Amber graduated! a mental health and friends thread

so good news is i actually managed to schedule a physchiatrist thing
bad news is its scheduled for january 10th : l but like, at least its happening?
therapist tried to call another place to get me scheduled earlier, left a message, was told i'd be called back, did not get a call back, i didnt have the number for the place so i couldnt re-call. meant to e-mail therapist to get the number, didn't do that cause thanks brain
so now i'm like. nervous to go to therapy tuesday cause my brain is like, nope, failed her. also didn't manage to space out homework-doing very well this weekend and didn't do a whole chunk of stuff for a class at all so. blugh. none of that is very good at all.
but at least i get to go home on the 22nd and stay home till. sometime that weekend. I should keep doing homework while there, but i think stuff'll be more spaced out, so like. idk? I'll survive this term, i'm just worried about next term cause i think my workload will at least triple compared to this term. so i'd really like to get on an antidepressant before a week into next term. but. yknow. if that's all i got, ok i guess
-flop- i just wanna be cured for next term so i can actually do shit cause i really wanna do my classes well next term cause they're really important n valuable. but. blughh

i could just drop a class?? like that is 100% a thing i could do next term. but i want to learn more. but idk if i have the energy to. and bluh. i just feel bad about it.

I guess I do have like. two months i think before i run out of time to drop a class. so. i should probably mention that to my therapist and figure stuff out

 

bouncing idea off therapist for input sounds productive. Um, but i don't think your brain is right about failing her; somebody else failed you, and while it would be good to take that extra initiative, it's not like you neglected a responsibility. You'll be seeing her and you can address that too, get the number if you need to, whatever. You got this.

Actually, it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on all of this. You seem to have a realistic idea of what challenges you are facing and what to do about them, and where you have some flexibility to balance out your wants and needs. That is really really good! You deserve to be proud of what you're doing to take care of yourself! And I know the slow progress is frustrating, and your brain is hyperaware of anytime where you fall short of your goals, but I do hope you are able to remain aware of how much good you're doing for yourself amidst all this.

Um, and it's not unheard of or A Bad Thing to extend your college experience for an extra semester or two in order to space out your workload to suit your needs. It's also worth remembering that if you go into professional illustration, having a diverse portfolio filled with projects you like and are proud of will be more important than having a good gpa and all that. (but learning more from different classes is absolutely valuable and i encourage that - if you have options to do something like vette a class, or sit in on it without credit or something, that might be a way to learn the techniques you want without overdoing your workload, just a thought from my own college experience)

Anyway, i'm super proud of all that you are doing to support your health and impressed by your determination to keep schooling while you do it! You are super rad!

 

Dear god I would love to down my workload and go to college an extra year- however even taking one extra term would increase my debt by ~$13k as my parents will only help me for a standard four year run u-u the nice thing is that i think i've taken most everything I feel like I couldn't learn more slowly through practice and online lessons by now, I'm just worried about having motivation to continue learning and improving at a similar rate without college making me draw more. tho i guess i'm working on fixing that with therapy and stuff, so -shrug-

 

I guess this is my sorta brainweird journal now and I feel like talking about this; soooooo I just puked (well, i puked like an hour ago). Not too significant, I ate too much and had a lot of stress today so it just. bubbled up I guess, but I have a vomiting phobia so it's.. interesting to finally throw up after I think 5 or 6 years of never puking. It was sorta anticlimactic? which is good. I sorta hope thisll help me freak out less when I have a stomachache, but idk..

 

oh, i know just what you mean! i hate barfing and will go for years not letting it happen but when it does it's like not that bad really. Kind of a relief sometimes.

::patpat:: i'm sorry your stress and stuff pushed your body to the puking point though, especially when you have an aversion to it.

 

random badthought of the morning: lol i puked and only managed to lose half a pound

thanks for support xitaqa!! i'm always happy to see you posting here ^.^;
in other news ive totally failed at calling the other psych my school counselor wanted me to call to see if i could get an earlier appointment. I'd try today but like, i'm only going to be in savannah three more days, what are the odds?
i have an appointment for jan 10th which should be fine; and im also seeing my general practitioner over winter break and i might see if they can refer me during the break so i can start before i start a crazy workload term
luckily friends have told me that one of my classes only starts getting really intense after midterm and my senior film class i sorta choose what pace it goes; so hopefully i should be fine next term. hopefully
assuming i do get meds and they do help

 

well! the office i failed to call just called me! huzzah! I set up an appointment with them a bit earlier than my other one and the phone lady was super nice; she's gonna try and put me in first if they have any cancellations next week to get evaluation and stuff ;u;' i really hope that happens, it would be such a load off my back to have psych stuff over with before break so i could actually try a prescription while i have a month off of schooling

 

That would be great! But even if you're not that lucky, it still sounds like you've got a better situation than before

 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i got scheduled for an appointment tomorrow morning!!!!!! its at butt-o-clock early (9:30 and i need to get there at 9:15 for paperwork =.=) but hey, ill probably seem even more depressed then :P
i wish this didnt happen when i have 209384 homework to do, but this is more important than the hw, so whatever, i'll manage
the office tried to call me twice while i was sleeping, whoops lol. i called back and hopefully phonetag will conclude cause i would like to hear more about exactly what i need tomorrow n stuff
but. yeah!! hopefully the psych doesnt suck and maybe i can start taking meds in time to be actually functional next term, that would be fckin amazing

 

Much excitement!! I hope this goes well!

 

I hope so too!! everyone i've talked to on the phone has been super nice and one of them said the psych im meeting is rly chill and accommodating so im thinkin it should go well ;-;

 

!!! I forgot to update here! Meeting went well, the psych was super nice and definitely seemed to take me seriously! I need to do some phone tag like, next monday when i get home cause they need to fax the psych's med recommendations to my general practitioner in my parents town so that my gp can get me a prescription. i'm meeting her on the 27th of december, which is sorta saddeningly a while from now but i'm just glad it's done and i'll be on meds for a week before classes started; much better than getting evaluated a week and a half after classes started. I didn't get official responses from the psych but i'm pretty sure he was convinced i can be diagnosed for depression and might be looking at other things next time?? anyways the point is I can/will get meds.

other good news!!! my college just changed how they require senior projects for animation majors!! I can drop my senior film and just do at least 30 seconds of animation on other people's films if i want!!!!!! which is really exciting and reallyyyy tempting. I feel sort of bad about dropping my film because it's in multi-animator-project format so other people have already spent time making animatics for me and like. signed up to make whole sections of animation for me and i feel bad sorta dropping the ball on them. but i'm gonna message everyone soon (probably not tonight, working on finals drained me so bad, my plan for tonight is do minimum effort on last (online) class and then just eat chips and chill) and see what they think; if a lot of them are still really excited about the project I'm going to do my damndest to find someone over break to be a producer for my film, so i can treat it more like another animation assignment myself, because really looking back on it the biggest spoon drain by far has been having to be the organizer of everything.
i'm just. nervous about either option. the main reason to drop it is i've already signed up for enough films to easily make the 30 second limit, and probably will whether or not i make my senior film. which, yeah, i'd like to have a short film under my name and have this cool group project with my friends but it's been so exhausting dealing with the keeping everyone updated part and just. being responsible for a project ;-; idk i feel like i'll feel sorta guilty if i drop it but i also feel like i might really break down next term for no reason if i don't drop it
fakjdfaklsla;n

oh!!!! i do have other good news tho; both my C grades just popped up to B-'s!!! One of them I still have two assignments for so I can still fuck it up, but one is definitely the final grade!! So if anything I'm only going to get one C this term, which I am 100% ready to accept (it'll be my first overall C on a whole class in the whole history of me as a student, lol)

 

this is wonderful news! I'm so excited! and i wish you luck sorting out that film project, if someone does take over as producer so you can enjoy the fun parts of the project again that woudl be amazing!

 

next challenge: being able to express what's going on to my parents
they won't be upset with me or distrust my judgement but i'm just. super bad at vocalizing any level of upsetting things to people????? so like, ive let them know i've gone to a psych and will probably start antidepressants when I go to my doctor but i still haven't told them like, exactly what's going on and i know they want to know and i want to tell them but it is. so hard. to start that conversation and i might cry if i do because that's just what my body does and i don't want to.
esp. because my dad said a thing about keeping in contact if i do start them because some people can get more depressed and talked about a friend's wife who committed suicide when changing drugs and its like alkjdfla;skdf no don't be that concerned about me plz i've never been suicidal
(insert through here about feeling like i'm faking/not depressed enough because i've never been suicidal lol)

 

If your depression has been interfering with Getting Stuff Done and detracting from your Enjoyment of Things You Enjoy,, it is more than real enough to warrant treatment. Depression doesn't *have* to include suicidal ideation. Just like it doesn't *have* to include listening to a lot of Morrissey. These are just common symptoms, not universal diagnostic requirements.

 

I feel this uniquely strongly. Literally. We could discuss the possibility of me being physically there for that discussion?

Before that day, though, this is just all such exciting news :3 doctor visits happening, diagnosis validation, the possibility of a helping medication in your near future. Yay!!

I think framing your choice to drop the film in the context of 'maximizing the quality of projects I am already invested in in interest of making some high quality material, both for personal satisfaction and resume bulking' will be effective. I mean don't use the autistic English major sentence I just used, but.

 

And for reference I cried (full sobbing) all over mom and sister post-psychiatric evaluation when I told them about the sexual abuse for the first time because mom saw the diagnosis of PTSD and instantly blamed herself for poor parenting and I had to say 'no ma I was abused like two years ago and have been in a misery spiral since.'

Are you going to be more dramatic. Detail how

 

I am planning to be significantly less dramatic. Current plan is something along the lines of 'did you know one time i did nothing but play mahjong instead of do homework for three days? I'd really like to stop doing things like that. and 4+ years of saying 'ill try harder next term' has gotten minimal results, so..'

oh! also psych gave me a list of otc supplements that might help for me to research on my own time and decide about and one of them is supposed to help lower stress from acute stressors 30-60 minutes after taking it which sounds like a mighty helpful thing tbh so i'm gonna probly look into that one more and consider finding some.

 

Ugh I feel like I don't even have the spoons to look for a producer.
Like. I want this film to be finished but I do not feel up to almost any of the required steps to complete it.
Telling people what to do/fix: hell
Forcing others to keep deadlines: hell
Making one of my own parts: hell so far, probably will continue to be hell because I hate my own designs for human characters 10/10 times
Organizing schedules and shit: hell
Searching for more help: hell

But like. People like my idea and I want to see my other group members' parts finished. I just don't like 1/2 of my own work and feel neutral about the other and really, really dread spending more spoons on directing. Ugh.
I feel like I gotta though. It could be good and I won't have another chance. But. Ugh. Uggggh. I wish everyone in my groups didn't give a shit so I could just drop it without guilt

 

one of my group members offered to be producer!!! so the film is continuing forward and in the next few weeks I'll slowly siphon off as much of the e-mailing and reminding and deadline tracking to her and I'll just be the last word on creative control and do my own parts instead of deal with all that stuff =w= i'm hoping that'll make it much easier and i'll be able to get a good amount done over break to help me- the part of one of my parts I was dreading the most (designing the human character) my sister's offered to do. so. yayyyy hopefully this won't blow up in my face..

anyways. sorta frustrated that i'm still having trouble getting work i want done during break but i guess that isn't new. i'm slowly increasing amount i'm getting done day by day so hopefully i'll get in a better groove