Death

I have encountered death and dying throughout my life, but none of these encounters have ever taught me how to deal with grief. Though I have been affected by all of the deaths that have occurred throughout my life, I have never felt the deep sense of grief that others in my life experienced upon hearing of these deaths. I was more impacted by the sadness my loved ones felt during these difficult times than by the passing of those I had known. And though I did feel some sort of loss during these periods of grief, I did not know how to offer support to those in my life who were feeling much deeper sadness. 


When faced with the sorrow death causes, it is my instinct to try and "fix" the problem, but clearly, in these instances, this is not the appropriate response. So instead, I hug and kiss, listen and try to empathize. But offering this kind of support leaves me feeling helpless because my support does not make the grief my friends and family feel "go away." I am left feeling like a bad friend and a bad person. Moreover, I feel selfish for worrying about how I feel about myself at such times, rather than grieving for the lost person.


I bring all of this up because Sam's lifelong childhood friend is dying. It is hard to watch Sam so upset and feel incapable of helping him feel any better. Moreover, though I don't know his friend very well, I don't understand why I do not feel more upset. I understand the gravity of the situation, but I just don't feel attached to the sadness surrounding me.


Maybe this is because I have never lost someone I truly love and know well to death, so I simply cannot empathize with Sam because I do not have any idea what he is going through. The closest to grief I have felt is depression, but I still do not know how to respond to Sam's grief because my depression has been so self-focused, rather than the other-focus that grief entails.


Beyond feeling helpless in supporting Sam, I feel ashamed that while he is going through such a trial, I am experiencing my familiar anxieties after returning home from a girls' weekend with Emily in California. I feel so selfish that I am concerned about myself at such a time. My fears and sadness are so shallow in comparison, and yet they are still banging around in my head. I think I need to do some art this evening so I can process some of what I am going through in order to be a better support for Sam...

Beauty Forecast? Really?!

I was just surfing reddit and found a link to a blog on a feminist website discussing news that The Weather Channel has now launched a Five-Day Beauty Forecast: a weather forecast aimed at women that includes how the weather in the upcoming days will affect their hair and/or skin. The blogger commenting on this new forecasting feature was frustrated that this application was aimed only at women when she knew of men who were just as concerned about how their appearance is affected by the weather. Furthermore, she noted that there are women who are smart enough to know how the weather affects their hair and skin. Though I understand this position, I also think that it is not addressing the deeper sentiment that this forecasting option sets forth. 


With this new feature, The Weather Channel promotes the idea that the most important thing in women's lives is or should be how their beauty will fare over the course of a day. I do my best to place less focus on my appearance each day because I have spent too much of my life trying to live up to society's ever-out-of-reach beauty standard. I tried shrinking my body and wearing more makeup because the messages I received were that being thin and beautiful were the only ways you were worthy of love. Though I now know, at least logically, that this is not true, I still struggle to believe this with messages everywhere I go telling me to be smaller, better, smoother, prettier... I had hoped that reading up on the weather would be one place I would not have to fight to maintain a sense of self not tied to physical appearance. I guess I am going to have to keep my guard up no matter which websites I browse.

Treading Water

Now that I know I am not attending graduate school in the fall, my time is being spent much the same way it was prior to learning this, though now I have added searching for jobs to my small repertoire of afternoon activities. Seeking employment takes up a significant amount of time, but I can only do so much researching and applying each week before I run out of jobs to apply for, leaving me with little else to do but wait. Reading, knitting, and doing art are fun activities for me, but I have moved from frantically checking my email to learn of my status with UW to frantically checking my email to hear any responses from potential employers. Sam and I are financially stable right now (this will change in a couple of months when my student loans from Antioch move into repayment), so this is not the reason I am antsy to get a job. For the most part, I just want to be working rather than spending my afternoons at home. Furthermore, I want to be working in a position that moves me closer to goal of becoming a social worker.

For many people, periods of stress trigger a desire to diet or in some other way control the size of their bodies. I, like most, find myself falling prey to this pointless, self-defeating goal, especially since my future has been up in the air. Though I understand that the body dissatisfaction I have been feeling has nothing to do with my appearance and everything to do with my fears about how my future may or may not turn out, it is nevertheless tormenting me. It makes doing my art, knitting, or reading extremely difficult to focus on. I am simply too anxious about my body to take pleasure in activities I typically enjoy.

Despite my self-consciousness about my body, I am very excited to visit the Bay Area with a good friend of mine this weekend. The weather should be nicer than it is here and we will be occupied for the majority of the weekend. I hope I can keep myself busy until them so that I can be fully present for the fun we will be having.

Anew

After waiting in agony to learn about the status of my application to the MSW program I applied to earlier this year, I learned yesterday that I was not accepted. I think I was in shock the moment I found out because I was strangely positive about the situation. For anyone who knows me, this is an odd reaction as I tend to "catastrophize" everything. Yep, you can call me that little chicken who fears the sky is falling with the drop of an acorn on her head. I think a major reason I did not immediately collapse into tears when I read my rejection email was that I was so relieved to finally know the results of my application. I was so antsy waiting around being unable to apply for full-time jobs or plan for my future in any way because I had no idea whether or not I needed to do so. As soon as I read that email and closed my inbox, I got cracking on starting a new future for myself.

The first step in creating my new life: find a job in the field of social services. I want to work in a position that I enjoy, or at least one that puts me on the path toward a career that will be fulfilling, because I have spent too much time in spirit-killing positions. My passions lie in empowering the disenfranchised, so naturally, I hope to find a career in the realm of social work. I find no meaning in my current position (how much zeal can possibly be mustered by setting teeth cleaning appointments for the upper class in Seattle?) and I am yearning for the opportunity to make a difference in my community. With this in mind yesterday, I hopped into the shower and found a coffee shop in Ballard with free wifi so that I could begin searching for jobs.

I spent all afternoon writing cover letters and reviewing my resume to be sent to potential employers. I was oddly euphoric about my future life, free of school work and studying, hopefully free of hope-dashing stress. Though I wanted to get into UW's MSW program so that I could begin my path toward a meaningful career, the longer I spent out of school, the nicer it felt not to have papers to write and mounds of reading to complete. The idea of working at a full-time job, hopefully relevant to my passions, sounded a lot more enjoyable.

Later in the afternoon, though, the positivity that was so uncharacteristic for me was quickly replaced by my usual, self-deprecation. It began on my way home from the cafe, which happened to be during rush-hour. I started seeing all these people driving on their way home from, most likely, full-time jobs. I assumed that they loved their jobs and were living the life they wanted to be living. Meanwhile, I had just been rejected from a program I badly wanted to be accepted into and I spend most of my days bored out of my mind at work and then scrounging for afternoon activities. What kind of life is it that I am living? And, to add to my disappointment, I started telling myself that I was a failure because, not only had I gotten fired from my non-profit job (despite the fact that being fired had less to do with me as an employee and more to do with the organization's dysfunction), but now I could not get into the MSW program I wanted. I felt like a directionless putz.

When I got home and Sam greeted me, I was too depressed to be very loving in return. I decided that I needed to take a walk around Green Lake and he joined me. Unfortunately, my downward emotional spiral continued despite walking around in public. I ended up crying for the last half of the walk (about a mile). During the course of the walk, I brought up an old topic with Sam about what would happen if I decided to enroll in an out-of-state MSW program. In the past, Sam said that he wouldn't move with me because he loves his job. He said he would be happy for me to spend two years in another state earning my degree and then would hope I tried moving back once I finished. I was too emotional to be having this conversation, but when I start getting anxious and depressed, the only thing that can quell an impending emotional apocalypse is Ativan and, unfortunately, I had left it at home for our walk. As a result, any logic I may have had on this topic had gone out the window. I was devastated by Sam's decision and argued that if Sam loved me enough, he would move with me for school. He disagreed and I was incapable of understanding his point of view. I quickly crumbled under my negativity and was reduced to a blubbery, red-faced, puffy-eyed lunatic walking around the lake amid mommies with their Starbucks coffees and toddlers in joggers. Ugh.

When we got back to the apartment, the crying did not end and I began saying things I did not mean. Luckily, my husband knows when to stop taking me seriously. He started cooking dinner while I began packing up for an overnight sleep lab appointment that was due to begin at 7:30pm. I was hardly looking forward to this, as I was still an emotional mess and our argument had not yet been resolved. When I finished packing up and began heading for the door, I collapsed into tears again, trying to explain why I was so upset. Sam understood, but he wanted me to understand why he did not want to leave and why this conversation was not even relevant yet as I had not even applied to out-of-state schools. By the time we both felt better, it was time for me to go, but I couldn't make myself leave the house. I cancelled my appointment, took an Ativan, and my frenzied state slowly melted away as we watched several episodes of Weeds.

I woke up this morning feeling much better about my situation (not being an emotional mess really helps one's outlook on life, doesn't it?) and ready to tackle my new future. I reminded myself that I felt almost relieved yesterday when I first learned I didn't get into the MSW program because I would not have to spend the majority of my time studying, writing papers, and feeling stressed. So, I am once again at a coffee shop, preparing to apply for jobs and I feel lucky to have so much time to do so. I am also strikingly fortunate to have a husband with a steady job (my part-time wages help, too) so I do not feel in overly agitated about finding a job. I am simply going to keep blogging, reading, knitting, and drawing, with job-searching sprinkled in here and there. I want to begin a life that is more meaningful to me and this is a great time to start. As bored as I have been at times while only working part-time, I do recognize that this will be one of the only, if not the only, time in my life when I will have so much free time and I want to put it to good use. 

Not only will my hobbies be a good way to spend my time, but Sam and I have decided that we will go on a trip around the world for six months to a year should he get fired or laid off (because Verizon has been bought by Frontier Communications, this could be a very real possibility in the coming year), so we can plan this wonderful excursion together. I have been itching to travel again for years (I can't believe it has been nearly four years since I last traveled!) and I am looking forward to exploring new regions of the world as well as my own boundaries as a traveler. The coming year will be an interesting one and there is very little I can do to imagine how it will come to pass...and, for the first time, that seems kind of exciting.

Empty

So far, the two blog entries I have posted have been incongruous and I would like to explain my reasoning behind starting this blog. I have such a lack of passion for just about everything in my life right now. Each day I wake up wondering how I am going to fill the hours between waking and sleeping because I have so little going on that each hour is a daunting challenge to fill. It wasn't always this way, though.


For as long as I can remember, I have filled every moment of free time with some activity, whether it was work, play, volunteering, studying, or sleeping. I used to get sick frequently because I spent most of my time pushing myself to the limit. Times have clearly changed.


My life has taken some major changes of course over the last two years resulting in me grasping at anything that may improve my outlook on life. It began with being fired from a job for reporting sexual harassment of a volunteer by a fellow employee. Being fired is difficult for anyone to handle, but as a feminist and as someone intimately connected to this organization's mission, I felt rejected and disrespected by one of the few organizations that I had looked up to and lived in awe of for years. 


Toward the end of my career at this organization, I realized I wanted to become a therapist so I could help people improve their lives. Once I was fired, I had the opportunity to apply to a Master's in Psychology program and work toward this goal. After my application was submitted, I worked obsessively to find a full-time job were I to get rejected by this program. Finding a job was not just about ensuring my financial stability; it was also a way to rekindle my confidence regarding my employability. Being fired had been a severe blow to my confidence as a good, reliable, hard worker. Despite my understanding that the state of the financial crisis at the time made finding a job extremely difficult, I took the lack of phone calls personally. Furthermore, I had only applied to jobs that would beef up my resume for my future as a therapist, so not being called back for these job openings made me fear for my future in my field of interest. 


Eventually, I learned that I was accepted into the Master's program I applied to and my fear of unemployment, for the most part, went out the window. The program was due to begin in a month and a half, so I had enough time to search for a part-time job to work while in school. The advice I was given from other students in my program was to find a job that had nothing to do with psychology so I wouldn't be burnt out. With that in mind, I applied to part-time desk jobs and within a few weeks, started as a front desk assistant at a nearby dental office.


I have been working there now for over a year, but the only difference now is that I am no longer in school. I withdrew from my Master's program after realizing it was not a good fit for me and it was not preparing me enough for my future career as a therapist. Since withdrawing, I realized that a Master's of Social Work program would be a better option for me and recently applied to a school nearby (my husband does not want to leave Seattle). I have been waiting on pins and needles to learn whether or not I have been accepted because there is little I can do to prepare for my life until after I hear from this program. I cannot apply to jobs because I do not know if I will be available for a full-time job. I cannot apply for volunteer positions, something that would allow to me express my passions, because I do not know what my availability will be. So, I am stuck in limbo, trying to find ways to fill up my afternoons and evenings after getting off of work from my dead-end part-time job.


Most people who have full-time jobs are jealous of all my free time, but I would quickly trade this lifestyle for one filled with a 40-hour-per-week job. "Why?" you ask? Because everyone I know either has a full-time job or is a full-time student, so I have very few people to spend time with in the afternoons after I get off of work. My husband works full-time and gets off work at around 3pm everyday, but I cannot rely on him to keep me occupied every evening. 


I have found things to occupy some of my time, though. I bought art supplies and a blank journal to fill up with my artwork. I take walks around Green Lake frequently, read about a book per week, and knit often. But I am a people lover, so spending all of this time alone is causing depression to creep up on me. Moreover, though I enjoy my various hobbies, none of them light me up in quite the same way as working for or speaking out about a cause I believe in. 


That is why I started this blog. I wanted to find some way to express my views about the issues I care about. Whether or not people read this (and I highly doubt anyone is), it is important for me to feel like I am doing something to make my tiny corner of the world a better place; even if that means I am merely writing about how to do so. I am not always going to write about causes, as this entry clearly demonstrates, but I will be using this blog as an outlet to share my thoughts and ideas about what I am finding most important these days. Whether I am writing about feminism,  my emotional life, or something completely different, this blog will be a way for me to create a more meaningful existence. Isn't that we are all looking for anyhow?

The Psychology of Psychedelics

My husband, Sam, and I browse reddit on nearly a daily basis and are constantly sharing the news and information we read on this site with each other. We often leave an article, picture, or video we found on this site up on our computer screens for the other to find and, subsequently, be amazed. 


This afternoon, upon arriving home from work, I saw that Sam had left up an article from the New York Times for me to read. The article reported on researcher, Dr. Griffiths', most recent studies on the effects of psilocybin, or "mushrooms," on one's mental state. Dr. Griffiths and his colleagues published a study in 2008 finding that most subjects taking this psychedelic had "profound spiritual experience[s] with lasting positive effects." Subjects reported that their experiences being high had changed their lives for the better. Dr Griffiths and his colleagues then went on to study the how those dealing with depression and cancer responded to the drug. Like subjects from their study in 2008, people with depression and cancer experienced similar enlightening effects. In a study performed by Johns Hopkins University, one man in Washington state., Dr. Martin, took psilocybin and found that his antidepressant-resistant depression had all but vanished and his relationships with his family had also greatly improved as a result of his high on this drug. More impressive, even, is that he ranks this experience as one of the most meaningful in his life.


Though Dr. Griffiths and his colleagues warn that research in this area is only preliminary, such findings are nonetheless fascinating and worth discussing. Why might the experience of being high on psychedelics completely alter the way one thinks about one's life and the world in which one lives? The depressed Washingtonian, Dr. Martin, noted that while high, he felt the boundaries between himself and others disappear.This man, as well as other subjects, said that while high, they felt "their egos and bodies vanishing as they felt part of some larger state of consciousness in which their personal worries and insecurities vanished." As a student of psychology with a general understanding of cognitive behavioral theory (CBT), it occurred to me that these experiences support CBT's premise that our thoughts determine how we feel and behave. If being high can make our egos, personal worries, and insecurities disappear, our thoughts, in addition to what we know as our sense of self, are being completely altered. If psilocybin's high changes us to this extent, it is understandable that the feelings we have about our lives change, too, lessening our depression, improving our relationships with one another, and our level of satisfaction with our lives. 

Though this research is not necessarily advocating the use of psychedelics, it is an incredible thought that a simple chemical can drastically change how we experience our lives. I am a firm believer in the power of self-reflection, but if reaching one's "aha moment" could take a mere six hours rather than several decades, this is definitely an idea worth researching further. After all, in America, this land of instant gratification, what could be an easier, quicker route to happiness?

Primero

I have spent most of my life searching for the key to creating a new, better life in which I am doing something incredible, worth remembering and meriting discussion, even if only by my standards. I know, I know, you're thinking, "Silly girl, whatever you do and wherever you go, there you are." Though I fully understand this, I cannot escape my insatiable need to be living life extraordinarily. It feels as though this magnificent life is just out of my reach, if only I make one decision to change it...whatever that decision may be. Writing this blog is a way for me to find greater meaning in this life, before I wish it completely away on another, more fantastic life that may never come.

Here goes!