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[mylifeasatransferstudent]

Update #3

Last friday there was a fundraiser for the ruby club at a local brewery. It involved beer and karaoke. I went with the intention of singing exactly 1 song and drinking 1, maybe 2, beers. 

So I get there and the like three people I know hadn’t shown up yet, and there was an hour until karaoke was set to begin. I sat down and looked over the menu trying to decide what to drink. I ordered one and then decided maybe I should eat something so I got a little food as well. Soon after I had finished my little snack, I was done with my beer and got another. 

About halfway through my second is when people I knew showed up. I was talking with the girl who recruited me, then I decided F it I’m going to get another one and open a tab this time. When I was at the bar, my name was called for karaoke: “Careless Whipser”--my go to. 

Everyone enjoyed the song choice and when I was done, I returned to the bar to get my drink. 

I talked and drank and one of the girls wanted to go up and do a duet, but her partner didn’t. I volunteered myself and we signed up for “Summer Nights.” 

I ordered another and by the time we were called for our song, I was intoxicated enough to actually dance and sing. 

Everyone loved that one as well. 

Aftert that however I don’t remeber much. I know someone got me an Uber and at least two of the girls rode home with me. When they were getting me into the car, I was called for another song that I apparently signed up for “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” but they jsut stuffed me in the car and said no way was I going to go back up on stage. 

The following day I definitely felt it and decided it was in my best interest to not go to condition in the heat of the day. 

So I didn’t see these folks until Tuesday for practice. I was the third to show up and one of the guys, the same one who was kinda egging me on for the karaoke, asked if I had anything to drink before practice. Jokes. 

During practice one of the guys introduced himself and the guy with the jokes goes “You can just call her alcoholic.” Then the mfing COACH goes “oh yeah she was having a good time friday. She killed karaoke.” 

I normally take a long time to warm up to people, and I normally just end up being like a wall flower. I have yet to determine if this is a good thing or if I should be embarrrassed.

What I do know is that today, for the first time since I’ve moved here, I feel alone and depressed. I know one reason maybe due to the fact that the last time I was wasted was days before my uncle died. Also alcohol kinda does that to you, but I would figure that 5 days is long enough that it wouldn’t really still affect me. 

Regardless of the cause (if there is one), I need to cope. I can’t let my mental health dictate when I move my life forward. I still need to go to class. I still need to go to practice. I still need to clean and cook and do homework. 

I need to take a few deep breaths and then just keep swimming. 

[mylifeasatransferstudent]

[mylifeasatransferstudent]

Update #2

My school has a lot going on on campus (like this week, for example, is diversity week, so there are speakers everyday talking about different things), however I feel the need to try to do things off campus as well. I’m 23 years old and a junior (which is fine, do school at your own pace, not society’s.). This means I’m older than all my peers by a fairly significant amount. I also have a retirement plan and bills and other not-exactly-college-kid-things that I am responsible for. While I know being involved in campus life is proven to help with overall performance, I  know I am at a different place in my life than almost everyone at school. 

So I’ve decided to try to make friends and connections off campus. I created an account on an app that is all about making friends (platonic dating app like thing). I matched with someone who had created a page for a rec team, not themselves. I looked into it and decided to join.

Now I use to be extremely athletic and in wonderful shape, but that was nearly a decade ago. I quit sports for extremely petty reasons: my brother joined my swim team, I thought everyone on my soccer team hated me, etc. I wish I had kept up with something because staying active without a real reason is kinda hard. Especially over the last five years I have been less active (I’ve gained nearly 30lbs) and meaning to get into shape but never having time nor motivation to do so. 

I know sports are like getting fit with a goal: being able to play well, so being able to join a team has that benifit. Plus working out with others helps you to stay motivated. However, I have never played this sport. I know the jist of it and man is it a lot of work: Rugby. The first meeting I went to was Saturday. It was the first of the season, so perfect timing there, and it was just a little fitness training. Only five people including myself showed up, and somehow I was able to keep up. Now two days later, I’m starting to think I might have pushed myself a little too hard. I’m still quite sore, but I’ll manage.

There’s practice Tuesdays and Thursadays plus more fitness stuff and games Saturdays. Everyone was really welcoming and kind, so I think I’ll stick with it. (Also they’re having a karaoke fundraiser Friday, so I’m totally going to that.)

As far as classes go, so far so good. Physics is a bit of a pain but I’m also not studying as much as I should so that’s 100% my fault. 

[mylifeasatransferstudent]

Update #1

So I have been in Shreveport for three weeks now. I’m doing well in all my classes. Some of my classmates are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed; It’s been two years since I took freshman geology, and somehow I retained more than the other kids in my Mineralogy class who took took thier freshman geology course one year ago; Some kids in physics just don’t pay attention in lecture and then complain about the lab not making sense; and then finally the class I was sure that I’d be the worst at (Intro to Computer Science) I’m doing extremely well in. My first physics exam is Monday, and my first Mineralogy exam is Thursday. The only thing I’m nervous about is I don’t know how my professors structure their exams, but there’s no use dwelling on that. All I can do is prepare myself by reviewing the lecture materials.

I’m thinking of volunteering at the animal shelter or at a horse therapy place for kids with disabilities maybe just one or two days a week. Will be fine without a job for about 5-6 months, but the sooner I find one the better. I’m also maybe going to join a church though I don’t know if Methodism is what I still want to follow. I know that it preaches having open hearts and open minds, but I don’t know if any of the churches around here are as inclusive as I’d like. I’ve been to several Methodist Churches over my life, and some of them have seemed to be the antithesis of Wesley’s ideology. I guess the only way to know for sure is to actually go to a service.  

I just think getting out of the house for more than just school would be a benefit.

Last weekend was my last weekend in Houston. My last day at work was the 8th. Now hopefully I’ll be less distracted and can focus on school work. I’ll try to update the blog weekly from now on. 

[mylifeasatransferstudent]

Where to Begin?

CW: Suicidal thoughts/ contemplations/ plans, sexual abuse/ some strong language/ honestly if you’re my family you probably don’t want to read this

In order to explain where I am today—physically and mentally—I need to set up an understanding of what exactly lead me to where I am today.

When I was a freshman in high school, I was hospitalized for my mental health. I didn’t know why, but I was suicidal and spent 14? days in the hospital where I was prescribed Prozac. I was diagnosed with Major Depression Disorder and General Anxiety Disorder, on top of my preexisting ADHD.

At the time I just said all of my mental health issues were due to the fact that I was adjusting to the new circumstances of my home life: My parents were divorced; my mom had just moved to Georgia to be with her boyfriend; my grandmother moved as well but to Central California to be with my cousins; and the cherry on top had been the fact that 9 people (only 4 of which were my kin, at least 2 were drug addicts) were now living in my childhood home, a four-bedroom and two-bathroom house. It was old (I think it was built in the 70s). We also seemed to be running an animal shelter (5 dogs and 3 cats. Two of the cats were not spayed and had litters at the same time so I think at one point we had 9 total cats). No one, myself included, seemed to care about the cleanliness of the house; however, when I was stressed and life seemed like too much to bare, I would clean which was the only time any cleaning would get done.

So yeah that seemed like a good enough reason to want to die.

 I got out of the hospital sometime after Valentine’s Day and I went back to school. I seriously can’t clearly remember anything that happened while I was on Prozac. It’s all fuzzy like a movie I watched only one time and I was drunk when I watched it. I have only one fairly clear memory from this time:

I was in my first hour class, Physical Science (which I think was my favorite class freshman year) and my teacher was talking and I could see his mouth move but I could not comprehend anything he said. It was like he was an adult in Charlie Brown. The bell rang and I couldn’t move. One of my classmates nudged me and I awoke from my daze to a puddle of drool on my notebook.

You see 14 days isn’t enough time to see how your body reacts to a new drug plus a hospital does not have the same stimuli as a classroom. I was given a drug and I could not see a doctor to alter my meds. Everyone on my insurance was not accepting new patients, but I could not take the Prozac anymore. Fuck America’s mental health care system. My dad saw how much worse off I was on the Prozac that he weened me off of it and I had to learn to cope on my own.

I failed 3 classes that year.

 Sophomore year, my home life hadn’t improved much and my eldest brother went to rehab. That took an emotional toll. Especially the “family week” which was toward the end and we set boundaries with each other and learned what the signs of relapse are. Each family member had to write a letter “When you do drugs it makes me feel like…if you continue to do drugs I will…if you steal from me…if you lie to me..” things like that to set boundaries on both sides. Now really all I knew was that my brother had sold my Zune and a few other things that were mine, so I just had to say don’t steal from me. When he read the letter he had wrote to me he looked me in the eyes and said, “You will not bring up anything I have done to you. If you do I will end the conversation then and there and walk away.”

I felt a lump form in my throat and eyes began to water. I just nodded and held back the tears. I knew I wasn’t wrong this whole time; I knew I wasn’t sick; I knew I hadn’t imagined it. He knew. He remembers. But for now that was all I got.

He was released, went into a ¾ home, relapsed, repeat. Now he’s been sober for a couple of years I think. Good for him.

 Junior year I think was the most uneventful year as far as my mental health goes. I grew closer to friends and really it was a good year.

 Senior year I took on more responsibility and was 2nd VP of JCL. My depression reared its ugly head. I was suicidal again. I had panic attacks almost daily and my dad would check me out of class, so I almost always missed my 7th hour which was Pre Cal. I was horrible at 2nd VPing and the other JCL officers decided to take action.

They wrote a letter and gave it to our Latin teacher and she read it to me. I cried and after my Latin class was over I ran into the restroom and sobbed. I thought I was going to throw up from crying so much. The bell rang for my English class to begin and I hugged the toilet. I began to calm down but even so I hated myself for being so weak I couldn’t handle any form of criticism. I thought about the scissors I had in my backpack. It would be so easy I thought. So easy and then I would have to worry about anything anymore. Weakness isn’t a problem when you’re dead. When you’re suicidal, this is the logic that your brain wants to follow, but you can’t let it. Find something to act as an anchor. People always say live for yourself, but when your self-worth is less than a penny, that seems like a dumb argument. What I wanted to live for I really didn’t know. But I knew I didn’t want to die where my best friend could be the one to find the body and her class was right across the hall. So I sent my dad a text to come get me and he did.

All of this is to say: I didn’t apply to any colleges because I didn’t know if I was going to be alive at the end of senior year.

By the way I failed 2 classes senior year. Still graduated class of 2014.

Fall of 2014 my dad and I move to Houston for his job and because I wasn’t staying at that house. Spring of 2015 I start as a Theater Major at a community college. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do but I knew I liked acting. Summer I work at a Girl Scout camp. Fall 2015 I had a problem getting registered for class, so took semester off and did a community play “Guards! Guards!” Spring 2016 I do just some basics at school and change my major to math. That summer I returned to camp then that fall go back to school and get a job at Space Center Houston. Dec 2018 I got my Associates in Mathematics.

At some point during all of this and I’m leaning more toward late ‘15 early ’16 I went to visit my grandparents. My brother was living with them. He says he needs to talk to me so we go outside.

He said he had done somethings to me a brother never should. He apologized. He said drugs aren’t an excuse for what he’s done. He said that someone had done it to him so he thought it was okay to do the same.

I was stunned into silence—just like when he was in rehab setting boundaries. Everything came flooding back. It had happened when I was still very young, I know I was somewhere between 10 because I hadn’t started my period yet and that was at 11 and he was still in school (he was a dropout). He performed oral sex on me and made me reciprocate. I had no idea what was happening but I knew it was wrong. I think it may have happened more than once, but I know that this set a foundation for my anxiety and my inability to say no or speak up to defend myself. I was petrified when I told one of his friends what he had done to me and he asked me to do the same for him. Then he went bragging to my brother about it and my brother started to fight him and yell racial slurs saying he never wanted to see him around our house again and that was my fault. They had a falling out because of me.

My parents said that any girl who does exactly what she’s asked in a sexual context, who doesn’t put up a fight, has no respect for herself. If you don’t respect yourself no one else would either. My parents didn’t respect me then, and if I told them, I knew they would blame me for having no self-respect. So I ignored it. Pretended like it never happened. I convinced myself that I had made it up. I was sick and disgusting for imagining these things. For years, even after rehab, I thought it was all in my head. He was always my favorite brother. I always wanted to do what he did. He played baseball, I signed up for T-ball; he joined swim team, so did I; he was a goalie, I became one too. And I kept up that illusion.

To this day I have only had a less than five minute conversation with him about what he did and that was his “apology” which was just another one of his 12-steps. I feel like it wasn’t even real.

 So here we are now 2019. September 6th is my three year anniversary at Space Center Houston. And I have transferred to a 4-year school to get my bachelor’s in Geology. I have moved to Shreveport. 

From here on out this blog is going to be about what I think of as I’m getting use to living on my own in a city that I’m only vaguely familiar with as a new transfer student who is nearly 24 years old.