Posted by alexandra_k on August 31, 2013, at 20:17:58
In reply to Re: making things worse » alexandra_k, posted by Twinleaf on August 30, 2013, at 21:14:35
> Your posts are great - better than Samuel Pepys' diary! ! I hope you are keeping records of them on your end for the memoir you will write one day...
Oh... I've never heard of that. No, I don't keep track... This is... Where I get the sh*t out. The sh*t that I used to keep to myself. I used to get all kinds of stuck with it... It would fester...
Then, over the years, I've learned to be kinder to myself. Literature mostly helped. Theorists like Linehan etc. I came to more compassionate understandings of why I'd get stuck on certain things. Not least because of internalizing environmental influences. Countering those negative influences with literature and with therapists, too, I guess. Learning to stand back from myself and... Being my own therapist, I guess.
Still helps to get it out, though. Most therapists can't tolerate my doing that. Most of my friends... Well... One needs to limit this kind of thing. Really. It doesn't do reciprocity any good. And friendships can become a bit entangled and... High maintenence... So need another way to deal...
Apparently part of it is that I'm too quick. People are always at me to slow down. I think other people get some kind of stunned / freeze response around me. Writing helps... Make things more manageable. Probably also helps to not have to look at me since I'm very reactive and visibly emotionally intense. Which seems overwhelming to people, too. For good and for bad. Writing is best.
And sometimes people say things that introduce another perspective which helps a lot. But mostly I don't really expect anybody much to be reading... I expect it is mostly overwhelming, actually. But it does help me to put it some place where there is the potential for response, yes. Because sometimes the other perspective is helpful, yes. ANd here... Nobody takes any particular responsibility for me... So nobody feels any obligation or pressure to offer anything particularly helpful. And often... I need to find my own way anyway. Because I'm like that. I suspect my last therapist was fairly ingenious at making me think that this or that was actually my idea even though it wasn't...
I used to have major concerns about my privacy on these boards. I'm a lot less concerned now. I guess I"ve realized... I"m not that spcial or important. Nobody gives a sh*t (in a malicious way). Lots of academics have mental health issues. Nobody gives a sh*t. Just do the work as best you can is all. Also... I'm more resiliant. For instance... Now... I am struggling through issue to do with feeling extremely guilty that the masses are stupid and need to be fenced away from others in order for those others to have any sort of quality of life at all. This thought is something that is deeply offensive to me on some level... So... how to process it better... Because there is a truth - right? But there is also a mis-something. Because of the ill feeling this produces in me... Need to figure it out... In order to live with myself... But somehow I don't think I'd be destroyed if someone did come here and post that I was a complete psychopathic *ssh*l*. I think I think a lot of things that a lot of people are too afraid to... Admit to? To consciously think even to themselves (if that makes sense). But workign through it is... Important. Not just for me. But for humanity. NOt that I'm that f*ck*ng important.
Does that make any sense?
> It sounds like going to your home university might be good, provided you could get the type of housing you need. Is it on North Island?Yes. It is about 2 hours drive to the south and it only takes so long because you have to get through the city at this end. I honestly expect that they won't be able to place me until November (end of second semester) though... So... Someone has offered me their house to house sit - but that is December / January. I suppose... I can look forward to a nice summer... But the next couple of months will be harder for me.
It was important for me to have come here, though. Anthropology, too. Division of labor and all that. And it is important to my piece of mind to have some reassurance that I will feel at home at the University here after my awful experiences (though anthropologically interesting, I suppose) at tech (sport science) and then at uni (physio).
I am hemming and hawing a lot... Science proper (bio-physics, bio-chem, evo-genetics etc) vs health science (lots of demography and public health stuff). The later is social science which will be much easier for me... The former... Is risky. I have no idea... I do grading for things like 'critical thinking' and I'm astounded at the low quality of the work... But still... I have no idea how I will do in science.
I have to try though, right? I tried the easy way. Otago med: Applied there because it was easier. Sports Sci: Thought it would be easy. Physio: Applied there because it was easier. Easy ... Turns out to be impossible for me. I guess... I simply do need to do things the hard way.
Next year is the first year they are opening a hall of residence that is prioritizing post-grad and returning students for apartment living. They want... People to stay. And of course to nominate their roommates for subsequent years. It could be the next 6 years of my life. It... It could work. It is the first time they have done that. FOr the first time... They are offering 52wk contracts, too, instead of booting everybody out come November and making people reapply for the following academic year. He said they had a number of 25+ year olds applying... Accommodation in the city really is that hard to find... As is an appropriate study space...
My life has to get better.
But come what may: Work every day. Because that is the only difference...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1049633
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20130807/msgs/1049982.html