Stress @ MindSay

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Today's session with Dianne just seemed like an hour of whinging about Shelly.
Well it's not my fault - I'm supposed to talk about things that are on my mind and things that are bothering me recently - and at current, Shelly is being a bit of a twat at times.
Either way - even if it seemed I was whinging about her and nothing else, it did help a little. I got a chance to think about things I'd been putting off for a while.
 
Afterwards, I met up with Adam in the LRC.
Well, he met up with me - I was already there. He came bearing a bag full of Pringles - so I snaffled some. It's difficult to eat them quietly like. I was trying to suck them until they went soft so I could bite them and not cause a great disturbance via crunching - but that was easier thought than performed.
 
I was stressed out in English when Angela had her mini-rant about personal statements - and after she'd given me the 'stare-into-your-soul' glance, and I'd admitted I hadn't started mine - and the reason why - she said she'd help me with it if I stayed behind after the lesson. Fair do's - I would have just went straight home afterwards and continued to procrastinate and put it off anyway.
 
Oh, but Angela's a proper babe like. :D
She didn't write it for me as such - but she dictated a few starting sentences to me, giving me a clue of the type of things I needed to write.
And the fact Angela assured me that you DON'T actually need to blag about all these "positive qualities" you supposedly have as a person (naturally, I don't have ANY, so I find that task in itself impossible) - it was a lot easier than I expected it to be.
 
The majority of mine does come from writing about my interests. And because I'm so epic - most of the relate to the course I want to do at university. Hmm, now to have it critiqued by Sarah. :/

It's only 4:30, and I am ready to collapse.

 

Here's some of the stuff that was on my plate today:

 

-- One of my ESPs (Educational Support Professional, aka a para or an aide at other schools), Kathleen, was taking a personal day today. That's totally fine.  Yesterday, my ESP Stacey's daughter got sick at her school and Stace had to leave at like 1:30 to take care of her, so I thought she might be absent today.  I gave this info to a fellow teacher, Susan, who runs another 'program' in the building.  She told me one of her ESPs was going to be out. 

Each day, a fax comes to the main office from the sub caller saying who is absent.

Imagine my nausea when Susan came to my room and said, "they're both out, and there are no subs".  I almost had a heart attack.  THANKFULLY, she meant Kathleen and her ESP, NOT Kathleen and Stacey.

-- However, Kathleen works with a kid who needs CONSTANT supervision (T), so there was no option of 'okay, he'll be on his own today'.  'Shit' I say to myself, 'I'm already understaffed when all of them are HERE, being down another one will kill me!''. 

It did NOT kill me, btw.  We did an experiment where Sandy left X alone all day, and she went around as Kathleen, and I'd be her at his lunch period so she could eat.  OYYY.  It also F'ed up Paula and Dot's lunches.  I can't wait to have enough staff.  It will never happen, though.

-- M had TWO bathroom accidents today.  The day before we were going to throw a blow-out party for her for being dry for an entire month.  I thought we should have it anyway, because we were at ALMOST a month (this was after the 1st, just-pee accident :-/), but Paula alerted me that earlier M threatened her with, "If you don't _____ I'll pee my pants".

-- Speaking of M, her foster-mom just stopped in here (it's 4:40) to see if I was in.  We talked a week ago about how she never intended to adopt her and that their time together would be ending soon but M doesn't know HOW soon it really could be.  Well, mom just told me they've found a prospective family in West Springfield, and she's actually going to be having an overnight with them...TOMORROW.  As in, if this goes well, and this is for real, she could be leaving NEXT WEEK.  I'm devestated at the thought of it.

PS, she's going to tell her about it tonight, so that means tomorrow might be HELL, and also, the behaviors like bathroom issues and defiance are probably going to spike.  w00t.

-- I got to have another interaction with ZF today.  He is not my student, but probably will be soon.  The child is out-of-control, makes-other-behavior-kids-look-like-angels outta control.  He has an ESP who has NO IDEA what to do with him.  Twice this week, I've had to escort him into the break room because he's been kicking and scratching her. Not that he hasn't been doing it to me when I am the one getting him into the room because she doesn't.  He left some good marks today. 

-- This one made me laugh.  I guess you'd have to know the student to laugh along with me, but there is a boy in Susan's program, H, who is quite a handful.  He is very violent and hands-on as well - he's also really sweet, but if you spend time with him, you see a lot more aggression than the sweet side.  Anyway, while watching T at recess today, I turned around and saw H on all 4s behind another kid, squeezing him.  I told him to let go, and surprisingly, he did without incident.  I have heard one of his ESPs, Ashley tell him, "no contact" as in, hands off, so as he and the boys ran away, I yelled, "Boys, no contact".  I didn't single HIM out, I made it the whole group.

Either way, H stops, cocks his hip out and goes, "You know what I want? (beat) To kick you".  I was TEMPTED to say, 'thank you for not' but I clamped my mouth shut.  HOWEVER, H not hurting someone is big news.  Of course, he broke a kids glasses today, but ... he didn't kick me when he wanted to :).

-- Oh yeah; Stacey came in this morning and told me she's applying for a transfer back to her old school because she hates working in the program.  Not her student, not me or my staff, but the program itself.  I knew she was unhappy from the get-go, but ... seriously?  You're going to fucking do that to us after you made a huge fucking deal about us NOT splitting the days up so you'd always be with that student?

I can't tell if I'm hoping she gets it or not. 

Apparently, I'm madder about that than I thought I was. 

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I can stop fretting about starting UCAS application late now. I took advantage of the time in tutorial, had a mooch about on the university website, then started filling out my application forms.
Naturally, I can't fill all of it in yet, for I'm lacking all the codes and signitures - but I did all that I could do. I even made a FIRM POINT of writing DIXIE in my preffered name box. Hmmm, I'm not going through any more years of education with my tutors calling me a name I despise.

Sarah let us go early, so in this 1-hour gap - I went into the LRC - went up to the 3rd floor and started writing more of my scripts. I was mainly finishing off the Abigail film sequence script. I managed to get it all written, divided up and colour-coded - then Lewis came and found me.
We were proper late for Media Studies, so we ended up sat right at the back so we couldn't even see the frigging whiteboard. We had to watch that shitty Location, Location, Location clip where Middlesbrough was voted Britain's #1 worst town - then pick out the representational codes. It was tedious, but not exactly difficult.

Photography was a bit of a wasted effort. We practically came in for nothing because Paul wasn't even in. So I spent the lesson writing out more scripts - currently, I'm that obsessed with RCP and all my ideas, I can't keep them off my mind for longer than 20 minutes. It's horrible. More so because I'm going to have to wait at least a fortnight before we get to film anything.

I was annoyed in Film Studies.
Was mint though - Anne Marie set us off, she told us to come up with our own idea for a film, then we had to make a poster about it, noting narrative, characters, iconography and the rest. Naturally, this was just an excuse to ponder more into the film sequence I had planned - so my poster was all about Abigail.
I even decorated it with some little "items of iconography" - razors, knives, gravestones, broken glass, walking cane, wheelchair, blood, matches and candles. Then I drew little portraits of Abigail and Jonathan. They were so fucking epic - I wanted to keep my poster, but they were going on the wall... :(

Conway asked to see it, once she'd caught a glimpse. I wasn't arsed about showing her, but I didn't want to read out my ideas to everyone, so Anne Marie did it for me. Mwah.

My head is still cloudy, my eyes swollen, my face flushed with heat, and my chest heavy with the pains of sorrow. I find myself constantly hiding in bed under my blankets trying to chase away tears. I know there are people who care about and love me, but my body goes through this terrible grief at this time of year. My moods are swinging like a hanged man -- one moment I'm well, the next I'm howling from emotional pain. It's my crazy again. I just admitted myself into the hospital ER this evening. I kinda hobbled in, hyperventilating, choaking on my tears, vomitting up what I just ate, and looking a complete wreck. What triggered this?




An argument over money with my brother. I need to survive on more than $20 a week. He refused to give me anything more than that. I made a list of everything I need to buy. It still didn't matter. My brother refused to budge. But it wasn't really about the money. After he spent more than a week very deathly ill with the H1N1 flu virus (scaring me half to death) I patiently waited for him to be well, waiting constantly by the phone for updates from him. When he's finally well enough to go out to eat, he's a complete sour puss, talking down to me, and flat out insulting me in front of strangers. He tries to apologize, but it gets under my skin.



I love to share my artwork with friends and I consider my brother one of my best friends, but after we get a table and sit down to talk, I pull out my sketchbook to show him my latest illustrated ideas. He scoffs at it and then asks, "Why do I have to look at this?" I almost break into tears. I scoff back with, "You're just like our other relatives, Star, not interested in anything I do. One day you'll regret that." He just gently tells me to shut-up because he's just gotten over the flu and needs silence. "This is why I didn't want to eat out," he says long after we've ordered food and sat down. I can understand being grumpy after being sick, but... my feelings get hurt anyway.



I hold back anything else I could say that would be nasty and maybe that's not such a good thing. Holding back hurt tends to build it up. So all my concern for my brother's well being and my eagerness to share with him after I'm happy he's well is shattered by his sour pussing put-me-downs. I begin to feel like if I can't have my brother's care and approval, how can anyone else really care about me? A dark cloud begins to overshadow the entire day. The more time I spent with my brother, the more he made it clear that spending time with me was a chore he desparately wanted to be over and done with. It's that kind of attitude that compells me to be an introvert.



Why does my family treat me this way? Why can't I have their support and love? Why don't they love my drawings and creations the way my friends do?



After we argued over the money (I have over $300 in the bank, mind you, enough to pay bills and have some fun) I literally exited my brother's car and took off for the hospital because an anxiety fit was coming on. It started to feel like the whole world was crashing down on me and the only place I felt safe was the hospital. By the time I got to the front desk I was sobbing so hard I couldn't articulate what I was going through. Even though I kept telling her not to fuss over me because I'm just depressed, the receptionist felt bad for me and walked me over to the ER. On the way, I nearly lost my dinner, throwing up half of it on the carpet and just feeling very pathetic.


I felt worse in the waiting area trying to control my emotions. There was a little boy nearby who was screaming and he paused when he saw me, an adult, weeping as bad, if not worse, than he was! I laughed while crying, mirroring my own, his eyes twinkled with tears and for a meek little second he seemed to crack a shocked smile back at me, as if his heart were pointing out to his mother, "Hey, Mom, I didn't know grown ups could weep worse than me!"


There's nothing worse than going to the ER for anxiety. Only a psychiatrist can handle you if you're mentally ill, a regular doctor on call at the ER can only pat your shoulder, so to speak. But it's better to have a breakdown in a hospital than it is to just go ape shit on the street. The doctor I did see had asshole bedside manner, making me feel like the anxiety is all in my head, but, hey, "take this pill and go home to relax" and once again I'm left feeling like a problem easily shook off his shoulders.



The nurses on staff tonight all had wonderful bedside manner and were happy to try to distract me from my weeping fit. One way to distract me was to turn on the television and watch the history channel! And the first thing I did with the meesly $20 my brother gave me was rent a few movies. It abates the loneliness and fuels my creativity, but I'm still left with the after taste of sorrow.



As I write this, I begin to figure out what else could be bothering me at this time. October is a month when a lot of violence and emotional break-ups happened to me in both my recent and distant past. The only joy I get out of October is Halloween and Samhain -- the dressing up, the candy, the horror movies that go on sale, and dreaming up ways to decorate my altar, creating spells, working out a list of things I'm thankful for and wish for, blahdee blahdee da! But no matter how much I put it in the back of my mind, my heart skips several beats and my body remembers better than I do what I have survived and I get all bent over with grief. I spend a lot of time in bed this time of year, making me feel all the more of a loser. What can I do to shake out of this?



For the time being, I'm making a mix CD of my favorite haunted house themed music and keeping my chin up believing that nothing can get worse now. Okay, so I have less than $20 to keep me comfy for the rest of the month, or at least until my brother (my payee representative who is the only person authorized to handle my finances until I'm deemed less crazy) decides to agree with me that I need more, so I should make the most of it, right? *grumbles*



Right now I want to just want Taco Bell for supper. I think that is what I'll do. I want to write more off my shoulders, but after re-reading midway through this post, I feel the need to end on a cheery note so friends don't worry about me. I don't often like to write out my feelings this much on my blog anymore. I try to make it a goal to post mostly my art and keep positive about the future. I ache to show off to myself, if no one else, that I am keeping productive, even though I'm not making money and feel the urge to push myself harder to submit my work to publishers. But the act of producing art has a way of keeping me sane and I don't need the rejection of publishers to take away the joy I get out of drawing. I want so BADLY to tell my stories and share my characters with the rest of the world because I really do believe you all will love them, so I create with much emotion, obsessing over details and taking a long while to form ideas and images, etc. Besides feeling sorry for myself, I really feel bad that I am not mentally and emotionally well enough right now to network.



Perhaps I just need to be a little more gentle and patient with myself?

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