I'm supposed to be starting on a paper right now.
I know that before I had too much time on my hands and that I had no structure or schedule... and that it was driving me crazy.. but..
I'm feeling kind of bitter... like I have no free time left.. I need to be asleep in less than 4 hours.. but I feel like I just got home from work.
It feels like that bladder infection is coming back.
I don't hate my job... but I don't love it either.. I feel numb to it.. I feel like I'm just surrendering and giving in to the endless cycle of work/weekend/work/weekend... and just so that I can barely afford to live in my apartment and pay my bills.. and then when my student loan payments come around it will feel even more pointless as I continue through the work/weekend cycle just so that I can pay off the interest of a $30,000 loan that mainly got used for 5 years of living a comfortable life without having to work.
I just took some Ritalin... I took a whole pill.. usually I break them in half.. but I think I'm getting used to it... so I might have to up the dose a bit (that's actually normal though.. part of stimulant treatment is to start very low and then up the dose to an adequate level).
Part of my dysphoric apathy is probably also because of the Ritalin... but the Ritalin helps me with work... it makes me more tolerant of stress and boredom.. and I feel emotionally numb when it comes to dealing with customers.. which is great and helps me do the job a lot better.
..I'm thinking some Dexedrine would be beneficial for some tasks... like with detail oriented stuff.. all in all Ritalin calms me down and makes me feel numb more than it helps me focus... but Dexedrine is very good at helping with details... I know it did wonders with my arithmetic.
I'm going to have to type up the 'caring for your home' section of the Homebook for one of the buildings tomorrow (or soon anyway)... it's basically filling in the specifications of the suite.. like the colour code for paint and stuff... and there are all these confusing notes scribbled all over the printed out copy I'm supposed to edit. Dexedrine would help a lot in this situation.. but the only problem is that it takes 1.5 hours to kick in.. so I'd have to know in advance exactly when I'm doing it.
Oh well.. I know that getting regular sleep and stuff will also help.. and upping my omega 3's.
I just feel like I have no creativity in me.. like my soul is slowly being sucked out... I feel like I'm just accepting that my life.. for the most part.. is going to be quite boring... and it's a huge up hill battle to get out of debt. I feel like I'm going to start drinking more...
When I was in school I would walk out of class energized and my mind would be rapidly swirling with all these thoughts and ideas...
Now it feels like it's settling.. and not moving at all.. it's like a soup skin is developing... and all the substance is sinking to the bottom.. until everything just below the surface ends up watery and flavourless.
I feel like I'm being repressed somehow.. like my inner self is just being stepped on and buried away... as cliche as this sounds...and as much as it has probably been said over a million times in reference to any kind of 9-5 job... but... it feels like I'm turning into an automaton.
The only thing is... is that I can feel this sort of rebellious part of me stirring... the same part that got me in trouble all through my childhood.
At least I still feel impervious to depression... I don't get those negative thought spirals that I used to get... Even Ritalin doesn't make me depressed like it used to.. though it never made me depressed... it just made me feel all flat...and in turn that would make me depressed because I didn't feel like myself. Now it's like I still get the flat feeling a bit... but it doesn't make me depressed.
If my mood starts to dip it just bounces back to normal... like I have this safety net that protects me from crashing to the ground. The only thing that makes me feel like crap is after a night of heavy drinking... that's the only time I feel depressed... so I haven't gotten wasted in a while.. I still drink.. but I haven't gotten falling down drunk in almost a month I think.
I can now see why 300mg of Wellbutrin is the therapeutic dose for depression.. and that the 150mg wasn't fully doing it... though it took about 3 months after upping the dose to take effect. A part of that is just life changes too I guess.. but some time during my job search... I just snapped out of my hopelessness and got that weird bouncing back feeling. About a week before my birthday...it was a Friday... I think it was the 16th (2 months ago exactly)... I just felt so suicidal that I even considered calling someone or going to the hospital or something while I still had enough control because I felt myself dipping so low..that I thought that I might reach some point of no return or something... but then I had some drinks and it made me snap out of it.
This Ritalin hasn't done anything except make me a bit sleepy.
I spoke with Matt earlier... he always has vivid dreams with a clear storyline. He said that last night he dreamt that he went bald and that I cheated on him...I was just dating some other guy and I was making out with him in front of Matt while we were hanging out in his parents backyard. I don't know if it's because I took psychology or just because I think in metaphors a lot.. but I feel like I'm pretty good at decoding the symbolism in dreams..
(wow I feel a lot better now that I ate something.... god I have to stop forgetting to eat..I always get this blah feeling..usually after work... and then much later I eat and I feel better... I swear there are times when I don't interpret the feeling as hunger...but as just this stomach achy/depressed/lethargic/irritable/flat feeling.. obviously this has a lot to do with taking stimulants...wellbutrin included.. but I think a lot of it is also because I don't emotionally binge eat anymore..and since I hate cooking.. I avoid having to prepare food for myself as long as possible. I still get hungry though.. but when I add something like Ritalin in the mix it numbs out the hunger signals... which obviously I'm not complaining about... but I don't want to just not eat... and I always have nuts or fruit or something at my desk because I don't like to go too long without eating... sometimes it's temping to lose weight 1998 style... but I know it doesn't work... At this point I'm just using the lack of hunger as will power to avoid eating excessive junk food... because I don't want to balloon due to sitting on my ass for about 45 hours a week. I'm vowing to at least go for a walk or something once a day.. I didn't today because I have homework.. which I still haven't started.)
Anyway that tangent went a little further than I thought it would (surprise! surprise! (hey that was also the name of this book that my reading group had to read in Mrs. Tepperman's class when I was in grade 1... "Surprise! Surprise!" they were these little stories or something to help you read... there were about 4 or 5 groups in the class... the "Surprise! Surprise!" group was I think the second to lowest one in difficulty.. or maybe lowest.. I can't remember... it mainly had some Jamaican kids who didn't speak English or other foreigners.. and then I guess less intelligent Canadians... I was even a year older than everyone because I was held back.. but my reading level was lower than most people younger than me... I guess it's also because I had just come out of French immersion.... I was always really good at math though.. we would have these daily quizzes that were out of 10.. and I almost always got 10 out of 10..she would read out everyones answers...hehe..I guess confidentiality wasn't a luxury afforded to 1st graders. It was also in Mrs. Tepperman's class that I discovered that I liked writing. We would have these little journals that we would write a few sentences in every day... I might have read slow and had handwriting like a 3 year old.. but my imagination worked just fine. Apparently when I was 2 I would "read" books to myself.. I would just open the book and make up a story about the pictures... I would sit there absorbed in the book talking to myself in Hungarian..I know this because I've heard it on tape... and was also told. Also when you grow up without siblings you tend to only have your imagination as a companion. ))
..so when Matt tells me the dreams he has it's like an open door to all his unconscious thoughts/worries.. though a lot of the time he dreams about super heroes and politicians.. but then every once in a while he'll tell me about a dream like the one I mentioned above.. and that's openly displaying an insecurity.. even though there wasn't much symbolism in this one.. it was a pretty obvious insecure dream any man would have.. but I think there is some symbolism in the part about being in his parents backyard.. and the fact that I was so openly hurting him.. he said that in the dream he had asked me and the guy to stop making out in front of him.
I think this was probably influenced by the fact that yesterday..after coming back from his friend Garrett's place..(Garrett and his girlfriend got recently engaged...and he travels a lot for work so he's gone for months at a time and then comes back for like a week or two).. I said to Matt.. "I don't know how Natalie does it.. how can she go without sex for so long... if I was in that situation I would probably fuck someone while drunk within the first month." Now.. I know I probably wouldn't.. I think I mainly said it to keep him on his toes.. or to maybe push him away? ...I don't know why I said it... I guess I said it in a "I don't need you" sort of joking way.. he laughed in response and said "good to know". Maybe it resonated with him a bit.. though I think he sometimes thinks my impulsiveness would take over and I would cheat on him while drunk or something. I know he was paranoid one night when I hung out with Jen and spent the night at her house..this was months ago... but in the morning he phoned Jen and was like "Did Jade come home with you last night?" and apparently he demanded more than asked... but tried to act calm. Honestly.. there was a night.. it was actually his birthday... he was still at work.. and I was on the beach with a group of people because it was a birthday party for some of Jen's friends... and there was this guy there that I was talking with.. he was 6'2..I think like 28.. darkish hair.. kind of quiet.. had a slight Jesseness about him (it turns out he's an artist).. but yeah we talked and stuff... he said he worked at Ebay... anyway.. I was drunk and I was attracted to him.. it's bad because there is a photo of him and me on facebook from that night and I'm kind of leaning close to him as we were sitting on a log together.. I'm not tagged in it.. but Matt could still see it if someone else he knows is tagged in the album.. I don't think there is though. It's not even that bad of a pic.. I think I just feel guilty because I felt attracted to the guy.. and it felt like I could just live in the moment and do anything... I was just hoping Matt would get there soon because I was afraid if he didn't that I would do something with this guy. Though I did mention my boyfriend in a few conversations with him.. so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have done anything. And the attraction was purely a physical one... I don't think I could date another shy artist type again... too boring. I like that Matt is social. This guy walked around like a ghost not saying anything.. at one point I was just like... "who are you?!" because I thought maybe I was the only person who could see him or something... like he was just this entity following us around. It was very much like when I first met Jesse.. so yeah.. not very appealing.. but I guess I was still attracted to him in my drunken state.
Then I saw Matt coming towards us on the beach.. and as soon as he was close and I gave him a hug I forgot that the guy, Zack, even existed. Even just the smell of Matt nearby was intoxicating and once again it was as if we were the only people on the entire beach. Every time we hang out with other people at parties or at a bar or something we end up just talking to each other.. it's like we find each other the most interesting to talk to.. even though we see each other more than we see other people. I don't even remember the conversation with that Zack guy to be very interesting.. I think I was just physically attracted to him... he was just very typically my type.
As you could tell the Ritalin did end up kicking in... it is now wearing off.. and my thoughts are not nearly as linear as they were earlier.... even though they appear all over the place.. they were still organized... one thought was on hold while the other would take over.. but the other one was still there... blinking away like an LED on a busy switchboard. Now I have a harder time getting my thoughts out.. I pause in between sentences a lot more. That's why I liked Ritalin in high school.. I felt like I could write on it.. like I had a lot of ideas and I could focus my energy on getting them all on paper. Though I would like to think my Ritalin induced writing isn't as bad as Elizabeth Wurtzel's in that book "Bitch". I couldn't even get through the first chapter because it was just a bunch of rambling run on sentences with a lot of exclamation marks. She was crushing and snorting about 10 pills a day. I read the book that is about her abusing Ritalin while she wrote "Bitch". It's just odd that even after editing that it was that bad.. I could only imagine what kind of tripe her editor had to sift through to find something somewhat publishable.. it got bad reviews too. Though in general I like her writing style.
I started this entry around 7pm and now it's almost 10pm.
I feel like I've broken through the skin and stirred up the soup a bit.
