A Long, Hot Summer

Summer's been rolling by really quickly for me this year. I've tried my best to keep busy, although the past few weeks have been kind of boring for me. It's funny how, as long as I'm in school, there's nothing I want more than to have time off to relax and do nothing. But when I finally have time off, I'm bored and uninspired beyond belief, to the point where I can't get anything productive done at all and simply resting and relaxing feels like a waste of time. I feel a lot of pressure to get something done while I still have time and before school starts, but I don't know if I'm going to manage to accomplish anything that would meet my standards before my vacation ends in another month. I've been working on videos and dabbling in music recording but I get frustrated so quickly these days that I almost never have anything to show for myself after sitting down to presumably "make" something, an idea I've grown obsessed with but simply don't have the talent or patience to do.

I'm feeling pretty lonely these days, too. I don't know how to meet people or make friends. I'm still going to be the oldest person in my classes when I get back to school in another month, a fact that makes me seriously embarrassed and insecure. These feelings just make me retreat further into myself when I'm on campus, which only makes the problem worse. I've tried to use the Internet as a means to reach out to others, but it's hard to find active communities of people that share any of my interests, and who might be somewhat close in age to me. It's really troubling when all my interests, my mindset, and my appearance peg me as someone around 22 or 23, when in fact I'm a 33 year old living in a basement. I have found a promising social group online that seems like a good place to make friends at, but they only meet on weekends and never agree on when to do so until shortly beforehand. So this isn't something that I can request time off at work to try out.

Sometimes I find that the only way for me to get through the day is to try to forget who I am and what my situation is, because any time I grow cognizant or thoughtful of my situation I just feel a deep sense of shame and fear about myself, where I've been stuck and where I'll probably be for the next few years. I know that I'm working toward a goal but it's one that's been set back even more after I failed to complete my chemistry class this summer. So add another year onto my plan to actually get out of here and start living life like a real adult.

I've put on a lot of weight over the past year so I'm trying to pay more attention to what I eat and when. In addition, I've decided to start weaning myself off of my Pristiq, which is what helped balloon me by 30+ pounds in the first place, by slowly and methodically lowering my weekly dosage. I know that this is not recommended but it's literally the only choice I've been able to take into my own hands in quite some time, so it feels empowering and seems to be helping. I go back in to see my doctor tomorrow for the first time in a few months. I'm not really sure if or how I'll talk to her about it. Our times together don't lead to much besides renewing my perscriptions, and while I know she cares about my well being, I can't help but feel like there are other interests involved as well. Why was I placed on such an expensive medication to begin with? Why weren't cheaper alternatives considered? Anyhow, I'll drop another $125 on seeing her again tomorrow. My short-term insurance is due to run out in a few days but never covered any psychiatric care or medication (which comes to about $600 every 3 months) to begin with, so getting it was kind of a waste of money. I'm sure that Blue Cross couldn't be happier, though. Now they can label my depression as a pre-existing condition that can't be covered at all, no matter what kind of "real" insurance I'd choose to buy sometime soon, until I've been covered again with a good plan for over a year. I hate having to spend so much of my money on all this garbage, which I swore that I wouldn't get suckered into again way back when I first decided to go into counseling three years ago (and had real insurance through my full-time job). Now they've got me, just as they planned, as I'm chemically-dependent on their products and can't just quit no matter how badly I want to.

I'm at work now, sitting in for someone on vacation in another department, so I have a place to sit down and Internet, for once. I was hoping that getting all these thoughts down would make me feel better or give me a feeling of catharsis but instead it's only made me notice how simple and dull my writing has become. It used to be something that helped me express myself and gave me a feeling of accomplishment, but no longer. It's a terrible chore for me to write entries in my regular blog, and when I do they're boring and have no depth whatsoever. Is it because I've lapsed into a lifestyle of staring at screens all day instead of reading books and having real experiences? Honest to God, I used to be a good writer, really.

I just started a Livejournal account -- exactly why, I'm not sure -- and wanted to post something revealing in it, but then it occurred to me that literally no one would read it (despite my best efforts to find "friends" there -- anime communities are mostly garbage, all the music communities are in Russian and the adult depression group looks like it's dead) so I decided to post again here today. I hope you're having a good day today. Mine is going okay, better than yesterday at least.