24 January 2009

You're not Ulysses, baby.

This is my first blog on blogger.com. I've had blogs on other blogging sites, but they've all fallen to the wayside. I'm going to try and keep this one.

I guess I should lay down the ground rules.

I'm going through some really confusing times right now. My birthday is on Monday, and I will be twenty-one. Two weeks ago, I had an emotional breakdown while in my program coordinator's office. It was stress, PMS ... Either way, she called the school health office, and the nurse there had me book an appointment with the counsellor. That appointment is on Monday, at 12:30.

I've been debating whether to go. I've been debating a lot of things lately. Am I crazy, did I finally break? Should I keep going in my school work, when half the time I can't bring myself to leave my house to go to school, or I leave and purposely miss the bus - always self-sabotage.

It boils down to ... either I am depressed, have a dissociative disorder, or am severely sleep deprived. The last one, I know, is confusing, because I sleep every night. But it's possible, they say, that a person can sleep but never get into the all-important deep sleep that regenerates, repairs, and rests a person. They say not getting enough deep sleep can lead to symptoms of both depression and dissociative disorders. I'm hoping that's true. I'm hoping I'm just sleep deprived. It will make treatment a lot easier.

Treatment for what? Well, my dreams are very realistic. So realistic, in fact, and so mundane, that when I remember them during the day, I remember them as memories - as if they had actually happened. On more than one occasion, I have done something, or talked to someone about something - a conversation we had in my memory, and had them tell me it never happened. In my memory, I had a conversation with my friend over msn, about what her doctor had recommended for treatment of her SHS (snapping hip). She told me that he suggested she join a yoga class. I also have problems with my hip, and my doctor had suggested physiotherapy, but yoga seemed like a good alternative. So a few days later, I found a posting for a yoga class in our neighbourhood that was just starting up. I messaged her about it, and she told me her doctor didn't tell her to do yoga, and that our conversation had never happened. I was so adamant that it had, I combed through our chat log. Sure enough, there was no previous conversation between us about yoga.

If that had been just a one-time thing, I would have been able to forget about it. During this last week, I woke up and remembered that my sister had told me there was a letter on the kitchen table for me. I checked the table for the letter, but couldn't find it. Thinking to myself, I remembered the stuff on the table being different, arranged differently, and came to the realization that it was probably a dream.

When I was younger, for the longest time, I had terrifying nightmares. Probably from the time I was two or three, until I was six or older. They never really stopped, I just learned to deal with them. Last year, I had recurring nightmares about zombies because of the movie, I Am Legend.

I don't pretend to know what it all means, what it means for my health.

I just know, I can't continue like this.