Tag Archives: Depression

Hope is a Demon Bitch

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This weekend provided a rare exception to the monotony. Cori and Lindsay came down to see me and enjoy the free food. We didn’t do much, but I did finally visit the carousel museum downtown. It was nice to see people for a change. I’m hoping to come up to Lincoln at some point to visit more people.

It seems my current medication has really increased my anxiety, so I’m going to call the psychiatrist about it. It’s weird to have mental side effects from meds because they creep up on you. Anyway, partly due to that and the annoyance of having a dog, I’m sort of fed up with the new puppy. She has so much damned energy. Anyway, I’m hoping to get to a point where I can tolerate her more easily. Fortunately Dad has retired, so he’s around most of the time. He occasionally goes back in to work because he’s a glutton for punishment.

Although I have like nothing to do of late, I haven’t started reading as much. I dug out my stack of “to read” books from the boxes in my room. I’m hoping to get around to them starting tomorrow.

I’m still searching for jobs. The one I’m looking at right now is at Home Depot. I have to admit I’m not thrilled about working there, but anything would be nice at this point. I’m going to make phone calls for all of my other applications tomorrow. I might be able to get interviews somewhere else, so I’m still looking. I need to go out and apply at more places, I suppose. Ugh.

Not too long ago, a movie called the Wackness came to the Ross. It was about a young man who sees a psychiatrist and pays him with marijuana. The title comes from a line spoken by his girlfriend about how all he sees in life is the wackness, the part of life that sucks. I’ve realized that’s exactly how I see life.

Tomorrow I resume my phlebotomy class after a week-long break. Last time I was there I managed to draw one vacutainer of fake blood from a fake arm. I’m moving up in the medical industry. I wonder if I’ll be able to find a job doing venipuncture anywhere near here. I didn’t see any openings on local hospital websites for phlebotomy jobs, but there are a number of places that require plenty of lab workers.

Anyway, I’m getting ready for bed. I’m more than ready to do something more interesting tomorrow, even if it’s reading. Something is better than nothing.

February 2009 or: How Not to Kill Yourself

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On February 1, I attempted suicide. I had purchased materials within the past month, and had everything I needed to produce hydrogen cyanide. When I finally began the process, I was unable to get the gas to condense correctly, so I turned off the burner and stoppered the apparatus. However, I had inhaled enough that my heart began to race and I passed out. Two hours later, I awoke because I had to pee.

My breath was coming in gasps because of the cyanide. It took about twenty minutes to even stand up. I stumbled across the room to unlock the door, and called the cops. As I was on the phone with the dispatcher, I got a call from Alan. I decided it would be bad form to switch over on an emergency call. Moments later the cops barged in. I stumbled out of my room to the stretcher, and they wheeled me out. On the way through the lobby, the evacuees from my floor looked scared for some reason.

The only thing I remember from the ambulance ride was saying “this oxygen tastes like shit,” which absolutely no one found funny. I had to answer questions about how I procured cyanide about fifteen times. Somehow it was hard for them to grasp that I bought the chemicals on eBay and Walmart. Once I got to the hospital, I was catheterized and given an antidote intravenously. It made my urine purple for a week.

Apparently my situation was quite serious, but no one told me. Thinking back, one of the nurses did say something like “you might not make it through the night,” but I thought she was just being nice.

In Lincoln, suicides are put in emergency protective custody in the Lancaster County Crisis Center. After a good visit on the 2nd from several friends (and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Juan Franco), I was shipped there and put on Zoloft. I have yet to discern a change from the meds.

Anyway, after 24 days in the Crisis Center, during which I met several extremely interesting people who I will be able to tell stories about for years, I was released and returned to Leavenworth to live with my parents.

Having said all that, I have some remarks:

1. To all the people who visited me in the crisis center, thank you very much. Just having one visit made the days much more bearable. I only wish I could have reciprocated for all your generosity, but I suppose I still have time. I assure you I am very appreciative of everything you all did for me.

2. This is absolutely the last thing I want to talk about. Oh, if you’re curious about the mechanics of it, I can give you a play-by-play of cyanide poisoning, but the whole emotional part of it is just annoying.

3. Today I baked a delicious cake.

Suicide Note

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Anyone can tell you that in life, you have to do things you don’t want to do. What no one will tell you is that you also have to be things you don’t want to be. Life will toss you around, forcing you into roles you hate, until eventually you feel like your very self is beyond your control. It becomes too late to change, and you face a horrifying decision: to live as something you hate or to move on.

Hell isn’t where you are, it’s what you are. What I’m trying to say is no matter how much you love your life, you can’t live it if you hate yourself, because that’s the one thing you can’t escape from. So my advice is this: fight life. Never become something you hate. Cling to your principles, but don’t be afraid to change. If you become the person you want to be, you can live through anything. Otherwise, you’re lost.

Self-diagnosis

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I am now in North Carolina, enjoying the plenty that is the deep South. I’ve eaten at a number of restaurants on the main street near campus and the 3 dining halls that are open for the next two months. Apparently the best dining hall, which is the one adjacent to my current dorm, has closed for the summer. In other words, to get dinner is a 15 minute walk from my dorm, whereas lunch is a scant 2 minutes from where I work during the day, itself about 10 away from the dorm. So I’m sort of isolated from anything helpful here.

What’s more, there is a ton of construction on campus. Not only are they building a new mathematics building (one year too late, in my opinion), they are changing several other buildings, meaning that many pedestrian paths are closed or covered in red dust. Speaking of pavement, everything here is brick: buildings, small streets, sidewalks, etc. It gets kind of frustrating because there’s nowhere to look when you want to not see brick.

My room is quite typical for a college dorm, all in off white with tile. The tile has a yellow and black pattern which I just now noticed when searching for a way to describe it. There’s a sink in the room, which has been convenient for shaving, tooth brushing, and hair combing. I have two beds and no roommate, which means there are a number of items on the second bed that haven’t moved in 2 weeks. I think it’s the natural way.

Foodwise, I need to figure out what to eat on weekends because nothing on campus is open. I have no means of transportation besides asking for rides, which I’m opposed to out of principle. Last weekend this meant Jimmy John’s and other such cheap eateries, although frozen food seems more productive. I bought some utensils so I could eat those kinds of things, but I’m not able to buy them without going to the overpriced convenience store.

I also had Cold Stone ice cream for the first time in a couple of years (excluding a free sample I got once), one of the two non-mandatory social events I’ve attended. The other was a highly necessary trip to Walmart for room supplies, including my two Transformers pillowcases. I’ve forgotten which pillow came with the room and which one is the eco-friendly corn-something-stuffed pillow I bought at the ‘mart. I’m probably just going to take the one I like, which will relate in some measure to the amount of saliva deposited in said pillow. In preparation, I’ve selected the pillow I really want to preserve and tried to avoid drooling excessively on it. I’m about 90% sure it’s the Walmart pillow, so the environment can be reasonably assured that I will continue sleeping with corn even after my summer experience.

After arriving here on Memorial Day, I went to the pizza feed event. It was pretty fun; the pizza reminded me of the pizza I used to get in my Mom’s hometown. It had one meat I’ve never seen on pizza before (gyro meat?) and one I’ve seen only one time (bacon). Damned good. I’ve been learning a lot of names in my characteristic fashion, although I’ve only spoken with maybe 8 of the 40 math students here. The math group has its own floor; it is the biggest mathematics REU ever.

The other mandatory social event was a North Carolina “pig pickin,'” in which the majority of a pig is smoked, chopped to bits, and “pulled” from the carcass in order to produce smaller pieces of pork for consumption. This is a damned fine ritual. I especially approved of the barbecue sauce, which was mostly vinegar (both distilled and red wine) with pepper flakes and a couple of other spices. This is a really good way to eat pig. I highly recommend it, although the preparation seems like a huge pain. Other notes: the dude who prepared the pig had the sweatiest head I’ve ever seen. The dinner was delayed by about 45 minutes because of confusion as to where the grill was to be set up. During this delay, I spoke for the first time with 2 of the 8 people I “know.”

I shouldn’t exaggerate; during the ice cream trip the next day, I did speak with the 5 people who went with me, so I guess it would be more like 12. That’s as high as I’ll concede.

Anyway, last week was spent learning Matlab and LaTeX, both instrumental in being a kickass mathematicist (or so they told me). Matlab is basically a C-family language with vector-based syntax, so nearly everything is represented as a vector.  Its implementation reminds me of Java, where nearly every function has been defined already but you have to find the right one: i.e. textscan vs. strscan and so on. LaTeX is just markup, although technically it’s “compiled.” The syntax is straightforward and the learning curve is just a matter of memorizing which tag represents which mathematical mark. It does look nice after compilation, but it’s mostly a hassle. Better than Microsoft’s equation editor, though.

After learning all of that crap and modeling a spring-mass system (easy), I started my group’s project. We’re quite far along already, because most of us are pretty good at this. One member is the person who I was sure I wouldn’t get along with, with a severe lack of social awareness but admirable programming skills (as if any programmers are socially inept. pff). He’s far ahead of me in terms of getting things done, so I don’t end up doing much. The other member worked on a similar project last year, with an aura of laziness and experience about him. I think he’s a good balancing member of the group, able to explain things to me when the programmer is busy or unable, and able to communicate my often improperly worded yet sometimes viable suggestions or ideas to him. My biggest worry is that there is no room for me when programming is going on, because the programmer takes the reins and the other member is much better at assisting him. I end up on my own computer doing all the things I do on my computer.

There are two professors and two graduate students assigned to the project. One professor is named after a character in a flash cartoon; the other is a former student here who has ties to the university. His company builds ray guns, making him cool by default, although he’s pretty awesome anyway. The primary graduate student is very easygoing and helpful and seems to like me despite my lack of productivity. I suppose on the occasion where I programmed something, it worked acceptably, so I at least look trainable. The other graduate student has only showed up once.

Naturally, she’s the one who will be around for the duration of the summer; the other grad student is leaving in two days. So is the ray gun specialist, whose company is in California. I’ll be left alone with the others to get progressively more frustrated with not helping. Maybe I can do presentations or something. God knows I need things explained to me simply enough, so I could maybe do the same for the other students. Here’s hoping I find a niche before someone gets pissed. Other than that, the project is fascinating, and I like the people. I just wish the people who I like the most would stick around. No choice, though.

Anyway, we’re getting to where we’ll be performing some extensive and time-consuming optimizations, so laziness will be perfectly acceptable. Our group also meets at 10am, meaning I can stay up ’til 1am or so and still be rested. God, I love college.

Our next mission is to work distributed computing into the project, meaning my lappy will have to help out, as will some other computers in the building (I suppose). The minimizing algorithm benefits most from 3 separate processors running different parts, so maybe just one more computer would be needed. Where or if we’ll get it is unresolved. Done properly, this would actually cut the time taken by 2/3, although there will be overhead for the distribution.

Having covered recent events, I have to move on to the most interesting part of the past two days: my self-diagnosis of my neuroses. This is exciting, so get ready.

1. I am a highly sensitive person. This means that I analyze sensory input more than most people, causing a few symptoms, one of which is hypervigilance, my “paranoid” tendencies. One thing this has made me realize is that while I am observant, I place more value on my insights about people than observations of the world. One thing that happened that was kind of weird was that I realized that one person was either engaged or a newlywed with no evidence, but I turned out to be correct. I came to that conclusion without looking for rings, but from behavioral clues. I have no idea how.

2. I have avoidant personality disorder. Essentially what this means is that I would rather be alone than interact socially because I consider the risks too great. This was a weird thing to find, but an apt description of my behavior. I’ve long known I had a generalized anxiety disorder, particularly in social situations, and I’m fairly agoraphobic, but I didn’t realize how significant those attributes were. The fear of crowds also stems from too much sensory input relating to #1.

The reason I looked this up (besides my typical wikipedian curiosity) was because of my recent anxiety. My lack of social contact has been somewhat oppressive here, continuing a trend that started 6 years ago. It doesn’t help that for some reason, groups congregate in the hallway in the area around my door and talk loudly very often. Anyway, I made my typical mistake that somehow I’d stop being reclusive if I were in a new environment (the fresh start hypothesis). Even I’m amazed at how much I buy into it. It’s like I think I’ll be someone else if I have the chance, but it almost always gets much worse.

I’ve had some frenetic mood swings in the past two days. On Monday evening, I was in a really good mood thinking about potential. Tuesday reminded me that I don’t have any, so I ended up trying to take a nap at 6pm to avoid thinking about it. That failed and I had some feelings I thought I had left behind a long time ago,  but I finally got out of bed and got online. Then I spent the next 4 hours looking up stuff online, including all of my various neuroses. During that process, I crashed violently back into the realm of normal emotions, feeling much better. Now I’m just trying not to think about it, which is my usual method for dealing with these things. It seems promising so far.

I think I like it here. I just wish I could have more realistic expectations. Maybe next time.

Embracing Obstreperousness

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Looking over this, it is not only extremely long and very inane, it also rambles at the end. I was just writing what was in my head, seeing if anything interesting came out. It didn’t. I’m going to bed.

Also, this is 1324 words. I wish I could write that much about something interesting

I need a place where I can talk about all the things I can’t talk about. This is not that place. However, I still feel like cracking out a few hundred words only seven people will read, so here I go.

My classes are going well so far. I’m getting the hang of the MIPS assembly language, so that will make CS fairly straightforward. Japanese is the same old busywork. English is going to be English. I wish I didn’t have to read a textbook, but I think the papers will at least be fun. I would love to take an English class that wasn’t the same as all the ones I’ve taken before. Math is easy, even though it’s really abstract (it’s abstract algebra, and the title is actually quite apt) and not practical at all. That basically means that everyone in the class is a math major. Fortunately, I’m definitely at the top of the class, which is nice.

I need to contract 6 honors hours by the end of the semester or lose my books scholarship for next year. My plan is to contract CS and Math, the two subjects I should be able to annihilate. Both instructors seem perfectly fine with my doing that, so I just need to figure out what extra work I will do. I’m also applying for upperclass scholarships, although I’m not all that sure I’ll get one (there aren’t a whole lot of scholarships for the UNL Math Dept.)

On the employment front, I still have an extremely small chance of grading for the CS department (highly unlikely, Riedesel implied it’s only going to happen if one of the grad students doesn’t want the job), and I applied to be an RA next year. The interview is in mid February, and I think I’m a solid candidate, so I should get an offer (knock on wood), but I don’t know if it will be someplace nice or not. If it’s not a good place, I will probably just try and get a TA position in the math department again. Except I’d want one with “responsibility” or I’ll be bored out of my gourd. Maybe I’m too picky. Hm.

I’ve been exceptionally bipolar lately. It’s odd for me, because I’m in a good position with respect to classes, but I still have the same stuff that always bothers me. So I get in a good mood over school stuff, only to have my mood crushed by everything else. That’s the opposite of how it normally works. I’m also finding my usual solaces are crumbling, and that doesn’t help anything.

The big thing occupying my last few days is applying to do math research somewhere this summer. I’ve applied to 6 schools (UNL, Central Michigan, Univ. of MN-Duluth, Hope College, NC State, and Rutgers) to do 8 weeks of work through June and July. It would be nice to get out of the house for a break, and the stipend is around $3000 for most of them (sometimes less). Thank you National Science Foundation for including math in your funding umbrella. My advisor said I am a good candidate, although I’m not sure my personal statements were helpful. It’s hard for me to write what I want to do with math because I have so little experience. I’m not a bad writer, I just can’t talk about math that way. It’s unfortunate, because there’s a good chance I’ll have to write about it in later life.

All of my technology is breaking. Apple is in the process of replacing my out-of-warranty iPod because the effective battery life is around 1-2 hours. My laptop’s battery light is blinking a lovely orange-orange-orange-orang

e-green pattern at me constantly, although Dell’s advice was basically crap (Try another battery. ‘I don’t have another battery.’ Too bad.).

I’ll have to borrow Alan’s battery sometime, just to see if my battery is what’s causing it. If so, I’m screwed because the warranty on Dell batteries is 1 year (same as the iPod. I got both before I came to school and they’re already broken. I fucking hate technology. Built-in obsolescence is a horrible practice. Apple especially feels the need to employ it, and as someone pointed out, their motto is “don’t make it cheaper, upgrade it and keep the price the same. You don’t pay less, we give you more!” If you get that reference, you get an ‘A.’ Unless you’re Mark.). If it’s not the battery, I’m screwed because it’s the motherboard (there’s some battery-related component of the motherboard. Who cares, it’s all hardware. Software is where it’s at, bitches.). I might still have that under warranty, though it could only be the accidental damage one. This is pretty damned accidental, I guess (I sure as hell didn’t do it on purpose and it started at a random time).

I got a bunch of homework assigned today, and tomorrow I need to wash my T-shirts (haven’t done that since I left for home. That means nearly 6 weeks or 42 shirts. All stone sexy.), so I’ll have to do stuff in the afternoon. Tuesday is the best day of the week because I only have 1 hour of class and then 23 hours of free time. In a row. Although the last 9.5 hours of that is Wednesday. So I guess that Tuesday is, strictly speaking, the day where the majority of my largest span of free time within the working week occurs.

I reread my favorite book, House of Leaves, last week. It is an amazing book, and I recommend it to everyone. It is very complex and cool. I have a bunch of movies I want to watch, and I suspect I will persist in renting them weekly at least to burn through the list. There are a number of items on there that I’ll have to watch alone, because there’s no chance anyone I know would watch them with me (everyone hates on drama for some reason).

Speaking of drama, there is certainly a lot of it. Everything seems to upset someone lately. It makes my neutrality hard to maintain. I am a lot more listless about the things that are important to me, which should never happen. I can’t tell what’s happening around me (socially), but I can tell that it’s leaving me too productive. I don’t want to go down that path; it’s not pleasant.

It’s going to be cold tomorrow. I’m upset with the weather right now. I wish not having a heart gave me superpowers, like the fish guy from those pirate movies. I want to write something people will read. I haven’t properly cooked since I was in high school. The closest thing was last year, when I made cookies. Cookies are my favorite food. I also like mozzarella sticks and a properly cooked steak. I’d like to have all three, but I can’t.

I want to donate blood now that my heartbeat is acceptable. It’s not fair that I’m on a ridiculously strict diet and what is essentially heart medication at age 18. I love vegetables. I’m always tired but it takes me 45 minutes to fall asleep.

Human beings are immensely complex. You will never understand yourself, not even physiologically. But more importantly, you won’t even understand your own emotions and motivations. Sometimes, they just are. I have realized that this complexity makes it almost entirely impossible for someone to understand anyone else. There is just too much to understand about yourself; it’s impossibly hard to even try to figure someone else out. No wonder selfishness is so fundamental. I can’t remember what having a heart was like.

I hope the sun is out tomorrow.

Moody

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I usually like fall, which I would call my favorite season. It’s not because of the leaves, although I do like the changing colors. I’ve always thought it was a bit funny that dying leaves are so interesting to look at, although the optimists wouldn’t think of it that way. But I actually like the weather, which is often dry and a bit cold, which is my favorite. I have no idea why.It also turns out that fall is when relationships crumble. It is interesting, because I have always disliked the spring because of all of the “hookups,” but now I dislike fall because of the break-ups. I am not a nice person when it comes to couples breaking up. I don’t have it in me to be nice about it, for some reason. Because of break-ups and the stupor that develops at the end of the semester, most people are pretty moody. It is very hard for me to handle the constant mopishness (real word) of everyone around me. I have also succumbed to the moody attitudes, and I have been somewhat less than cheery lately. The list of stuff I hate is piling up right now. I’ll have to sort it all out eventually, but right now it seems to mostly be “people.” Because I am generally a person of unyielding patience (cough, cough), I can only wonder why this is. I have long acknowledged the fact that I have an amount of hatred for anyone, no matter what. Maybe it’s just popping up for the holidays.In any case, just be aware that I probably have next to no sympathy for you right now. I will probably not be nice until the end of the semester. Which is sad, because niceness is the pinnacle of my behavior. Here’s hoping I don’t do anything too evil.

Also, this is a badass shady-type version of my profile picture. Which one is better, this or the one I have now?

Regret

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I’ve been thinking today mostly about the concept of regret, for some reason. I realized that for me, regret is not about past actions. I actually am somewhat at ease with my past, and am reasonably certain that it will lead to a decent future as well. For me, regret is a little like worry that’s too stupid to die. I regret things that happened three days ago, and feel perfectly fine about similar things that may have happened 18 months ago.

Like right now, for instance. I’m sitting here at the end of the weekend, and I have accomplished absolutely nothing. Not that I had anything to do anyway, of course. But I basically sat around and watched videos online and on DVD for two straight days, sniffling and coughing (I’m a bit sick. On a related note, NyQuil gives you terrific dreams). It’s not that I particularly think that’s bad, but I wish I had something better to do with my free time. I spend so much of it just doing nothing, I’m not even sure I’d know what to do if I actually accomplished something.

The only time I left campus this weekend was just now, when I went to McDonald’s for two McRibs. They were pretty good, but the whole experience was kind of depressing. For one thing, I had Fast Food Nation facts and stories going through my head the whole time, and I was also sort of “drafting” my FFN form of the visit in my head. In fact, here’s a vague recollection, for your enjoyment:

“On the way in, I followed a Hispanic woman and her obese child, both of whom had trouble understanding the cashier taking their order. After the son got his drink the first time, he spilled it all over the counter and floor, and tried to get me to tell the cashier, who had already noticed and took care of it shortly afterwards. I had to avoid the spill as I got my own drink and napkins. As I ate my McRibs alone in the corner, a feeling of bleakness sank over me, and I couldn’t help but be a bit depressed. Things of note: I asked for no pickles on my sandwiches, but got no onions instead; a sign on a temple across the street which reads ‘Jesus Only,’ a phrase that only confuses me more every time I see it; and a McDonald’s worker taking a nap while sitting in a booth in another corner. When he’s awake, he often looks either at me or something behind me. I can’t tell which.”

et cetera. I can’t help but wonder what else I could be doing with my time, and why on earth I haven’t tried to do it yet. And so, I regret my present, but in a few scant months, I won’t mind anymore.