My semester has been made up of days like this

So I am recovering today from my second panic attack in a week. I thought I would take this opportunity to sort a few things out, and because I don't want to feel completely alone about it, I thought I would Blog about it, because even though it has been months and months and months since I have posted anything here, this is still my space to post if I want to. (thats one of the lovely things about the internet, once you claim a free space, its yours until you actively give it up)

This semester has been rough. I hurt my wrist over winter break so I haven't really knit all semester. Usually I am a daily knitter. If I don't knit one day its unusual, very unusual. So going two and a half months without knitting a single stitch is not only unusual, but also very stressful. The fact that I cannot knit adds stress, and the fact that knitting is usually a stress reliever means it isn't doing its usual job of relieving stress, basically doubling my stress. Thats one thing that has made this a rough semester

Thing number 2 is that because of the same wrist injury, yoga has been unavailable. I only do yoga once or twice a week (generally) but again, its an important form of stress relief, both physically and mentally. GONE. For a while I was going to the pool once a week, and in retrospect I really should have kept up with that. But going to the pool is harder than just pulling out my yoga mat, so I didn't.

Thing number 3: school. yeah yeah yeah school is stressful, this doesn't make me special. I totally get that. But this semester I am taking an honors class, because it fulfills one of my graduation requirements without forcing me to be at school at 9am. First of all, there is a reason I don't usually take honors classes, namely that I am not an honors student. Second of all, I transfered into the class a week and half late. So I came into the class that was a little to hard for me a little bit behind. Oh yeah, and it meets at 12:45, which should be fine, but it turns out that 12:45 is still really early for me. Its a good class with a good professor, and I like it, but its hard all around.

Thing number 4: Mom. It always seems to be about her doesn't it? I stopped talking to her in November, cause she refuses to meet me even close to halfway on a very very important issue (either I have written about this before here, or I will write about it later, but not now). I thought (very foolishly) that I was mostly over her and the whole thing, and I guess I am, I mean, hearing from her doesn't throw me into a tailspin like it used to. But she has written me a few letters and left a few voicemails. And every one adds just a little bit of stress.

Thing number 5: N. or rather the lack of N. For those of you who don't know N is my best friend (more like brother or cousin than friend). And in January we had a big potentially-friendship-ending fight. We didn't speak for a month or so, and then when we did it was awkward and emotionally charged and stressful. This situation has settled down over the course of the last few months, but still, its rough to suddenly have one of your only support people not there at your side when things are rough, and they have been rough this semester (in case you hadn't picked up on that).

Thing number 5a: Because there was no N there was no Crickhollow. No Crickhollow means nowhere to catch my breath during a long day at school, it means no hot baths, it means no safe place, it means no real moments alone. All of these things are very important to my mental health.

So there you have it. 5 1/2 things that have been slowly chipping away at me all semester. I have done pretty well, all in all. I have kept up with my assignments reasonably well. I have gone to most of my classes (I have only missed a few days of each class, mostly in the last few weeks). I have been eating, and my wrist has been healing (with the help of physical therapy a few times a week) and now that N and I are back on friendly terms again (I am currently writing this from Crickhollow) things are getting much easier.

Or they should be. But they don't seem to actually be getting better. Maybe its that school is getting much harder (we are into the final few weeks which means paper writing overdrive in all 4 classes) and without this bit of relief from the rest of my life this would be impossible. I have been able to knit for a grand total of an hour over the last few weeks (20 minutes at a time), which has been fabulous. I have had a few hot baths, which have been fabulous. But I'm still sitting here hungover from a middle-of-the-night panic attack and I'm actively fighting off panic and anxiety today (again).

I have been trying to remind myself that dealing with a panic attack takes just as much out of you as being sick does. That it wears your body down, as well as your mind, that not getting enough sleep makes things harder, and to be gentle with myself. And I am. But I also don't think I really have time for this. Not if I want to get my stuff done.

How about this? I will work for a few hours tonight, then rest. It means I will only have put in a half day, but I don't care. Then, tomorrow, I can do a few hours of work, go to class, then rest again. I will give myself until Friday to just work at a pace that I can actually sustain. Then I will start emailing professors to get extensions on final papers and the like. This is a good plan. This is a workable plan. This is a plan that doesn't involve more stress. My semester has been full of plans like this.

I should point out that this semester hasn't been 100% hellish. There have been a few supports left in place. First of all, I still have a rent free place to live, its not ideal, but its free. Second of all, my little brother has stepped up to help me when I have really really needed it (and even a few times when I only kind of needed it) Third of all, I have still managed to go to Temple most weeks and this has been very very helpful. My life is noticeably worse when I don't go. Fourth of all, I got my sewing machine out and set up about half way through the semester. Sewing helps scratch the itch of making something pretty, and of being creative, and generally helps still the shakes of knitting-withdrawal. Fifth of all, music. I have had a pretty decent soundtrack for my hardships this semester. Doomtree has helped me feel like an asskicker more often than I would have without it, which has made a huge difference. Sixth of all, this winter wasn't really a winter. If the weather had been like it was last year I would have given up a long time ago. So even though things have been rough, they have remained manageable for the most part.

Wish me luck on getting through the next 3 weeks!

Everything is ok! You have 2 weeks left.

I have two weeks left of school. Just two weeks, and so of course, i am spacing out, reading novels (that have nothing to do with school) playing video games, planning to play video games, knitting pretty things. Basically anything but school work. And its not that I don't have anything to do. I have plenty to do. But my mind is over it. My mind is already on vacation. My mind has packed up and gone home. And I have no inclination to call it back again.

I stumbled-upon a game on Friday, Its called jig-saw-doku and its basically sudoku with little tiles with little colored numbers on them. I think I like it partly because it eats up 10-15 minutes per game, which is just short enough that its easy to get sucked into the "just one more game" mindset, but long enough that even just one game can fully reset your mind from whatever you had been stuck on. I also like it though because when you ask for a hint it says "everything is ok! you have # tiles left" I just love being told that EVERYTHING IS OK! It is so reassuring. Never mind if you are stressed out, everything is ok. Most of the time that is all we need to hear right? That everything is going to be fine. Most of the time the people telling us this don't know if its going to be ok or not, but we believe them. We take them at their word.

I take this game at its word.

Everything is ok.

(I realize this is kind of a light post, everything else in my life just seems to big and heavy to fit in a blogpost right now.)

Starting to Feel the Stress

Its midterms (two)week(s) here at the U of M. Between now and two weeks from now I have 3 papers due, a take home final to finish, and a test. Then I have a blissful week off, where all I have to do is a ton of reading that I am letting slide in order to get the rest of this crap done.

This week the stress of all this finally hit me. I declared a full on snow day on Monday (since the University thought we could all brave the snow after noon). I ditched group on Tuesday morning because I was too tired to think about driving to St. Paul and I went home early, skipping out of my Tuesday night class. I was overwhelmed. I came home in desperate need of a pep-talk, which I got from my lovely step mom and dad, who reassured me that we are all at the ends of our ropes, that everyone here is done with winter, even if its not done with us yet. And then I went on with my week, I went to all of my classes on Wednesday and on Thursday I went to class and then studied for a few hours before heading out to the opening of an art show called "Art and Eating Disorders: Building Community Awareness". It was put on by the Emily Program Foundation and featured art by clients from the Emily Program. It was a lovely event, but it was a small room full of people (not something my introverted self loved). And when I was done there (I stayed just long enough to say hello to a few friends I hadn't seen in a while and check out the art) I went to a concert. A friends band was in town from Scotland and I felt like I owed it to her and to myself to see some good music. By Friday I was exhausted again but I stayed at school until 9:30, just me and the cleaning crew, to attempt to catch up from all the time I had taken off the day before. I spent a few hours on Saturday and again today studying and trying to shape up some of these papers.

So here I sit, exhausted, feeling like I have barely made a dent in this huge pile of projects, and I am asking myself if I can do it. I am having serious doubts about my ability to get everything done that needs to get done. Its not that there aren't enough hours in the day, its that my brain can only work for so many of them. I only have so much time to think and figure before it just gives up on me. I keep pushing myself though, I reach the point where I think I ought to be done, and then I work for another ten minutes. I take a break, I come back and do it all again. I am working at full tilt. Still, I'm falling behind and the work I am managing to do is subpar.

I am exhausted. I just want someone to swoop in and make it all better. But I know from years of experience that that will never happen. Still, I'm not too worried. I know that I am smarter than I think I am and stronger than I feel. I know that at the end of the day I am doing my best, and that no matter what any professor says, my best is good enough.

3 compliments in 3 minutes

This was a long week for me. It was mostly filled with goodness, but still, long is long. It was like the universe came together to make sure my week seemed longer than it was, but not quite long enough to make me give up anything.

First of all, there was the first paper I have had to write in 8 years. The paper itself was only 2 pages, but it felt like 20. Trying to remember what a hypothesis was supposed to look like and then how to sound smarter than I felt (or as my cousin Zach put it 'you just have to make it sound cool'. Best paper writing advice ever, by the way.) took a lot out of me. Not to mention it was due the day after my busiest day. (I know, I should have started it before the day before it was due, and I did, kind of. I mean, I had worked through the problem part of it, mostly...kind of)

Speaking of Wednesday, also known as 'Rachael's-crazy-busy-day', I accidentally called my professor 'Buddy', which embarrassed me to no end, but he apparently liked it. This is my Meteorology class, which I was expecting to hate. I'm not a big science person, or maybe I should say I haven't had the best luck with science classes. My experience has been that science classes existed solely to take interesting things, like how the universe works, and make them so boring you would rather eat rusty nails than have to listen to one more minute of it. But this class has turned out to be fantastic! This is the class of 100 that feels like 7, with the 3 professors from Wisconsin. Wednesday is lab day and between class and lab we have 15 minutes, which is just long enough to chat with my table mates a little and get sort of relaxed and out of the learning mood. So when my professor came over to give us our assignment, my mind was still in casual conversation mode and I instinctively said 'whats up buddy' before realizing that that could be completely inappropriate. He chuckled a little and moved on. I was mortally embarrassed and when he came back later to explain something to us he said 'ok, buddies, I want to show you something' and I apologized profusely, but he brushed it off and said it was fine.

Fast forward to Friday, back in class, I am worn out from paper writing (and all the stress that comes with it) and the lecture is ultra depressing. We were talking about global warming and climate change and the news was not good. My professor even stopped in the middle of the lecture to say 'man, i'm just being a Debbie Downer today aren't I?' needless to say by the end of it I was really feeling done with class and just wanted to get out of there. We had one last activity before we were free though, in our groups we were given a statement that someone in the general public might say about global warming such as 'its too big of a problem for me to do anything about' and we were supposed to come up with arguments against it. I was tired and easily confused at that point and found myself listening to my table-mates discussing it and feeling very grateful that this was a group project and that I could ride their coattails on this one (something I rarely think, let alone do). But of course, the universe had different plans.

Our professor wanted to hear from just a few groups before we left and he turned to our table and said 'I want to hear from my favorite group, c'mon Rachael'. Remember when I said I was excited for our professors to learn our names? I stand by that, but I was a little less excited about it at that moment. I gave a short (and completely bullshitted) answer to the class at large while I turned BRIGHT red (turning bright red was the most embarrassing part). After I had said whatever I said (I honestly don't have any idea what came out of my mouth) the two cute guys at the table who I have a crush on (yes, I have a half-crush on both of these guys simultaneously) both complimented me, saying I had said it very well. So there it was, three compliments in 3 minutes.

Some people might have been overjoyed by this. I was not. It is a little known fact that I don't like getting compliments. In fact, it makes me really uncomfortable. I have just recently developed the ability to not be openly angry and somewhat hostile to those who give me compliments. So I took my over-complimented self on a walk and while I walked I thought about what these compliments might mean, both for me and for the people who gave them.

These particular compliments felt uncomfortable because they were genuine. My professor called our table his favorite and then called on me by name, not because I sucked up to him, or because I told him what I thought he wanted to hear, or because we all did outstanding work, but because I was accidentally myself. He caught me off guard and I showed him a version of myself that was natural and pretty true. My classmates complimented me because I did a good job, not because I was pretty, or because I had agreed with them, but again, because I was myself. This scares me. No, this terrifies me.

What if people start liking me for who I really am?