What I Learned this Week 3/11/17

Buffalo Marches can be incredibly unpredictable. But this winter has been tranquil in comparison to many.
Financial matters do not get any less frustrating or scary. And, in fact, they get more so. To the point where you want to bite someone's head off for impeding your life, your dreams, your passions, and your needs.
I have no idea why I have this insatiable appetite of late, it is really frustrating.
Two weeks is too long to go without seeing the psych...
I have more emotion when it comes to dealing with my family member's upsets than my own.. and that is not healthy, that much I have learned. I have been leaned on too long to support the weight of others at this point.
Ask for what you want. Without embarrassment. Without hesitation. You just might get it. You just might need what you have asked for.
But, I am acutely aware of how much I fear looking weak.
I do, in fact, NEED to study. And I can, in fact, only get an 87% on an online, open book test.
Autism spectrum disorders are some of the hardest to accommodate for in a post secondary education setting and we are no where near prepared to accommodate them. Disability offices tend not to have the scope, resources, or financial reach to help this type of student. They tend to fall through the cracks even with incredibly high levels of intelligence and this frustrates me to no end. likewise with veterans; we must help them more.
My boss has Hashimoto's thyroiditis as well.
No one seems to be able to do anything to help my situation, but they all feel it is unfair.

Cholesterol does not contribute at all to calorie intake.
Motivational interviewing is incredible and I need to practice it more.

My birthday is on Tuesday; I will be 26 yo. End of health insurance and beginning of the ugly 20s. Here's to 26 and still being a student. Here's to 26 and being much healthier than 21. Here's to 26 and learning to love myself and be myself. And on and on.

Check out the new videos from this week:

Hashimoto's

Let's try some alternative therapies in addition to traditional Western meds and medicine

What I Learned this Week 3/4/2017

Cajun and Creole are not the same thing. King cake tastes like lemon, and that is not a good thing. I am not a fan of praline, even though I LOVE pecans.
My classmates/lab mates are pretty dang awesome and interesting, and supportive. Another classmate's name is Callie.
Driving in the snow isn't so bad if its been sub 20 degree temps for a few days. but also awesome. Driving around Buffalo is fine midday on Saturday... quite enjoyable in fact.  The longer I stay out of my room, the more productive I am when I return.
My roommate is passive-aggressive,
Making videos is important to me. And it takes courage to post about things that reveal so much of your own mind, some things you do not even want to admit to yourself.
I am starting to care about the people here and my place here. And I need to stop it, NOW.
Off the shoulder tops make me feel good about myself. My favorite body part is my shoulders and décolletage... or is it décolletté?
My hair changes color wildly depending on the lighting source... I guess like most people's. My eyes change color depending on pupil size and mood>? Question about the mood thing.. but when I am sad they seem to be greener than usual. Often they are a grey/teal combo and rarely blue.
People think I am of Irish decent, but I am pretty positive I am Dutch, English, German, and Welsh; not Irish or Scottish, regardless of the reddish hair.
People underestimate me.
My boss thinks I am incredibly intelligent and trusts me.
My professors seem to think we know less than we do, as students. Or maybe, I know more about physiology, drugs, and clinical terms than most of the rest of my peers.This makes me nervous because I have this intense feeling that I am about to fall on my face and make a fool/ass of myself.


This week, I put more effort into my appearance, even though it pained me. I do not know why I would try to look better than I have since I got here, that is what people have come to expect from me. I am setting myself up for failure. I have this odd sense of self-loathing right now; although, I am working on focusing on the things that make me happy.

I am still afraid to ask for help. But my therapist is working with me on identifying my actual fears, the root of my fears. I cannot just tell myself that I am afraid of everything. If that were true, I would not do anything, not go to class, not eat, not leave my bed. And while some days it is incredibly hard to leave my bed, I do it. I get up. I go to class, I go to work. I get dressed. Some days I hide my true self, appearance and all. Some days I outright lie about myself, my history, my likes and dislikes. All so that people do not get to know me. That is a fear. That no one will like me if they know me. I have worn so many different masks throughout my life; there is one for every role I have been thrust in to. But what mask do I wear for a role I have finally put myself in? Did I actually pick this role? If I did, is it okay to be myself?
I am afraid of myself.
What does that mean? Where does it leave me? If I do not know who I am, what does that make me?

Almost every week I write this blog about the things I have learned, realized, and tried during the previous week(s). But I do not even know the basics. I have learned nothing about myself.
I look back on all the things I have done, all the good things and the bad, the big things and the small. But I know nothing. I can identify sometimes where I have learned things about myself and they are all when I learned a new thing that I am afraid of and how amazed I was that I was strong enough to handle the situation. Most of them, I handled badly. Meaning, I retreated further from myself and from others. I separated myself from my emotions and my own mind, terrified of what lurked there.

I had really poor example of affection, trust, and love growing up. It got even harder as I got older to identify emotions and to identify with other people. I am to the point now, where I trust no one, not even myself, least of all myself. I have a few friends. Those friends do not know me either. And there are maybe 2 or 3 people on the planet whom I would trust to know the real me, even before I know it myself.

While I am constantly amazed at my resiliency and strength in the moment of adversity, I cannot prepare myself for the future. I am terrified of it and myself, and everyone else. Everything that can go wrong will, that is what I trust. And although I know that, I do not know how to prepare myself, so I do not, and that leaves me to be strong in the moment and pick of the pieces of myself and my relationships and run farther away from them and the problem.

Even as I read this back, it does not make much sense. I do know what I want to do, nothing specific. I want to succeed.
I want to feel like a success.
I want to be motivated and inspired.
I want to be an inspiration.
I want to stop using my life as an excuse.
I want to be truthful.
I want to want to be self-sufficient.
I want to be able to ask for help without feeling like a failure. I want to be able to do it at all.
I want to be able to make friends.
I want to be able to trust myself.
I want to be able to let others in.
I want to be wanted.
I want to know that I am wanted.
I want to be able to be prepared for the future, which means acknowledging weaknesses and fears and not letting them stop me.
I want to stop hiding from myself and everyone else.
I want to know what any of this means.
I want to know what I am actually afraid of.
I want to be able to share my burdens and not feel like a burden or a failure.
I want to feel beautiful inside and out.
I want to be acknowledged and gratified.
I want to practice what I preach.
I want to be courageous and strong.
I want to be open. Open to others, open for others, open to myself, open to experience, open to love.

None of this has to do with school or finances, or any other stress in my life. The root of my issues is internal. I know that now. But there is so much I want, and I have no idea how to get started.


This week's videos reflect some of this. I am now past suicidal ideation, but for a while, it was a very real, plausible solution to the lack of haves and the surplus of wants. Check out the update and anxiety/depression videos linked below.

Weekly Update

Suicidal ideation video

Check back later for more posts and videos, I promise they are not all this depressing. Some of them, in fact, are rather informative.

~S