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August (LONG)
2 years ago
I've been putting this off for too long.
To address my 'Rest of summer update and' journal, I took a leave of absence from college. For a year. I had two classes left, and the internship to finish, but I just didn't. The former was due to burnout and shady software the online course wanted me to install. I'm not just talking cam/screen monitoring: Actual spyware at minimum, and malware that had a high rate of bricking your computer at max. My internship was affected by Canadian wildfire smoke cutting into the hours I could actually socialize and enrich the animals at the shelter as well. I felt especially bad both from the unhealthy spot I was in, but in feeling like a failure or loser for needing to stop so close to finishing, hence me saying I was feeling stupid in that journal over something stupid. =In good news, the leave of absence is something I am allowed to take, and I will be able to do a different internship next Summer. This I've felt better about. I've been searching for a job in the meantime because I want to get my life started in that way. Obviously too, I feel comfortable talking about all of this now, and what else that has been happening.
Living with my sister is the speed of light (like the number in physics) times better than going back to my parents, but over time, we began to have problems.
For starters, various demands/expectations that wildly violated boundaries had contributed to my poor mental health. She insisted I go on a specific anti-depressant in the first week, and all throughout that first week. I repeatedly told her I tried it already, and was worse off on it (the one I took before Bupropion; Sertraline). She was incessant for the first two weeks that I also double my therapy. Again, this was in spite of me repeatedly telling her I just started therapy for the first time in years, and had been benefitting from it because I finally found a therapist I can work with (after a history of being unable to). Beyond this, she also addressed my mental health as some sort of external thing for weeks. Literally said I was a threat and danger for being depressed, which is... ignorant. Awfully ignorant to hear as someone who actually has studied physical and mental health academically, and awful when I was actually in an episode and feeling quite low when she wouldn't budge on describing me as such.
Ironically, these were things my therapist agreed were not fair, and with regard to the medication + added therapy would have been massive oversteps into my own life and autonomy.
She relented on all of these only because I had to hold day after day that I would be worse off... And that leads me to the main issue: Ignorance. Not out of malice, or true disinterest, but such was what really ate away at my mental health again. My social isolation/withdrawl tendencies comes from family to begin with (mainly our emotionally manipulative and abusive parents) , and this really came back to bite me when I was constantly reminded that even the better members of my family don't really know or understand me. She had an idea of me, but didn't know my self. So like with her rigid approach to wellness (insisting that I do what worked for her; her anti-depressant and frequency of therapy), I had my state of being gradually eroded by her rigid approach to 'me.'
She constantly pressured me to search for more jobs and get one. Believe me, I am searching, and trying to get one. Being continuously bombarded and bringing my attention to my rejections and inability to get one did poorly for my optimism to continue. Even more so, as she seemed apathetic to a lot of what I am interested in, and cared about despite entertaining her own interests, and cares at a moment's notice day after day...
But we have been changing that. It came to a point, and she wants to understand better now. I appreciate it. She has been more mindful about what she doesn't know (about me and other things), and is open to learn more. Open to doing better, by me and otherwise. I've been able to explain some interests, and she seemed to recognize the value in them by themselves, or the value that they brought to me.
We're a long ways from talking about furry stuff or anything, but we're starting, and that is what's really important.
Closing off this long journal, the aid of clonazepam boosting my Gaba has had me drawing a bunch more. Helped a ton with the chores I do around the house, but mainly drawing. Drawing more OC content, and fan art, and I've been finding the time to do it for hours each day. I've been slowly reconnecting with my oldest and closest of friends, and learning to accept my own cringe again. Also been treating my OCD + depression well in place of the Ketamine with the benzo, obviously. Like last journal, I just thank you all for being as patient as you have been with me during this personally busy, and unexpectedly unpleasant summer. I learned over the past few weeks that my main problem with my AVPD and social withdrawl is not that I need the time to stop, but that I stop too much and for too long.
I've been letting loose more. I still feel there are periods of unproductivity, or that I could be doing certain things more and better, but I have been doing so much more, and I plan to translate that back here with you again.
Thanks for reading, and remember to tell those you love that you love them every once in awhile.
To address my 'Rest of summer update and' journal, I took a leave of absence from college. For a year. I had two classes left, and the internship to finish, but I just didn't. The former was due to burnout and shady software the online course wanted me to install. I'm not just talking cam/screen monitoring: Actual spyware at minimum, and malware that had a high rate of bricking your computer at max. My internship was affected by Canadian wildfire smoke cutting into the hours I could actually socialize and enrich the animals at the shelter as well. I felt especially bad both from the unhealthy spot I was in, but in feeling like a failure or loser for needing to stop so close to finishing, hence me saying I was feeling stupid in that journal over something stupid. =In good news, the leave of absence is something I am allowed to take, and I will be able to do a different internship next Summer. This I've felt better about. I've been searching for a job in the meantime because I want to get my life started in that way. Obviously too, I feel comfortable talking about all of this now, and what else that has been happening.
Living with my sister is the speed of light (like the number in physics) times better than going back to my parents, but over time, we began to have problems.
For starters, various demands/expectations that wildly violated boundaries had contributed to my poor mental health. She insisted I go on a specific anti-depressant in the first week, and all throughout that first week. I repeatedly told her I tried it already, and was worse off on it (the one I took before Bupropion; Sertraline). She was incessant for the first two weeks that I also double my therapy. Again, this was in spite of me repeatedly telling her I just started therapy for the first time in years, and had been benefitting from it because I finally found a therapist I can work with (after a history of being unable to). Beyond this, she also addressed my mental health as some sort of external thing for weeks. Literally said I was a threat and danger for being depressed, which is... ignorant. Awfully ignorant to hear as someone who actually has studied physical and mental health academically, and awful when I was actually in an episode and feeling quite low when she wouldn't budge on describing me as such.
Ironically, these were things my therapist agreed were not fair, and with regard to the medication + added therapy would have been massive oversteps into my own life and autonomy.
She relented on all of these only because I had to hold day after day that I would be worse off... And that leads me to the main issue: Ignorance. Not out of malice, or true disinterest, but such was what really ate away at my mental health again. My social isolation/withdrawl tendencies comes from family to begin with (mainly our emotionally manipulative and abusive parents) , and this really came back to bite me when I was constantly reminded that even the better members of my family don't really know or understand me. She had an idea of me, but didn't know my self. So like with her rigid approach to wellness (insisting that I do what worked for her; her anti-depressant and frequency of therapy), I had my state of being gradually eroded by her rigid approach to 'me.'
She constantly pressured me to search for more jobs and get one. Believe me, I am searching, and trying to get one. Being continuously bombarded and bringing my attention to my rejections and inability to get one did poorly for my optimism to continue. Even more so, as she seemed apathetic to a lot of what I am interested in, and cared about despite entertaining her own interests, and cares at a moment's notice day after day...
But we have been changing that. It came to a point, and she wants to understand better now. I appreciate it. She has been more mindful about what she doesn't know (about me and other things), and is open to learn more. Open to doing better, by me and otherwise. I've been able to explain some interests, and she seemed to recognize the value in them by themselves, or the value that they brought to me.
We're a long ways from talking about furry stuff or anything, but we're starting, and that is what's really important.
Closing off this long journal, the aid of clonazepam boosting my Gaba has had me drawing a bunch more. Helped a ton with the chores I do around the house, but mainly drawing. Drawing more OC content, and fan art, and I've been finding the time to do it for hours each day. I've been slowly reconnecting with my oldest and closest of friends, and learning to accept my own cringe again. Also been treating my OCD + depression well in place of the Ketamine with the benzo, obviously. Like last journal, I just thank you all for being as patient as you have been with me during this personally busy, and unexpectedly unpleasant summer. I learned over the past few weeks that my main problem with my AVPD and social withdrawl is not that I need the time to stop, but that I stop too much and for too long.
I've been letting loose more. I still feel there are periods of unproductivity, or that I could be doing certain things more and better, but I have been doing so much more, and I plan to translate that back here with you again.
Thanks for reading, and remember to tell those you love that you love them every once in awhile.
