The State Of Things

Progress: 2

Outlook from this morning, North-East of England, fair to moderate:

DG:6

DS: 7

G: 7

GT: 6

NT: 3

MT: 8

Average: 37/6 = 6.16666. Rising slowly – sunny intervals.

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Jenny’s most recent post reminded me that I have progress to report on another front. As of a bit over two weeks ago now, I have been taking 40mg a day of Citalopram and finally I can boast to mood levels which a bit more than ‘functional’. There are still days when I dip quite badly, there are still frequent patches of disabling anxiety, and I still have the concentration span of a gnat for the greater part of things. But all of these are getting lesser, gradually, and I really am hopeful that this is what’s going to work for me – more and more I am just starting to feel like ‘me’ again, which is nice! And y’know, everyone’s allowed a bit of third year exam stress, aren’t they?

Even better, I’m having counselling again. It’s with a new person as the woman I was seeing before still isn’t back from long-term sick leave. When I rang up the service to arrange things before the start of term, I surprised myself by asking to speak to someone female. I still to this day don’t quite know why, but to have them say “Yes, of course”, unquestioningly, was such a relief. Sometimes emotions just don’t rely on logic, I guess, and for once I don’t feel majorly inadequate for putting that into practice.

So yes. I hope I’m not speaking too soon, but long may the general trend continue :-)

Boolean Logic

I’m well or I’m ill, it would seem.

So that means that I’m either well and can take six third-year exams in eight days as normal, or I’m ill so I have to take the year out (- nice sympathetic response from the university there). I’m clearly well enough to go to lectures, so I must be well enough to sit down in the library and enthusiastically figure out all the stuff I have thus far failed to think about. I’m with it enough to hold a coherent conversation most of the time, so of course I’m completely sorted when it comes to stressful itineraries and on-the-spot decision making.

I’m tons better on citalopram than I was on fluoxetine – so now I’m completely better, full stop, and don’t have to have allowances made for me any more, because being better means that there are blue skies and happy sunshines and shiny silver bits floating about in the trees, and no lows, and no anxiety, and everything’s normal again so I can get on with life. Green spots, guys. Green spots.

Sometimes I think that people are simply trying to persuade themselves that it’s that easy, because they don’t want to have to think about or deal with the alternative. I have a lot of sympathy, I really do.

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In other news, I haven’t had counselling for well over a month now because the already struggling counselling service has two people (including the one I see normally) on long-term sick leave. Which kinda sucks all round, really.

‘appenings

Things what’s been ‘appening recently, in no particular order. It’s a bit of a long’un, I warn you:

- At about half twelve this lunchtime, I experienced a moment of real triumph when I finally got my basic GUI to work. No glitches, no incorrect syntax, no user-traps, and a beautiful, beautiful programme that does exactly what it’s meant to (and I even know why!). I had a bit of advice in the early parts from a CompSci friend who has a rather quicker grasp of object handling than I, but we both agreed that him pointing me in the direction was a much better approach than him actually doing the coding for me – and I designed and built the actual interface part myself from start to finish. Which I have to say I’m pretty proud of, considering that I’m by no means the fastest coder and that this is where I am only twelve hours after first sitting down and going, “So, MATLAB….”

I would post a picture, but unfortunately I only have access to the software on the university computers so it may have to wait for a future occasion. I know, I know!

It’s not the end of the road by any means, but what’s left to do simply involves modifying and titivating what I already have – all the code is essentially written. Oh, and then I have to make it into a 15-minute presentation for seven days’ time. And write a 4000-word essay… but hey, I’ll be in a much stronger position to do that with the programme there.

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- In a related vein, I’ve come to a decision of sorts with regards to my degree. And I guess that the above paragraphs tell you that decision already – I’ve decided to carry on as best I can. The citalopram has by no means made things go away as such, but it does seem to have made me sufficiently stable to contemplate thinking about things again, even if to a slightly reduced capacity.

The fact is that the university have left me with no choice but to fight or accept failure. And I am going to be of the ones who fights their damn hardest.

When my parents came up ten days ago, my Mum and I discussed strategies – for working, and modules, and the like. As a result, I have now spoken to two lecturers about Stuff – about the fact that I’ve been struggling, about why I haven’t handed in any homeworks this year, and about the fact that it will take an absolute miracle for me to pass this year and that any help would be appreciated. In addition to the fact that my Maths Teaching lecturers already knew*, that covers half my modules. Well, two and a half, anyway, and that includes the second half of Number Theory which is the one that I really can’t do.

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- As of a few weeks ago, I have two new housemates and a prospective house for next year, which is nice. I’ve met the second housemate twice (!) and have yet to see the house, but I’ve been very nicely guaranteed a bed in college should that all fall through, and it’s quite nice to have some security. Great as college was in my first year I really don’t want to move back in, and at one point I thought that I was going to have no choice – and the one thing worse than living in college would have been living with people who didn’t know me or my situation.

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- I was sitting in one of the IT classrooms earlier, playing about with bits of code and trying to work out why I couldn’t assign a value to my global variable (I figured it out eventually**) and idly watching the screen of the lad just in front of me (yes, bad Lucy, I know). He was on Google Maps. He typed in somewhere in Cumbria, and zoomed in really close on to what looked like a school building. He paused there for a while, then scrolled the map along, following a series of roads along a particular route.

I know where he was scrolling. He was scrolling home. I had to look away because I was in danger of being overwhelmed by the homesickness that prompts me to do the same thing.

It’s funny how similar we all are :-)

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*Reason 1: Summative coursework. Reason 2: I was in close contact with large numbers of school kids six days into fluoxetine. I mean, come on?!

**Two identical variable names, one global, one local. Yes, that was very stupid.

A Parting Of The Ways

The last two days have been bad days. Not bad days just because, which is good in one sense as it means that there is hope for me and citalopram yet. But having a bad day for a so-called legitimate reason is still not exactly fun in anyone’s book, and boy, have I had a bad couple of days.

To cut a long story short, then, the university have informed me that me and my degree effectively have two options: exams this May, or exams next May after a year out. It’s hideously complicated, there has been contradictory information flying about all over the place, and no decision is helped by the fact that there are so many hypotheticals. The issues mainly derive from the fact that you cannot resit modules in third year, even if you’re going on to a fourth year of the course. The stakes are high for everyone at this stage.

But yes, that’s how it is. And it’s quite a stark choice to be making, once everything’s been put into the equation.

Thing is, I’ve been aware all along that any mitigating circumstances request could be turned down. I’ve been aware all along that the option I perceive as being best for me might run into unavoidable technicalities somewhere, and hey, life’s a bitch. But what I was not aware of was quite how misinformed and plain inappropriate the university’s reasoning behind this decision would be. Isn’t the whole point of mitigating circumstances that you cannot just follow the rule-book without looking at the case in hand? I am trying so, so bloody hard to help myself – with my health (mental and otherwise), with my degree, with going to the right places and informing the right people and playing by their system – that this whole thing just feels like a big kick in the teeth, forcing me back down where I started.

They haven’t got a fucking clue what they’re talking about, basically. Depression does not bring you out in green spots.

And yes, I am well aware of the irony that I am writing this on the last day of ‘Mental Health Awareness Week’.

Do. Not. Want.

Today has been one of those days of Do. Not. Want..

It’s been gloriously sunny, so I did head down to town to buy some vegetables and the like, but it took me a long while to make a decision on anything and a combination of the heaviness of my rucksack and the waves of tiredness/ faintness/ nausea that had started before leaving the house persuaded me to catch the bus back up the hill.

Then I came home, and ate an apple and some flapjack, and eventually cooked lunch. Then I read the paper. Then internet-ted while eating chocolate. Then curled up on my bed with some more of the paper and some custard creams. Nausea only turns me off orange juice, it would seem – I still manage to consume sweet and unhealthy things at an alarming rate.

I was going to go out tonight but college tutor hour’s been cancelled. I have an overdue summative essay (with extension, worry not) that is under half done. I don’t actually give a damn about it. The only constructive thing that I can contemplate doing is starting to work on the camisole that I’ve got a pattern for – but all that’s back in Birmingham, and hypothetical constructive plans are a bit of a contradiction in terms, anyway.

I could go and chat to my housemates but they’re probably working, and, well, I’m never sure exactly what to say to them when I’m in one of these moods. I’m sure that the feeling’s mutual.

On the positive side, though, I’m a week into taking the citalopram and so far so OK. It’s not lifted me up particularly, it is true, and there are a couple of new side effects (: perceived raised temperature and faintness). But I have been feeling mildly more balanced recently and haven’t had any of the plummeting lows in the last week, so I am hopeful yet – especially given that it’s meant to take a couple of weeks to kick in anyway and I’ve probably still got a fair amount of t’other in my system.

If it wasn’t for the whole anonymity/ shred of self-dignity thing, I would post a picture of just how much I’ve been screwing my face up for the greater part of today. It’s not pretty, but does have the same sort of satisfaction factor that kids get from crossing their eyes and sticking out their tongue…

All Change, Please, All Change

The gods of t’internet must have noticed that ‘Fluoxetine’ was looming disproportionately large over the category cloud at the right of this blog, and have realised that for it still to be that dominant (in a bad way), som’ing was up. Or maybe that was just me. Either way, that category will loom no larger as I have a new one to replace it.

So yeh, I guess we’re back to Day One again, so to speak.

I thought I’d spare you the Wikipedia-combing this time :-)