Objects in the rear view mirror....

2011.
2 0 1 1.
Asshole. Friend.
Fucked me up and built me up.
I honestly don't know what to think about this year. Maybe it's time for a pro/con list?


...


OK, I tried making a list, but apparently my life is not list-able. Instead I got this:


I got fired. From a job that could've been done by Grawp the giant.
But getting fired gave me the impetus to finally start being creative full-time.


I started running regularly and felt great about it... but my knee got fucked up and I had to stop doing sports altogether. Still can't run :(


I finally got diagnosed with ADHD and realised that a lot in my life was not my fault. But now instead of feeling crappy because I never managed to get anything done I felt crappy because of all the time I had lost.


I also learned that there are meds that could help me. But some of the meds fucked me up BAD. Like Charlie! But Charlie the elephant pales in comparison to throwing up into a trashcan at Praterstern underground station. Disgusting and humiliating - brought to you by Strattera (tm). Back to Ritalin then. I'm still not sure they're the right ones. However, when they do work, it's magical. I mean, shit is getting done! And instead of being "a person with tons of creative potential" I turn into a proper "creative person".


I finally had the courage to submit a short story to two literary competitions. I didn't get shortlisted for either one though.


I also submitted my first film treatment ever. This time I only barely missed the shortlist and ended up joining the team in a different capacity anyway.


I lost some friends. Because, apparently, 2011 was the year of people being pissed at me but not letting me know this. (Not a mindreader, I am.) To this day I still don't know the reason for one of those people's anger at me.
I made some new friends though.
And re-established contact with some out-of-touch old ones.


I wrote more than I ever did before. I didn't write nearly enough to satisfy me. But I started work on my first film.


I started film school.


I still don't have a paying job. But I feel I'm getting to a point where I could handle one.


My mother is nice to me again. Unfortunately, I think it is because now that I have a diagnosis she thinks I'm damaged goods and that I can't be held responsible for my own actions - and not because she sees her own faults in last year's ordeal. Oh, the irony!


I LEARNED TO SAY 'NO'!


We went to New York.
I FINALLY WENT TO NEW YORK!


I saw Beirut and Tori Amos and Amanda Palmer live.


I gave Neil Gaiman my short stories and didn't get any feedback.


A friend of mine gave basically forced Lee Sheldon to read my script and short stories and I got the best, most useful feedback ever.


I don't want to jinx it but so far NO ONE DIED THIS YEAR!


I realised what exactly it is that I'm exceptionally good at.


I finished therapy.
But most of all I fulfilled the one New Year's resolution I had: I scared the shit out of being scared.






Looking up/back at this I'm drawing the conclusion that 2011 was quite an okay year, all things considered. Definitely better than 2010. And hopefully 2012 will be even better.


What I wish for besides the basic health-no-one-dying stuff:


- Getting the meds thing worked out
- Making a good movie and getting it seen
- Lots of love and great music and good friends and some travelling




edited because I saw this on twitter and found it incredibly wonderful:

taken from http://dreamripples.tumblr.com/post/14900943949

In which she rambles, a lot.

Hello interwebs, I've had some blogological issues lately. Mostly because I've been trying to be a responsible person. I've been trying to get to bed at a reasonable time, midnight-ish - which actually does me a ton of good. The problem: I write at night. Ergo I blog at night. Yeah, and those have been short lately, so me no writey.
But I met up with a new acquaintance with very reasonable friend potential (I think we hit it off) and we talked about writing which made me realise: damn, I haven't been doing that. At all. In a long time. I even have blog laziness. It's not the lack of ideas; I've had about a million and one these past weeks, but I'd have to get it all in order and my mind's a mess, really. Plus there's that issue with nights being in short supply around here.

side note: the 21-year old me, the one that wasn't old and married, would stay up nights, write frantically until dawn or chat to other insomniac friends online while listening to music. But that 21-year old chick didn't get a hangover feeling in the morning just by staying up past her bedtime sans alcohol. This almost-27-year-old does, however; and it ain't pretty.


But since I've already passed my reasonable-bedtime by mindless websurfing I might as well do something useful. Like give an update.

I got a lot better these past weeks. And then I got worse again. My old habits got the better of me. For the past two weeks I've had something (from doctor's appointments to social things to simply running errands) every fucking day and it's been getting to me. I have to make a conscious effort to slow down in order to avoid that train right back to burn-out-ville. Which of course keeps me from getting things done. Which I really can't handle all that well, being the fucked up control freak that I am. So there's that.

Also, I have noticed an increased amount of man-crushes of mine lately. There's David Tennant for one, who I've been absolutely drooling over in Doctor Who and Single Father. (Seriously, that ass!) I have also bookmarked a shitload of Jack/Ianto FanFic. And I notice men (the real kind too, not just on TV), which I also haven't done in ages. It's sort of interesting, that part of my sexuality and sexual identity that I am still figuring out after all these years. I mean, I've been straight and bi and gay a couple of times before realising that no label really fits; I've been in a relationship with the woman who is undoubtedly the love of my life for 5 1/2 years; I haven't slept with a guy in more than seven (!) years and haven't met one that interested me on a deeper level way longer than that; and yet I still find myself looking at men again "like that" suddenly or not so suddenly. Kinsey would've had some fun with me. Strictly academically, I mean. Although... ;)

In other (very short) news:

• I'm pure and utter chaos, immovable object style. It has yet to encounter the unstoppable object of discipline.
• Therapy can be a bitch!
• I've been starting to work on some projects (most of them are only in my head as of now, but at least one is real)
• One of the real projects is a webseries I have slyly snuck into to hone my camera, editing and maybe writing skills har har
• I miss my dad, more again lately, it must be because of Christmas being around the corner
• I've been trying to make an effort of meeting new people, to turn mere acquaintances into something stronger if it has the potential. Even if it means making the scary move of initiating communication (look at me being all outgoing with my diploma in communication haha and so graceful even! )
• I'm going to have to have my frenulum (lower lip) sliced up and elongated. Apparently a pretty painless, fast procedure but I'm still not too happy about it of course.
• I'm working on losing weight (a "diet" that basically consists of simply not overeating. Mindshatteringly revolutionary, isn't it?)
• I've been playing a lot of Splinter Cell: Conviction.
• I'm still looking for a new apartment for us. Bigger, better, awesomer. Yeah, try finding that...
• I suddenly got very tired *yawn*

I've probably forgotten about a load of topics again, but sleep is overwhelming. Brain shutting down.

"So, have you taken cocaine?" "Sorry...what??"

I did more today in three hours than I did the past couple of weeks. Not by choice though, and I didn't particularly enjoy my doctors' odyssey either. I had an appointment at 8 a.m. with a psychiatrist nearby. Since I'm currently on sick leave my family doctor sent me there for an official diagnosis. I'd heard a bunch about psychiatrists before but now that I've had the personal experience I definitely have to admit: other people were right; all of them.

It's inconceivable to me that someone can make a diagnosis about the psychological state of a person all thanks to a 15 minute Q&A. Which is exactly what psychiatrists do. Honestly, I felt like I was smack in the middle of that Ellen DeGeneres joke: "Are you sad? Do you get stressed?" (from her Stand Up Here and Now). It went something like this (parts of it are simply left out here):

Q: So what seems to be the problem?
A: Well, I'm in therapy for burn-out. I was a bit stressed before, but it all kinda culminated when my father died and I got married two months later. So I quit my job and now I'm... well, here.

Q: Well, what are your symptoms?
A: Uh... I guess exhaustion. Getting out of bed is a fucking feat these days.

Q: Sleeping problems?
A: Always had those. But really, it's more exhaustion less sleepyness that is my issue. And I've started to smoke again.
Q: By smoking do you mean cigarettes or marijuana?
A: Ah, cigarettes. I don't like marijuana, it makes people slow, not a fan of that.
Q: What about cocaine? Have you used cocaine?
A: Uh... No! (What the hell is wrong with you??)

Q: Do you self-mutilate?
A: Uh... No.

Q: What other symptoms?
A: I've been crying a lot, eating a bit too much.
Psych types on computer and mumbles "eating binges"
A: What? No, I don't have a fucking eating disorder???

....

Q: Now, how long do you think you need? What are the next steps?
A: Uh.... Gee, if I had a manual for this that tells me what I'll need and how long, I probably wouldn't be sitting here in your office, now would I?

Long story short, she says I don't have burn out but a so-called adjustment disorder, but I really don't care what they call it. And the asshole of a doctor at the insurance (where I went afterwards) tells me that I need to be on meds for sick leave to be justified. Yeah, right? because I want to pump myself full of antidepressants that will make me think that I'm fine and stop therapy. "Psychotherapy is not grounds for extended sick leave", she says. I tried to explain to her real slow that therapy is not my ailment but the treatment for my adjustment disorder, which actually is the ailment. I really tried not to roll my eyes or headdesk right there and then, but I sure felt like it, because, no, she really doesn't have the competence to put me on prolongued sick leave for psychotherapy (headdesk headdesk facepalm). No duh, you have no competence, I thought. So instead of the 8 weeks the psychiatrist suggested I got 4 days sick leave. Which basically means I have to go see a doctor who's higher up  in the insurance-bureaucracy (with city-wide responsibility instead of just district-wide) and hope he has a better grasp of mental health issues.... the misconceptions really are unbelievable...

Everyone I know is in therapy and if they aren't they probably should be

So, I'm in therapy. I know, I know, who isn't... Like I said to my friend S. some time ago everyone I know is in therapy and if they aren't they probably should be. I had plans to do therapy, just not now. I thought I'd go and do it later, some day in the future, when I could afford it financially and psychologically, as a sort of psycho-hygienic measure. To work on some stuff, reopen a couple of old wounds, rub a little salt in them, let them properly heal and reemerge as this awesome new and improved me - more zen, more together, more perfect. Hm... so that didn't go over too well with the universe.

A bit more than three months ago my dad died. Quite suddenly. We had a difficult relationship, and he definitely wasn't a young father, I did get to say goodbye - but, no surprise, losing him struck me hard. I lost my dad. I grew up. It wasn't pretty. But I'm a trooper so after a bit of crying I buckled up and organised my wedding in 5 weeks (with a lot of help from our friends) and got married within two months of my father's death. (Or fake-married, as I sometimes quite lovingly call the joke of a civil union we get to have here.) We had an amazing wedding party, burlesque/20ies style, we loved it, everyone else loved it and I was perfectly fine. Not. About four days after the party I cracked. And I really mean cracked! I felt I was losing my mind - hell, I still feel like that today. I was exhausted and crying all the time... and exhausted, and crying. It took me forever to get up in the morning, another lifetime to get out of the house, and I remember one day where I actually sat in my parked car in front of the office building, staring at a billboard in front of me for five minutes, before I could muster up the strength to get out of the car and into work. It wasn't pretty.

My wife and a couple of my friends must've realised that I was a bit loopy because they kept talking to me about burn out, depression, grief and taking time off. My dad had been depressed all his life, I'd seen burn out in my wife, then girlfriend, about half a year earlier, and I have a bunch of friends who've been/are in therapy for burn out and various other mental health issues. I know their troubles, and suddenly confronted by being told "you have a problem" I recognised myself in them. I finally began to see the rat race I was in. I began to see the bigger picture which was: I'm in a really bad place and I'm only going to make myself worse. Ironically, I also began to see the positive side of it. If I actually had something, if what was happening to me had a name and a form of treatment, then maybe what I've been going through isn't me failing at everything but instead me demanding too much. Maybe I wasn't a loser after all but only failing in the face of my own expectations?

So I started therapy. I quit all of my jobs (I was working as a freelancer). I registered as unemployed and am receiving unemployment benefits. It made me feel awful about myself, but now I see it as this amazing chance that allows me to become healthy again. Of course, half the time I still feel like a loser only now I'm one of those losers who is unemployed, but then I remember how I sat in my car staring at that billboard for what seemed like forever and I just know I wouldn't make it out of the car and up the stairs to the office this time. Hell, these days I sometimes don't even make it out of the apartment! It helps that my family doctor has put me on sick leave two weeks ago until next week when I'll be seeing a psychiatrist who is supposed to officially give my illness a name and hopefully put me on an extended sick leave (and hopefully not on antidepressants).

Since mental health issues are still mostly a taboo, be it burn out, depression or something other, I'd like to point you to this amazing blog post by Beth Hommel (assistant to one Ms Amanda Palmer btw.) which made me feel both understood myself and understanding my wife better (she showed me the blog and wrote about her own experience with it here). And I can only encourage you to (continue to) speak up about mental health issues, be it on your blog, in real life or in one of those status updates which have been becoming quite popular on facebook.