02/25/2011

This shouldn't be new information to you at this point: I'm tired.

Dragged myself out of bad this morning, running late.  Getting into work, I sat at my desk literally sat still for 5 minutes trying to think of what to do.  It's not for a lack of work, but for too much.  I'm behind in my IPCs, haven't ran a single group session, behind on my quarterly notes.

The other social worker is saying things like "Let's go eat" and my visceral reaction is "no thanks" because I've gone from "being too stressed to eat" to having no appetite whatsoever.  For example, I was watching television this afternoon with a girlfriend and a KFC commercial aired.  I wanted to buy a bucket, for a split second, to see if the pieces actually looked like the image, but not out of interest in the scent, flavor, or sustenance.  I take extra hot showers just to chase away the cold.

For the past two weeks my back pain went away.  It's returned.  I can't sit, stand, or lay in any comfortable position, and the same goes for my neck and shoulders.  The pain is stress related, I carry all my stress psychosomatically.

And if anyone's reading this and flipping out, the conversation I had with my girlfriend this afternoon is telling.  I said that I think I might be headed straight into depression.  I'm not surprised by it.  For all the damaging things I do to myself (I consider not eating self injurious behavior), I'll never kill myself.   For those who say "never say never" let me make something clear.  If this is indeed a depressive episode, it will be my sixth.  I've had darker, more dangerous episodes than anything I could be experiencing now.  I didn't attempt anything then, and won't be doing so now.  If I act out, well, what can I say? I have done so in the past and may well do so in the future.

I've got therapy tomorrow at 10am.  Afterwards I'll be going shopping with the girls, and dinner, and possibly a bar. Right now, I'm going to try to get more than 5 hours of sleep, like I did last night.

I feel miserable.  I'm exhausted, but just like the previous nights, if I try to go to sleep I just lay awake.  Might as well make the most of it and complete IPCs (Individual Plans of Care) for work and plan therapy sessions for internship.  Ate only one meal all day.

Keep hitting brick walls: my boss overlooks me (literally ignores me); tells me that if I don't attend political rallies to keep ADHCs open, that I don't value my job; makes comments about whether I'm ready for the unemployment line.  I'm still completing re-assessments, and didn't get the list of quarterly progress notes until yesterday, and these all have to be completed by the 28th (and no, we're not open on weekends).  I asked the translator if he could help me with a final assessment today, and since he didn't get his paycheck he ignored me as well: walked right past me and didn't heed my request.  Program Director saw it all and she didn't do any thing.  I got my pay check today (we're supposed to be paid on the 5th and 20th of each month), and the boss doesn't have enough funds in the business account for me to cash my check.

If I can't cash the check, I can't go on something I've been wanting to do on the 5th of March.  I need to cash my check and write a check for the one-day retreat.  I need some time to myself and I might not get it without cashing the check.

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Thursdays are going to be my busiest days: work 8-2, internship 3-7:30.

gouging the market

After yesterday's comment from my girlfriend -- I think I'm bummed out today.  I spent my entire day completing the 6 month assessment for a client: interviewing him, calling his board & care, writing up treatment plans and goals, and notifying nursing about developments in his condition.  You see, he's schizophrenic.  And I'm just amazed that people would be kinder to him because "he can't control it" and then can turn around in the same breath and say, "but you can."

It can be lonely, mostly I just try to pass, in the sociological sense.  Can't imagine it would be difficult for others to see why, we now gather in our little meetups or have our own blogs (yeah, that would be my 5th).

It's on my mind because of yesterday, and then today one of the treatment centers in LA County sent out it's bi/tri/quad-annual e-newsletter, only to rub in the fact that their individual therapy sessions are egregiously expensive, which they can charge because they are the specialists in the ares; leaving the rest of us out in the cold.  This sector of my profession also disgusts me -- charging a lot not because of their experience or knowledge, but because they know there's no one else.  So, you're either going to go around with the label of "freak" or you'll bend over backwards to pay their $140/session fee.

Thanks, but chewing through a pack of gum per day when it gets really bad is still cheaper than your so-called sliding scale.

Always knew there was a reason for the cross-town rivalry, and, you, you just add to it.

Don't Look Now But Your Ignorance Is Showing

Girlfriend can call me a freak all she wants, but I won't play tit-for-tat.  It's petty, and I'm tired of that crap.  When you've had a disorder for more than 15 years that psychology still doesn't fully understand, doesn't study, and then has the nerve to demand clients educate their therapists about it, well, maybe you just sort of let it go; let it roll off your back.  Heck, I'm fully functional, and you wouldn't know it unless I told you.  And you still don't know it, do you?

Week in Review

I can't help but be reminded of the line "vanity, all is vanity" for this evening.

I walk in and dump my tupperware in the sink, plop the book and pursue on the counter and stick my coffee in the fridge for the following morning.  I mention that I'm up to my eyeballs in work and classes are all just finals, and I get greeted with "that's what you want, to be busy all the time."  No question about the ethical quagmires that instantly appear at work.  No question about how I'm feeling with the APS report I've got sitting on my desk and have 72 hours to fill out.  Know what happens in the 24 hours I've given the potential abuser?  I've given him the ability to make a good story and coach my elderly client on what to say.  Or how about the Administrator of the ADHC telling me that I must run each APS report past her first (because every abuse report takes a client away from her pursue strings).  Excuse me?  No honey, this is how I work: I take my Code of Ethics seriously.  I hold myself to a few Codes and you might have heard of some of these: the Word of God (heard of that one?), NASW Code of Ethics (or maybe this one?), and the Ethics of the ADHC (you do know your own ethics code, right?).  Then on top of that I have the ethics of the APA of which I'm also a member, and the ACA, which I want to become a member of, etc.  These aren't just acronyms and things you sign your name under at graduation and then forget about; codes are for protecting your client, not yourself.

Nope, that's not something to talk about when I get back from 6 hours at work and the other 7 hours at school studying for finals, taking an exam and talking with my professor at length.  No, don't engage me at all; jump straight to "let's stitch up the holes in your ears" from a botched pierced ear thing that was cheap because the pediatrician did it; they're just not straight so we got them redone a zillion years ago.  I declined and said that I don't place my worth and value as a person on some stupid closed up hole in my lobe.  Now, now I get to hear about how I don't take care of myself and "do your girlfriends also not care?" to which I can only say "my girlfriends and I wear the same amount of makeup, boots and short skirts when we go out clubbing."  Would she also like to hear guys buy me shots of Patron, because I doubt it would prove my point: closed piercing holes that no one can really see are not a sign of me being "cheap" or "low class", and employers have never had an issue with it.  Then I'm told a bunch of other stuff.  What's the point? Its the same old argument recycled.

So, I've been banished to eat my TV dinner in my room.  Please, my room?  Really?  Hah, I've got books, a laptop, calligraphy utensils, 5 unfinished quilts, 5 ...er 4 Cuban sodas, a radio, an ipod, and tonnes of other things this bookish introvert could entertain herself with for hours on end.  Heck, banishment to the room is better than the old days when I was eating my dinner in the laundry room.

That reminds me, I need a new house plant; maybe get one for the office, too.

I'm glad I'll be working on Christmas Eve, smiling and talking with my clients; just Thanksgiving I won't be able to recall one such Christmas where I have been authentically happy and smiley.  And its not because I'll be paid (not overtime, mind you).  Just being with people who are actually able to be appreciative of the littlest thing that I do or realize Christmas is not about food, gifts and walking on eggshells.

I bought a book on Friday evening.  My first impulse for buying it was the cover.  Then I read the introduction and that hooked me.  Being so bookish, it's generally hard not to judge a book by the introduction.  I found Moore's most recent book that night and spent the 2 hours at Barnes and Noble reading the first 60 pages.  I might have to go back some afternoon or evening to just finish reading the book.  Anyway, my impulse buy is "party of one".  Now, I've got to put in my caveat: I'm not a loner, but if I spend all day with people, I invariably turn into even more of a neurotic wreak than I already am on a daily basis.  I say neurotic, I'm sorta high-strung.  Anyway, the thing that got me talking about the party of one is this:

"Imagine you're a loner whose ideal home would be a cottage on the beach, miles from the nearest neighbor.  And your ideal day would be one in which you slept from noon to dinnertime, worked half the night, then split the rest between raising pigeons and walking -- alone, of course -- on the beach.

In some places and eras, you could get away with it.  Not most.  In most you would be loathed, suveilled, suspected of perversion, called a witch, hauled out, spat at, set afire -- or something like that.  With luck you might only be laughed at, mercilessly, all your life."

I've got to say, as a kid and teen I dreamed of owning an old weather-worn silvered wooden cottage in some back country with green hills and forests, raising sheep.  Then, I think it was last year, I was told sheep stink, but I imagine I prefer sheep stink to cow stink.  Anyway, my daydreams are loner daydreams: utterly alone in huge old mansions or walking city streets in old fashioned garbed alone at night.  Ain't nobody in my daydreams, except for this one kid.

Anyway, I've got work and things to do yet.
I'm off.

Damage Control

I can handle instigating if it means others have sanity.  But triggering myself that's an emotional event I tend to avoid.  I know that I need what I did on Divine Mercy Sunday; I cried from 11pm all the way through 4pm.  I was able to do that because it was completely dark and others didn't focus on me at all.  Not sure I'll need 5 hours, but ... eh maybe getting more than 4 hours of sleep would work better for the moment.


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In other news, 1-403-896-9013 stop texting me!

Sorrowful unto Death

If you were to know me on xanga, you would be puzzled to see a new blog post. Last week I stated that I would not be blogging until I could find myself in a better mood. My mood is improving, but the real break was due to my life experiences and faith, contrasting with someone's view.

The blogger wrote she found teens and young adults without God in their life to be lost and depressed. She also implied that people of Faith are not depressed because their hope and light is in Jesus.

I can understand where she is coming from, and to a certain extent, I can agree. As a Catholic, and my born-again experience, I can say that I will never commit suicide despite however depressed I may become in the future. However, as you can see in that statement, it cannot be definitively stated in terms of faith, reason, science, chance, &c that depression will be avoided simply because I have faith and salvation in Jesus Christ.

To say such a thing is to deny the origins of depression: (a)physiology, (b)environment (herein, I clarify that to mean geographical), (c)nurturing (partially contributes to Yours Truly), (d)context (I'd say this is what people would more normally think of being 'environment').

Physiologically so many things can be depleted or overcompensated by the brain and nervous system, and while I do not pretend to know many things in this area, when levels are too high or too low for various regions, depression may start (along with plenty of other health and mental health concerns). One example would be chemicals that deplete the brain of serotonin, or organic concerns like a brain tumor.

Environmentally speaking, I look at issues like Seasonal affect disorder (SAD), or living in a region where malnutrition is a concern. Without proper vitamins and nutrients, depression (again, along with other health and mental concerns).

Nurturing: what messages, overt and covert, our parents and relatives instill in us. The patterns of communications, rules, mottos, coping, &c that are part and parcel of the family system. For example, adult children of alcoholics grew up with the unspoken family rule of "do not feel; do not trust; and do not talk" and is all about letting other people perceive a happily functioning family, and never be aware that one (or both) parents are chemically addicted or dependent. Or the patterns of thought that are instilled in children who endure emotional or verbal abuse - messages that say they are never good enough and not worthy of true affection that does not cause harm (or children who are physically and/or sexually abused - that they have physical boundaries, respect and dignity). These messages are terribly hard to undo.

Lastly context, I view as those things that play on any of the above components: how one deals with relationships, martial discord, dealing with a cranky (or for that matter, confrontation-shy) supervisor at work; whatever triggers the critical voice in your mind; stress at work or school; low economic status, struggling to determine the difference between making the water and electricity bill, how to find the funds to pay the child care, &c.

All of these things play together, like separate colors mixing while a 3 year old finger paints. Good luck keeping all those separate! Depression can start from any combination, and further exacerbate any concerns in these areas as well. Faith has little to do with it, except for a life-line, a source of hope. Yet, there is always that chance to suicide, and that is simply being in so much pain that you are willing to seek any end to the pain at all. There, we can only hope God will be just, but I'm not about to do as a fellow blogger did and say that my fellow Christians who suffer from depression, or any other mental illness for that matter, are not truly in relationship with our Lord, nor am I to say anything in regards to salvation.