On Schizophrenia and the Recovery Model of Treatment

My mother is a member of NAMI. NAMI stands for national alliance for the mentally ill. They promote mental health, recovery, reintegration into society, and they also battle stigma and discrimination against the mentally diagnosed. 

I found an article on yahoo's news page about NAMI's current battle to fight stigma. There was an accompanying tale of a man's struggle to find work as a person with schizo-affective disorder. He was told repeatedly that he couldn't work due to his illness. What a shame. Imagine if we had told John Nash he couldn't go to college because of his condition. The world would never have known game theory!

http://news.yahoo.com/virginia-man-wont-let-mental-illness-define-him-170410339.html

The outlook for mentally ill people used to be bleak. It kind of still is, but there is a movement towards a recovery model that can change the common fate of the current model (current model = disability paychecks and lots of bed rest). The recovery model promotes maintenance of mental health. By educating the mentally ill and their families about their illnesses, there is a greater chance that a relapse can be prevented from happening.

For example, if I start thinking paranoid thoughts (like my friend is really an agent sent to gather intel on me), I can stop this process from becoming a full blown delusion by asking myself what evidence I have of this thought, how can I counter this thought, and whether or not it is logical or cost-effective for the agency to do this against an ordinary citizen like myself. The answer is no, it is not logical or cost-effective and there is no evidence to support this. Now, instead of having a minor relapse, I have isolated a defective cognitive thought and quarantined it. Then I can relay this information to my out-patient care provider and they can assist me in further ways, such as providing verbal reinforcement about this thought being defective, or by upping my dose of psychotropic medication. 

Prior to very recently, this would not have been feasible. A therapist would give up, throw the towel in and possibly even send me to a hospital for in-patient treatment. The common thought was that therapy can't help psychotics, only medication and restraints help psychotics. However, those days are gradually dissolving. We now know there are positive symptoms of schizophrenia (delusions, auditory hallucinations, etc.) and NEGATIVE symptoms (apathy, loss of happy feelings, introverted personality tendencies, inability to socialize, scattered speech, etc.). Medications generally only provide relief from POSITIVE symptoms, though the new drugs on trial may be paving the way to change this. Therapy, coping skills, family interventions, friends, and self-maintenance are the ways to reboot the schizophrenic's cognitive state by treating the NEGATIVE symptoms as well.

What I hate the most about being schizophrenic is that the only media portrayal we have is of first-time psychotics going sociopathic and shooting people. Just because a couple of psychiatrists found 2 mass murderers to be paranoid schizophrenics does not justify labeling all of us as potential killers. First of all, there is no mass murderer gene. Schizophrenia is a complicated disorder that affects the genetic structure of a person's DNA. Some research even suggests it may be a misfire of how our DNA is activated.

science daily article on new findings about schizophrenia

Nowhere in the scientific literature does it state that schizophrenia is a killing disease. Even sociopathy isn't defined as a killing disease! Just in case you don't know, sociopathy is the personality disorder (as opposed to genetic disorder that is schizophrenia) that causes people to be narcissistic and apathetic about the feelings of others---extreme sociopaths include Ted Bundy, and lesser sociopaths include that control freak ex-manager of mine who followed me around with a nasty temper. I am not making this up, I took a class from a respected criminal profiler last January and he stated that sociopaths pose much more of a risk than schizophrenics ever will. He then held out his arms at his sides and said "my right hand is a sociopath, my left hand is a schizophrenic, two different hands, get it? They're far apart. There's probably a schizophrenic here in the room and you don't even know it! Raise your hand, where are you?" I pretended to look around for the schizophrenic while refusing to raise my hand (I'm the paranoid sub-type and I was too paranoid to expose myself in a room with 150 strangers. ; /  )But it was good to hear somebody finally dispel the myth that schizophrenics are violent, agitated people who need to be chained to trees and left for the elements. 

We need love! With that thought, I'd like to add that I found an opportunity to establish a NAMI affiliated club within my University. I just need 5 people and the okay from NAMI. I'd like to be part of the solution towards a recovery model for mental health. Cross your fingers and hope for the best for my idea of a NAMI campus club! I sent them an email yesterday, hopefully they'll reply before the new semester starts!

PS I am still reading "The Center Cannot Hold", I'm on page 100-something, and it gets better and better! I strongly recommend Elyn R. Saks as the book to read this month! :)

An Excellent Book On Schizophrenia by Elyn Saks

I just ordered this book, The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Saks, through amazon dot com and it arrived yesterday. I have read all of 24 pages and I'm hooked. It's the kind of book that gets me so excited I can't sit still. 24 pages into this memoir of psychosis and I had to set it down and take a long walk while listening to industrial techno music. I felt the euphoria of someone who had just found somebody who was like myself.

Yes, 24 pages is all it took to make me endorse a book I barely read. From the opening scene at the Yale Law school library's rooftop to the admission of early drug use to her parents--- that's as far as I got before I realized I was reading a book up there with An Unquiet Mind and Prozac Nation.

I am so excited about this book I felt like promoting it before I even finished it. True, only a few people visit this blog, but to you, the random one person who accidentally stumbled here, I encourage you to purchase this book and give it a read.

Due to the nature of schizophrenia it is difficult to find a writer who can detail her/his illness with clarity and insight, as the illness can rob us sufferers of clarity of thought. Many of the memoirs on schizophrenia are written by the close relatives of people who suffer from the disease. There are some notable exceptions, such as the son of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. who wrote Eden's Express (Mark Vonnegut).

Elyn R. Saks really comes out as a major prose writer, as well as a memoir writer, which makes her writing all the more powerful. At one point, she writes that she felt like an "insect on a pin" while being admitted to a psychiatric facility. This is too true. Sad, but honest and well-written.

Please purchase this book! It is a good way to see that a schizophrenic is just a person with a cognitive disability, someone who can nonetheless achieve goals in life.

Here's a link to the book on amazon dot com.
http://www.amazon.com/Center-Cannot-Hold-Journey-Through

Mental Health Budget Cuts

I'm not a politician. I'm not an accountant. I am, however, a paranoid schizophrenic with a long history of hospitalizations.

To a politician, mental health budget cuts means less taxes on the 99%. To an accountant, mental health budget cuts means more money in the piggy bank. To a person with depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, ADHD, autism, or any other mental health diagnosis, the mental health budget cuts means a bleak future, no medicine, no treatment, possibly no work, and general misery.

In a way I am lucky to have been forcibly hospitalized so often because the county realized it is much cheaper just to put me in a treatment program and put me on pharmaceutical assistance programs than it  costs to warehouse me like a piece of veal in a psych ward for a month every year. So I am one of the lucky ones that gets medication from a long-term care provider, and only because I've been deemed "institutionalized." Institutionalized means that I have been in the hospital so often that I've become almost dependent on the process of being 5150'd and locked up in order to recover.

The topic of recovery is a touchy issue for some. While there is no cure for paranoid schizo-affective disorder (schizo-affective=a combination of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia), there are medications that take away the positive symptoms such as delusions, paranoia, auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, and anxiety that results from experiencing these cognitive malfunctions. There is also behavioral modification therapy that focuses on re-integrating mental patients into society. These therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, are sessions where a therapist asks about the persons life and tries to make the patient's outlook on his/her life to be more positive and productive.

For example, one of my goals in therapy was to become more social. My time in the hospitals made me feel like a freak, somebody nobody would want to associate with. My therapist reframed this idea for me by saying that I had a disability no different from a learning disability, and that a person's adverse reaction to my diagnosis did not reflect on myself. She also said that if I didn't feel comfortable telling people I am mentally disabled, I was not obliged to do so. Over time, I learned to manage my negative symptoms (negative symptoms=asocial tendencies, flat affect, indifference, lack of motivation). I smiled more, asked people about their days, made an effort to reach out with compliments, and pretty soon I had friends! Of course, none of them know I am schizophrenic, but that's because I am leery of telling the uninitiated about a disease barely anybody even understands. My point is that therapy provided a base to relay my fears about talking to people and through therapy, I was able to befriend graduate students and undergrads at my University without making a total ass out of myself. :)

Without the funding for outpatient services none of this would have been possible. I would be miserable, jobless, penniless, friendless, a drain on the welfare system, and hiding in my room all day, afraid of invisible assassins. The cost on taxpayers would be greater than it is now, and I'm not on government cash assistance! And if your answer is to say, just let them roam the streets and remove the burden off taxpayers---you're not thinking of what that entails. First, you probably know somebody who is mentally ill and you would probably prefer to pay 25 cents per paycheck rather than watch a loved one suffer. Second, think about the possibility of unmedicated psychotics wandering the streets wondering why you hate them so much---are YOU the assassin they're afraid of? Most of us aren't dangerous, but I'd be lying if I said NONE of us are dangerous unmedicated. There's bound to be some psychotics, depressives, manics, or whatever, out there who are unpredictable without the mind controlling effects of psychotropic medications. My point is, 25 cents isn't that much and it is worth it if it gets thousands of mentally ill people out of hospital beds and into jobs where they can be productive to society.

Thanks for reading!

Finals Week on Campus

Some people go to a confessional booth to see a priest. I am not that religious. Instead, I come to cyberspace to spit out my secrets, hoping somebody somewhere will absolve me.

My mother would be so ashamed of me, keeping my life open like some kind of tart.

I should really be studying for finals right now. I will, I'm not that lazy. I've just written about 30 pages of research for my undergrad classes and I feel like I should take a breather, just until 9 tonight.

I have nothing dramatic to say, I quit with the melodrama last summer when I broke up with an insensitive male lover. Instead, I am going to talk about my life goals. Why? I dunno. If you're looking for something more daring, please read "Confessions of a Closet Schizophrenic" or "Confessions of a Closet Bisexual" that I wrote a few months back.

I completed all but one of my lower and upper division general education classes already. Next semester I have 2 linguistics classes, 2 foreign language classes, and 1 theory of dance class that fulfills the last of my general education requirements. Then I graduate. What I do after I graduate is unknown, as the job prospects are limited for somebody who only has a B.A. This economy isn't ideal, to say the least.

Saturday I am going to the campus library to study for hours. My friend will hopefully join me so we can rent one of those rooms with a whiteboard. Sunday I am going to the library to study. Monday I am going early so I can go to the library and study. Then I take my phonology final. Then I go back to studying a foreign language, a class which was going well until my grandfather died right before Thanksgiving. I have to memorize 20 sentences worth of dialogue, including spelling, in a non-romance language. After this, I should only have my Chinese final to prepare for.


There's this yahoo gossip column about some female student who went berserk in the library at another CSU (or was it UC?). She snapped over the loudness of somebody's breathing and started hollering all over the place. Man, I am glad I tend to isolate when I get stressed out or there might be some kind of viral video of me curling up in fetal position under a desk  in the library, muttering poorly enunciated Chinese words to no one.

Finals week sucks.

One student in my French 2B class last semester told me she had a breakdown every semester. She showed up for our project red-eyed and still puffy from sobbing. "I've been on a crying jag for a few hours," she admitted. She was in the graduate program for music. I gently asked her if she might consider an anti-depressant but she laughed me off. She's out there somewhere, having another nervous breakdown. I guess this is me having my break down.

When I have breakdowns I stuff them down by eating too much. That's probably why I gained the weight back I lost taking that martial arts class. I was 159 about 3 weeks ago, and now I'm 161. I tend to be an anxiety-eater. You know the type, the type that tries to be really pleasant and helpful to everyone but eats in binges until the stressful event passes. That was me last week. I didn't have enough Zoloft, my grandpa had just died, my grades were falling from A's to low B's, and it was about to be finals week. So I ate. I ate a hamburger from McDonalds---and I'm a vegetarian! I ate 230 calories worth of salty french fries with that stupid hamburger. In the middle of the night I went foraging for rice cakes. Yes, those are only like 50 calories for 2, but I ate like 6 or 8!

Today I tried to control my caloric intake by avoiding eating with my family and instead munching on 3 pieces of sushi for lunch. Then I saw my therapist, who gently goaded me to accept my life as it is now. She said it's okay to overeat on occasion, so long as it's only during finals week. But last finals week I ballooned up to 190 pounds and it took me from April to September to climb down to 160 pounds.

I feel that food is like the only thing keeping me from curling into a ball in bed and refusing to take my finals. Well, that and coffee....lots and lots of coffee. Like 8 cups of coffee a day. Therapist also said to cut back on the coffee. If only I could! It tastes so good with splenda and some half and half. Yes, I know, half and half won't help me lose weight, but I need my caffeine fix so I just delete a snack for the day and pour in some creamer without remorse.

Tonight I am going to write a list of all the Chinese characters we have learned over the semester and begin to copy them over and over and over again. Plus, I will read through the chapters in my phonology book. Then I will take an anti-anxiety drug and go to sleep. Ah, the pleasure of psychotropic medications. It's funny, people who are medicated get this rap for being unstable, but if anything we are so medicated we're the most stable in the room! Where one person starts yelling about people breathing too loud, I just take my medication early and nap away the stress. Is that healthy? Oh who cares, this is a Prozac Nation anyways (read the book, too!).

I Wish I Was Successful

I wish I was successful. I wish I had money from real jobs, not just the grant money my University gives me at the start of the semester.

I've always been working class. I've always done menial labor work like being a pizza delivery girl or working as a cashier. I wonder what it would be like to have a profession, to be respected, to have real responsibilities.

I turned in two term papers this week and I'm nervous! What if I totally fail miserably? I feel like a fool; like somebody who is lecturing to a packed auditorium on a topic I know nothing about---and I'm lecturing in my underwear. I have to pass all these classes. I have to advance into the next round--my final semester as an undergraduate.

I know I did horrible on several quizzes due to my grandfather's death, but I hope I succeed. I tried so hard, it is really difficult knowing you tried your best and it wasn't enough!

Ah well, if things go horribly awry I can just go back to delivering pizzas for dollar tips. It wasn't so bad. Okay, yes it was.

I had a break from academia recently. I spent the night at a couple's house with whom I am friends with. We watched movies, drank white wine, ate Indian vegetarian cuisine, and chatted about how draining college can be. Still, there's nothing like checking your grade and getting an A on something you busted your ass doing! It feels much better than delivering a pizza, I can tell you that much!

My love/hate affair with Academia

I spent 4 months cultivating my grades to an A- average. I am carrying 16 units, over full-time, of upper-division courses. I tended to my homework and to my academics like a gardener tends to her roses and sunflowers. Everyday, homework, studies.

In one to two weeks my months of hard work has been undone. My grandfather was the closest thing I had to a father my whole life. He died right before Thanksgiving and since that time I have had a hard time concentrating and doing well in my classes. I bombed a quiz. I bombed the first draft of a paper. One would assume that since my grades were in the 90th percentile, I'd be alright. But no, weighted grades means that my top grades plummeted to a low B in one class, a C in 2 others. That academia is built this way; allowing a student who maintained an A for four months, only to take it away in a heartbeat, is a damn shame.

Then there's all the other issues. Students disregard my work because they think I'm getting it "easy" because I'm a minority. Just the other day, a student complained about his 78% score on his homework by saying that a fellow who happens to be Indonesian got an 86% on his homework that was "identical" and that the professor must be a reverse racist.
 That's funny, considering the professor is a White guy who made a racist remark himself about how Mexicans are "dishwashers." Being a Mexican myself (or Chicana, since I was born here in California), this stung. You're hated either way; either you're a lowly dishwasher or you're getting it easy because of your race.

Recently a professor falsely accused me of cheating, allegedly because she though a scribble on my answer sheet was a cheat sheet (it was just the exam question written on my paper so I wouldn't have to keep glancing up at the whiteboard). My thought, however, is that her action was far more nefarious. It was as if she were searching for a reason to destroy my academic potential---the only brown skinned girl in the class, of course, I had to have been cheating, right? Or maybe it was my tattoos that made her peg me as a deviant type. Whatever her motivation, I gritted my teeth and explained myself. I was polite even though I had been totally humiliated in front of my peers! She later sent out a mass email to our class apologizing for her behavior, but it was far, far too late.

These examples are just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the ugly side of academia. Professors yell about how all their students are cheating, all of their students are being allowed in due to affirmative action, blah blah blah. Well, this is my side of the coin: my grades are better than the others, that's why I'm in college, not because of a long-since banned affirmative action program. My grades are better than quite a few students even now that they've dropped due to my grieving state, even though I feel like crying every day because I miss the only man in my life who was reliably good to me. I deserve to be in academia. I'm not leaving. Ridiculously weighted grades, insulting students, false accusations, plummeting grades and all----I'm willing to take this all because I told my grandfather on his deathbed that I would complete college and get a job, that he wouldn't have to worry about me because I would be doing alright.

Obesity As Genetic Mutation

Hello,
I am watching an excellent episode of NOVA concerning the problem of obesity.
Yes, if you eat only fast food and sit down all day, you'll get fat. That's like obese person, type 1.
But there's another version of obesity: set-point obesity, or obese person, type 2.
This NOVA episode investigates the brain receptors and the genetic make-up of obese patients. MC-4 is a receptor that triggers the "I'm full" response in humans. For some people, this receptor is absent, which makes over-eating inevitable.
Finally, a scientific approach to studying obesity! I was getting really tired of people saying "just don't eat! It's your fault you eat so much!" Truly, these people are ignorant, but unfortunately, they're the majority of people in American society (and the most vocal ones as well).

Here's the link to NOVA
http://video.pbs.org/video/1506746269
Enjoy!

Of Death and Calories

I'm watching a documentary titled "America the Beautiful" (2007). It chronicles today's fixation on appearance. The narrator follows various people in the beauty in-crowd and asks them, "are you accountable for anorexia, bulimia, and general low self-esteem of American women?" The answer is a resounding "no." It is as if the disease of self-obsession entered society as a mysterious fog that invaded our lungs simultaneously---nobody is to blame, and nobody can escape.

Few escape the fog. Those who do are mostly the people who are not able to critically think. Then again, if you're running on a handful of romaine lettuce, how can you think at all?

To be honest, I spent today worrying about how many blueberries and packets of splenda I dumped into my plain yogurt. Was I serving myself too much? I didn't want to go over my limit of 1300 calories.

My grandfather died last week. I have been on a semi-diet since then, reducing my caloric intake from 1700 calories to 1100 one day, 1010 the next. Grief made me think less critically about what I'm doing to my body. I have become obsessed with a number: 161, and how I can't make it drop more than 2 pounds below 161. Rather than feel pride that I've already lost 25 pounds since this April, I feel shame for my current weight. Rather than think about what my grandfather would have wanted---to be healthy, I started to procrastinate on my University term papers and closely monitor every portion of food I ate and every beverage I drank. I wake up, check the weight, make a food menu (vegetables with coffee, with some stuffing since it's Thanksgiving), and spend my days thinking about how I'm going to prepare that zucchini. I think about how I'm still sitting on the BMI fence between overweight and obese at 161 and 5'1 or 5'2. I think I can't stand another day of flabby belly and thunder thighs.

My research on linguistics sits untouched by my bed as I sit at my computer, mindlessly playing "Top of the World" by the Cataracs and wondering why I can't look like the Viddie girls. Then I started shopping on amazon dot com for movies on getting thin. I stumbled on "America the Beautiful" and I watched the trailer, thinking it would be another marketing movie that plays up the worth of vapid, egotistical supermodels and sends a message of hate and contempt to the everyday woman. Instead, I found a poignant, moving, and often disturbing view into our society and our drive to obtain a Western ideal of beauty.

Something dawned on my as I clicked the "rent now" button on amazon dot com: I'm not getting paid to give a shit about how I look. I'm getting grant money to write papers and learn the theory of linguistics. The real reason why I'm suddenly unhealthy in my diet is because I did horrible on several home-work assignments which I had to complete while my grandfather was in the morgue. First, I lose the only father-figure I have. Next, I lose my borderline A grade in two of my classes. I'm not afraid that I won't be able to lose another 25 pounds. I'm afraid I'll fail out of college and break the vow I made to my grandfather when he was on his deathbed. I'm fixated on weight and beauty right now because I feel like I failed in the part of my life that actually matters: my education.

Thank you, "America the Beautiful", for putting my priorities back in order. I am not what I look like, I am what I accomplish in life with my mind and my actions.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some homework to complete. :)

Confession on Confessional Writing

You don't know me. You are probably very bored of me just from these two sentences. So why do you keep reading the next sentence?

The problem with confessional writing is also the main reason why people are willing to read confessional writing. It is deeply personal. It is like eating dinner at a restaurant naked. Everybody around you wants to know why you're naked at the dinner table. Meanwhile, you pick at the lasagna.

Writing, to some, is an act of vanity. It is a way of marking your name on the internet like so much graffiti on a train car. I do not disagree with this. However, I feel that the real answer is a lot more complex and perplexing. I write confessional posts about my sordid life because I have an uncontrollable urge to create a narrative of my life. I have to write, it hurts when I do not write. I have to be honest because I am compelled to write the truth. Sometimes I may write little book critiques or diatribes against discrimination, but the common denominator is that I write what I'm thinking at that moment. Freckles, warts, and all, you see me as I am inside.

The one thing that I worry about is posting something in anger and then regretting it later. When I type, I type at least 35 words per minute, faster if I have had coffee, and it goes without saying that I'm not always consciously thinking about what comes next. What comes next is my thought....whatever that thought may be. I wish I could control my thoughts better. I wish I could have a brain that only thought about adorable cats, weight loss, sugar plums, and the like, but I don't. I get mad when I see youtube comments that are explicitly hate-filled. I come back here and I try to create a space where I feel that cyberspace is negated.

That is the whole goal of my blog. To create a cyberspace where people feel a little more at ease with what society labels as flaws. I tried looking on the internet for warm communities of people with mental illnesses. I found some sites but nothing that was geared to a high-functioning person. I looked for sites that were for overweight people trying to juggle losing weight with the knowledge that you can be fat and still be a good person. I really couldn't find anything like that. So I thought, well, I have an art blog where I post my drawings, why not create a blog where I just write honestly about my struggles and my discoveries of good books?

I'll try to steer clear of politics.....that is a sticky subject for any writer. Besides, all you need to know is that Noam Chomsky is my idea of a great role model. Enough said!

PANOPTICON

Last semester I took a political science course with a self-proclaimed Marxist professor. He was handsome, charming, brilliant, and vehemently against the exploitation of the masses. One day he lectured on what is known as the "panopticon" model of surveillance.

Panopticon refers to an architectural structure of a building that is so high that it can see into the houses below. The houses below are all built with a see-through roof, like a glass ceiling. Every see-through house is placed so that 100% of what goes on inside the house is visible to those in the great tower.

According to my professor, prisons and mental asylums were built on this principle. Though I've never been in prison or committed any felonies which warrant imprisoning, I have served time in psychiatric facilities.

The triage room in the Emergency Room is built Panopticon-style. They place you in a room with no door and no light switch so that you are bathed in light, rendering sleep an impossibility. Over head, a camera captures every second you spend in the room, and you are never allowed outside the room except to use the bathroom. If you use the bathroom for too long a security guard bangs on the door, taser and baton on his belt, and orders you to come outside.

To make matters worse, they force you and the other mental patients into a common blue hospital shirt and pants. This seems to be part of the process of stripping your personality down to its barest bits. I remember taking my hospital issued socks off because I hated what the padded soles represented: institutionalization. A guard, having watched me remove my hospital-issued socks, entered my space and ordered me to put them back on. It seemed like such a trivial detail: socks. However, we both understood the socks to be compliance, to be a part of my shaming costume of the mentally unfit. The socks weren't just socks, they were fuzzy shackles I had to wear, as a ward of the state. I put them back on. Later I removed them again, frustrated and unable to think straight in my manic-induced psychotic state. Again, the guard entered and ordered my socks back on.

After 48 hours of constant, bright fluorescent lights, cameras and security guards watching my every move, and a cocky doctor casually signing my life away on my medical chart, I was restrained on a stretcher and moved to a long-term psych ward. There, patients were allowed to get in my face and threaten me without reproach and the staff were cold, manipulative, and contemptuous. Sometimes, I hated the outside of my room so much that I refused to leave my bed. A doctor told me I was just making it worse for myself, why wouldn't I comply with the program. I insisted I was on strike. He upped my dose of anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. Eventually, spurred on by artificial chemicals, I got out of bed and grudgingly showed up for group and lunch.

This pattern happened more than once, more than thrice, even. Being a poor person who can't afford health insurance, I wound up being hospitalized quite a number of times before the State realized it would be cheaper just to pay for outpatient services than to have to warehouse me in another panopticon institution for the rest of my life.

What's my point? Panopticons exist. They are a form of thought control, of behavioral modification. Yes, I am better for being so humiliated, stripped down, and drugged, but I wonder if there is not a better way to help mental invalids?

If you're in the mental health field, please consider alternatives to this opticon method of treatment. While I am obedient with my mother, the University, and society, a part of me remains that mental patient that rolls of the gray, padded sock and tosses it on the ground. Maybe you should, too. Not all panopticons are as obvious as psychiatric hospitals. Some panopticons exist in the mind.

Comment on "An Unquiet Mind" by Kay Redfield Jamison

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the amazing Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, I'll catch you up to speed. She went through medical school and became a successful psychiatrist and researcher.

Despite her long list of outstanding achievements, she was hiding an ailment not too far out of her field of research. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder by a colleague, she, like many of us disordered patients, went through the stages of denial, fear, and secrecy. For the first time, a doctor came out to the medical field as being a patient as well as a healer. Rather than sink into an oblivion of despair, she penned an autobiographical account of her trials, titled "An Unquiet Mind."

Written in lucid, bubbling prose, with plenty of references to various manic poets, Dr. Jamison captivates the reader with her tale. One part that stands out in my mind is the page where she describes experiencing mania after work. She begins to run loops around the parking lot, a rather perplexed colleague watching as she sprints to and fro.

I can relate to this energy, to this temporary high-spirited state. Though outsiders might consider me first and foremost a paranoid schizophrenic, I mostly experience mania, then after several months of mania, I spiral into psychosis, the paranoid schizophrenic type. I rarely experience cognitive misperceptions such as thought insertion, paranoid delusions, and visual hallucinations without the accompanying mania that precedes it and I am convinced I am a psychotic variety of bipolarity, and not a pure schizophrenic. But now I'm having flight of thought...heh heh. Back to the book....

I can relate to the author's experience of being resistant to treatment. For years, I went on and off medications. I believed if I could make the dean's list, how could I possibly be disabled? Disability and hospitals were for people with one leg, or a heart condition. Psych wards were for people who talked to themselves on the street corner and didn't shower. It was hard for me to fit myself into this category of disability, but like Dr. Jamison, I eventually came around to long-term treatment.

Though I haven't earned my B.A. yet (I'm graduating in May, 2012 with a B.A. in interdisciplinary linguistics), I feel that I have done fairly well with myself, considering my past as a pothead, party girl with no money and little ambition.

Reading "An Unquiet Mind" allows me to feel hope for the future. It taught me that even a doctor can have bipolar disorder and still maintain her position within the field...and more than that, she can change the way society perceives mental illness and the potential of people with a diagnosis to go on with productive lives. She taught me hope. Thank you.

Weight Loss: 25 pounds in 6 months

My martial arts instructor commented last week about how I had lost 5 pounds since the start of the semester back in August. I laughed because he had hit my number right on the mark! What he doesn't know is that I've actually lost a good 25 pounds since the Spring semester. Fad diet? Jenny Craig? Gym membership? None of the above.

I started weighing myself this April. 184 pounds, tipping the scale into the obese range, and lugging around a lot of extra flesh. I decided the weight had to go. As a senior in college, it always bothered me that I was the heavy girl in class. I wanted to be fit, not the svelte, model-thin bodies that stroll around campus with chips on their shoulders, but active and healthy. Despite how I feel about fat prejudice, I understood that I was doing harm to my body and that I should take steps to improve my blood pressure, nutrition, and activity level---not for vanity's sake but for my internal health. So I started a improvised system of weight loss---it's not weight loss, it's weight control.

The key is to see life events as obstacles to control. If you have a bad day you feel like you're not in control. If you buy a fast food meal, then it's really out of control. You haven't just lost temporary control, you've set yourself back a week! I decided that I wanted control over my life. I wanted control over my urges. Maybe I couldn't squeeze back into the size 5 pants from 5 years ago, but I could work hard and lose a dress size, and I did.

I started writing down everything I ate and drank. Yes, drinks too. I realized those super market flavored drinks were around 160-200 calories each! That's not even something that would make me feel full! I saw that my spreadsheet of meals included lots of meat. I read up on meat. It turns out Americans consume way over the recommended allotment for protein by our meat-eating habits. I have always been fond of microwavable chicken patties. It took some time, but I finally acknowledged that the calories, the salt, and the excess protein was bad. So I quit meat cold turkey (pun!). Then, I started to count calories. I read the ingredient list if I was eating a microwavable dinner. I searched for calorie counts of different items like white rice versus brown rice (if you're going to eat rice, get BROWN! White rice is luxurious but man, will it cost you in terms of calories!) I even read the caloric count on the bottle of healthy olive oil I was using to saute my vegetables (count: 120 per tablespoon).

Slowly, things started to get easier. My blood pressure became healthy. I started to lose weight, slowly but surely. I stayed under 2000 calories and above 1300 calories most days. How much I ate depended on how active I'd been that day. If I'd just done homework, cleaned my room, took an hour walk, I'd have less calories. If I exercised for at least 20 minutes, I allowed myself to eat an after-dinner bowl of cereal (I have an odd habit of craving Honey Bunches of Oats at night).

Then, when I had some income, I purchased a moderately inexpensive rowing machine. I found that it worked both the arms and thighs and was easy on the joints. I began to use it, first for only 10 minutes a day, a few days of the week, then 20 minutes most days of the week. I tried to jump into it at first, going an hour, but the next day I was too sore to do any exercises. I learned that with physical activity, it's better to start off in the shallow end of the pool and slowly move to the deep end. I now have the rowing machine, a stationary exercise bicycle, a pilates band, a 10 pound weight, and several belly-dancing exercise DVD's. Yes, I actually use them. When I started the Fall semester at the University I enrolled in a martial arts class. It was very hard at first, especially for somebody who was about 165 pounds (I'd lost 20 pounds by then, eating healthy veggies, counting calories, working out, walking, and reading up on binge eating and other eating disorders).

Now, about 3 months in, I finally broke that weight plateau of 165 pounds and lost another 5 pounds. I feel more energetic, my health is good, and I feel in control of my academic life and my personal life. I've been a vegetarian 90% of the time since this April. My main staple dish is sauteed zucchini with coriander, cumin, and turmeric. Boiled cauliflower comes in a close second. First, I boil the cauliflower, then I put a tablespoon of olive oil and some teaspoons of spices in a pan and saute the softened cauliflower. It tastes good. My craving for high-salt, high-butter, high-oil foods has decreased. Sure, I have my bad days, but I just concentrate on regaining my control the next day.

I intend on staying in control from now on. I intend on managing my mental diagnosis by taking my medicine daily and keeping all my doctor's appointments. I intend on managing my schoolwork by keeping up with my home-work and readings. Lastly, I intend on managing my weight by keeping up with a healthy life-style and another semester of aerobic exercise classes.

I look through the internet trying to find people's success stories but they usually come with a hyped-up product to sell with the promise of extreme weight loss. Even though I'm not at my goal weight of 145 pounds, I'm slowly getting there. I'm 25 pounds closer to this goal. I did it the healthy way, not the pill-popping, starvation diet, lock your self in a gym and don't eat anything that's not raw way. I feel pretty good writing this. Hopefully, in a few months, I can write about how I lost another 5 pounds and describe all the new methods I will have learned!

Thanks for reading!

Online Exhibitionism

My psychoanalyst wants to know if I'll ever merge all the various pieces of my life into one persona.

The Artist, the Writer, the Student, the Bisexual Lover, the Bipolar Schizophrenic....

Nope, I said. I can't imagine anybody in my city that would be comfortable around all the parts of me. Maybe I am naive, or ignorant, or both, but is there a special soul out there who would be okay with me the way I am?

I have always felt the need to compartmentalize my life into socially acceptable little boxes since I first realized I was different, around the age of 13. Sure, there were moments when I stopped caring, like when I started smoking pot, but even then I wouldn't mention a certain part of myself to close friends.

The best friend I had in my teens and early twenties knew I was bipolar and bisexual, but she had no idea I was a good student, an artist, and a writer.

The boyfriend I had for a year didn't know I was bisexual.

The art teacher I had for nearly two years had no clue that I was missing class because I was in a psychiatric hospital....rather than save my grade by admitting I had a cognitive disability, I just took a mediocre grade.

Now I am even more split....

The best friend I have, who is an excellent student with the same major as myself, has no idea I'm part of United Student Pride, the Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered, Transsexual, Bisexual alliance group on campus. Furthermore, she has no idea I'm schizo-affective and a disabled student who gets accommodations if I request them.

The only person who really knows me, the real me, is my psychoanalyst. Isn't that lame? I think I need to get out more.

This blog is my way of anonymously piecing myself back together. It's my little exhibitionist practice that allows me to vent in front of people without suffering major repercussions in my personal life.

So thank you, anonymous reader from whatever country you're from: I need you. I need you more than you need to read my soap opera life. I am willing to take any harsh comments you may have just for the satisfaction of knowing that, even though you don't like me, you still read about my insignificant life. You know me better than most people! So thanks, from the sincere part of my heart: thanks!

Hope

I am heading to a graduate program forum this weekend. The forum is for upper-division undergraduates with a decent cumulative GPA who are curious about graduate school.

Two years ago I was a college drop-out who psychiatrists told not to bother with college anymore---it would just stress me out and cause another schizo-affective episode. Two years ago I was unemployed, lonely, twenty pounds heavier than I am now, and miserable.

What changed? I did. I demanded help from the county mental health system. I received that help, and then some. I began to think differently during cognitive behavioral therapy, seeing that I am not just a burden on society, but a person with a lot to offer. I started to occupy myself with hobbies, photography, painting, drawing, reading, studying a new language, until I was at peace with my life. Then, doors started to open. First, I was accepted into the University. Then, I managed to get through the semester without having any episodes, despite several deaths in my family that left me haunted and in mourning.

I made the dean's list. I got straight A's during the summer as well. Here I am, two years after being told to quit on my aspirations of a college degree, and I'm close to graduating with my B.A. Two years after being told that I'm a hopelessly disabled person who needs a disability check, I am really close to achieving my dream of being the first one in my extended family to get a B.A. from a major University.

Had I listened to those psychiatrists, I'd be miserable. I wouldn't know how to cope with the losses in my family. Being in college makes me feel like I have a purpose and that I can achieve what I want to achieve. It makes me feel like I'm doing some good in the world.

Had I listened to those naysayers, I'd be moping around, trying to fill the void with food or marijuana or material items. Looking back, I am glad I didn't listen to them. I am glad that I got in touch with a care-provider that encouraged me to reach for my dreams. I am glad I have a family that lets me live here rent free while I go to college!

Instead of listening to those psychiatrists. I took the road less traveled for somebody with a mental handicap. I forged ahead, making blunders, making mistakes, but carving a path nonetheless. This is me just bragging, I guess, but I also think it goes to show that there is hope in life. No matter where you're at, there's always hope. The best thing about hope is that there's no charge! It's free for the taking!

My point for this blog is to capture a moment where I feel pure hope. Hopefully, my hope is contagious.

Confessions of a Closet Schizophrenic

I'm a returning University student, a senior with just 1 and a half semesters left to achieve a B.A. I made the dean's list last semester and I also got straight A's taking 13 units during the summer. I'm well-dressed, well-groomed, well-read, and well, crazy.

I'm a decent person with a clean legal record. Unless you count my 5150's where the police came to the house to capture the girl who was cowering in a corner, afraid of assassins barging in at 3 in the morning. Even then, in the midst of my mental illness, I wasn't a threat to other people. Myself, perhaps, but not you, not my family, not anybody else. Like a parasite, the schizophrenia preys on its host until its host is but a shell of her former self.

But that was 2 years ago. I've been in recovery through medication and cognitive behavioral therapy for about that long and I haven't had an episode since. I have a long-term care provider, a counselor at a state disability program, and good grades despite recent deaths in the family. I'm what a professional would call "stable."

But in the long run, what chances do I have of living a successful life? Can I expect real employment after I graduate, or will my future be an endless series of single job interviews with unsympathetic employers wearily eying their health insurance packets? This problem isn't mine, it's yours. If I can't find work I'll go seek state disability. That's tax payer money. I'd RATHER work. I CAN work. I CAN critically think. I CAN be productive. I CAN maintain high levels of stress with appropriate coping skills. Does this really matter as soon as I drop the S-word (schizo-affective disorder) with somebody?

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, I am guaranteed equality under the federal government and in all aspects of employment, education, and social treatment. But this area is an area where a lot of people break the law and get away with it. Many people discriminate against persons with a mental diagnosis. They fear them. They hate them. They mock them. They ostracize them. I'm not talking about the thug at the end of the block. I'm talking about people in high positions. Employers, CEO's, supervisors, professors, publishers, agents, and many, many corporations.

To a corporation the mental diagnosed are just unnecessary burdens. We "drain" their health care resources. We "slow down" their productivity. We "can't get along" with other coworkers.

They apparently never got the news that Pulitzer Prize winner Sylvia Plath was mad, or that Nobel Prize winner John Nash was a schizophrenic. Indeed, many talented people can have a diagnosis while being productive.

But back to the title of this post: I'm a closet schizophrenic. I tried one semester of partially disclosing my medical needs to my professors. I am under the Students with Disabilities Services program and as part of it, we may choose to hand out letters requesting specific accommodations. Mine was infrequent absences due to doctor's appointments. I got 2 letters out to 2 different professors. They were both kind. However, when it came to handing the letters out to my major's professors, I chickened out. I couldn't face them knowing they knew there was something behind my shy demeanor.

I had turned in a scholarship application and applied as a disabled student. I submitted physician's proof of this. I wrote honestly about having an average GPA because a lot of my college time coincided with periods where I couldn't get treatment, be it because the county refused to treat me or because I was in denial of my illness. I was clear, honest, sincere. I was then soundly rejected. I didn't even receive a hundred dollar scholarship. Nothing. I had a sufficient GPA to transfer to a major University despite being chronically disabled, but I wasn't deemed worthy of a hundred dollar scholarship. Maybe I'm being bitter, but why would they ask if you're disabled if they are not going to take that fact into consideration?

This time around, when I apply for grad school, I might not disclose that I'm mentally disabled. I might pretend to just be a lazy pothead who didn't take school seriously the first couple of years. Maybe they'd be more sympathetic if I just sugar-coated my entire existence.

When friends ask why I'm going to the doctor, even close friends I trust dearly, I still say, "check-up." Maybe I should start saying I have a chronic heart condition. Maybe then I'd be accepted as "an acceptable disabled person" and not a "risk" or an unwanted type of person.

I'm perfectly willing to work my ass off at a job with high stress. I'm willing to continue my treatment program. I'm willing to be open to criticism and new ideas. The question is: are the rest of you willing to accept me as a disabled worker?

Comment on the book "Appetite"

The book, "Appetites: Why Women Want," by Carolyn Knapp is an articulate, well-informed, deep analysis of why women starve themselves. Written in lucid prose, Knapp explains her own period of anorexia and expands on her views about why women put themselves through this. Genetics, environment, and personality all play crucial roles in the formation of anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating disorder, she writes.

Knapp discusses societal factors that plague women, pushing them from overachieving to under-eating and self-destruction. She discusses the role of feminism within the sphere of eating disorders, saying that women are now allowed in places and jobs they'd never obtained before, but with a catch: don't take up any space and don't complain.

I found this book to be interesting, well-written, deep, and a critical portrait of a society where women are still breaking through gender barriers, the most severe being in the way they present themselves in terms of appearance. It made me understand why anorexics push themselves to such dangerous levels of societal conformity.

One thing that stuck out to me was the author's admiration of a fat woman in her twenties who had stopped abusing herself via dieting and binge/purge cycles. She had decided she'd just be fat and accept that fact. The author relates this woman's plight to a friend of hers, who has a wildly different outlook: 'You admire her, I just see diabetes, heart problems, and hypertension.'

The funny thing is, why do we not look at anorexics and bulimics the same way? If you see diabetes and hypertension whenever you see a fat person, why don't you think, "irregular heartbeat, brittle bone disease, and dangerously low blood pressure" when you see an anorexic? Why the admiration for them?

Just a thought.

Anger No More

No more bitching about how I'm fat and expected to be thin. That's my early new year's resolution. I see a common pattern on this little blog: I don't like my body and I don't like other people's opinion about my body. None of that is positive!

From now on I'll try to be more accepting about myself and others.

Okay, maybe later.



Why is that places like Myspace are magnets for men who just want to cruise through your photo album and make perverted comments about your body? That's been my experience anyways. I had to delete a comment today by some guy I barely "friended", some gibberish about my big breasts, what he'd like to do, that sort of thing. The other week I had a guy asking if I would do certain things with him, things a little too lurid to describe here. Am I foolish for keeping my photo up? Maybe. I have some romantic notion that I'll stumble on the profile of a witty, extroverted lesbian and we go on to have a love affair to end all love affairs. I am so naive.

United Student Pride accepted my request to join their organization on my college campus! I am thrilled to be out of the closet on campus, because that is where the most beautiful and intelligent women are! I stated I was bisexual, because that is what I feel I am, though sometimes I'll be on one end of the Kinsey scale and other times I'll swing to the other end. Yet, I always end up in bed with an adult video, watching the pretty porn starlet, not the male stud, but the buxom babe, and it's her body that shoots me into outer-space, no matter how sincerely I might believe at that moment that my passion for women is just a phase. But now I'm getting all lurid, so I'll end here.

Positive Plus Size Role Model: Lane Bryant

It's not quite fury, what I feel, when I read hate-filled comments on the web about overweight and obese people, it's well...frustration. On the one hand, I want to please society. On the other hand, I want to be able to spot these cruel people and avoid them, even if that means being fat and hated.

It's not that I'm not trying to lose weight. I've already lost about approximately 15 pounds since April, sometimes more, depending on whether or not I just ate when I weigh myself. I'm still borderline, in the obese range, being 164, but I've made progress and I work out 2x a day, plus walking, plus dancing. So it's not like I'm lying in bed for the whole day shoving cakes into my mouth.

I do well in college, I work out, I am a nice person, I am a vegetarian who counts calories. But, according to the internet, I am still too fat to be considered "normal" or "likeable" or "acceptable", whatever euphemism there is for "worthless" you can think of, that is what a lot of society sees me as.

Why?

If I had that answer I might not feel such low self-esteem. It's interesting that America is the place where a woman can have sovereign control over her body when it comes to reproductive issues, but fat, no, that is forbidden to women.

People prefer a starving waif who could never naturally bear a child because she lost her ability to menstruate, who is moody and malnourished, whose main achievement in life is self-mutilation, over a plump woman. Society lords this fact over us every second, in every TV commercial, billboard, magazine ad, on the subway, buses, college campus, everywhere. Just everywhere.

I don't hate waifs. What I hate is the attitude that to be worthy I must emulate self-mutilators. I do not want to wreck my metabolism, fail out of college, get hospitalized, get anemia, get mood swings, all that baggage isn't worth it to me. Am I alone in this?

I thought so for a long time, until I stumbled onto the whole fat acceptance movement and their primary fashion spokesperson: Lane Bryant. Watching these women strut up and down the catwalk, toned, fleshy thighs, and overflowing bras, I realized that I don't have to view myself as unattractive just because society says so. I can be loved. I can be worthy of sex. I can wear a skirt should I choose to. Why am I so conditioned to hate my body? How can we let a whole series of generations believe that to be loved you must restrict your dietary intake into the danger zone?

I've decided to keep speaking up, even if nobody is reading this. Even if only one person sees this, maybe it will instill a new mentality or challenge their preconceptions. I can only hope my writing is not in vain.

Making The Jump: One Foot Outta the Closet

Classes at the University begin this month and I finally did what I've been mulling about for the last two months: I requested to join the United Student Pride club, an LGBT club for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered, and transsexuals.

I knew eventually I'd have to own up to my physical and emotional attraction to females, I just postponed it by, oh, about 15 years. I've known since I was 13, when I was sleeping over at my best friend's house and I woke up aroused beside her. I looked at her and realized I wanted to caress her face and run my hand up her thigh and cradle her breasts in my hand. It was such a strong impulse I leaped out of bed and run around the house like a hyper cat. I suddenly felt free, real, sincere, eager, and scared. That was the first time I fell in love. Nothing came of it, we got into fights and we stopped talking. Then, men began to show a pushy interest in me and I let myself get pushed into relationship after relationship with men I was not attracted to. I had always watched the gay pride movement out of the corner of my eye, letting others do the hard work, while I hid in my bedroom masturbating to the pretty busty women of Swank films, and wishing I had the nerve to admit what I was.

I think if I had come out sooner I would have found a female lover by now, somebody that I really mesh well with. I also think I would have a greater sense of self and self-respect, since I would have been fighting for equality alongside my peers. I will always regret not coming out sooner, but the years flew by and I can't do anything about those years anymore.

Last month I attended the funeral of my 24 year old cousin who committed suicide June 25th. I miss him terribly but I vow not to let his life go out in vain. I will do what I must to prove that life is worth living. I will be true to myself and to others and not live a life of secrets, regrets, and shame.

Coming out to my University is just the first step. I also have to be honest about being a shizo-affective, a person who suffers from the biological disease of paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Previously, I hid it from everybody but the people I already knew had a similar diagnosis. I can no longer pretend to be what I wanted to be: a straight girl with a"normal" mind. I have to be honest with others, even if that means losing some of them in the process.

And no, being crazy doesn't have anything to do with being a bisexual. I just got a colorful combination of genes when I was conceived.

Now I fit into nearly every minority out there: a Mexican-East Indian American mixed race, bisexual, schizo-affective, female from a low socio-economic area. The US consensus takers must be really frustrated with me, trying to pin down all the labels that apply!

Just writing this makes me feel less remorseful for my life of secrets.

Abuse of Fat People By Strangers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3o5gdDWZFU&feature=related

This is a link for a youtube video about abuse against fat people by society. I guess it makes sense, as the poet Charles Bukowski put it, people who have no talent become really skilled at hating others, it becomes their only talent, and that's the way it is right now in America. No longer allowed to publicly hate minorities, these haters are focusing their attention on plus size women. They're really good at promoting their hatred.

For example, on a youtube video of an obese woman dancing and enjoying herself 100% of the first page of comments were horrible, cruel, and devastating to read. Some told her she shouldn't post videos that 'promote obesity and disease' that's funny, considering she was dancing, which is an exercise. Others told her they wanted to puke. This is truly the last socially acceptable form of discrimination and hate crimes (verbally harassing somebody on the street is technically illegal).

It's not enough that fat people are forced to put up with discrimination from clothing manufacturers, bra manufacturers, and whoever makes those desks at the University, but now fat people must also tolerate hatred, demeaning comments, stereotypes, and prejudice everywhere they go by total strangers. If you're one of these people, you should know: a fat person can lose weight, but you can't lose that attitude problem you have.

Why do we tolerate assholes, bigots, and slanderers over a person who just wants to shop for clothes or buy groceries without unwanted comments, sneers, or laughs? From now on I vow to say a loud F$$% you asshole to anybody who comments on the size of my thighs, butt, or boobs.

And for the record, reading these ugly, hateful comments all over the internet makes me want to STOP losing weight, and GAIN weight so that at least I know I won't attract any of these callous, superficial brain-dead assholes that like to belittle innocent people. So, if your point is to get fat people to lose weight, you f--- up, I don't want to be like you. I want to know who you are so I can avoid you, not attract people like you. You're really hindering my weight loss by having major attitude problems and there should really be a clinic for assholes. Like asshole rehab or something.

~Thick Bitch

weight loss: 20 pounds in 4 months

Being bombarded with Carl's Jr. commercials and billboards promoting the latest beer brand makes weight loss an exercise in self-discipline. Everywhere I go, drink Coke, eat meat, buy Bud light, and always, always, it's being advertised by a size 0 model with huge breast implants and a winning smile. As if! There is no way that pretty model ate that burger in her hand, or drank that calorie-laden beer she holds. She probably is underweight, according to the BMI chart, and in no position to tell me how to eat healthy, let alone tell me to eat at a fast food joint or to buy beer.

To make things worse, there is no salad bar at my University, meaning that my choices are extremely limited. After shying away from the campus Taco Bell, I went into the snack bar, passing the Panda Express and Subway along the way. Once inside the snack bar, I could choose between a chicken microwavable burrito, a brownie, a sugary muffin, or a bag of chips. I could have one of their many sodas, energy drinks, or a coffee. I settled on a bag of chips and a large coffee, trying to reason with my gurgling stomach that the coffee would sooth the hunger pangs.

Despite eating only an egg at midday and getting lots of exercise through rowing and walking, I felt guilty ripping open the bag of chips. I'm way overweight. I'm 168 right now at 5'1-5'2. Every tiny choice I make inflates my fat cells and increases my risk of diabetes and fat-clogged arteries. No, I don't have any health problems. I just had a blood test and physical last week, and to my surprise, my thyroid hormone levels have raised into the normal range. My blood pressure was fine, my pulse fine. Yet I'm fat, so fat. Only part of it is the psychotropic medications my psychiatrist has me on, and only part of it is the poor decisions I made several years ago, yo-yo dieting, starvation dieting, and eating junk food. I've been a mostly healthy vegetarian for the last 4 months now, and yet I've only lost about 15-20 pounds. That's only five pounds a month. So what gives?

Unfortunately, the decision to lose weight at any cost has left severe consequences now. Starvation diets slows the metabolism, something not easily remedied, even years later. Plus, you either give in to hunger or you die, and I'm not dead. Once you start eating regularly, your body stockpiles every precious calorie on the chance that a Victoria Secret model will send you on another starvation diet sometime in the future. It's not easy to lose weight now. A non-yo-yo dieter would have lost much more than I have in the same time frame and on the same diet. But enough whining, I have lost weight, I will continue to lose weight, and I will do so eating brain and body healthy foods every day.

One trick I've learned the past four months is to use Indian spices on all my vegetables, with double the cayenne pepper. Coriander, cumin, garam masala, turmeric, and cayenne pepper are all ways to make a vegetable delicious and these spices also raise your metabolism and make you feel fuller than you really are. My favorite meal has got to be a zucchini drenched in lemon juice, sauteed in olive oil with the above spices simmering, and with a dash of black pepper ground onto the zucchini in the last stages of cooking. It's so good I have to immediately stick all but a small portion into the fridge lest I return for seconds.

Another trick I've learned is to refrain from snacking after 7:30 pm, and instead drink green tea with no sugar and just a little bit of fat-free creamer. I know, half and half is terrible for a dieter, fat-free or not. But seriously, you will have to pry that carton of half and half out of my cold dead hands. I cannot stand tea or coffee without it. And if I don't get my coffee or chai, I will start rummaging through the fridge for something to snack on. So instead I drink chai and don't snack on anything.

I watched this documentary, on fat and it was a very eye-opening experience. In this documentary, we follow several people who have either lost weight or are trying to lose weight. We also get to hear from a specialist who studies the digestive tract. The data was surprising. The specialist says there are transmitters in the gut, like neuro-transmitters in the brain, except they're gut-transmitters. He claimed that the gut was like a second brain, I am not joking or exaggerating!

Here is the title. It is available on amazon dot com. FAT: What No One Is Telling You. (2007). PBS Home video.

So anyways, what really caught my eye was the plight of a formerly morbidly obese female comedian. Over the course of a number of years, she lost all her weight, except for some extra pounds that refuse to leave. She went from being mega morbidly obese to moderately overweight! How did she do it? She began to eat small portions of healthy food with little snacking. More incredibly, she exercises for hours each day, without fail! The video showed her slipping into one of those full body work-out suits that make you sweat a lot, and using multiple exercise machines, plus cardio and weight exercises.
'All this so I can be chubby,' she dead-pans.

What is this point of my relating all this to you? Regardless of how you got to weigh what you weigh: life circumstance, medications, metabolism, poor decisions, whatever, you know have a problem you have to deal with. No, it's not fair that people laugh and harass you, make you feel unworthy of love and respect, or that clothes are hard to come by because discrimination is so rampant, but a problem is still a problem that needs to be addressed. This film made me realize that like my homework, I must work harder than the rest just to get an A.

Wish me luck, with some hard work, I can drop another 20 pounds in the following months: then I'll just be a little plump!

ShopAholic

Among other things, such as being a schizo-affective and overweight, I'm also a compulsive shopper. I gave up smoking marijuana not just because it was a cop-out from dealing with my issues, but also because quitting pot freed up my small income. I soon replaced my marijuana habit with a shopping habit.

Since the time that I quit marijuana my weekly visits to the corner thrift store became daily visits. My internet use patterns became more and more focused on amazon dot com and ebay, and my wishlist ballooned. The UPS driver became friendly to the point of joshing with me about my shopping habits every time he delivered another package from my online shopping sprees. I went through 2 thousand dollars from June until right now, leaving me with a pittance of 14 dollars in the bank, and no income until I get my next University grant. What did I buy for 2 thousand dollars? Here are some examples from my latest shopping spree:
~ a new windows 7 all-in-one desktop computer. Question: Did I really need it, having purchased a mac laptop last semester, with 200 GB still free? The answer was yes, because it came with a free XBOX 360. Have I played Dead Space 2 yet? Not once.
~ a rowing machine for 140 dollars. This purchase I can justify in that I need to lose weight and yes, I am actually using it at least 3 times a week for more than 15 minutes per session.
~ 300 dollars of bras. Question: Do I need more than 4 bras? Probably not. Question: Do they even fit? Nope, the cup size is too small.
~ 50-100 dollars worth of music. Question: Why do I need music? Yes, it's therapeutic, but I could just have bought some art supplies for the same amount that would have entertained me for longer. At least I'm not supporting piracy, though.
~ IPOD classic. I don't want to say how many GB's it holds, as you would question as to whether or not I needed to buy such a large storage amount. Question: what's wrong with a simple MP3? Nothing, I just got envious of people with IPOD's.
~ a cell phone: this I actually needed. Perhaps I didn't need to pay for 3 months of unlimited texting up front. Too late.
~ a pair of lace up boots and a pair of DKNY ballet-style shoes. Question: have I worn them out in public? Yes, I wore my DKNY shoes to school but had to walk home bare foot because they were so uncomfortable they left cuts on my feet. Since then I tossed them out (price: 50-60 bucks). Boots: Never worn them, maybe in December.

Those are the main, most expensive items I bought, not including the myriad of small purchases, sprees at the thrift store, and random book buying sprees.

I regret spending all my money because now I can't rent a movie or buy a haircut. I also regret not buying my mother and grandmother a little something, aside from purchasing their birthday cakes, and small presents. I feel selfish and guilty. The look on my mother's face when she walked into my room and saw the pile of packages waiting to be opened was enough to make me feel shame instantly. I could have donated to charity! Or saved up for rent money so I could go to grad school outside of my hometown! I was thinking these things and yet I couldn't stop clicking the little button on amazon, that little "buy with one click" button. It's like having a materialistic addiction.

The funny thing is, I'm not particularly materialistic. I've never had money to spend, I've always worked minimum wage jobs or gone to school with limited financial aid assistance. I even worked 2 minimum wage jobs to pay for a year of study at the community college after my financial aid money was capped at the community college.

What happened? Stressors, new environment, sudden expectations by professors and family, deaths in the family, break-ups, old debts sending me new bills, loneliness, insecurity, loss of friends, pressure to be tidy, quiet, and a good girl at home, and homework deadlines.

I have another lump sum coming in September and I'm nervous about it. On the one hand, I'd like a music creation software program so I can make my own music, a hobby that soothes me and carried me through hard times, on the other hand, I need to save my money for grad school.

Ah, challenges.

Confessions of a Closet Bisexual

What do I have to lose, I did state I was a confessional writer.

She was a size 2, taller than me, with a deep voice, and a model's open, blank face. We were in British literature together and when she approached me to ask what we did the day she missed class, I felt something flutter out of her, like a question mark hanging in the air.

I told her what we did, glancing away, feeling sheepishly uncomfortable. I couldn't gauge why she was asking me, of all people, I wasn't part of her clique, those girls who sit clustered together, their skinny bodies, their effortless hair, the brand name jeans, and their sparkling cell phone covers that glittered in their hands while they texted. They were like upper class posh girls, barely 20, and there I was, age 28, a size 14 and only five feet tall, dressed in thrift store khakis and a low cut thrift store tank top, with ratty blue walking shoes, and the only thing to my name the A grade I got on my exam.

I looked around, we were alone in the room. She began to talk to me, telling me about her modeling shoot. At first I was a little put off, I am sort of anti-fashion, as you might guess, but I didn't want to brush her off or appear too jealous so I asked her how it went and who was she modeling for. We chatted, I let her go on and on about her shoot, the exact position of the male model, the cost of the jewelry they posed her in (40,000 dollars worth of jewelry), and how much money she made.

This girl caught me totally off guard, one minute I was analyzing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in my journal, the next I'm sitting next to a real-life model queen describing her glamorous life. I figured she wanted to brag to somebody, but there was a weird undercurrent I was getting. She walked over to my desk and stood behind me, peering at my class notes. She was standing close enough for me to smell her shower freshness. She asked me to tell her what she'd missed and she kept tiptoeing closer, until her black designer t-shirt caressed my shoulder. I was suddenly turned on. OHhhhh, I realized, you're a tomboy. Then students entered the classroom, glanced at us, me sitting with the model leaning over my shoulder, and the model girl fled back to her seat. The moment was ruined. At the time, I didn't get what exactly that moment was, but I felt a deep conviction that the model girl had been enjoying her time alone with me, and vice versa.

For the rest of the class we kept throwing discrete looks at each other. I glanced at her skinny arms to make sure she didn't have a severe eating disorder, she glanced at my wrist tattoos. She didn't speak to anybody else when everybody else took their seats, and whatever energy she had displayed with me had become muted into a silent, brooding stare aimed mostly at her desk.

I might have approached the model girl on my own the next day, except my friend, a busty linguistics major like myself, was curious about how my Arabic class was going, and I had turned my attention to my friend, as I had a secret crush on her with her blue eyes and long dirty blonde hair, and those oversized t-shirts that minimized her assets. Then class ended last week, and I can still feel that vibe the model girl gave off when it was just the two of us, so close.

I know what you're thinking, why would a pretty model want me? It's just attraction, sometimes to a body, sometimes to a face, sometimes to a mind. You can't control who you become attracted to, and I felt her being drawn to me for whatever reason (I'm guessing my mind, as I am too plump).

Now that I'm waiting for my British literature grade to be posted, my thoughts keep turning back to her, to her deep, guttural voice and clear skin. Will I ever see her again? If I do, would I have the courage to spark a friendship? Maybe exchange email addresses?

Being a closet bisexual is difficult. The only time I came on to a girl I was soundly rejected. She was not into me, at all. I felt that sting for years to the point where it prevented me from coming out. It seemed like a lot of hassle just to get rejected by the girl I liked.

I still haven't had sex with a female. I'd like to, it's the only thought that excites me, men barely excite me, and they usually ruin my arousal by acting like assholes, but I'm too shy. I'm only an exhibitionist online. In real life, I'm studious, introverted, and afraid of rejection.

I tried to come out to my ex-boyfriend, not the one I just broke up with, but one from a long time ago who I've kept in contact with for many years, but he wouldn't have it. He kept changing the subject.  I love him dearly, but it's this model girl who invades my thoughts all the time. Wherever she is, I want her back.

New Bra Hunt

Well, I don't fit into any of these expensive bras anymore. What a shame, I didn't mind being a 36H/36FF (UK measurement is FF for US H), but I am bursting out of these cups and the under-wire is hitting the side of my breast rather than the resting naturally on my torso. So, sorry Panache bra, you don't fit me anymore. Another 40 bucks down the drain...maybe there is a bra charity that will give my non-fitting bras to needy, big busted babes.

I like my Cacique bras sooo much, but the cups are also too small and my boobs look like helium balloons about to fly off into outer-space. Those bras were 38DDD, and I have about 4 or 5 of them, having purchased them a couple of months ago when they were buy 2 get 2 free. Alas, it looks like I'll have spend my next check on a bigger sized bra. The question is, which one? The 36 band fits snug, but I prefer 38 because 38 bands tend to be more elastic, why, I don't know, maybe it's the manufacturer, but whatever it is, the band is always wider, with more hooks, and more flexible than a 36 band. If DDD cups don't fit, what comes next? 38G (or 38F in the UK) is the next size up, according to yahoo answers.

So confusing! AND I've spent lots of my free time watching youtube videos on how to fit yourself for a bra, searching websites for tips, and measuring, re-measuring, and re-re-measuring my torso and breasts with measuring tape. I also used calculators, which state I should start by trying on a 40E (US), but a 40 band sounds too loose for me. This 38 DDD bra is snug but I can tug the back band about 2-3 inches away from my body with no real effort. Darn bra math. I need a math major to figure this out for me! Measure circumference of torso beneath the breasts....round up by 3 inches, measure the breasts, don't round up, subtract the difference....between what and what? Gee, it's a miracle I passed trigonometry with a B!

If I Eat Chicken Today Am I Traitor To the Vegetarian Cause?

I ate chicken and I feel a little guilty. Well, I feel pretty guilty. It doesn't taste good to me anymore, not after 4 months of going cold turkey off of turkey, chicken, and beef. I wasn't keeping up with my protein subs though, and I was feeling weak, physically and emotionally weak, and I made shredded chicken quesadillas with salsa. 

I got started as a vegetarian when a young woman approached me on a campus with a smile on her face. I assumed she must be handing me some Christian propaganda and I refused it. She offered it again. I took it, mostly out of pity than anything, and I was surprised to find it was a pamphlet for an anti-animal cruelty, pro-vegetarian group. Later that day, I flipped through it, reading the text and gawking at horrible photographs of pigs with their cute tails chopped off, each pig crammed in so tight they couldn't move, and a cow with a skinned face, it's eyes open in horror and pain. It startled me. It went against my belief that animals should be killed humanely. So I quit meat. I tossed out my hamburger patties and frozen chicken breasts and I began to refuse to eat eggs as well as flesh meat.

Morally, I felt better about myself because I wasn't condoning the cruelty of typical warehouse style slaughterhouses. I also asked my uncle if this treatment was common, as he used to work at a slaughterhouse, and it turned out it is a lot more common than the industry lets on. I won't repeat what happened to the animals whose deaths he witnessed, it's graphic and I don't want to repeat what wicked things go on behind closed warehouse doors. Suffice it to say, it was enough to over-ride my taste buds (my taste buds love meat) and it kept me from eating meat or eggs for about 4 months, up until my cousin's death last week. Then, during that stressful period, I began to eat chicken. It didn't taste as good knowing how the animal had died, but chicken is a comfort food for me, and I really needed comfort food. 

So here I am, 2 corn tortilla chicken quesadillas later, feeling remorseful. I apologize to the chicken I just ate. 

When I eat chicken I feel like I just binge ate. I feel remorse, guilt, weakness, gluttony, and full on meat. I don't like feeling full at all, it means I haven't made progress eating or standing for a cause. Again, don't follow my lead; chicken is easily replaced by non-meaty tofu and tofu saves a chicken from unspeakable cruelty.

"Gaining", a book on life after eating disorders

http://www.amazon.com/Gaining-Truth-About-Eating-Disorders/dp/B002IT5OXO/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

This book is available on amazon dot com. Written by a Aimee Liu, a former model who wrote one of the first memoirs about living with anorexia in the 60's and 70's, this new book focuses on her life afterwards; the triumphs, the relapses, and all the steps in between. She catches up with her old friends from high school, the same clique from her first book, "Solitaire", and writes about their lifestyles and eating habits.

This memoir surprised me in that there is quite a bit of scientific research in her book on statistics and the typical profile of anorectics/bulimics. She goes to a University and discusses the personality types with a pioneer in the field of eating disorders. It was very interesting to read the characteristics that are commonplace among those with an eating disorder.

What I didn't like was the hidden message anorectics give off: if you're overweight, you have more issues than I do, and you should do something about it. A reviewer on amazon dot com mentioned the same thing, that there is an undercurrent of disdain for normal sized and plump women. Compare this with books on  binge eating disorders, where you do not typically find comments that imply slender women are freakish or socially brainwashed. I think this may have to do with the profile type that the author describes at length: a perfectionist and critical person who needs to feel she stands out in a crowd. The question begs: what is perfect and who are you to make that call?

My best friend was anorexic the entire time I knew her and she was that way: highly critical of ME (for the record, I weighed 113-115 pounds and was a size 5 mostly, back then anyways). I was there to support her through her hospitalization after a car accident where it was revealed that she ate even less than I had assumed (and I already assumed she was an anorexic who refused to state it). It was painful to watch her try to pawn off her meal to me in the hospital, or when she spat out "I don't want to get FAT [like you]," to a gentle, overweight nurse who had the unfortunate role of caretaker.

Having read lots of memoirs what strikes me is the amount of hatred anorectics have for overweight people and in particular, nurses at hospitals, whose task it is to make sure their electrolytes are within range, and their heart rate remains normal. Yes, some nurses tend to be overweight, but this is not some conspiracy where fat people love to change the power dynamics in modern society (thin women rule, fat women serve or get out of sight): this is due to the fact that a lot of women who have the capability of care-taking a total stranger have an exaggerated selfless personality (perhaps not healthy). This means they care about strangers more than they care about their own well-being. Also, a lot of nurses had to play the care-taker role at home, and often times their childhood homes were turbulent. Turbulent childhoods often play a major role in over-eating, bulimia, and other disordered eating habits.

Anyways, I had to write that because the campus library has a limited amount of books on BED (binge eating disorders) and yo-yo dieters and a ton of memoirs by anorectics, so if I want to read a book on the plight of women and food, I have to read another anorectic's memoir. I don't mind, I just sometimes need to step back, out of this woman's mentality, and re-evaluate myself and society, so I don't find myself mimicking another disordered eating person.

After note: don't let my influential personality type stop you from discussing your issues. If you're suffering from anorexia, bulimia, or BED, please talk about it, as part of the illness revolves around a secret obsession with food and/or starvation. Secrecy breeds stigma, which is bad for everyone. I just wrote that above paragraph because I spent a lot of time around anorexics, one was my best friend for about 5 years, and the other was my boss, or rather, the wife of my boss who herself was a boss. I spent 3 years watching her pick at a salad every shift, and I eventually started doing the same due to my desire to fit in and what not. Then the salad became my sole meal, then I lost a lot of weight, went mad, got asylumed, and wound up gaining all that lost weight within 6 months of my release. My point: I'm easily influenced by the behavior of others, not their fault, it's mine. So if you have this illness, speak up!

White Roses Pointing To Heaven

I'm going to be posting up photographs I take around town to liven up this blog, as I don't want it to be purely grief-ridden scribbles your eyes are bombarded by.

This photo is dedicated to my cousin who committed suicide last month, 2011. He was 24, 4 years younger than myself.

Dear R--

Hopefully, you're in heaven, or maybe you're an Aztec hummingbird fluttering around. Either way, you're always in my heart and mind. Nothing can replace you, wish you knew that when you were alive.

Family and friends of suicide don't get the usual sympathy from people. I told a couple, some friends of mine, who I've known closely for a little less than a year, and they never responded to my email. We were supposed to hang out at their house last week but they didn't send me an email, so I guess we're not friends anymore. I don't understand; apprehension and confusion is one thing, but totally alienating me is another. They had offered condolences up until I mentioned it was a suicide. Perhaps it was too much for them, I'll never know.

On a lighter note, my college summer courses are going very well. Learning a foreign alphabet is a challenge, but it's worth the hard work.

Also, on a more superficial note, I've lost enough weight to fit into a size 14. My size 16 pants, which I was wearing up until this month, were all hanging off of my hips and I thought, nah, can't be that I need a smaller size...but I did! They fit snug but not too tight. On the plus side, I'm a size 14, which is down by a dress size. On the bad side, I have to go buy a new wardrobe so I can go to college without my pants slipping of me while I walk. Clothes=money. Me=no money.

I'm In Love Graffiti

This wasn't me that tagged 'I'm in love' on the freeway overpass, but I loved it so much I snapped a photograph. I imagine it was a passionate teenage boy who decided to proclaim his love for his new girlfriend to all the pedestrians crossing over the freeway by foot.

Things like this help keep my mood up. It's so touching, isn't it?

Light Through A Fern

A Few Books On Body Image

"Women, Advertising, and Representation: Beyond Familiar Paradigms"; edited by Sue Abel, Marjan deBruin, and Anita Nowak.
I checked out this book this week and my favorite chapter so far is "Lara Croft in Ads", which deals with Lara Croft the video game heroine and her symbolic representation of the ideal woman.

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Advertising-Representation-Paradigms-Communication/dp/1572739274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311089242&sr=1-1

"The Body Myth: Adult Women and the Pressure To Be Perfect", by Margo Maine and Joe Kelly
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Myth-Adult-Pressure-Perfect/dp/0471691585/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311089315&sr=1-1

Another excellent book, "The Body Myth" deals with the scientific truth behind diets, obesity, and health. This is highly important, as all the doctors I have seen are not keeping up with the current research and studies done on health and weight issues. Instead, they spout the usual doctor rhetoric: if you eat well and exercise you will fall into a healthy BMI range. Not true, especially for a former yo-yo dieter, and a disordered eating person with an abnormal glandular problem (thyroid and pituitary glands). The more you diet, the more likely you will become obese in the future. Sound scary? It's been documented in numerous studies.

"Hungry", by Crystal Renn
http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Appetite-Ambition-Ultimate-Embrace/dp/1439101248/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311089374&sr=1-1

I am buying this book when I get some cash! Crystal Renn is my favorite model, along with Ashley Graham (the top heavy Lane Bryant model), and I recommend watching her NightLine interview on youtube.

Laying Tulips On Plath's Grave

Isn't it astounding to know that when "The Colossus" came out, Plath was admonished for being a hack, a wannabe, and a never-will-be? We know now that she is one of the titans of the poetry world, but back then her womanizing husband, Ted Hughes, got all the attention and awards.

What's really tragic is that she killed herself shortly after penning her opus, Ariel. You've all heard the story, tape along the door jams, head in the oven, children safe and sound asleep. But I think what's really telling is the poem, "Tulips."
"The tulips are too excitable,it is winter here." --first line of "Tulips" by Sylvia Plath.
Just the first line has layers of meaning. The juxtaposition of excited tulips with winter time is startling. The rhythm of the first line is intense. Imagery is prevalent. Of course, this was written about her experience with electroshock therapy, but it's written in such a symbolic way that it challenges our minds to grasp her mental landscape. She leads us into jungles of images, the white walls of the hospital, the excited tulips, the ever-seeing eye that must "take it all in," her body as a "pebble", and the red, red tulips that hurt her eyes; nowhere in literature or poetry has such anguish come across so vividly. Indeed, there is no melodrama in this poem, in fact, she's rather jaded, a rarity amongst modern, nostalgia-ridden poets, and her neat lines will stand for centuries to come. You can feel her life-force bleed through the ink. Maybe that was the problem, she saved none of herself for herself. Or maybe she had a serotonin imbalance.

I would be so lucky as to write a single poem that would be published in a respectable journal; Sylvia Plath had a whole book published. It hurts me to know that she had had enough with life, with her small failures, with her marital pain, as to remove herself entirely from this world. At least she left us a suicide note: the stanzas in Ariel.

This entry is a symbolic tulip I leave  on Sylvia Plath's grave; a token of devotion, a coin into a wishing well, wishing her peace wherever she is, that she might spark a moment of consciousness again and know that in 2011 people are deeply moved by her words and her life. A life can die, but not a legacy.

Reason to Live

As stated in previous blog entries, my cousin killed himself June 25th. He left the rest of the family disillusioned, heart-broken, and shattered. Having my own psychological problems, I faced certain questions, like why should I live? What point is there? I'm so insignificant, why bother to live?
Frankly, I'm still searching for concrete answers.
I talked to my ex-boyfriend today for several hours and he asked the same question: what is the point of living if there is no point in living? This made me sad. I answered: Go buy a kitten and take care of it. Was that lame? Probably. But there is nothing more powerful than reciprocated love, even if it's just the adoration of a pet.

Having split from my boyfriend this week, I feel unloved. So I fill the void with you.You who are reading this. You got this far in the blog entry, you  must either be curious, morbidly curious, or seeking for the same thing I am: love, acceptance, happiness, understanding, and hope.

They say, 'take it one day at a time, one step at a time' and I hate that. There is nothing like a cliche to take the meaning out of perfectly sage advice. For me, I  have to set small goals for myself and wake up every day asking myself how I can achieve that small goal. For tomorrow it's revise a paper on British literature, eat less, exercise for 20 minutes, study the next chapter in my Arabic language textbook, and start looking into graduate programs for Fall 2012.
There are two ways I could look at this: either I'm a failure for not having a BA at the age of 28, or I can take this as an opportunity to earn around three thousand dollars each semester, tax free. To compare, at my last crappy job delivering pizzas, I earned minimum wage, plus tips, as a part-time worker. That came to about five thousand dollars a year, waaaay below the poverty level. Half way through the year, I've already earned about six thousand dollars, with another check coming next semester in September. In one sense, I'm a total failure. In another sense, I've come up in the world. Since I like to spend money, I am going to see this as a positive step.
Perhaps I'm way behind the rest of the flock. Perhaps I'm fooling myself with the illusion of job prospects. Perhaps I should just give up....but then how would I afford expensive computer software like Ableton Live music mixing software? I could either give up here and now and refuse to get out of bed, or I can wake up early tomorrow, brew some coffee, and start my homework, knowing that there is a check waiting to be deposited into my bank account if I successfully complete my work. AND if I raise my GPA by .1 (cumulative GPA is a measly 2.9 right now, due to  mental illness requiring in-patient treatment, but my University GPA is 3.6), I qualify for even MORE money. No, money isn't a reason to live, but it sure makes you feel better in the short run. Along with the money there is also my bachelor's degree, which I should obtain by the end of next spring. There's also the allure of a graduate program. At the moment, my GPA is the minimum for entry into the program of my choice at the State University, but with some hard work I can boost it up with the two classes I'm taking now, plus the next two semesters.

A friend of mine from high school gave me the best advice on coping with loss: distract yourself. Study, read, do whatever you need to so that you don't start wallowing in pain. I have found this to be true. That's actually the reason I started this blog; to distract myself, to vent, to heal, to accept what I cannot change and change what I cannot accept. Oops, I wrote an oxymoron, well, you get what I mean.

My aim for these blog is to bare my soul to people who empathize or relate to my situation in life, thereby making it easier for them to feel like they are not alone. I want to create a safe spot where I can grow to accept myself and to strive to better myself, and hopefully, by showing my struggles, other people will find ways in which to cope and grow. Does that make sense? I'm not doing this for profit. I haven't monetized this blog, though there is a little button that allows me to do so, nor am I hoping for a lucrative writing contract (I actually penned an erotic e-book through a publisher already and I know all to well that it's next to impossible to make a living off writing). What do I want from this? Attention? Maybe, if you're that cynical, maybe, but I was hoping for change. Not drastic, go-on-Oprah-show-and-be-an-inspiration-to-millions change, but to bring change to a couple of people would make me happy. It would be another reason to live. Yeah, you are the reason I choose to live. Well, you and that three grand I get every five months, and my mother, and my grandmother, and my cat who would be very hungry without me, but you get the idea.