Sunday night, anxious

[cleolinda]

Hmm. For some reason, it's been one of those weekends where I feel like slapping people 24/7. Also, I've been eating Hershey's Kisses like crazy (Toffee Crunch! Hot Cocoa!) and wallowing in Philippa Gregory novels. This would seem to indicate that it's hormones. Note: I am allowed to say "My hormones are making me crazy." People not included in the designation of "me" are not allowed to say "Your hormones are making you crazy." Just be glad I admitted it myself, step away from the chocolate, and everyone lives to see another day.

While we're here, let's digress from my hormones and talk about my nerves. I consider myself to be a fairly calm, easygoing person, but that's because I grew up on a drama-llama farm and pretty much had no choice but to become the Pleaser of People and the Soother of Tempers; I learned interpersonal diplomacy at a very early age, to the point where even today I frame my opinions with "I don't know, but I kind of think that" rather than stating something, even something I know to be an outright fact, in the direct affirmative. I can be giddy and squeeful, I can be humorously indignant, I can break out the capslock for effect here on LJ, but I hate arguing, I hate confrontation, I hate yelling at people, no matter who's doing it. I like peace and quiet, I like civil discussion (here defined, as opposed to "argument," as a conversation in which both parties can accept that the other has valuable thoughts and opinions), I like harmony.

This all belies the fact that I'm actually kind of high-strung. Maybe I depend on peace and quiet a little too much; large crowds and loud, constant noise freak me out. I once flipped out and had to leave a bar in New Orleans because I started having a noise-induced panic attack. Actually, I don't know that it was a full-blown panic attack; to my knowledge, I've only had one, and I only realized what it was about half an hour afterwards. I had taken a year off between college and grad school--one I hadn't planned on taking, one that dragged on guiltily as I neglected to apply--and it was my first semester back in academia. I was taking three courses, and we were getting near to Christmas exams and the turnings-in of papers. One night I was in the office of a really fun professor who I liked a lot, and we were chatting, and all of a sudden I felt like I was going to throw up on her shoes and die, in that order. I felt as though my face were literally turning green, I felt so nauseated, and for some reason, I didn't want to admit it. I kept chatting with her, even though I started to feel beads of sweat gathering at my temples. It was like this constant throb of pain throughout my entire body, except it was a throb that lasted about fifteen minutes instead of just throbbing and getting it over with. I knelt down and pretended to pull something out of my messenger bag and stayed there on my knees, calmly chatting, so I wouldn't pass out. I honestly do not remember how the conversation ended or how I was able to stand up and get out of there. And it was only about thirty minutes later, leaving the library and going home, that I realized I must have had a panic attack. I'd gone through some deep, dark, dirty depression when I was in college--I nearly flunked out the last semester of college because I couldn't get out of bed and face the world, when I closed my eyes a dozen times a day and just hoped I wouldn't wake up again--and I'd always dealt with some crippling anxiety, but I'd never actually had a panic attack before, a single, distinct moment where I actually wanted to throw up and die (in that order). And I think it was because I was nervous about being back in school again. I'd had to write papers in three different languages my second-to-last semester in college, and I remembered finishing and feeling like I'd pulled a rubber band until it had broken. I really felt like something inside me was broken. I was so relieved to be done with the fall semester, like I'd almost drowned but just, just managed to come up for air in time, that I think it killed my ability to face another trilingual semester. I traveled that Jan-term, we had a big time, class only two hours a day and then a week in Cuba, and then I came home and any ability to buckle down was just dead on arrival. I had professors demanding what the hell was wrong with me, why wasn't I showing up for class, why was my senior project so god-awful, here, do it again rather than have me fail you completely; I felt like the real me had died and I was wandering around with no idea how to even pretend to be me, and I felt shut away from everyone because I was too ashamed to say that I was depressed, I was sick, and I needed help; I lied to my therapist and said everything was fine. And I didn't go straight into grad school because I was so scared and exhausted from just barely pulling out a cum laude graduation (summa was scratched out beside my name on the organizers' roll call at the last minute; I was still called as an honors program student, even though I had dropped out rather than do the project--and taken an F for it--because no one had found out in time) and I was so afraid of losing my shit again.

It probably goes back to the unholy importance placed on my grades as a child; my mother once gave me the Very Disappointed in You talk because I made my first B, ever, in math because I could not manage to understand borrowing in subtraction. I remind her of this at least once a year ("You're never going to let me live that down, are you?" "Nope, because it WARPED ME"), just because I still feel so awful about it. I was raised in one of those families where a 90 was sin and 91 was salvation (although you could really do better next time). And maybe it was also because I felt it was all I had; I wasn't pretty (although, looking at grade school pictures now, I realize I was a reasonably cute child), wasn't popular, wasn't musical, wasn't athletic, didn't have many friends. If I didn't have top grades, what did I have? I finally learned to accept the occasional Bs in math and sometimes science (and at least one time a C, I think) because no matter how hard I tried, there were just some things I could not grasp until, you know, a year or two later when it was too late. In college I was a little less psychotic about it, but I was still pretty bent on getting As in my core classes. You know, the ones for my double Spanish/French major. And then I got to the end of my college career and I couldn't take it anymore, and I watched myself just give up and nearly drown. So I was scared to go to grad school--and it turns out I was right to be scared, because a few years into that, I started drowning again, and I just quietly stopped taking classes rather than watch myself bomb all over again. I took time off after writing the Movies in Fifteen Minutes book--I was actually in class while I wrote it, and I was even in class when it came out the next fall--but once again, I felt like some spring had popped, and I just didn't go back to class. I don't know if I'm technically still enrolled or not. I just know that I was to the point where I would sit down at the computer, contemplate starting a paper, and begin to cry hysterically.

I think that brings us up to 2006. 2006 was a bad, bad year. I don't remember much of it now, except that I know I started off by trying to write a second book, and that didn't get very far. I was very, very depressed; we increased my Zoloft and I got mortally depressed, and then we started experimenting with Lamictal, as you may recall, and after a scary period where we increased it too quickly, I finally settled down and have done pretty well on it. I started trying to work on the second book again in the first half of 2007. Got a bit farther. Wrote a lot, actually, but on various projects that never really settled down into one concerted effort. And then sometime this summer--July, I want to say, although I think I got deadly serious about it sometime in August or September; God, time has flown--I decided that I was going to finish Black Ribbon if it killed me. And I said that knowing that it might, so to speak, because I got pretty hysterical trying to finish the Movies in Fifteen Minutes book--I missed about three deadlines (through which my agent and my publisher were supremely patient with me). I could (in theory) have pitched a second book, or whatever else I wanted to write, and actually signed a contract and gotten an advance, but I knew--and I think it'll have to be this way from now on--that I could not, I cannot, work that way. I have to turn in the finished project and then get paid, because the pressure of knowing I've already promised to do something and they're waiting on it--I can't stand it.

I think this is why I can't finish things, or why I never finished things on my own. I think I feel the hysteria rising when I get too close, and--without really thinking about it--I back off rather than fall headlong into a nervous breakdown. I think that last semester of college illustrates what happens when it's too late to back out and I can't. To this day, I'm still not sure how I finished the Movies in Fifteen Minutes book. I think I'm telling you this now because I have three or four weeks left on my arbitrary Black Ribbon deadline, and I'm getting scared again. And that's why I have the arbitrary deadline, because I have to teach myself how not to be scared, or at least how not to be so crippled by it. Except this time, even if I do fail--I'm going to be pissed the hell off at myself, but there aren't any actual consequences. No contract, no money riding on it. But at the same time, I find myself creating stakes, absurdly high ones--this is my big chance! This book could be my breakthrough, it could be a huge hit, oh my God I can't do this, I can't do this, it's going to be horrible, I'm going to make some ridiculous geographical mistake or the dialogue's going to be atrocious or the story's going to be too convoluted or people are going to guess all the twists in the first five pages or they won't think there's enough of an ending, you remember the reviews for the Fifteen Minutes book, there were like two good ones and then all the others were snootily mediocre, you remember how that was going to be your big breakthrough into being a professional career writer and you see what happened with that, what makes you think you can even do this at all? Much less birth the Next Big Thing in four more weeks? Oh my God I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this.

I get a little high-strung when it comes to personal endeavors, is what I'm saying.

I almost want to have someone to hold my hand through all of this. Not even someone who can phrase an honest opinion kindly; I mean someone close to me whose mission it will be to tell me, no matter what, that everything's okay and that I can do this. It doesn't have to be the truth and I'll know it isn't the truth--it isn't an honest critique, it's not supposed to be. It's just someone saying, "You can get through this." But how quickly does that someone turn into a yes-man? I can't trust anyone to hold my hand; I can't trust anyone to chase away all my doubts. I hate the idea of my sanity depending on someone else. I hate the idea of people whispering to each other, "Oh God, she's hysterical again, go get So-and-So, s/he can manage her." I don't want to be managed. I need to manage myself. I have got to learn to do this. I can't go through my life running this race and then tripping over my own fear right as I get to the last hurdle. I have to learn to tell myself that it doesn't matter if it's the Next Big Thing, it doesn't have to be the Next Big Thing, I only have to finish it and be proud of it and find the nerve to let it out into the world and maybe it's good and maybe it's not, but if it makes a few people glad they read it, it's good enough. I have got to find a way to make myself understand that I am what I am and it is what it is, and then to be content with that. I'll let you know how that works out, I guess.

Comments

[jettcat.livejournal.com]

*offers virtual chocolate truffles*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks. : )

[bikutoria.livejournal.com]

After having read all of that, all I can really think to say is, good for you. You've been through your share of crap, and you're making a concentrated effort to figure it out and do the best you can. Good for you. I wish you the best of luck.

[mustang-bex1126.livejournal.com]

When people trivialize the internet and the art of blogging I think I'm going to punch them in the face from now on. I can't thank you enough for posting this openly with us, your rather substantial fan community. Having friended your journal years ago I remember reading your posts as you went through some of these problems, but I never really thought how amazingly strong and hard working you are until I saw the 'saga' in context. I'm so glad to 'know' you through your words and I am even more in awe of you than I was before.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I don't feel all that hard-working. Mostly like I'm in a 100-years sleep that maybe I can wake up out of for my thirties. But thanks. : )

[lyrainverse.livejournal.com]

I have the exact same problem. I haven't finished one thing I've started writing because I'm terrified to let someone read it and tell me it's no good. I know that's not very helpful, but for what it's worth, you're not alone. Maybe we should start a support group or something.

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

Everything I've heard of your book so far has me intrigued. If I only ever read the best book ever, I'd only get to read one book, and that is so not what I am reading for. (This is something I've been thinking about, on and off, for awhile now.)

[jaded-lady.livejournal.com]

*virtually holds you hand in the least creepy way possible*

also? i just realized that my reaction to the last big, catastrophic fight I had with my ex-boyfriend, and to several other occasions in my life, may not actually have been my brain leaking out of my ears (which is what it felt like) but may have been panic attacks.

um interesting.

my mom's been battling depression for a long time - she had a really bad time with prozac, but zoloft seems to be working ok for her right now.



keeping you in my thoughts, as i'm sure all your fans are. : )

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Sweetie, you'll make it through. (says she who spent 8-9 years in college, has 220 credits and NO DEGREE for virtually the same reasons).

You will, because you understand what's going on - and I didn't. Until many years later.

We're here to hold your hand, ok?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Thanks. : )

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

So, once again you confirm that you're really female-me. I mean, you can literally substitute phrases in the above post and you'll have my life. Instead of "book" write "dissertation," etc. etc. My family is constantly asking me when I'm going to graduate.

Re panic attacks: Last week, as I was preparing for the APS meeting (and being way WAY behind on it), I was actually mumbling to myself, "I am going to throw up, I am going to throw up..." I didn't mean it figuratively. My keyboard was in danger.

I did survive my presentation today, and it went alright, so maybe that should provide hope for you too?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I've been really fortunate in that I only had that one really incapacitating attack. The rest of the time it's mostly just me moaning "Oh God, I can't do this" over and over. The last few months, I've been doing it anyway, so that's something.

[akakat.livejournal.com]

I went through something very similar with pressure and self-pressure and anxiety and feeling like something just broke and so much of this sounds so familiar to me. I've only recently got to the point where I feel that I can "manage myself" as you say, and just based on the fact that you recognize the need to do that I'm sure you can do it too. I really just wanted to say thank you for posting this because it makes me feel less broken and abnormal to hear someone else feeling similar things, especially when you've written about it so clearly and articulately. So thank you very much.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

See, that's why I do write about it, because people tell me it makes them feel better and more normal, and I feel better and more normal as well, hearing them say they go through it too. Good times. : )

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

*sends hugs and chocolates* I was convinced growing up too that if I got bad grades my parents would kill me.
Gods I remember when I brought home a D my first semester in college. English 1301. My father threatened to return all my Christmas presents because I didn't deserve them after bringing home a grade like that (never mind that all the rest were A's). He still can't understand why I had a complete nervous breakdown the next semester. Then again he also thinks my anxiety and ADD are all in my head. I'm a failure to him because I'll be 28 when I finally get my degree and doesn't give a shit that I've made the deans list ever semester sense I went back full time.

Err sorry for the teel deer.

[neveth.livejournal.com]

word. While my particular trigger is disappointing the people I care about, this all sounds distressingly familiar. What is interesting is the sheer difference of style of panic attack. I've never been nauseous, my panic attacks consist of my system being overwhelmed by sheer "fight or flight" panic. Screaming and crying and on a couple occasions I have given myself some nasty scratches. I wonder what it is in brain chemistry that causes the difference? Huh.

Regardless - Here are some virtual brownies and some hugs. Everybody who has panic attacks deserves these things on a regular basis, methinks.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

The most common form of panic attack, so far as I've heard, is people having trouble breathing or having chest pains--they tend to be afraid they're having a heart attack and/or going to die, although the attacks come in all varieties. I knew that when I had mine, which is why I think it took me about half an hour to realize that I'd had one--I think I was telling someone about it and I said, "God, I thought I was going to die," and that's when I realized what it was. Fortunately, I've never had another attack quite like that since.

(Thanks. : )

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I don't know what I can say beyond "sympathies," though in the literal sense. Not the details, but...

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you posted this, because I'm in my senior year of college (being a 5th year senior, oh, God), and I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'm too scared to even start on my proposal for my senior project, so scared that my professors will turn it down, all that hard work for nothing... And I just can't build up the energy to work on papers, finding it so stressful.

But I'm glad to know someone who is incredibly funny and seems to be pretty on the ball had those problems, too.

My first B was in math, too. My dad gave me a lecture that an 85 Was Not Acceptable. That was a bad day for me in 3rd grade.

[elisa0984.livejournal.com]

My first B was in math, too. My dad gave me a lecture that an 85 Was Not Acceptable. That was a bad day for me in 3rd grade.

I think I was grounded throughout the whole third grade for that B.


My first semester of grad school is becoming a mixed bag. On the one hand I'm doing well in my seminar and get along with my fellow TAs while on the other I have a paper looming that I don't think will get a grade higher than a C and it turns out that I registered myself as an undergraduate for that class. The Registrar seems quite content to leave it at that and make me take an extra class this summer. Bastards.

I think more chocolate is called for.

[edda.livejournal.com]

Hello, me. I started underachieving around 12 and only got one college degree and have spent all my post-college years flailing from one crappy job to another, but still.

the pressure of knowing I've already promised to do something and they're waiting on it--I can't stand it

HELLO, ME.

*holds your hand*

You will be fine. Anxiety exists; let it exist. You are not your anxiety; you are merely the container holding it, like a glass holding water. It is in you, but it is not you. You will be OK, whatever happens.

You are also free to tell me to go fuck myself, and then go eat yourself a big ol' faceful of chocolate.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Awww, bless. : )

[adaorardor.livejournal.com]

Man, there are times when I read your posts and I get this sense of-- I was about to say "comfort" and realized how weird that sounded-- of familiarity, I think, much like some of the folks above me. I'm going through school-related panic right now, but it's mostly out of this growing sense of ennui, kind of like being stuck knee-deep in a muddy ditch.

My gracious, lady, you've got grace and guts and all kinds of wonderful things. I've been following you since the beginning of my Not-So-Glorious High School Career and since you've always been around to make me feel a little better, though you may not know it, I just wanna tell you that I am rootin' for you.

Solidarity, what ho!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks. I think it definitely does help to know that you're not in it alone, that all kinds of people go through the same stupid shit. It helps you feel more normal, and feeling (irrationally) like a complete loser-freak is a big part of the problem to begin with, I think.

[shesnotallthere.livejournal.com]

It is strange how some people are prone to hitching so much of their sense of self to how well the perform in a single arena. I did it, in high school. Family, friends, hobbies...that was all incidental. I based my identity on my academic performance. And when I had trouble with a subject or an assignment, it undermined EVERYTHING. It eventually reached a point where a critical comment on an essay would lead me to thinking that I was a complete waste of space.

And when I was done with school, I simply shifted all of it to the workplace. For a very long time, I felt like I'd failed at LIFE if I hadn't excelled at work that day.

Considering all the elements that make up a life, it's absurd to use how well you do one thing as a way of measuring your worth. But for some of us, it's incredibly difficult to AVOID doing exactly that.

It's puzzling.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I think it's about control, really. Like, let's narrow it down to one thing, the thing we have the most control over, and just control the hell out of it. I couldn't make myself more popular, but I could make good grades, you know? And I think part of what's so scary about where I'm at with the book right now is that I'm getting near a point where I'm not in control--releasing it into the world.

[the_rainbow_jen]

Since I'm at a point where I need to 'put up or shut up' with my masters thesis, I think I get a bit of what you mean. This, of course, after taking an incomplete the first time, a semester and a summer off, and I still haven't got my shit together.

The sad part? I don't even want to go into the field the masters is for, anymore. I just want to finish it because a)I'm so close, it would be dumb of me not to, and b)if I turn around to try and get into a different Master's program, for a career field I do want to do, having an unfinished one doesn't exactly speak highly of me.

Though my parents didn't put Fear of Teh Grade in my head....I did that all by my self.

[jubilantia.livejournal.com]

Hooooly moly. I'm so sorry about all this. As you can see by my icon, I love your site and parodies, and they never fail to simultaneously pick me up and amaze me with their shrewd and humorous take on the world. I hate to think you're going through this junk. Depression? It's not your fault, but you can conquer it. As for the not wanting to release your literary baby/slice of your soul into the world, I know you can do it, and I know you'll get through this. For what it's worth, I know it'll be great. Lots of "I"'s in there, but I'm one of many who admires your work.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Thanks. : )

[rossywar.livejournal.com]

I think one thing you can do to manage yourself is to tell yourself sensible things when you feel you're FREAKING OUT. Like, Movies in Fifteen Minutes. So it didn't win the Pulitzer Prize, but getting a book published and out there in the shops is a Big Achievement. All the more so since your nerves were failing you (you can get through this because you have been here before and got through that). And Black Ribbon, just break it down into small achievable goals and don't think about how brilliant it must be (or you're a complete failure). Remember, even after you've "finished" you can still tweak and change stuff you're not happy with. And, importantly, it's a big learning curve. So, when you've finished ("when" not "if") and move on to the next project, if there is one, you'll find that you've learned so much from the process that it will be ever-so-slightly easier.

This is all v selfish because I would like you to finish Black Ribbon please, because I remember reading the bits of it that were online years ago and I would like to read some more. :)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh. I have to warn you, though, it's very much expanded from that version, and I'm having to cut a few things that don't work with the new version of the story. That said, many of the scenes have only surface changes, and they're still pretty much the same. It's just that there's a lot of new stuff as well.

[reynardine.livejournal.com]

I had to repeat my junior year of college for a similar problem with anxiety/depression. I did graduate (somehow!), found out I had bi-polar disorder and then spent the years since that time learning to cope. The fact that you know you're dealing with anxiety is a big advantage. If you are aware of the issue, you can find something that works for you. If something doesn't work, don't beat yourself up, just chalk it down as a miss and try another method. Progress is progress, and you've certainly accomplished some big goals already (got your BA, wrote your first book)! Keep that in mind!

[akathorne.livejournal.com]

You know, I've actually thrown up from nerves/panic attacks before, and while it's not pretty, I lived through it. And the "dying" feeling that comes with it, too. Which is not to say that it's not bad, because oh god it's so bad. But even if you do get to that point, you'll be ok. It will be ok.

I'm still struggling to finish my fist college degree, partially because of this problem (also partially because of some crippling depression, some abuse from a guy I was dating, and money woes), and all I have to do is finish one simple math class, turn in a writing portfolio, and write my senior papers. It feels like I will never, ever get it done. I listen to classmates who are all "Wooo! Only 8 more papers!" and I want to punch them in the nose. I'm so terrified of this math class that I've only opened the book once. But. It will be ok. Sometimes, I just sit and repeat that like a mantra. It will be ok, it will be ok. And if it's not...then it's not. And that's ok too.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

That senior year of college, just about the only thing that got me through some of those papers would be sitting there and telling myself, it's due at such and such an hour. That's five hours from now. And then it'll be over. No matter how shitty it is, in five hours from now, it'll be over and you'll be free. I think I would have lost my mind if I hadn't kept my eyes on the light at the end of the tunnel. (Best of luck, seriously.)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

one day at a time, one chunk of words at a time, try to look at what you've already achieved at least as much as you panic about what you haven't. And thank you for posting this: (a) it is Not Just Me (b) you have achieved, written, published despite the crippling doubt and depression -- which gives me hope.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I'm not just holding your virtual hand but reminding you that you are choosing to face what scares you. That's a pretty brave thing. Also, YOU decided it. No one told you you have to. So you are the one in control. Isn't that cool?

It's not easy, and it's not going to be. I'm not a writer but I'm a musician who has dealt with depression and panic attacks for years. There's not a lot that's less fun that wandering the parking lot of a cheap motel in St. Louis because anxiety won't let you sleep and you have contracted work in the morning, where everyone expects you to be perky. Luckily I'm finally stabilized on medication, and working on my 4th CD. you CAN do this - I did.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Also, YOU decided it. No one told you you have to. So you are the one in control. Isn't that cool?

More than anything, I think that this is what this is about--me trying to prove to myself, and perhaps to others, that I have the self-discipline to do this, since this is what I've wanted to do all my life. It just feels like the time is right now, for some reason, and I want it to be because I sat down and did it, not because I crawled kicking and screaming towards a deadline.

[iczer6.livejournal.com]

It'll be okay.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

I really felt like something inside me was broken. I was so relieved to be done with the fall semester, like I'd almost drowned but just, just managed to come up for air in time [...] I had professors demanding what the hell was wrong with me, why wasn't I showing up for class [...]I watched myself just give up and nearly drown. [...] I was to the point where I would sit down at the computer, contemplate starting a paper, and begin to cry hysterically.

That's the point I'm at right now. I have had an assignment due this morning, and last night when I started it (at midnight, because just thinking about doing it made me start to freak out) I just started crying and crying and crying. And then, when I finally finished it, I seriously contemplated just not going to class (again) the next day (because this would be the third time I would go the class this entire semester, and the first HW I would turn in out of 5 total).

This is the 4th year I've been in college total, the 3rd year I've been at this particular college. I should have the hang of this "college" thing now, but I don't.

One of my close friends keeps telling me that it's okay, that she took years to graduate, that her last semesters ran along the lines of WFWF for grades. But it's really helpful to know that it's not just the two of us who had/have problems. That someone who's not my close friend, who I consider fairly successful, has the same issues with school and deadlines and life.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh God, have I been there. And I actually really enjoyed college, did really well--right up until the last semester, when I fell to pieces. I really wish someone had been around at the time to tell me that everyone freaks the hell out at some point, generally (but not necessarily) the last year, because after the fact I found so many people who had. I think just the very idea that it's normal to freak out takes some of the pressure off--which is kind of what writing about it does for me.