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Monday, 22 November 2010

Confused about where to go!

So first the backstory: My boyfriend and I have been together nearly two years. We've had our good and bad times, but mostly have gotten along, though we've had a few blowouts. We almost never fought until his friend moved in with us. Then we moved into an appartment with this same friend and one of my friends, and nothing really changed. We fought on occassion, but mostly were good. About 6 months ago my friend moved out to go to college and his neice moved in. Ever since we've been fighting a ton, and haven't been doing so well. I know for me, it's the stress, because the roommates spend a lot of time in the common space, and don't clean up after themselves. I'm a full-time student and have an 8-5 job. He works 8-5 at the same company in a different department.

About a month ago he talked about proposing, and I was ecstatic. Then he brought up my parents, and I panicked, we had a huge fight about them, we broke up, and then immediately got back together, to give it another go. He kept pushing me away and being very rude, mostly because he was still upset about the previous fight. He felt like I was pushing him away and trying to keep him out of my family. I just want to start a family with him, and keep my parents out (they have a bit of a tendency to butt in where they shouldn't). At this point, we had another big, blowout fight, and we ended it again, but not to break, to actually "start over". We talked about the things each of us will have to work on to make this work, and have actually both made a big effort. We've been on good terms, since we had the long talk, and things have gotten a lot better. However, now we're in a strange "dating" but not boyfriend/girlfriend place. Though we still live together, and act exactly how we used to. Every time we've broken up, he's insisted that we at least be friend, and continue the living arrangement and after a bit of space we could try again. However, he also keeps saying how he thinks he's not meant to be with anyone, and how he doesn't think he's meant for a significant other. Then he behaves like we're together.

Really, this is just confusing to me. I want us to just work on our relationship and get back together, and move out, and live on our own. I feel like we've made a lot of progress in a month, and that if we removed some of the stressors (read roommates) from out relationship it would be even better. I can see a future with this guy and really want one, and only a month ago, he obviously wanted one as well. Now things are confusing and I guess I'd like some outsider opinions? I know you guys don't know him or I, or anything more than I'm telling you, but maybe something will spark? I don't know if he's got cold feet? If he's still upset by something he's not telling me? Or if I should just end it and move on?

Monday, 31 May 2010

Observant One!

I've been dating my guy for over two years. We get along pretty well and most things are pretty good in our relationship. We have our fights and disagreements, but we also have a lot of good times, and care about each other a lot.

One thing that really gets to me, though, is that after two years I have learned a great deal about him. I pay attention to what his hobbies are, what movies he likes, what types of clothes he wears, what he orders at restaurants, what his favorite dinner is, etc. I know what he's into in almost any situation. I listen to what he believes and cares about, and I feel like I really know him.
He knows a lot about me as well. He know a great deal of the big things. But all of the little things, and even some of the not so little things just get lost. He needs three guesses to remember my birthday, though he has it written down on his calandar to remind him before hand. He never knows what I would eat out, so if he goes to bring food home, he always gets my order wrong. He forgets all the tiny things that I feel like a person should pay attention to.
I don't know if I should be as upset as I am by it, but I can't help it. I feel neglected sometimes. Even though the big, important things he knows, he misses all the small stuff that I feel is important as well. Sometimes I just feel sad, because I try so hard to make his life easier, and take care of him, and I feel like he fails to do the same for me.
Have you ever felt like the more observant one? The one who remembered and took care of all the small stuff? What did you do to deal? Or have you always been on the other end, and just enjoyed someone's care and attention?

Saturday, 06 March 2010

Raped by him, and by the system that's supposed to protect!

A friend of mine recently went through this horrifying experience. I can't comment on the emotional trauma that goes along with it, and I can't say what a rape victim needs as far as support, but there is one thing very wrong with the system.
This friend did everything she should. She called the police, she went to the hospital with them, etc. They gave her a bunch of medication to prevent some STD's and the Plan B pill. The didn't tell her about any of the sideaffects. Then sent her on her way. That night she threw up the mass amounts of pills they had given her, and had to go into the emergency room again. This time they gave her all the pills, with an anti-nausea medication, and prepared her a bit for what would happen. They also mentioned how she should go get tested for several STD's and glazed over the HIV prevention option. A councelor told her she was there to help, if she needed to talk.
They did not, however, go into any detail about what medication they were giving her, what it was for, and what she should expect. They also did not cover the STD's that she was not being treated for, when and where she should and could get tested, and what symptoms to look for in the meantime. They also did not explain the PEP (HIV prevention) in any detail, or tell her that she only had 72 hours to begin treatment if she chose to. They didn't tell her where she could get information, who could administer treatment, how long it would last, what effects it might have, and how she could learn more information.
Essentially they did not offer her nearly enough tools to help the physical recovery after a very traumatic situation. I understand they are busy, and that they have a lot to do. But the way they treated her was unacceptable. She had to spend 4 hours on the phone with clinics and hospitals just to track down a doctor who would discuss and administer the treatment to her. And she only learned about the option by happenstance. Had she not heard about it and researched herself she would never have known that it was even an option.
With things as serious as life long diseases shouldn't the hospital staff have taken better precautions to try and inform her? Shouldn't they have taken better care to at least lay out her necessary next few steps for her? This is her health, and I understand that overwhelming her would do no good, but if she doesn't know what questions to ask, and nobody tells her, where does that leave the victim?
I don't believe that our society educates people well enough how to deal with rape. Prevention is a great focus, but what about after it happens? What do you do? Call the police.... and when they don't tell you the next steps, it seems you're left all alone to pick up the pieces of your life, without knowing the possible dangers that can be affecting your body that very minute.
It's outrageous that she wasn't told more on her initial exam, or the follow-up after she clearly had trouble with the first dose of medication. And I know that many will say, maybe she was told and fogot? No her sister and mother, who quite frankly didn't know what to ask either, and were with her, would have gotten those important pieces of information. But nobody bothered to put it out there.
Where does that leave us, when our victims are not only abused initially, but also again by the system set up to protect them? What kind of world do we live in, when we aren't concerned with protecting our health, and the health of those who have been hurt? What does it say about our society when information about your health is something you have to hunt down on your own, and not something offered to you by the people who's jobs and responsibilities are to care for you?

Saturday, 30 January 2010

Depression? You can beat it!

I was reading entried a day or two ago and I read this post. I realized based on the comments that some people who claim to have the disorders don't really understand what depression is.
Depression is not being sad, it's not being upset. Depression is a physical illness, that has a hormonal imbalance. Even if it starts from traumatic emotional events, it's a physical illness. When you are depressed, your body slows down, your metabolism slows down, you don't process food as quickly or as well, you are always tired and you have trouble making your brain function the way it should. Thinking can literally wear you out. Reading can be difficult because you can't keep up with the words. Depression is a physical condition that is a problem, not because you're sad, but because you can't keep up with the world, physically. For a lot of people this causes sadness, loneliness, apathy or whatever, and for a lot of people the same hormones that depress their body also make them feel less enthusiastic and more depressed or emotionally stunted. The reason it's debilitating, is if you need to study or work and you cannot focus because your brain can't keep up (as if you were on a depressant, think drunk) the world can be a difficult place to live. Also if you need to care about your school and work, and it harder to force enthusiasm on yourself you want to quit. Everything is ten times harder because you can't just "sober up." However, it is treatable with medication, therapy (to help you cope and give you tools to deal with it), diet, excercise (which is hard to force yourself to do) and not allowing yourself to give up.
People that just give in tend to sleep a lot, and let themselves feel down (which ultimately means do very little during their day) which means they let their body get into a cycle where they can't seem to get out of the depression. What they need to do is jump start themselves like they would an old battery.
I also suffer from mania, which is the polar opposite. I get very jumpy, though it's still hard to focus sometimes. My body is running on overdrive, so I can't seem to slow down or get to sleep. I get headaches because I can't seem to run off the energy, and I get irritable because I can't seem to accomplish all the things that I think I should be with all this energy. It's hard because you feel like the whole world is slow and you're moving super fast, but not actually getting anything done.
I'm manic depressive, if that's not obvious by now. When I first realized what was happening and went to a psychiatrist who recommended I not be officially diagnosed or take medication because I could handle it other ways, though some people cannot (It's important to find out what you need). He ws the first to explain to me how diet, sleep, and daily thought patterns can affect my depression and mania. He pointed me to a great nutritionist and a great gynecologist. I am now virtually free of depression and my manic attacks are significantly milder.
I learned how to balance my diet when I feel good to prevent manic and depressive attacks. I also learned what to do once I feel them coming on (and my diet has to change drastically sometimes). I also learned that my sleep patterns would have change to feel better based on what was happening with my body. On top of that, I am now on the pill and only have 4 periods a year. Maintaining my hormones under control helps with the attacks as well. I could do that entirely with diet and life habits but it's easier with the pill, so I choose to use the help.
I also learned a lot of tools to change how I thought about my attacks and how to help handle them. The fact is that your outlook does have a great effect on how the illness affects you, though not whether the physical symptoms happen. Learning that it wasn't my fault (and truly believing it, rather than just telling others that) made it easier to cope with. Understanding that though it wasn't my fault, I could handle it, but it wasn't my fault if I had a bad day also made it easier. I had to wrap my head around the fact that though it was my responsibility it was not something under my control every moment of every day. I end each day by looking at the bad moments and figuring out what caused them, and how I should have handled them better. I also look at all the good moments and try and see the day as best I can. Having the right outlook made the physical symtoms something I could face, like a really bad flu, rather than a mental block I couldn't seem to get over.
The main point of the post was that a person threatened to leave unless she got better and the fact is people can and will leave you for needing them. People will will leave you for getting cancer as easily as they will leave you for suffering from depression. You need to take care of you and learn that it's not anybody else's responsibility to take care of you. Each person has to take care of themselves well enough to care for others. When you can say that you are good enough on your own to take care of a person back, then they should look after you. Couples are supposed to offer each other support together, and depend on each other, but neither partner is responsible for someone else. People seem to think that you just deserve support. The fact is that yes, it's nice to recieve, and yes couples should support each other, but it must go both ways. The way it seems that significant others, family and friends support depression suffers for a long time and that the sufferer just feels hopeless, spreading that feeling to others. It may not just be your illness, but your illness and something else. This attitude may compound into feeling useless and feeling that it will never end. Your attitude that "it doens't just go away" may make people feel hopeless, and who wants to build a life with someone who will always be sick, and never be able to take care of them back?
Someone with cancer will either get better or will die, but the partner will not spend the rest of their life, loving, caring for and being with someone who will never give back. If you want someone to stay show him that it's not hopeless, show them that though you'll always have an illness you will take care of them too, that they aren't just your caretaker but a friend, a partner, etc. Show them that there will be good days, and that you will work as hard as you can make more bright days than bad days. The more you make the situation seem like something that's ok, and you'll handle the less they'll feel helpless and hopeless, and the more they'll want to take care of you. The more you insist that you are sick, and nothing is your fault, the less in control they'll feel, and the more they'll want to leave.
The fact is that I've suffered through all this, the relationships, the illness, the problems. Now I still have it, but I control it, not the other way around. You can figure out how to put your life back together, but you need to take control of all the aspects and understand that more is within your control than you think. It's time to control your eating, sleeping, thinking, relationships and absolutely every other aspect. For the next few years you will have to focus on every action you take, every second of every day. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but it was completely worth it in the end.
Do you think depression is an illness that can be fought and conquered? Do you think that dression sufferers are responsible for themselves? Or do you think the people in their lives are obligated to care for them? Do you think that once you have depression there is not fixing it? Do you think just therapy is enough for depression? Do you think that you must take care of all aspects of your life to manage it?

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Blame the teacher?

I just read the post about the teacher "getting off easy." All I have to say is WHAT?
I'm not saying that doing anything permanent or physically harmful to a child is alright, but are we seriously getting onto this teacher this much?
When I was seven year old, nobody acted that way in class and got away with it. Teachers could stand you up in the corner in front of the whole class and make you stand there for the rest of the hour. Teachers could make you wear a silly hat for being dumb. Teachers could sit you down in a desk at the front and face the rest of the classroom. Teachers could take away disruptive things that you had on you (including clothing, jewlery, hair accessories and other things) and make you wear regular gym clothes that were generically sized to fit most kids.
Personally I wouldn't have cut anything off the girl. She would have stood in front of the whole class and removed every single one of those beads off her hair so that she couldn't make noise anymore. She would take off her own beads and I would have kept them for the remainder of the day. Things like that happened to kids when we were in school.
It was ok to embarass children for misbehaving. Bad behavior should be something to be embarassed of anyway, so why not make them that way. Everyone is up in arms about how this child is embarassed and traumatized! Personally I think she should be. She was being disruptive and obnoxious. When asked to stop she didn't. She didn't even go up to the front willingly. She had to be tricked!
If I had to be asked more than once to do anything when I was 7 I would have been spanked and my toys taken away! If I didn't listen to a teacher repeatedly my parents would have been mad at me, not the school. I would have come home with one less braid and my mom would have spanked me for disrupting the class. If I had all that this girl did, my mother would have cut the rest of my braids off so I couldn't do it again!
We're so obsessed with preserving every child's precious feelings that we as a society no longer see discipline as necessary. Children need to be embarassed that they were poorly behaved!
I am so livid that all these parents expect teachers to put up with their children's awful behavior. Send your child to school behaving properly and things like this won't happen! The teacher may have gone overboard, but by no means is she a monster, or some awful psychotic woman. That child really deserved what she got!
Boohoo, she had to cry and everyone made fun of her! Good! She should be spending time in school learning, not disobeying her teacher and disrupting the class! If it were my child, I'd be seriously re-evaluating my parenting skills. Clearly I sent my child to school without impressing on them the proper behavior!
Would you let your children behave this way in the classroom?