I always get a little nervous when I start listening to Nine Inch Nails with any kind of regularity, and this morning my anxiety was confirmed when I checked in with my regular doctor for a checkup and he all but outright insisted I not leave without talking to a counselor. Ha. I know that technically that's not funny, but perhaps I get a small giggle out of it because of the irony. I've been raging and bug-eyed for weeks now and perhaps when I'm feeling a bit on the other side of it, someone finally perks up to tell me I'm insane or at least well on my way there. I'm sitting in the library at DU now, waiting for said appointment, thinking about what this person will say to me when I launch into all things that bother me at the moment. This amuses me even further because I dare say that whomever the graduate student may be who has to listen to me today will be younger and far less wise than I will need him or her to be. When did I become so cynical that I hate people before I even meet them?
One of my biggest and most intense pet peeves of late is the role of the nurse's aide, assistant, whatever stupid acronym these people with 18 months of tech school to learn how to take blood pressures and temperatures are called. Forgive the elitism here, but what a stupid job (1) to have to go to school for, since I learned how to do a blood pressure in human biology class and taking a temperature is something a monkey could do, and (2) it's utterly pointless and just annoying to people like me. When I went to the doctor's office this morning, a kid - and I stress kid because she couldn't have been 20 - wearing faded jeans, a spiky belt and a fucking hoodie sweatshirt, and a $300 highlights job called me back into a little room so she could ask me why I'm being seen today, which I feel is none of her fucking business. Further, she takes my blood pressure, which is all computerized and I could do myself; then, she needs my temperature - God knows why since I'm not sick - and crams the thing under my tongue, stabbing me with it. I felt the overwhelming urge to hit her. Hard. What is wrong with me? I'm not a violent person; I would like to think I'm reasonably optimistic most of the time, and that I'm basically happy even armed with the knowledge of the world I live in and how it works. But lately, I feel like everything around me is wrong and that people are stupid and that I wish I could make them disappear just by thinking about it.
So I guess I do need to go to a counselor. Maybe I need shock therapy or a shitload of psychotropic medications. Maybe I need a new brain that would allow me to be a housewife and be happy about simply providing happiness for others, get fat and stay that way, resigned to a life in the burbs and unconcerned with the future because once we're dead, what does it all matter anyway? Holy fuck; I'd delete that if I didn't really feel that way.
The latest spiral is that every single good moment I've had in the last few weeks has been almost instantaneously undercut by a piercing blow, either to my emotions or my ego, or both. Yesterday I went to school, dressed up and feeling pretty good after a trip to the salon and new short 'do. It was good to see friends and chat with them and even my class, which I have begun and conducted most haphazardly thus far, went well. I love teaching and it does wonders for my psyche and it nearly refueled my long-empty tanks. I felt so good in fact that I thought I'd get moving on some projects that have been on the old to-do list so long they have cobwebs attached, and so I sent a proposal off for a conference and sent my dissertation prospectus to my first two readers. I should preface this by saying that, as usual in any graduate program, I have had scattered guidance - if any - on how to do this project. The only real help I've gotten anywhere, ever, is from my main advisor, who is amazing and supportive. I wish I could work with just him and get on with it; but there must be others involved, and my second reader is someone I also like, but I'm starting to feel some resentment toward. My theory is that she is pissed that I didn't make her the director of my dissertation and that she is now attempting to punish me for this fact. There is no way to prove such things and I'm certain that I'm paranoid, but that doesn't change the fact that she almost always advises me in the exact opposite direction of my advisor, which makes me so frustrated that I could implode on the spot. She ripped my prospectus in half and basically told me I did it all wrong and I'd need to start from scratch. This is akin to telling a person with a blade to her wrist that she is worthless and ugly and should hurry up with the suicide thing already. Whilst contemplating how I would rid myself of this burden by willing myself into an deadly aneurysm or mental institution, my advisor responds to her comments by arguing some points and trying to mitigate the situation. He does this well and understands his political role, but now I'm more frustrated than ever. I should be perfectly honest that I always expect to hear that my written projects are great, that they need only cursory editing, and that I am utterly validated as a star student. Having said that, I also handle constructive criticism well; because of my perfectionist nature, I listen when people I trust give me feedback which will improve my work. I don't, however, deal well with "start all over" at the height of my anxiety and freakout mode, especially when she mentioned that she was aware that I'd been under a great deal of stress lately. Since she's a rhetorician, I assume the subtext of that is intended, and means "I know you're having a tough time and I'll take that as the good reason why this piece you sent me sucks total ass." Fuck. Sometimes I think I can't do this.
The rest of my day after that looked like the many before it, then. I changed into pajamas, comfort ate a burrito, an entire bag of chips, and two ice cream bars. I'm sure I managed to eat some candy in there too, and I nearly completed a 1000-piece puzzle before going to bed and sleeping fitfully. I'm sick of the fact that the only thing that makes me feel better is eating, and that only lasts until I get a stomach ache and become racked with guilt at the fact that I lost 48 pounds and have gained 8 back. See what I mean? What's eight pounds? Is this worth self-loathing and punishment? Of course not.
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