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personal stuff feel free to skip.

Depression is really kicking my ass, has been for a couple weeks. I’m not really writing. i mostly just want to sleep or cry or both. I know I’ve been withdrawn.

I feel really invisible right now, too.

Don’t worry, no desire to self harm. Just feel muddled and no I don’t know what would help, gonna talk to the psychologist soon.

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Time and Mental Illness

Sometimes the hardest thing about having a mental illness is the time you can never get back. The time before you got help, the time before you realized that you had a problem. The choices you made out of fear or expectations that may or may not have come to pass.

I never applied for college when I was in high school. I was a solid C student (though everybody said I was smart. I now know it was inattentive adhd). But I barely coasted my way through high school, i was certain I’d never make it in college. And besides, this was before the Internet, I had no idea how financial aid worked. But I was certain I wouldn’t get any scholarships with my grades and my parents had explained for quite some time that when we were 18 it was military, college or paying rent, and they weren’t helping with college. So I went military. (I did finally go school, getting my associates at about 30, and now, at 37, finishing up my bachelors)

There’s been other things through the years, that looking back at it now, I realize it was my depression telling me lies. Or my inattentive adhd making me scatterbrained. My house has never been neat or clean.

What I’m mourning today is that, two years ago, pretty much when I hit rock bottom, I lost a semester and a half of college to depression  Because of that lost time, those failed classes, I need to go for one more semester, so I can graduate in December this year. (That failed semester also forced me to wait a full year to get the job I have now while I got my GPA up.)

A couple days ago I got an email from financial aid that I’ve hit the max for student loans and so I’ll get no financial aid for fall.

Today that was coupled with learning I got a D in a class, which means it doesn’t count towards graduation, and instead of needing two more classes I need three.

I know I missed a couple assignments in that class and I’ve resisted looking to see that if I’d done them if that would make a difference. Of course it would have, but I can’t change it so no point putting myself through that.

So I have no idea what I’m going to do. My credit is too awful for private loans (another side effect of adhd is being bad with finances). I’m a world better off now then I was last year (for those of you who know what a bitch of a struggle last year was for me). We make enough right now to pay the bills, but not enough to save.

I’ll do what I’ve always done and figure it out. I need to knuckle down and start writing again.  I may have depression, but, oddly enough, I tend to be naturally optimistic. I’m upset and worried, but I just have to have faith that, somehow, it’ll all work out. Though as of right now I’ve given up on the idea of being able to travel to Arizona to walk in my graduation. The important thing is to finish, and I only have a little farther to go, depression and lost time be damned.

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Personal rambling below the cut

The Austin Film Festival is this weekend. I went last year, no way in hell I could afford to go this year.

I feel like I’m a lot less optimistic right now then I was at this time last year. I’m doing the best I can but it’s just not been easy. All I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope that it all works out somehow.

I just didn’t realize how precarious my finances were until we were both out of work with just a tiny little bit of freelance income coming. I told my mom the other day I’m scared about graduating college next year. A little hopeful, but mostly scared, because I have all this student loan debt I’ve been piling up and I have no idea if I’ll be able to find a job to support paying that back.

I already told hubby we may end up moving because i’m going to look elsewhere for work besides here. He’s resistant to the idea, but, well, gotta go where the jobs are.

I just want to get back where I’m not constantly getting shut off notices.

I’m also almost out of anti depressants but I’m not sure I’ve got the fifty bucks for more.

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Personal rambling below the cut

I had a small breakdown tonight while trying to write. Just feeling like all my words were crap that nothing was coming out right, that it was all too cheesy. I’ll probably post it anyway when it’s done.

I think maybe I’m tired of being strong. This has been a rough year and some days it feels like it won’t be worth it in then end. Not that I’m going to quit school or work or putting words to paper.

I just don’t want to be this helpless, on this knife edge of ruin. I don’t want to be still in the same kind of job when I’m 40 (I’m 36, 37 in February). I want to travel. I want to stop saying ‘someday’.

I don’t know how to get there from here. I don’t know exactly what job I’ll get when I graduate. I’m not even sure I’ll be living in the same place if I can get a good job elsewhere. I’ve got a year or so to go with school.

But I don’t want to keep putting things off either. I don’t know how to be the best me. I do know I need to keep writing. I need to keep fighting.

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So I just feel like sharing this story, feel free to skip it, just something about me, and high school and writing, and where I am now.

Okay, so I graduated High School in 1997 (this is important later). My senior year I was going to take more classes that *I* wanted to take, but got convinced to stick with the ‘college prep’ track (even though I wasn’t really planning on going to college right away).

Anyway one of the classes I did manage to take was a drama class. I loved it. I’d tried to take a community acting class once before, but it had gotten canceled due to not enough people. And I’d never managed to get a role in a school play.

But at least the Drama class had to let me try. And we also went and saw a play. Well I got inspired to write something, and even though I’d never tried writing a play I took a crack at writing a one-act and showed it to my drama teacher.

Thank God I went to school before Columbine. Because my one-act was about someone about to go shoot up a classroom. My teacher was understandably concerned, but once I explained to her I wasn’t planning on anything I just understood what could put a kid there, she was fine with it.

And she loaned me a book on screen/playwriting.

I didn’t get the book finished by the end of the school year, so when I went to give it back to her I said I’d have to buy it.

She grabbed my hand and said I was talented enough I didn’t need any book.

That was the second time in my life a teacher had looked at my writing and called me talented.

Well, obviously things happened and that was nearly 20 years ago. The point of this story though is that looking at the material for this screenwriting course I’m starting Wednesday feels kinda like coming home. It feels comfortable and right, even if I’m a bit nervous about it.

So yeah, maybe it took 17 years to come back around to here. But better late then never. And I think I’m going to be okay.

(Also encouraging teachers are amazing.)

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So just something personal, you can skip if  you want.

I’ve been struggling with depression and anxiety for a long time. And it’s only got worse over the last year or two. So I finally got myself a therapist and she recommended I try medication in addition to the therapy

So about two weeks ago I started Wellbutrin. And it’s helping a LOT. I didn’t realized how stressed and anxious I was all the time until I wasn’t. I still have worries  and things, but I don’t feel so overwhelmed. I feel like I can handle things instead of hiding. I’ve had some stuff come up this week in addition to PMS and while I’m still working with it, I’m not freaking out like I might have a month ago. I’m not snapping at my spouse for no good reason. I’m actually smiling and laughing more.

I know medication isn’t for everyone, but, at least so far, this is making a helluva difference for me (and my family, by extension). If could handle a 14 hour drive (each way) and family issues and not argue once the entire time, then I know something good is going on.

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So I saw my new counselor today.

I think I already like her more than any other counselor I’ve seen. She hit the nail on the head as far as some of my self-sabotage behaviors go and we discussed why I’m getting anxiety now and didn’t before and other things. She wants my first homework assignment to be going to a regular doc about depression meds. “We can definitely work on things, but it’ll be harder if we’re also fighting a chemical imbalance.”

Plus I am amused that instead of ‘keep calm and carry on,’ she had a small sign that said ‘get angry and throw things.’

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I’m gonna talk about me, and school and stuff. Below the cut so I don’t bore ya’ll.

I flubbed this last school year. I failed spanish (twice!), withdrew from a half-semester because I just wasn’t doing anything with it and I think I only got d’s in the two film classes I did take. So….this year was Not Good in terms of schoolwork.

I’m 35. I go to Arizona State University Online because it lets me go to school and still work full time. I know how shitty the job market is, especially without a bachelor’s degree.

I had a long conversation yesterday with my school success coach (one of the reasons i like ASU). I changed my major to film and media last fall, and he wanted me to step back and took a look at why I did so poorly this year and what my ultimate goals are.

I told him I want to go into screenwriting because Doctor Who (again) has no female writers. Because I’d like the shows and movies I watch to pass the Bechdel Test now and again. And representation is important.

My problem isn’t that I can’t do the work, it’s that i just don’t. I’m terrible about getting homework done and in a 7.5 week class that’s an impossible situation. I’ve always had that problem though, it’s why I did so terrible in high school and chose the military after instead of college.

I’m done now until August. I just have to figure out what I need to do to stay on top of my classes and get stuff done like I need to. I feel like I’m failing the responsibility test. I need to figure out how to use my time wisely so I can get the degree, so I can pursue the dream, so I can make a difference.

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I just want to thank my friends that are there for me even when my depression is kicking my ass and making me irritable and low. I know I’m not always easy to be around, but I appreciate it.