tide in, tide out

depression seems to be coming back - last 10+ days. i fought it, then panicked about it ... didn't get work done, started to feel like i'm going under at school.

now remembered to accept it and just put one foot in front of the other, not make a big deal out of it, not do the headless chicken routine (either internally or externally) nor the deer in the headlights... just do my job... ok so briefly i was enthusiastic, even ecstatic, about doing my job... it's ok not to be enthusiastic, it's ok not to love it every minute, just keep doing it.

i feel insecure toward my friends, my wife. i feel anxious and harried. Saturday i collapsed into a shaking, weeping mess over an insult from a relative stranger whose opinion i don't value.

but after some deep breaths and mindfulness in a warm tub, i found my feet again and reminded myself how to get through this. just do the next doable thing. every minute take stock of where i am and what i can reasonably do. reasonably being the key word. don't try to work miracles if i only have 15 minutes. don't try to make every lesson a superstar production. there are those in administration who decided i'm wonderful; they could just as capriciously decide that i'm terrible. i have no control over that. i have control over showing up every day with some degree of preparation and doing what i am supposed to do, trying to teach my students, loving them and being constant and stable in their lives. that's all i can do and that's all i need to do. just my job.

the headless chicken and the deer in headlights are both manifestations of the desire to be rescued - the hope that being helpless will result in help - from somewhere, somehow. renouncing these two animals means taking responsibility, not looking outside myself. being mindful. and that has its own hopefulness in it... or if not hope, a sense of trust. trust in myself... that i keep going, that i survive.

healing thinking... six things that have helped me

I felt that the previous post was depressing me so I thought I'd revisit something I learned in the intensive outpatient program over the summer... six ways to think positively, to undermine self-sabotage. It has really been a life-saver for me - stuck on a post-it on my bathroom mirror - how many mornings has one of them caught my eye and helped me start the day on the right track, or go to bed in peace?

1) What is going well right now?
School is overall going well. I got asked to be curriculum specialist. My marriage is great. Things are going well for me - they really are.

2) Stay in the present - what do I do NOW?
Now, I'll finish writing this and go to bed.

3) Remember my accomplishments
I went to Harvard and graduated summa. I lived in Japan and learned Japanese. I traveled all around the world by myself. I learned some of the language everywhere I went. I've traveled to all kinds of places since then and learned bits of more languages. I learned web design and became a (however faulty) managing director at a company. I went back to school even though it was very difficult. I stuck it out through the first two hellish years of teaching. I've gotten through a whole semester (minus two weeks) of teaching here without falling down. I can do the next thing too.

4) Replace "I can't do it" with "I can do a little of it."
Self-care doesn't have to be perfect tomorrow any more than anything else has to be perfect tomorrow. Just do a little bit every day, then try to do a little more; it's all ok.

5) I am ok on my own.
Remember that I fear abandonment and that I can relax with that fear. I am actually ok on my own and I can care for myself. The neediness that I feel is just a feeling. I am ok. Allowing that neediness to be expressed puts unbearable pressure on other people and destroys relationships. Breathe. I'm ok.

6) Remember I have a purpose in my life.
I want to help and heal.

I recommend these six to anyone who needs a more positive outlook... as I said they've helped me many times and now they are helping me end this day on a positive note.

Love you all.

chasing and dodging

after a few attempts to dodge my feelings with chocolate and bunny-shaped graham crackers, i'm making a good dinner (well, defrosting one) and some favorite chai and sitting down with them.

actually, if you could have heard the convo in my head, you might have been surprised to find some familiar players.

me: maybe i'll have a drink... maybe some more chocolate... what's so wrong about numbing out the feelings?

miriam: you know you will have to feel them eventually.

me: oh cmon are you sure? do i have to?

michelle (goblinbox): yup. those are the rules. sorry babe.

so anyway. my aunt died in September and i've managed to ignore that fact. i haven't called my mother more than a couple times since then, because i don't want to be reminded that she's grieving tremendously for her sister. (yes, i beat myself up about that a lot, but i won't here). it's bad enough i get her emails about her sadness, cc'd to me as she writes other friends (a standard m.o. for her).

but now that i'm heading to AZ in less than 72 hours, i can't avoid the fact that i'm going to be immersed in the collective grief of my uncle, their three sons, and the wives and grandchildren - and of course my mom. i'm dreading it. absolutely dreading it. i don't know if it's because my grief is walled off or because i'm afraid theirs will be so much greater than my own that it will be overwhelming or what.

i should look at it as a time to be kind to people i love. but i'm afraid of all those feelings. i'll try to let go of those fears and take on the positive viewpoint. and to remember, as all of you would remind me, to be gentle to myself.

the special diet

1:45 AM
me: i should go to sleep i guess
i came home and fell asleep on the couch
(R is off dogsitting at someone else's house)
1:46 AM
then just woke up a short while ago to take the dog out and have some cheerios
and since i'm late taking my meds i cried. sometimes it feels so good to take a
break from the meds, if only for 15 minutes
1:47 AM
i can see why people stop taking them.
Nadine: how come
me: cuz it's like all the time breathing shallowly and then being able to take a nice
deep breath and fill your lungs
it's like being on a diet all the time and then getting to eat something delicious
1:48 AM
Nadine: ok - interesting
me: i just have to be a grownup and understand that, like a diabetic, i have to
follow the damn diet or it hurts not just me but everyone else
Nadine: what's the delicious bit tho -
me: crying
Nadine: oh.
me: feeling things too much
Nadine: never thought of missing that
me: i guess it's like an addiction
1:49 AM
big feelings
dramatic thoughts
Nadine: ah
yeah
I can see that
I miss that too
me: yeah it does make sense right
Nadine: but I so hate the crash that comes afterwards
1:50 AM
me: heh - supposedly the crying would be the crash. but really the crash is when you
realize you've made a mess of your life.

upside down / rightside up

when i take my pills late, my old normal comes back. feeling weepy and as though i don't want to do anything. everything seems desperate and insoluble. the thing is it's very normal and familiar and it's intense, and it always makes me wonder whether the pills are numbing out feelings i should be having. i remember highs and lows, giddiness and heartbreak and think that i've been so even-keeled that it's kind of scary.

then i take the pills and a while later i feel better, and i can see that i was trapped and mired in those feelings for years and they destroyed me again and again, and they can't be the feelings i "should be having" either. it's like a playing card and whichever side is up, seems right.

when i'm upside down without the pills i think that maybe Loopy n I should have broken up back when we were in crisis. when i'm upside down with the pills i think that's insane, we're obviously meant to grow old together. when i'm right side up without the pills i miss people and remember things. when i'm right side up with the pills i think i can live with everything the way it is - at least for a while. upside down is whatever side you're not on; right side up doesn't seem to mean anything.

i read a good book today - a piece of graphic art so it didn't take long to read. in it there was a moment where two strangers meet while looking at a billboard where someone has scrawled "you are not alone" over the closed eyelid of a model. i thought about how much more that statement would have meant to me before the pills. how i felt lost in darkness and akin to other lost souls. now i feel like i've climbed into a boat that goes sailing blithely over the seas in sunshine and salty spray, and i barely remember what it was like down deep in the waters beneath my dry feet, where the lost souls still wander, seeking warmth in each other and so moved by the comfort they find.

changes...

today i'm thinking how, in a way, i'm the same old me, and how, in another way, my old friends would have to get to know me all over again... i feel the same and different... i'm still the same me with the same likes and loves and so on... but i react differently, i hurt less, i smile more, my moods are gentler. i think this is an improvement, but i wonder if i have lost anything that people would miss. would anyone miss the crazy highs? were they fun or just weird? i doubt seriously that anyone would miss the crazy lows!

it doesn't really matter; i'm not changing back for anyone.

i am wondering if i'm exaggerating the change but i really don't think i am. every area of my life is different.

and i'm also afraid to write about it like this for fear i'll somehow jinx it and before i know it i'll be back in the same situation as before. ugh.

need to go to bed now anyway... one day at a time, that's all. just one day at a time.

miracles of modern medicine

the end of the day comes; the students leave; i eat an apple and chat with a colleague.

i'm not exhausted. i'm not despairing. i didn't count the minutes til the end of the day.

i don't have the drowning look on my face that my new friend the first-year teacher has on her face all the time, poor thing.

i'm cheerful. i enjoy my apple. i didn't come crawling to the colleague's room in desperation. i don't feel that i need anything from her.

after i finish my apple i sit down to work. it's easy to do because my work all day has not been strenuous. and, i have already completed a chunk of work in between other things during the day because i've been using my time well.

the students act up a little but it doesn't bother me. if one of them crosses a line i administer the consequence without sturm und drang. it doesn't bother me - it bothers them. that's how it should be.

are you wondering who i am and what i did with your familiarly fucked-up friend?

i attribute some of this to my new skills from my outpatient program this summer, but i attribute about 90% of it to my medication.

finally, finally, finally my medication is working.

i was reading some things i wrote even six months ago and they seem so dramatic, so intensely high and low, so... insane. i can still have intense feelings but they don't knock me down like a big wave at the beach, whirl me round and stuff my mouth with sand, leave me bruised and scraped and battered. i understand now why Loopy was saying that there wasn't any "me" there anymore, why it seemed i'd disappeared into the extremes...

reading what i wrote six months ago, and comparing it to the state of normality i've reached, i am so grateful. so, so grateful. all my life i've desperately wished for peace, and found it elusive amid all the turbulent feelings and obsessive thoughts. i think i'm finding it at last.

salvation

Rescue me
[rescue me, it's hard to believe]
Your love has given me hope
Rescue me
[rescue me, it's hard to believe]
I'm drowning, baby throw out your rope...
~Madonna (remember? hahaha)

Yesterday brought some clarity on two things that are the same: I keep wanting and wanting someone to rescue me. That's how I destroy things. I want someone to save me. And I've found it hard to stop wanting that.

As instructed by the group therapist in my program, I've written on a post-it, "I am an adult. I'm ok on my own. I can care for myself. Trying to get others to rescue me is only destructive." This goes on the bathroom mirror (with, like, ten other post-its from the program, lol).

Then in talking with Loopy I realized something else: this is the reason Mom is so difficult, so painful for me to talk to: this is exactly how she is.

She wants everyone to rescue her, ease her discomfort, fix her problems, make her feel good.

So when talking to her, she always wants something from me. It's like a giant vacuum cleaner trying to suck something out of me. Unpleasant.

That's why I want her to ask how I'm doing - I want her to care - yet when she does ask, I don't want to tell her - since she's not asking out of caring but out of a self-centered purpose (to be a "good mother.")

And here's the rub: if you want so much to be rescued and saved, then you have to stay stuck, you have to stay infantile, you have to stay rescue-able.

This feels like I'm stretching at something that needs to tear open.

Just a quick word of total gratitude to those of you who read and comment, or read and don't comment. Thank you. Words can't express how much it means to me to be able to write here and, at least sometimes, have readers. Thank you, my beloved friends.

"one part be my lover, one part go away..."

Awhile ago I was raging at fate and finding the urge to take pictures of "NO" wherever I saw it.

Recently I had the urge to take pictures of arrows... and all the arrows I saw pointed in multiple directions... which made sense because I felt torn in two directions...

Most of you know what happened recently that caused my Loopy to lose faith in me. I have been hesitant to ask her to take that leap of faith back to me, and hesitant to take that leap of faith myself, because I've been afraid I'll just hurt her again.

Yet of course, I missed that closeness with my wife and wanted it again..

I did some collaging (which, I'm finding, is my way to work through things, the way others do journaling - my left brain just won't relax its grip enough for me to find journaling effective) and a lot of thinking, probably too much thinking...

This song played in my head a lot:

If you know how, you might say 'em a prayer
They're gonna need all the help they can get
They remember too much about what went wrong
Might be they should learn to forget
Forget themselves in each other
And leave what belongs in the past
Carry their hearts like a newborn child
Cuz it's only the moment that lasts...
~Bonnie Raitt, "One Part Be My Lover"

Originally it was the leaving in the past, and the carrying the hearts, that appealed to me. Just let go of the past and be gentle and tender. Take that leap of faith. Then I came to hear the last line more and more, and people in my outpatient group encouraged me in the same direction: to also let go of the future, let go of trying to foretell everything that's going to happen, and just live in the now, enjoy each other now, love each other now. So I turned back toward my Lovey... trying to find a way through. When I talked with her about it, she pointed out that we are already there. There's no distance to travel, we are already together, our lives intertwined. So... trying to find a way to relax. Stop struggling. Let happiness and peace seep back in... or rather feel the happiness and peace that are right there, already all around me. Hm. I think I've said that before - about relaxing, ceasing to struggle.... Maybe I should tattoo that on my forehead. :-P

more on karma! and my purpose in life

Coincidentally (cuz I don't believe in anything else, having grown up with parents who saw signs from God everywhere all the time...)

...the talk at yoga this week was on karma. The teacher told a story illustrating that cause and effect are as inevitable as pebbles sinking in water or oil floating on top of it...

In other words, it's just how things are, it's not someone doing something to you. You dig your hole, you climb out of it. Step by daily step.........

But enough about that. So, one of the activities at "day camp" (my psychiatric outpatient program) yesterday was to think about all the ways we self-sabotage. Well, I can write a whole separate post about that. But one of the things we were asked to do (since self-sabotage is about self-hatred) is think about the ways we add value to the world, and think about a statement/decision/goal about our purpose in life.

I thought nothing expressed my purpose better than the "prayer of St. Francis," which I used to say fervently every night when I was a true believer (also believed he wrote it, which turns out also not to be true). The original was in French, which I like better, because the subjunctive ("que je mette la paix") seems more like a wish/aspiration than "let" in English ("let me bring peace"), which seems more like a prayer/request. So... nonetheless we can cut god out of it and it could maybe say this...

May I be an instrument of peace.
Where there is hatred, may I sow love;
where there is injury, reconciliation;
where there is fear, confidence;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
May I bring consolation for myself and others;
understanding for myself and others;
love for myself and others,
for it is in giving that we receive,
in forgiving that we experience forgiveness,
and in bringing peace, that we experience peace in our own hearts.

OK so it's a lil christian still. Hm.

My main mantra for a long time has been:

From the ocean of samsara may I free all beings.

And when I can't manage to wish such a noble wish, I say this quote from Longchenpa:

Would that the emotions of sentient beings calm down, and they could experience comfort and ease.

This touches the heart of my own turmoil and calms it, as well as extending that wish to all others.

So overall... purpose... may I help everyone, including myself, run more slowly in our hamster wheels, our karma wheels... help us all calm down, and get closer to the goal of liberation from them altogether.

I think that's ok for a purpose in life. It's good to remember that... helps me want to get out of that hole and look into the long distance, the big picture...

in the previous post, the second picture is engraved in my mind, one of those perfect moments, the beautiful sky and the sound of the grass, the clouds moving over the forest, the lake in the distance, and the wonder of standing on top of a volcano... I want to be there...

Hold that thought.

karma is inescapable

"Unalterable are the laws of karma; cause and effect cannot be escaped."

Karma is not what people think, at least in the tradition I (sort of) follow. It is not meted out like reward and punishment by some deity. It is simply the fact that everything we do has results, good and bad. It's not really a belief - more of an observation, a description.

Karma is a wheel, like a hamster wheel. The faster we run the more we feel desperate - this even applies to obtaining good things and escaping bad things.

Enjoying wonderful events and beloved people and objects is not a problem. It's when we chase them, run after them, hunger for them, feel desperate without them. It's all about the running, the need, the desire, the attachment.

So. Karma. That's what I had decided to contemplate this week.

It seems kind of appropriate. I feel like I dug this big deep hole and I have to slog my way out of it. It was a long way in and it's a long way out.

I did it myself, 100%. I dug and dug and dug.

There are a lot of "what ifs" but I try to drop them. I couldn't stop digging: this is just a fact, easily observable. I couldn't stop, even when it was obvious that I was destroying so much.

I was digging my way away from all stability and peace - I dug and dug and dug, more and more into my own mind, my own fears, disappeared into them. I chased and begged for things I already had in plenty - causing so much suffering - until the only thing anyone could do was cut my ropes and leave me alone at the bottom of the hole to come to my senses.

So. The climb back out. Razor rocks and loneliness.

I dug the hole. I caused it.

But at the end of writing this, some compassion. The description helps me see: my obsession, my compulsive digging... not to be hated or disdained but... feel sorry for that person, that me, caught up in pain, creating more pain for everyone I care about, creating more pain for me.

I feel compassion for that me and I comfort me. Just keep climbing. Keep climbing. The hole can't go on forever. It's ok. It's ok. You're not alone, and you can do it.

tired of being crazy

The thing that exhausts me most is that I can't trust my own thoughts. They come in sometimes ridiculously quick succession... opposite ideas... e.g. first that I am utterly alone; 30 minutes later, that wifey loves me and I'm safe with her. Often enough, no provocation for either thought. No outer change. And both feel like revelations - "oh now I see the truth."

It's exhausting and leaves me bewildered. I feel like my thoughts are pointless, since they're obviously meaningless, and yet they keep coming. And, just because they seem pointless doesn't mean they don't make me cry.

Yesterday and today I couldn't stand to be alive so I went to sleep. It's like death but less permanent. I'm tired of feeling that way too.

I don't know what to do about the job situation. Put in for my special ed certificate, but totally unsure about that too.

Why am I awake? Orange street light... wifey, doggie snoring.

no.

Awhile back I was angry on a photo shoot, n didn't want to do the assigned topic. I saw a particularly good "no," and started seeing more... the first batch were lost but I have these...



The "no" phase lasted about a month... as I worked through my fury at fate... It finally abated n I had no more urge to shoot "no"s. I could still do so but it would feel like cheating or forcing the issue... Too bad "yes" isn't posted nearly as often, nor "please," at least not in giant photographable letters."

I feel like that again today. Everything makes me feel cranky if not enraged. I resist the world! I refuse! I don't want to go one more step! I want to crawl under the covers and punch anyone who tries to come after me!

Think this has to do with my first day at crazy day camp?

Ya think?

well.

My Dad always used to say, "Well...... it's a deep subject." And then his eyes would crinkle up and he'd just - almost giggle - chortle - something like that - he loved his own corny jokes.

So anyway. Kinda doing well. By some measures.

I've gotten more job search stuff done in the last couple days than I did the whole summer last year or the year before.

That's really something to be proud of. I'm trying to be.

So why do I feel anxiety off the charts?

Could be because of the demoralizing, depressing job fair yesterday. But I did a good job of writing follow-up letters today. Could just be life...

Cried quite a bit today, haven't done that in ages. Feel destabilized.

Heh. So what else is new? Me? Destabilized?

Mostly, things are much smoother now than, say, 3-4 months ago, largely because of finally - FINALLY!!!!!!! - finding effective meds., but also because of the perspective brought by the diagnosis - that I am gonna have these moods and they don't necessarily mean something is wrong.

But when it comes to anxiety like some creature trying to claw its way out of my innards, I don't have to believe it to hate it.

I guess this is why I avoided stuff for so long: cuz it's so damn miserable to actually face it. Yeah, it's more miserable to not face it. But it's a pretty close competition.

So tomorrow, I'm going to start attending this outpatient program - it's like being in the psych ward except you're only there a few hours a day. Supposed to help you get stabilized and give you coping skills. I'm a little scared but since I'm starting to unravel with all this unstructured time, I'm more scared of losing it over the summer and starting back to school just as crazy as ever.

What does it mean to be well? Are we all really well even if we're crazy, crazy and well just arbitrary binary definitions? (kum-ba-yahhhhh) Or is being well something to strive for? Or something you can't get to and just have to give up on?

I'm confused. But what else is new?

I've known rivers...

Unfortunately, I'm not talking about the profoundly resonant rivers of history and human experience that are referred to in Langston Hughes's flavorful poem.

I'm talking the Nile and the Seine.

As in, I've been in de Nile and I've been in Seine. hahahaha ok maybe that just seems funny at 1 a.m.

Lately I've been thinking, "oh, I don't have a mood disorder. In April and May it was just grief - now that's past, I'm fine, I should really go off all these pills."

But sometimes - and tonight especially - I get glimpses of the fact that no, it wasn't just grief, and god no, I shouldn't go off the pills: I stayed up late trying to work, and hadn't taken my night pills at my usual time. Lo and behold, the same unstoppable rivers of tears, the same despair and paranoia, washed over me.

That friggin Lamictal has a 24-hour life, period. You have to take that shit regularly. Dang.

Does this have to do with the fact that I'm planning a resume drop tomorrow and I can't get online? Sure. But we're talking about the same person who just yesterday faced Monday morning with cheer and good nature, smiles and laughter.

Or, apparently, I should say, faced Monday morning fortified with Abilify.

My moods are a cocktail of drugs. I guess that's ok. As long as I just keep taking the cocktail.

Right?

Is that how it should be? Am I doing something wrong?

Is my despair when I take my pills late - is that just because I'm used to/addicted to the pills, and if I went off them, I'd adjust?

Or is that how I'd feel all the time if I didn't take them? (Those of you who lived through February and March with me might answer that second question with a strong "yes!")

I know I'm sometimes in Seine and sometimes in de Nile. I just don't always know which river I'm in, or the difference between rivers and solid, dry, sensible land. It's irritating.

list

i came up with three things i want to do to make friends, get out of the house, and not go crazy or drive Loopy crazy this summer.

1. get involved in Obama's healthcare campaign.
2. yoga - i tried going to a qi gong class yesterday and it was perfect, but it's hard to find a good teacher and yoga's just everywhere by comparison. Loopy said she'll do it too!
3. monthly miksang photography meetups with Chicago-area miksang peeps. either join it or make it! yay!

So that's the plan.

If I'm bipolar, I'm defo going manic.

traveling shoes

a year ago today i started an indescribable journey... one of, as i wrote at the time, "pushing my limits and seeing how far they can go... finding that limits are not limits... it is fascinating... like exploring new parts of my own mind on some kind of expedition..." it was one of the best things i ever did... taught me so much about myself, opened whole new worlds to me, and healed old things too.

now i'm on a different kind of journey. trying to ... hm. in buddhism you're not supposed to be trying, it's too "grasping," too "clinging." but so, ok, fuck buddhism ;-) ... i'm trying to find some sanity. some peace.

i feel crazy and tired. very tired. so tired.

my shrink today said, "you've been through A LOT." the way she said "A LOT" made me feel heard, understood, listened to, and comforted. (how do they do that? i just wanted to curl up in a fetal position on her floor and never leave). anyway. then she said, "you need a break, you need to rest." i am inclined to agree. 16 work days left.

my favorite part was when she threatened to "go down there and beat [my students'] asses," which was pretty funny because she's a beautiful, young, VERY elegantly dressed Polish (i think) woman who speaks with a delicately charming accent, and does not seem likely to swear, never mind kick anyone's ass—and yet, when she says it, you kind of believe she could and would.

anyway, she said other comforting things that i can't completely remember and gave me a bag full of free samples of Abilify and told me to come back in two weeks.

two weeks and two weeks and two weeks. but at the moment that's my equivalent of "one foot in front of the other." one shrink appointment at a time. just hang in there. just hang in there. just hang in.

wow. depressing.

it's over. i made it. i survived. i'm still standing at the end. that counts for something, i'm fairly certain.

i had a little "you could do so much better, i believe in you, do your best and you can achieve great things" talk with each of my students, gave them their report cards, and released them - bubbling and effervescing - into the summer air. in my memory they sort of disappear into the sunlight as they walk out the door...

i wish i had remembered to say, "i wish you all the best, and i'll never forget you" to more of them. but i know it doesn't matter. regardless of what i might have wanted to say to these kids, i've already communicated what they will most remember from me, in a million ways... from just showing up every day, to all the times i told them how smart they are, to the not-a-lot-but-still-too-many times i screamed "what is wrong with you!!??"

we suffered through a looooong year together. we made each other feel angry, powerless, frustrated, miserable, hopeless and sad. on a very few occasions we felt other things... a sense of accomplishment, achievement, hope. very few. i should have provided more of those for them. i should have done a lot of things. let it go.

but it's hard to let it go... i spent much of the last week telling myself, "let it go, it's over" about one thing and another. "it's over." it's over and i have definitely not triumphed, though i am still standing.

today cleaning my room i swept stacks and files and piles of their work into big garbage bags... their hopeful, determined, eager, reluctant, agonized work... my sweet children... just children... i wish so many things about the past and future for them. it was my work, too, going into the garbage bags. i love them. i mourn them. i wish, i wish, i wish.

i came home and went to sleep. i don't want to wake up. wake up into another hard time, a differently hard time, a familiar unpleasantness. the summer stretches ahead. i have to find a job, unpack my office (never unpacked since we moved in last year...), do my share around the house, and not get too depressed. Loopy is depressed and the house is like a cave, a den, a refuge, a pit. it's seductive and miserable to just stay here in the dark all day, shades pulled, eating unhealthy food and sleeping a lot. i want to do that. i fear and loathe the idea.

i'm glad i have therapy tomorrow.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Post Script:

90 minutes and a good cry later, there is hope for the patient. Therapy and meditation must finally be sinking in (even though I haven't meditated in months)... while crying on Loopy's lap i remembered that how i feel now is just how i feel, and it doesn't mean that the whole summer really will be miserable or that i really did fail to do anything useful this year. i remembered to just feel how i feel and try to refrain from all the fantasies about the past and future and how awful it all is.

strangely this seemed to work. the feelings passed like a quick storm and i feel raw, unstable, but less depressed... as i passed through the kitchen i was moved to make myself a quick meal, a simple self-care gesture that i haven't made in days. somehow i even brewed myself a cup of tea.

As i said, there is hope for the patient.

hysterical ineffective

we are watching "The Dog Whisperer." a surprisingly large number of people have recommended that i watch it to help me be better with my students, or have talked about other animal training shows or their own personal experiences with animals.

this may seem demeaning to the children, but it isn't about them being poor and Black, it is about some kind of basic instinctive human interaction, something that seems to be shared by other social animals. the rich white kids i've taught in the past were quieter—MUCH quieter, lol—but they didn't listen or obey me either. they didn't FEEL that i was in charge.

lol.. the dog whisperer just said, "You can be graduate from Harvard, that doesn't mean you can walk a dog."

the dog whisperer talks a lot about "calm assertive." i started crying and whined to Loopy about not being able to muster "calm assertive." i thought of the state of screaming insanity that i'm in all day and said "all i seem to come up with is 'hysterical ineffective.'" then i started laughing and decided to blog.

i have tried hard to have that alpha-dog voice. when i tell them to sit down and be quiet, i say it like i mean it now. but i have no way to back it up, ever since they decided i can't communicate with parents. :P

but.... i have to be honest... the people who get the kids to obey, it's not because they threaten to call home—it's because they "claim the space" and establish dominance, in the language of the dog whisperer. the kids just know they have to obey.

hysterical ineffective poster child: a couple of days ago, i had them all line up at the door to go home. they were all messing around and out of control. i was trying to talk with the first two that started hitting each other, when suddenly somehow they all started hitting each other. all of them! i snapped. i flung the classroom door open, and pointing out into the hallway, shouted at the top of my lungs, "GET OUT! GET OUT!!!" i was so loud that another teacher actually came out her door to be sure that everything was ok.

the students, of course, although they registered slight surprise at my actions, quickly decided that this was still business as usual and tumbled out into the hallway in a mob, talking, laughing, and disorderly. *rolling my eyes*

sigh.

goblinbox points out that i sound like i'm saying "please just tell me i can't do it," in the letter toward my old professor. i don't know if i can or not. i want to try again, but i have taken hardly any steps toward job hunting.

in other news, i did find a promising new therapist, whom i'll call dr. g. she is much smarter than the woman i've been seeing (ms. L just for now). there's also some kind of power struggle i get into with therapists, on the level that the dog whisperer talks about... and ms.L isn't reacting well to it. i'm not clear on how it works or what i do, but i can see her getting defensive and digging in her heels in a power-struggly way, feeling like she has to assert herself somehow. that just makes me dig in. it's not working.

in still other news, i have caved to the two-party system. i signed up to phone bank for Obama next weekend. this after talking with a friend who has been living in Jerusalem for seven years, who told me that Obama was the only US elected official who had spent more than a few hours in the West Bank and Gaza—and he spent a week there! To some extent, I don't even care what his exact policy conclusions are—the fact that he was curious about what is really going on, that he wanted to see for himself—that already raises my respect for him a tremendous amount.

well, i'm distracted and half watching tv so this post is boring. more soon...

oh and... 51 days to go. that's less than a pack of cards.

56 days to go

i can make it through 56 days... right??? 266 hours... that's not really a lot... it sounds like a lot but it really isn't.......

spring break started with my dad's memorial service. it was actually really, really nice. i cried a lot. i don't feel like writing more about it now...

as spring break draws to a close, i do feel that i have had a proper vacation... a lovely luxurious break... with a lot of friends, sleeping, some sex...not enough good food but, oh well, ya can't have everything.

we also accomplished exactly one useful thing: we got our curtains hung... well we paid someone to do the drilling part (which was actually a good thing, because the windows are all at different heights and it was kinda complicated and he had a cool laser-sight thingamajig that made the curtain rods all even)... but i hung the curtains and made the swag look nice... or as nice as it can...



it's not as schmantzy as it looks in the photo.

is it?

as usual on a vacation or a weekend, it was partly ruined by massive anxiety. this was only exacerbated by my new therapist who made me draw a picture of how it would look if i was being efficient and effective.... then i had to talk about why i always made choices to take me farther away from that... so then i spent several days feeling like a big stupid shit for making all those bad choices, and berating myself... then i finally clued in that whatever good thing she was trying to do, it had just locked me into a 3-day anxiety attack...then i decided that (1) i need more drugs and (2) i need a different new therapist....

that sounds stupid now that i typed it out...

but given that i spend most of my time in a state of mild to extreme panic attack... ya think maybe i need more drugs? ya think maybe it's time to stop telling myself that i just need to "buckle down," or "get it together?"

i'm reminded of one of my students... two weeks before spring break my poor students had to take the mean nasty cruel evil standardized tests that make them feel like shit. as i passed one of my kids with the lowest reading level—just before she burst into tears—i heard her saying to herself, "keep it together girl!" god, it's heartbreaking.

point is, there was no way she was gonna read that stupid shit on that test, whether she "kept it together" or not. and telling myself to "buckle down" and "get it together" is not gonna make me stop having anxiety attacks and "make better choices."

i read this to Loopy and asked her if it sounded self-indulgent or self-pitying. "realistic," was her verdict.

in other news, one of our dogs has also started having anxiety attacks. she spends every night pacing, whining, shivering, drooling, and scratching at things, until i shut her in her crate (which is bad because she doesn't have water in there). i give her tranquilizers but it doesn't seem to help.

so tonight i gave her two tranquilizers up front before she started freaking out. now she's stoned...stumbling and weaving. it's awesome. we're gonna try to go to bed before she sobers up.

maybe i should have her draw a picture about how her life would be better if she weren't so anxious.

either that or maybe i should take some of the doggie tranqulizers. hm.