Am I capable of graduate study?

My mom has been pushing the issue of applying for disability for a while and since the Obamacare insurance deadline is coming up, she decided that it's the perfect time to put in the application, even though it takes five months to start paying out anyhow.

While we were at the lawyer's office, my mom asks about what would happen if we were to move once it was instated and tells him that I am applying to graduate school. Of course, this results in a question on his side: is she really capable of keeping up with school? If so, then why not work?

He asked further questions about where I went to school and what I studied, and commented on the fact that English was a useless degree, and I explained very hastily and passionately that literature was the one thing that I can actually do and if I were to be able to work at the same job for a reasonable amount of time, it would be in this field.

But of course his questions have made me doubt myself. Am I capable? I've been struggling with reading comprehension, memory, and attention issues. I had a bit of a crisis, but I guess we'll see.

Black-and-White Thinking

This post has been inspired by a book that I'm currently reading: Change Your Thinking: Overcome Stress, Anxiety & Depression, and Improve Your Life with CBT by Dr. Sarah Edelman.

The second chapter of her book, Recognizing Faulty Thinking lists a multitude of common logical mistakes that people make when thinking about their present situations and circumstances. I may write more posts as I go if more of them strike me as closely as this one did, but I don't want to lose my focus right now.

Rather recently, both my mom and stepfather pointed out that I always had problems socially. While I agree that I wasn't an overly social child or teenager, at the time I never really noticed how reclusive I really was. I have a notoriously unreliable memory, but when I think back on my life, I know I preferred being alone most of the time. I did have friends here and there, but never anything long-term and I never really got close to people. I never really wondered why, it just never really happened. I was never interested in people.  

At some point my mom brought up that as far as people were concerned, I always either really loved someone or really hated them. She said if a friend or a boyfriend did something wrong, I immediately cut them off and proceeded to completely forget they ever existed. This is something I notice a little bit in my life as an adult, but hearing her describe my childhood like this shocked and saddened me to a degree, even knowing I preferred to be alone. It just seems so brash and cold, and I never thought I came off that way. I never understood social relationships.

I never really did see any middle ground, not just in my social life but at all whatsoever. It either is or it isn't, what's the problem?

Sarah Edelman writes an example of this type of thinking in her book: "Sasha's black-and-white thinking causes her to feel unnecessary resentment, and limits her ability to make friends and enjoy social relationships."

Recognizing this as faulty thinking is going to be a bit tough but hopefully with the help of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy I can turn it around. As I've been able to recognize my behavior more in adulthood and have considered what I want for my life, I've realized that I shut people out, alienate them, and generally make them feel terrible and that's not what I mean to do. Then I wonder why my relationships don't work out or why I only really have one friend. Why people don't include me in their social circles and look at me like I'm crazy when I try to socialize. Some have said to me "that's just the way she is" and that they know me and it's okay when I'm out of line, but those kinds of flippant dismissals just make me feel worse about myself.

I know that my mood disorder has caused a lot of the issues -- cancelling plans, causing an argument over nothing, refusing to compromise, not responding to someone's messages, thinking and acting selfishly, etc -- but now that I'm on my medication and my moods are relatively stable, I can take steps to change these behaviors and I no longer have any excuse for making everyone around me miserable. I no longer have to see things in black and white, I can choose to see the gray. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm lowering my standards or that anyone is any "worse" than I am, but that not everyone agrees on everything and not everyone has to comply with my moods.

The older I get, the more I wish I had more social skills and was able to be a better friend, the more I wish I had someone to turn to when I wanted to talk. I hope cognitive behavioral therapy helps me to fix my faulty thinking and develop friendships so I can provide support for others and give something in return.

This first and foremost includes my parents who have forever loved me and provided for me even though I've always had these problems and never done anything for them. I guess we'll see. 

Some time ago, the writer of some magazine article that I've since forgotten quoted Slash and discussed a principle that I immediately loved and have tried to keep in mind ever since. That principle was that if you wanted to make your dream job a reality, you should treat your passion as if it was already your job, no matter what it is. 

For him this meant playing guitar for at least 8 hours a day.

For me it means: if you want to be a writer, write for 8 hours a day. If you want to be a professor, read literature and literary theory for at least 8 hours a day.

Reading Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography only added to that advice. Seeing the way he divides his day into 8-hour increments and admiring the way he breaks down his day, I was only further convinced that committing 8 hours a day was the way to go.

While filling out my applications, though, I've realized that I have lost that principle once again. I find myself thinking about books as if I've already read them and writing Statements of Purpose as though I'm compiling a list of all the things I want to do while simultaneously failing to begin doing them. How can I expect to survive as a graduate student if I barely read anymore? I will undoubtedly get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of reading required and freeze with anxiety if I don't start getting back into it sooner rather than later.

This is exactly the type of behavior that gets me into trouble. I get ahead of myself. I need to take it one step at a time and start treating this as if it's my job, which means at least 8 hours of reading books and writing about them without constant television, video game, and text message interruptions.

A lot of literature I've read about my disorder, and a lot of my sessions with my therapist have led back to the fact that structure and routine is something that I will always struggle with. No matter how many to-do lists I make, whether digital or written, no matter how many calendars I keep, no matter how much I tell myself I need to do something, I always end up forgetting about it and doing whatever I feel like doing. However, in order to take control of my moods and my days overall, I need to implement some sort of routine. Letting my mood dictate my entire life is not going to lead to any kind of accomplishment at all. 

Self-discipline is a part of the balancing act that I don't think I will ever perfect, but it's crucial that it's something that I become more aware of and work harder toward maintaining.

Week 4 Journal Writing

In your writing journal, you will begin to practice building sentences with adjective and adverbial clauses. For this journal entry, discuss some of the advantages of the place where you live. Using the lists associated with each of these types of clauses, write at least three (3) sentences including adjective clauses and three (3) sentences including adverbial clauses. Underline the adjective and adverbial clauses. Consider their function in both as a modifier and an aspect of your writing style.

Adverbial

Although I prefer to live in Pittsburgh, Florida isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

The best time to come to Cape Coral is in the fall because it is less humid. 

I haven't made many new friends since I've moved here.

Adjectival

I moved back in with my parents, who work from home in Cape Coral.

My cats, who love laying in the sun, are very happy in Florida.

I'd much rather be in a city that offers more activities for young adults.

If these sentences are less descriptive of where I live than of my experience with the town, it's  because I really dislike it here.

Week Three Journal Writings, Crafting an Efficient Writer

"Observe a scene where people are interacting. You might choose a restaurant or a shopping mall. Sporting events and parks are also good places to observe people. Write 5-6 sentences describing this scene and underline the subjects of your sentences. Write a few sentences experimenting with using different types of pronouns from the tables in Unit 3. You will want to keep all of these sentences at hand as you do the writing activities for this unit."

The hostess stares nervously at the clock. The diners at the corner table show no signs of moving, even though they had finished their coffee and dessert. They didn't seem to notice or care about the long line of guests waiting at the door. Their table was nearly clear of dishes. Dining out was clearly not a strong point of theirs. Why won't they just leave? Most people can tell they when they're overstaying their welcome, but not these two. Please just leave. 

-----

"In your journal, continue your observations of the scene observed in journal 1. Note several vivid action verbs that you have already used. Revise some of your sentences using action verbs and/or write 2-3 new sentences with action verbs. Try not to use any of the forms of “to be” (is, are, was, etc.). Underline the action verbs in your sentences. Again, you will want to keep all of these sentences at hand as you do the peer reviewed writing at the end of the unit."

"Their table was nearly clear of dishes." ---> Their waiter had cleared ever dish from the table.

"Dining out was clearly not a strong point of theirs." ---> Dining out displays the best and worst qualities of people.

"They flirt shamelessly." 

What Am I Doing with HTML Again?

If anyone I've known for a long period of time happens to be reading this, they will most likely have an idea of my past with HTML. For those of you that don't, the long and short of it is that I used to run a website that belonged in the "e-zine" category back in the day. Mine was about music. Music e-zines eventually turned into more of a blog-styled kind of website, but when they were in their infancy they were band- and content-centered rather than relying on newsfeeds and forums. And as this evolution occurred, my knowledge of HTML did not.

So when I took a look at my thesis this weekend and turned to the annotated bibliography that I spent a few miserable weeks compiling, the last thing that should have entered my mind was building a website by hand to host a new, more thorough annotated bibliography of all the texts I read from here on out.

I hope no one has ever doubted that I am indeed manic depressive. If that previous paragraph doesn't display mania, I don't know what does. I have decided to do it in spite of that, though, and I am having a reasonable amount of frustrating fun re-learning the basics and seeing what has changed. The only real problem that has come with it is one that comes with that same slight mania that I just mentioned: it is a big project.

I want to have separate categories and also master lists and I want nearly all of it to link back to others. It's a pretty complicated thing. Which generally isn't a problem except that it's a huge undertaking, especially if I don't iron out the specifics before I start adding content. When the internet did away with frames, it brought more chaotic craziness into the lives of people like me who are not professional web developers but want to have a relatively decent website without having to change every single file every time I make a mistake. So, although I'm pretty certain I have the format down, I'm still not adding content which is very frustrating because I am generating content. I am not a very patient person.

Anyway, this post doesn't really serve a purpose I suppose, except to maybe inform whoever comes upon this blog that soon you will be able to keep up with everything I'm reading, with summaries, quotes, and all sorts of fun things.

I'm creating it mostly to keep track for my own purposes, I really hate forgetting that a book exists or what I liked about it and I really just want to have one place where I can look over it and remember. I decided that I didn't want it to be blog-style because I didn't want the entries to be so dependent upon date -- I wanted them to be listed by category and author while the date is hidden away just as a note. Although I do like services like GoodReads and still plan to use them, I don't want it to be a social event, just a list and a summary. So, that's that. Thanks for reading.

Gratitude List

 Introduction

Lately, I can feel myself evolving. I can feel rootlets plunging further into the depths of unfamiliar parts of my brain, causing the stale dirt to overturn and lovingly commingle with the essential oil of both new and returning knowledge. I can feel cogs turning in my head, desperately yearning for a taste of the oil as the powdered old unused ideas grind dryly against their cell-mates. The essence of knowledge slowly succumbs to the desire that is building in the mechanism of my brain, and finally that mechanism is able to work to produce nutrients, so that the tiny rootlets might grow into the beautiful flowers and hearty vegetables that are the concepts and ideas which form the foundation of deep thought and thorough understanding.

As this happens, I am trying to utilize the mindfulness techniques that have thrown themselves in my path so often in these past four months.  I want to gain firm footing as I attempt to start putting one foot in front of the other on the hike to graduate school, and even further to a greater understanding of the universe, my place in it, and what is really important in my life.

What I've noticed as I put these techniques into practice is that I often take things for granted, as human beings are wont to do. It's just human nature. However, that doesn't mean that we can't catch ourselves in the act and take a moment out of our day to smell the flowers that are sprouting from the soil within our heads.

The List Itself

Many of you probably already know or can deduce what a gratitude list is, so I decided to put the list first, followed by the background and my particular guidelines. They are in no particular order and that is because I don't think that things deserving our gratitude and loved should be ranked. That's just my personal preference.

• I am grateful for my parents and family for not only cutting me an enormous amount of slack, but also for really making an effort to understand my disorder and trying to include me and make me feel loved even when I push them away. I'm also grateful that my parents listen when I say that I want to be alone and that they're beginning to trust me when I say that I'm fine.
• I am grateful for the support of my professor, who is giving me a second chance and helping me so much throughout the process of applying to graduate school. She had every right to say that she didn't feel comfortable giving me a good review, but instead she's choosing to help me even as she's especially very busy in her career at the moment. 
• I'm grateful for my brain. Even though it's gotten me into some trouble, it's lightening fast and extremely good at recognizing unlikely similarities. It's "all-in" or "all-out" function is something I cherish and I am so happy to be passionate enough about one thing to do it all day and all night.
• I'm grateful for my cats, who have been through the ringer with me and have never failed to comfort me no matter what the situation. I'm grateful to wake up cuddling Ollie almost every morning, I'm grateful that Lola makes me work for her affection, I love that they are just so unquestionably loyal and unbearably cute. 

Although the gratitude list is normally five items, I want to stop there for now and just soak it in because that's enough love and thankfulness to make me explode. 

A Bit of Background on the Gratitude List

If you've ever had friends or family that have needed help, you'll probably be familiar with the concept. If not: in some treatment programs they ask you to list five things that you're grateful for today. In one rehab, we did this every day in our first group, so we'd have to consider what happened yesterday that wasn't half bad or that brightened our day. In another rehab, we did it every Friday.

As you can imagine, that gets quite repetitive in a group-setting, especially when the group pretty much remains the same week to week. It's also inevitable that answers are repeated often and not expounded upon, which in my opinion always seemed to water down the entire purpose of the exercise.

So, while there are no real rules for the Gratitude List, I do think there are some general guidelines that ought to govern such things, and that will do so on my blog at least. Mainly:

1. I think that these things should be somewhere in between vague and specific. 
2. I think things that are similar in nature should be considered as one list item. 
3. I also think these things should be of some significant weight, and although the definition of significant differs, the definition of "fluff" is pretty standard, so none of that. 

So, that's that. I strongly encourage everyone to research mindfulness exercises and to make gratitude lists of their own, it really helps to recognize what's really going on around you and put things in perspective.