I just started graduate school in the Fall, and I think it might have been something of a mistake. I don't know what went wrong -- wring pills, wrong doctor, wrong church, wrong me -- but I can't focus or concentrate at all. Nothing gets done. I haven't started researching my term papers yet, and haven't even finalized my topic for one. I feel paralyzed, alternating between feeling numb, feeling on the verge of tears, and feeling like I'm about to have a panic attack.
I'm supossed to be excercising and eating healthy, but I don't have time; my mother thinks a sunlamp and vitamins will cure me. Because I don't have time, I feel more and more as if I'm slipping away.
I can't stop thinking about the reasons why I should never have started this program. I want to teach CEGEP, mostly because I can't be a priest, which is what I really want (Catholic). The program coordinator yelled at me because I didn't take Biblical Greek, even though I'm studying French Church History. My supervisor tells me everything I want to do is too broad and, in general, hates all my ideas. Everything makes me feel stupid. I can't help thinking back to the time when that annoying psychiatrist told me I'd never be able to go back to school, and that I shouldn't. Maybe he was right; who knows anymore. I don't know why I can't get anything done. Instead of working, I spend hours staring at a blank computer screen, visiting Webkinz world, looking up first aid principles and my symptoms online. I'm tired of not being able to focus for more than 5 minutes at a time.
I don't think I have very good stress-management skills. My main way to deal with rising panic right now is to go out and buy new Webkinz, which I then hide (some of them) in my room so that my parents won't know how much I'm obsessed with them. I know the reason that they make me feel better is because I have the thought in the back of my mind that I can't kill myself because I haven't adopted them all yet. This is very strange, because I don't actually want to die, though I have in the past. Nevertheless, I have this thought, and that very fact is profoundly disturbing. This is like a strange kind of insurance policy that's cute and fluffy but increasingly expensive (though less so than an ambulance bill).
I guess what I really need -- or part of what I need -- is just a place to vent about my life, what I'm feeling, what's been happening to me. I can't really talk to my psychiatrist about anything useful anymore: I love him, but he's kind of useless. I had to spend all summer convincing him that my meds are not adequate, and they're still not working. I am scared that it will all fall apart, that I'll break into a million little glass pieces. I haven't cut myself in two years, but now I find myself obsessing about it: whether it will help, whether I should go out now and buy clean blades so I'm ready...you know there's something wrong with you when you have extensive research on sterilization, first aid, blood loss parameters, and emergency knowledge of how to use a tourniquet (which should, of course, never be attempted by a non-professional like me since there is a high risk of tissue necrosis if not done or treated properly). Anyway, though this has worked in the past I don't really want to go there: I am tired of the horrible scars because I don't go get stiches, long sleeves in summer. The fact that I'm pretty much out of space that I'm absolutely certain does not cover a major vein or artery.
So. Here I stand. I suppose what I really want is just the ability to write these things, though any constructive advice would be much appreciated.
ps please forgive any typos that might be in here.
