoc of mine considers the visible part of a rather large iceberg. but ok. he's working on me to believe there aren't a finite number of opportunities and to teach me patience... it's just - really hard when you spent, say, the past week screaming about how you haven't done anything or been with anyone, and suddenly an opportunity comes up, and you're too scared to take it. because maybe then, you are responsible for not being able to get out and do more. and who knows when there will be another opportunity?
I got a bit of a debate high off pointing out that this wasn't entirely my anxiety disorder talking: I'm used to living in a world where I can't get out on my own (the buses being a fairly recent development), and so in the past when my mom, or dad, or mom and dad would have their little bit of time off - a free Saturday or something - and I wouldn't feel up to doing something that day, I knew I was missing my chance to go out the only time I would have it until the next weekend, et cetera. fortunately, at this point, my incredibly strong need for preparation and my inability to keep from diving in when the water's waiting balance each other out fairly well. I've been doing a lot of diving this week, I guess... hence the headache. but I plan to take tomorrow and rest. it's my mom's birthday, and she's going out with two friends who also have November birthdays, so I figure I'll have some time to rest as well as some low-key partying to do. she's off Friday also, so I suppose if I suck in the way of celebrating tomorrow, we can do something Friday. it's not as if she's going to let her fiftieth birthday end at midnight Friday. I mean, the real party isn't until December, when we go to my sister's, so the way I see it, she'll milk this for months. which lowers the pressure on me and is, therefore, acceptable. yeay, self-centeredness. squee.
so, anyway, after the doctor's options freaked me out, I calmed down and started to feel some excitement around them, two of them particularly. first, there's this amazing opportunity with a facility that offers residential care to children ages birth to seven years, who've been taken out of their homes for different reasons. obviously, they deal with the different needs of the kids, and there's counseling available, and other people dealing with the situation from other angles (getting parents the help they need, working to reunite the families and/or set up a foster care/ temporary home situation), but in the meantime, the main goal of this place is to give the kids a supportive home environment, even though they can't be home. and seeing as that's what I got, much to my surprise, when I was fifteen - and exactly what I needed to completely reclaim my life, the idea of helping to offer it is freaking awesome. I'm so excited. I mean, this is what I want to do - to some extent - in my life; I want to be able to offer people what I was offered. and I don't have everything I need to do that yet; I think I'm going to have to buckle down and get a degree and... certain other things... (so. not. telling) - but in the meanwhile, how great is this? and it's with kids, and even though I have really little experience with kids, I do love them heaps. (I'm the youngest; I still live for those rare moments when I'm the Big Kid.) so I'd probably be doing some mixture of odd jobs, chores, and playing with them, and I just really, really hope I get the chance to try it. it sounds so cool.
(to sound like a complete and utterly devoted dork, I almost cried when I read their website. because it sounded so much like giving Rogers to kids. and giving to it when they're young, when it's so, so necessary... not to mention... if it can happen for them then, maybe it won't be about getting their life back on track - the way it was for me. maybe their lives won't ever go so far off track in the first place. it's just a great thought.)
ok. idea number two, which will so seem anticlimactic now, is school. classes, rather. a class. maybe two. probably one. but an actual college class. I don't know what, and unless there's some short seminar-workshoppy-type thing, it'll probably happen in January, but I figure (ambivalent as I am about college, as much as I go back and forth - love to learn, hate the institution, etc) a college class is probably the most surefire option in terms of meeting people around my own age, and even though it's weird to me to think that sort of thing is necessary, (I'm so used to connection to people five or ten years older than I am) I also notice how frightfully reserved the people here are. and I think that, for whatever reason, we're less scared to get to know people who are about our age. and dude, I need to get to know some people. I need to develop some friendships now. yesterday, actually. so, yeah, probably a class. I'm not sure what; the doc's thoughts were around something like pottery, which I'm entirely against because I'd much prefer to do something I don't suck at. there's a bit of a bind in the fact that, although certain kinds of arts classes would offer more opportunity for getting to know people, I'll be more comfortable in an academic class... so long as it's a subject I feel I can handle, something not entirely new to me, and not in itself as challenging as the anxiety hurdles. my thought at the moment is general psych because it's a prerequisite for every other psych course, and even though I took AP, I didn't take the test at the end of the year, and I figure I might as well review it, if it'll help me deal with the phobic-fighting/ friend-finding thing. for forever, my plan for school has been to go to somewhere as alternative as possible and study psych/ women's studies and creative writing. but my thought now is that maybe I'll just grit my teeth and let school be school long enough to get the human services degree I need to work somewhere like Rogers as something like an RC. we'll see how long that plan lasts, but for the moment, it's my thought-scheme - and it supports the gen psych idea. ah, possibilities.
then we spent a lovely long time looking at my shuttle map because mapquest had me worrying that the residential place was way south of here, but the doctor assured me otherwise, and - after giving me a good idea of where to look - suggested I go look at the place as a next step. so that was a big part of Tuesday; I rode out to the neighborhood where our library is... which I haven't been to since a really bad panicky-day a few weeks ago, and I walked down past my normal hangouts and discovered this lovely little pair of houses with a bridge between them and loving sculptures in the yard. I crossed the street so I could see more closely; unfortunately, someone who worked there (I'm fairly sure) was standing talking to someone else right in front of the building, so I couldn't stare quite as much as I wanted to... and I felt a bit silly thinking how I might end up meeting this woman in a week or so after spying on her from the sidewalk. but my object was not to spy on her; my object was to spy on the building, and hey, I was only following doctor's orders. or doctor's gentle agreement with my own suggested next step, rather. same basic idea, right?
more not participating in NaNoWriMo yesterday night, followed by today's absolute marathon of challenges. I haven't slept well for awhile, and I feel sick a lot, and tired even more... so a large part of me voted to stay in bed, but after giving the morning over to that option and not feeling much better for it, I decided to follow up on my original plan for the day based on the very simple fact that previous Wednesdays suggest that if I do not get out and do something, I will - by the evening - will absolutely crappy, stir-crazy, et cetera. my mom works basically from nine to nine on Wednesdays, so it's a really important day to break up with activity. and dude, was I active.
I caught a bus (eventually, begging my alprazolam to kick in... which it did, thankfully, about an hour later)... rode the bus to campus... got off the bus ... walked a short way across campus to catch another bus ... eventually caught that one as well ... rode that to the mall (yes, the Evil Mall ... but what mall isn't, in my world? ...possibly the one in Brookfield, but that's a bit of a drive - the whole north-through-Illinois thing) ... where I proceeded to rock the fucking world. oh, wait. while waiting for second bus, I also struck up decent non-weather-related small talk with a girl who was also waiting. nothing terribly impressive - she was looking at photos, and I jumped on the opportunity to ask her how they came out, and she said "pretty well, actually" and I said something uniquely innovative and celebratory like, "that's good" and proceeded to tell her I've finally gotten to a point where I don't cover the camera lens with my finger, which she agreed was important progress. it trailed off from there, but the point is I am capable of initiating a conversation. (and to be honest, I don't mind doing so. at least I don't have to worry so much about the ulterior motive of the person talking to me, the way I do when someone else initiates the conversation. but then, a girl at a campus bus stop, and the random vagrants I meet all over the city are not exactly similar.) so I went into the mall; my meds were just starting to kick in and I was obsessing (mainly) about not knowing the time because I'd decided my watch was probably an hour off (I must just read the minute hand, as I didn't notice until now) but wasn't entirely sure. I walked around, got a drink, crossed the mall, and went into a stationery store, where I proceeded to search out a birthday card for my mom. now, obviously, I found one; that's no big surprise and really not too big a deal. "I bought my mom a birthday card" does not, in all likelihood, sound like a groundbreaking, champagne-opening achievement. however. although I have picked out cards in the past, although I have purchased cards in the past, I do believe I'm being honest when I say... I have never done this before. the number of times in my life that I've bought *anything* by myself, without a parent or sibling running interference, can probably be counted on my fingers. possibly the fingers of one hand. so, yeah. going up to an employee by a cash register, handing her my prize, paying for it, accepting change, exchanging pleasantries? I may as well have built my own rocket and ridden the dern thing into space today. seriously. and I couldn't stop smiling as I walked out, which was fun. one of the nice things about having to fight so hard for everything is there's a lot of joy in the little things.
plus, the woman working was really nice. she didn't even say anything stupid like, "is this everything?" ... she just kept it simple and sincere, which is good with me. walking back, I stopped an older woman to ask her the time, and she wasn't quite so friendly, but then - I'm always caught off guard when people start talking to me while I'm walking, so I don't really fault her. I think in the future I'll go with my first instinct, which was to approach one of the people working at a booth; they're expecting to deal with people, and they can see me approach. hence, they're less likely to be spastic. but anyway, the woman confirmed that my watch was an hour ahead of reality, which meant my timing rocked, and I (oh, no, I was not done yet) scampered down to what is, in all likelihood, the worst theater in this city. it's not the theater's fault really; it's mainly the fact that good movies somehow never play at this theater - although this fact is currently suspended by the presence of both Ray and The Incredibles.
so. I walked up to the ticket booth, where this fairly young guy was working and obviously on vacation in his mind, which was sort of nice because it meant that I got to start things. and as soon as I said hi to him, he lit up and was very friendly as he took my money in exchange for a ticket. so, for the first time in my young life, I went to a movie by myself. which wasn't half so impressive as the fact that I bought a ticket for myself. but kicks ass nevertheless. I'm crazy excited by these little possibilities. I can get out on my own, I can do things, I can talk to people. it's still hella hard, and I've a long way to go, but... well, as the doctor said, it's easier to believe it's building to something now. the building blocks I've been working on for a year (if you start with the agoraphobia; three years, three months if you start with the eating disorder; and nearly four years if you start with the original diagnosis) are substantial now. it's a lot easier to see how being able to independently pay for something will help me live in the world than it was to see a future in walking around the block. squoot.
after the movie, I waited for the bus, caught it, took it back to campus, nearly froze, caught another, and came here. by the time I got to campus it was dark. being out after dark is not something I handle well; I actually enjoy it when I'm, say, on the bus - but walking, alone - those parts I don't handle so well. there's only one other time I've gone out on my own like this and gotten back around dusk. I resisted the urge to run up the stairs into my apartment (because that still significantly freaked me out), but just the same it was another gold star on my day. and the cool thing is, I have been building up to all of these things for months. so all of the days when I didn't manage to do these things were just as successful, like we pretend they are in therapy. it's true, damnit. it's great because it worked, but it's also great because... it is. it's so different. and I'm not going to have to live in an institution or take to wearing only white and writing the most concise of poems... I'm actually going to live in this world, and how. cool. is that?
...in other news, I bought a tiger. no, really. my mom will have to get over not wanting a cat (she thinks she'll turn into a real librarian, which I consider ridiculous) because I not only got a cat, I got a tiger. and we are only separated by 1-3 business days now. eeek. I'm ever so excited about her arrival.
and this probably rather boring entry has now come to a close. you'll have to forgive me, darlings, for writing a what-I-did-with-my-day(s) entry now and again. I'm just so in awe of the idea that I did something to begin with...
yeay. special fuzzy feelings. this part of recovery is very cool.
~me