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Guess what – Rachel has asked me to be an assistant for the group. So I’ll be spending the summer with Rani, Brett and Sarah being trained by Rachel. I’ve also got 2 interviews for design courses :-o so who knows maybe I will get in.
# posted: 9:38AM
The fab news is that I have been invited to go to schoolies week with Sophie, Jessica and their friend Peta :-) At first mum and dad weren’t too keen on the idea, but with the help of Rachel and Dr Peterson they changed their mind. Dr Peterson says that all this stuff about my parents getting nervous all the time is because dad has a bit of anxiety and depression himself and worries mum about everyday things. The more I learn about depression and anxiety the more I agree. Well, better start packing for schoolies. I really want to look good . . . you never know who’ll be up there.
# posted: 5:41 PM
Not much to say except that lately I have been putting my head down and studying in a big way. Actually I’ve felt like I’ve really made up some of the ground I lost when i wasn’t feeling too good. It also helps that I am sleeping a lot better lately :-) I find that if I push myself to go to bed at a similar time each night (usually about 10pm) I sleep better and am able to get up earlier. If I get tired while i am studying I let myself have a power nap (usually around 2pm) and that helps me keep going for the rest of the day. It can sound kind of boring, but believe me flunking out is even more boring.
# posted: 11:34PM
School has been really looking up :-) Sophie, Jessica and I spent a lot of time together lately. We all do visual art together and are rushing to get our assignments in on time. This means lots of lunchtimes spent in the art room. We either put on some music or just talk while we are working. We are all kind of similar. We like (and dislike) the same music - jazz and the blues. Sophie also told us that earlier in the year she had felt kind of bad too. She has never really got help for it, other than Mr Xin, though. So I told her to go to her GP or Mrs Jenson, the school counsellor.
# posted: 2:45PM
I haven’t been too involved with the play since the set construction but opening night was great and I hear the rest of the season is going well too. I even got my picture with Rani in the local newspaper. I have gotten some real compliments on my set too :-)
# posted: 1:12 PM
I’ve really been getting stuck into the work for the set. Rachel and I finalized the design last week and on the weekend the set construction will start :-) Mum and dad have been kind of uptight about me putting so much time into an extra-curricular activity. I tried easing their mind by telling them that it will be good preparation for my folio. I also reminded them that design courses put more emphasis on your folio than your marks when deciding who to accept into their courses. They still weren’t convinced saying ‘if only you’d put as much effort into your yr 12 studies as into this set you’d do brilliantly’. And then the idea came to me. I asked my visual arts teacher Mr Holmes if I could submit the set design as my final assignment. We looked at the guidelines and he helped me write a submission that addressed all the criteria. I told him how amazing he was. He said he was just happy that I was getting so excited about something. I’m happy too.
# posted: 8:22AM
Last night dad gave me the lecture about how expensive school fees are and how he wants to see something for his money. I’m trying, it’s just really hard to concentrate a lot of the time. These days it seems the group is more and more my only escape. That and my art which I have really been getting into in a major way since I have been feeling a bit better.
# posted: 9:27PM
Well I chickened out of getting angry at my parents for not letting me go to the get together and just let my parents have control again :-e. I am so angry at myself but after the whole going off my antidepressants saga I really haven’t had the energy to fight them - maybe when I feel better. Anyway, sounds like the get-together was a bit tense anyway. Rani called and told me that Sarah and Brett were pretty close. I think she’s a bit cut because she liked Brett. She says she’s over him but I have my doubts, especially now she is banned from seeing Dean. I don’t blame her - it’d be so amazing to have a boyfriend ;-) I am starting to think I’ll never find someone.
# posted: 8:23PM
I can’t believe my parents sometimes :-e. They are so into rules. It’s like they are so frightened that I might get depressed again that they don’t let me do anything. What they don’t seem to understand is that I just get more depressed when I stay home. Take the unofficial cast party. It was such a perfect opportunity to just have fun. But no, I’m not allowed to go out on a school night. Well if they think I’m just gonna accept what they have to say they can think again.
# posted: 5:02PM
The medication is starting to kick in again and none to soon :-) . In the last month I have been having the freakiest nightmares. There was the one when I felt my arm being cut off and could actually feel the knife. In another dream I turned up to the end of year exams and found out I was a week late! :-@ Actually, that might happen at this rate. I have SO many assignments to catch up on.
# posted: 5:39PM
I talked to mum, dad and Dr Peterson about my feelings about traditional medication. How I felt like it wasn’t natural. How I felt forced into taking the other antidepressant medication by mum and dad and how I thought that when I felt better I was supposed to go off them. Dr Peterson asked me if I was diabetic would I take insulin. I said ‘yes’. He said it was kind of the same with depression. He also said that there might be a time I can take less medication or that I could go off it entirely but he’d have to see. He gave me some more information on the type of antidepressant I am on so I can get a better understanding of how it works. I guess I feel relieved about the whole thing in a way. It’s just nice to feel like I understand what’s going on and that I don’t have to lie about what I believe. I just wish the medication would start working already. Meanwhile the play is getting closer. I really should get a move on fleshing out these designs.
# posted: 5:28PM
Well mum and dad busted me. Apparently Sophie leaked to Ms Roberts at school that she’d given me the pills :-0 Of course Ms Roberts called home straight away. She got mum. Mum then searched my drawers and found a full packet of last month’s antidepressants and a nearly empty bottle of St John’s Wort. She rang up Dr Peterson and told him what she found. He told her that what I was doing was kind of dangerous. Mum got angry at me. I didn’t know that what I was doing was dangerous.
# posted: 4:14PM
I’ve been missing school. I just can’t seem to get out of bed, let alone face people in my class
I won’t continue . . . It’s just all so not worth it :-(
# posted: 1:32PM
I’m not convinced about the St John’s Wort. I’ve been feeling really ‘blah’ lately :-( Not as bad as last year, but not too far off. I can’t seem to get myself to do even the most basic of things. Everything just feels like such a chore. Take cooking. I used to love it but now I feel like I wish I could just do it once and be done with it forever. This is kind of difficult seeing as mum is away on business and dad can’t cook. As you can imagine 3-minute noodles have been particularly popular in our house. I am so sick and tired of this horrible feeling :-( !!!
# posted: 6:32PM
I have decided to go to a chinese herbalist. Sophie, one of the people in my art class at school, swears by hers. She says he is a modern day miracle worker. Lately, I have been feeling like a miracle is exactly what I need. So I made an appointment with Mr Xin. We spoke about how I was depressed. He said St John’s Wort might be good for me to try but that i should ask my doctor. Sophie has been taking them and had some lying around so she gave them to me. I think this is a sign - I really need to start another remedy -
antidepressants seem so unnatural.
# posted: 9:11PM
Rachel flipped at my folio. I kept saying how it wasn’t that good but she insisted it was :-o. I am really looking forward to designing the set. I have all these concepts in my head . . . I just can’t seem to find the energy to put them down on paper. I still feel a bit weird around Rani but she hasn’t mentioned anything about our smoking session. We have both been getting to know this couple - Sarah and Brett.
# posted: 7:56PM
I can’t stop thinking about Rani. I have been feeling like such an idiot about the whole dope smoking thing. I hope she still speaks to me. I couldn’t bare losing another friend :-(
# posted: 11:18AM
I think I’ve made and lost a friend in 1 wk flat ;-(. Her name is Rani and she’s one of the other girls in the group. Last week she suggested that we go for a walk in the park afterwards. I was so stoked. People haven’t exactly been lining up to be my friend lately. I was also pleased because she seemed really out there in a kind of girlie way. So I jumped at the chance.
We went to the park near the house where we have group and we started chatting about stuff. Private stuff. Stuff that I hadn’t told anyone. It was all going well until she pulled out a joint and lit it. I knew I shouldn’t have smoked it but the sweet smell reminded me of how much I used to love it. And that was it. I took a couple of huge drags. I started feeling kind of edgy after a while about the police finding us there. The more Rani told me I was being paranoid the edgier I got. They told me in hospital all about how smoking dope can make you feel weird but I didn’t think a couple of puffs would be enough.
# posted: 11:18AM
Group was really interesting this month. We went around in a circle talking about our problems. Some of the other people in my group have had to deal with some fairly serious stuff. Most of them were talking about their parents so they didn’t feel as freaked out about it. But I had to talk about myself. One of the girls in the group, Rani, came up to me after the group. She started talking about how amazing it was that I came out the other side of my depression. It felt weird being told this from someone like her. She seems really out there and on the edge and yet she was in awe of me! I better go soon. Work is pretty full-on kind of fast so I should put my head down. Also at the end of the year Rachel is directing a play on mental illness and has asked anyone who’s interested to get involved. Rani and a couple of others are auditioning for parts. I still feel stressed about being on stage but I thought i could do some backstage stuff. I mentioned it to Rachel and she said she wants to see my folio of art work. I explained that some of the work is from last year and isn’t finished. But she says she still wants to see it :-) so i guess I should put it together nicely.
# posted: 8:14AM
Dr Peterson, my psychiatrist, says he is really pleased with how i’m going, especially considering the stress of starting the school year. I think he thought I would lose it or something. To tell you the truth I’m feeling much better in myself :-) i think i’ve actually been beginning to wonder whether I need to be on medication anymore. Dr Peterson isn’t so sure though. He said to wait and see. But I can feel it. I’m not a different person or anything. I still get edgy about stuff that other people are fine with. It’s just that I don’t have quite the same bad feeling that I had last year and earlier this year. Well, I think i’m strong enough to deal with it myself now.
# posted: 7:10PM
For better or worse I went to the group. My parents were so pleased they offered, or more like demanded, to drive me. When my parents drive me anywhere these days it’s quite literally door-to-door service. The other night was no exception. In fact, I’m sure they would have joined the meeting if the group leader Rachel hadn’t ‘discreetly’ suggested they leave me to it. I must admit that as I saw my parents walking away I had this flashback to when I was little and they went out in the evening. As they were leaving I would attach myself to one of their legs to stop them moving. I had to stop by reminding myself that I was 17 years old. I have to remind myself how old I am a lot lately. It’s not that I still feel like the preschooler that latched on to one of my parents’ ankles . . . but I definitely feel younger than my 17 years.
# posted: 10:49PM
Today was my first day back at school. It’s been such a head spin - especially being a year older than everyone else. I guess feeling younger than you are is a good thing when you’re repeating a year at school. I still feel like I am different to the other people in my class though. They know what happened to me last year. I can see it in the way they look at me, the way they talk to me. But mostly it’s the way they avoid doing either too often that’s the dead giveaway. In spite of this, I am going to persist with school. After all, this year can’t possibly be as bad as last.
# posted: 9:46PM
I thought a couple of weeks ago when I decided to go back to school the hard decisions were over. Little did I know that around the corner was another one . . . do I want to spend time talking about my depression with a pack of strangers or do I want to keep it all inside? Well I’ve tried bottling it up before. A lot of good that did me. I became so suicidal i went to hospital. And what did i do there – spent lots of time talking about depression with a pack of strangers. So I think it is my destiny . . . and God forbid I should stand in the way of something as powerful as destiny. Well, if I could brave going back to school to repeat yr 12, I can brave anything . . . I hope!
# posted: 10:45AM
Will I or won’t I? The question that hovers over me like a black cloud. That’s what I hate most about having depression - the constant indecision.
Like whether to go back to school and repeat yr 12 or try and get a job. I always thought I would definitely finish yr 12 and go on to uni . . . it just goes to show that you never know what life has in store for you! ;-) When I got depressed in the middle of last year I couldn’t get out of bed let alone deal with the stress of exams and so I left school. Now I am left with the choice of abandoning my dreams or going back and trying to make friends with the year below and handle the stress of schoolw
ork.
# posted: 8:33PM
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Jenna, age 18
Favourite possession:
My Dad's 1974 Pentax SLR (camera) - no zoom, no flash, lots of guts. They just don't make 'em like they used to.
Favourite animal:
My dog Mitzy - she's a mongrel, but we don't mention it when she's around!
What I like about myself:
My ability to keep going - without that I'd be stuffed.
Favourite celebrity:
Daniel Johns, the lead singer from Silverchair - a great musician, not to mention kinda cute.
Favourite lyric:
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired. I know right now you don't care. But soon you're gonna think of me. And how I used to be. - 'Unwell' by Matchbox 20 |
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