Boxes, huh? I'm moving again.
Despite declaring this apartment my forever home it's proving a little too expensive and too far from uni and my neighbours are kind of dicks in the getting-too-drunk-at-2pm-on-a-tuesday-and-playing-suzie-q-on-repeat-17-times way. Plus I'm tired of the contact high every time I walk past their front door.
An apartment in Thornbury became available, known to me and was offered to me in the space of 24 hours so it was all rather easy. Now I just have to pack my whole life up by Friday.
And you know what packing makes me want to do? Procrastinate like I've never procrastinated before! Have I thought about blogging in the last few months? Not once. But then tonight after packing 4 more boxes it suddenly felt imperative to update my dwindling readership (hi Mum!) on what's been going on.
So... Things are pretty good.
Hectic. But good.
I'm finding the Psychology course I'm taking at uni challenging and engaging. I have realised my natural aptitude for writing arts and humanities essays does not translate to writing good scientific essays, mostly because it seems the readership is blatantly disinterested in my opinion. It had me panicked for the first essay in which the question was the equivalent of 'how does a wheel work?' and I tore myself apart trying to reinvent the wheel. That resulted in getting a mark on an essay lower than I can remember ever getting before. Like, it wasn't even a Distinction! But evidenced by the fact that I'm publishing that online as I type, I'm actually not too phased by it. It has actually meant that the impossible standard I set for myself has already been breached so there's no point demanding perfection anymore.
The thing I have been finding a bit confronting, but only in a mental energy taxing way, is dealing with aspects of my mental illness from the other side. Our lecturers tend to make an allowance when talking of depression, anxiety and medications used to treat these that there are most likely in the room people who have been affected by such things. But bipolar disorder, psychosis and ECT are definitely discussed as things applicable to the nameless, faceless "them" of severe, clinical disorder distinct from the "us" of the science-minded investigators and healers.
The problem for me is I've been part of the Psychology student cohort "us" for only 8 weeks and I've been a part of the psychologically addled major diagnosis "them" for most of my adult life. I feel like Jane Goodall amongst the chimps.
Trying to maintain a face of neutrality, sometimes affecting to border on boredom, throughout these discussions is taxing. But it would be of no use making my colourful mental health past known to all. It doesn't add anything to the discussion we're having and I know from past experience and from this us and them model being moulded in the classrooms that even if a person academically understands mental illness that doesn't mean they don't fear it.
I know my own experiences of mental illness will provide me with insight throughout my studies and into a career in psychology, should I so make it past the umpteen billion years of study before me, but for now I have to put it aside. This isn't about me. And I mean that not just in the sense that I can't take it personally, I also mean that me, who I am now, is unaffected by those things. It feels like a different person who was hearing voices, who was so depressed they tried ECT, who spent her life wrapped up in the goings on of illness.
Right now I'm busy. And tired. And I'm a bit stressed. And that worries a lot of people who see any negative emotion as a red flag that bipolar is back. But you'd be busy and stressed and tired too if you were working and studying and moving and procrastinating in the extraordinary (I'd say bordering on masterful even) way that I am. I think I'm just a person. A person who should probably get back to packing...
(One more thing, my sleep has improved dramatically. I stopped taking the Seroquel slow release and have refound my own circadian rhythms! It's remarkable what being rested will do for you.)
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