What's The Point, Then?

I went to see my doctor this morning. It was not exactly an effortless task to do so. I woke early, stumbled through my familiar stupor of exhaustion; for once a little more reasonable - I actually did not get a full night of sleep last night. I spent quite some time stomping around trying to find the four or five books I haven't read yet by my favorite author that a friend gave me at Christmas, and failed, so reluctantly chose something else. I pulled on my clothes, drank some juice and went out to wait for the bus.

I let the first one pass me by, purely because I didn't even realize that route went where I wanted to go and would have taken me there faster. But nevertheless, I caught the bus I expected to catch, arrived on time, signed in, was weighed, and the doctor saw me with little delay.

I told her about my troubles, my worryingly overemphasized exhaustion, here for the third time in as many months for a prolonged and inexplicable stay, and answered her questions. No, my mood doesn't seem to be particularly out of the ordinary, though it does suffer from the fatigue, as I have less patience when I am tired. My sleep has been more or less as it always is so far as I can tell, except that it doesn't satisfy me, and I need more than a regular full night of it not to feel exhausted when I wake. No, I haven't noticed any other symptoms of sickness, save that my muscles feel weaker and seem to heal slower, but that seems to be just a symptom of being overtired. My digestion is bad, but it always is. My back is sore, and seems to bother me with flashes of pain more often when I straighten up from crouching or bending, but that isn't new, just getting worse.

My iron levels, red blood cell count, and various other suspect factors were tested not even a month ago, and all came up normal. My fatigue does vaguely coincide with my menstrual cycle, but I have never suffered nor heard of PMS that made sleep stop working properly.

Her expression when I continued to ask if she could offer me any explanation that the evidence before us did not contradict bore a mix between concern and offense. She explained patronizingly that there was some concern about "over-investigation" and that she could not be expected just to prescribe some medication and send me on my way for every hardship. I did not appreciate the implication that I was just fishing for drugs or a miracle patch.

All the obvious answers having been exhausted, and physiotherapy being expensive for someone without employment medical coverage, she told me simply to keep doing the exercise I am putting a good deal of effort into doing already, but to do it more often, and dismissed me.

And here I thought that what doctors were good for aside from being the only people allowed to prescribe medication where it is needed, was knowing or having access to databases that would allow them to find out explanations for maladies beyond what is at this point common fucking sense.

Now my temper is smouldering like a coal, making the inside of my head uncomfortably hot and stuffy. My temper is worse when I am tired.

Angry Today, Happy Today

I woke up today angry. Angry at the birdsong that distracted me from my already fitful attempts at sleep. Angry at the dry sweat all over my body, and the heat at work where I'd been sweating yesterday. Angry at my roommates for not doing their parts of our planned spring cleaning. Angry at myself for not doing mine out of busyness and resentment. Angry at myself for being angry.

I felt uncomfortable with it, but was willing to put my anger and the tired-buzzed insomnia last night that fueled it down to any number of things; malnutrition, burnout, the one day this week that I took my daily pill late... It took me over an hour into my work shift today to realize...

Of course I'm angry. How could I have forgotten? Yesterday a co-worker I would like to consider my friend told me he thinks transgenderism is a disease. Yesterday, when I got home, I cried... and I expect it to just evaporate, do I? Like the gummy residue of yesterday's sweat?


And then after a long, tired day at work... it got better. I made a plan to visit one of my loves in a month, and challenge myself to get my biking legs back so that I can do it by bike. I took a bath. My roommates and I did the dishes... together. I ordered pizza. We hung out together and laughed at imgur. I guess after I realized I had a reason to be angry, it didn't bother me so much that I was.

The first part of my day was hell to get through.

And then, me and my friends... we changed it.

Spring Update

Alright, I feel I owe anyone who reads this a little bit of a catch-up talk on what's really been going on in my life, plumbing aside. In the last two months, I had two teeth completely extracted, and after each operation I fell into a state of increased moodiness and fatigue, sometimes extreme, for somewhere around two weeks. The first of these lasted for the last couple weeks of February, the second filled most of mid to late March, and that's one of the reasons I haven't written much, although I did think about it.

Near the end of my period of lethargy in February, I wrote this journal at work, intending to share it:

February. Lethargy. For at least two weeks now - or going on two weeks, maybe?
Exhaustion has been my constant companion. In my dreams, I struggle to sleep or I struggle to wake or open my eyes. Dreams feel like waking hallucinations, fitful and flighty. When I wake, I may feel awake for a fleeting moment, but sleep calls me back to her like a siren.
If I must, I rise and dress drunkenly to march my weary body to work, and for a time, forced activity revitalizes me, but my energy does not last even my shift. I have felt nauseous and weak 'ere I am done even on short days.
My nose and tongue trick me with experiences of old, rotting blood, sickness, tobacco and skunk...Perhaps the skunk smell was real. I am no longer sure I can tell.
This morning continued this drudge...
...but when I arrived for my early shift, I was honored to discover I was being placed as primary cashier - alone for the first hour unless I were to call for my boss. Perhaps there is hope this may be a better day.
Nearer the end of my workday, the fading sets in and the world becomes slowly less crisp and more unreal. I am still enjoying the honored position not often mine, so this day is better than most, but it is not enough to entirely drive away the fatigue.
My eyes ache, slightly, warmly.
I am thankful for the shot of perspective - spending long stretches of time at cash and dealing with customers, I understand better now how hard it is to do any stocking as well. 

One of my customers was a very soft-spoken young man, slender build, light hair I think, and there was something noticeable about his teeth, perhaps they were set a little forward. He spoke in a way that was... not merely polite. Somehow reverent, perhaps? Unhurried, and sincere, certainly. He seemed almost eager to move around the counter when I asked, and showed no irritation when I looked with some interest at the books he was buying. One was titled "The Pagan Christ," by Tom somebody. I've never heard of it, but that is definitely an intriguing title. I made no comment, but neither any move to hide my interest. Perhaps I shall have to look up this book - partly on its own account, partly out of a striking curiosity to learn what this quiet young man was reading. He could, I thought to myself, have been a priest. If so, of what faith, I wonder? Of course it's silly, but I am enjoying the silliness of fancying after him.
I bid him not let the cold get him down. Pity, but I don't remember clearly what he wished me, only that it was kind and said with quiet, unhurried sincerity. Perhaps wishing me a good remainder of my day.
One way or another, the quiet man and his mysteries make the unreality of my tiredness nearly enjoyable, and certainly much more bearable. 

Yes, this is a much better day so far - but still, I will have to call my doctor for advice or an appointment as soon as possible. I suspect my lethargy may be related to the increase in dosage of my daily supplements that started a week or two before I began to notice the fatigue...

Of course, at the time I did not know it was almost over. Perhaps one of the other reasons that my tiredness in February was much worse and a bit longer than the one in March was also that I was getting into frequent, nasty fights with my online lover. Things had reached the point that I had become afraid of him, despite how far away he lives, because of how effectively he could tear me down, intentionally or not, into a mess of guilt, rage and smallness. When he was angry enough, I was sure that his anger at least, which is in some ways separate from him, did it on purpose. Little comfort to me that he was also unhappy with this - his anger was easily roused and easily controlled him, particularly with regards to me. I guess he was fed up with my own weaknesses, among them a tendency to be defensive and accusatory when something strikes me as potentially offensive.

Often after our fights I was left so angry and depressed that I had neither wish nor will to do anything, and so I would just lay down and either distract myself with comfortably familiar recordings of voices, or sleep, or both. Certainly the despair could have added to my sense of lethargy and hopelessness.

A couple of days after I wrote the above journal, my boyfriend, my rabbit, the one I live with, who had been trying, with mixed success, to be supportive while I was suffering, ran the first session of a Pathfinder game he had been planning. Both lover and I were in it, and some in-game politics started another fight. I told him it was over. The next day, I woke up with my energy back; free...

Of course, breaking up with a lover who is friend to one's friends is not as simple as that. Breaking up with anyone one really cared about isn't. The next few days were extremely hard in their own way as I negotiated for peace after separation, for protection from any potential anger that might come after me for leaving, and kept clamps on my tongue anywhere around that group of friends. Keeping myself quiet was tearing me apart, so at one point I turned to another one of my friends and rambled my aching madness to her, instead... and may have lost her for a long time or forever.

So two weeks full of lethargy were followed by around two weeks of very heavy grieving for a dead relationship. I threw myself forward into it and hurt as hard as I could bear rather than trying to hide from it, in the hopes that I could get through it faster that way. It worked; after a couple of weeks, I felt better, but of course any thoughts of my fresh ex were still painful. Flash forward for a moment to now, and I realize that I now feel about him much the same way I did before there was any romance between us; I dislike his attitude, and he frequently annoys me in almost exactly the same ways. It's disappointing to see that we are so, seeming just back to square one.

Soon after that came my second surgery and its following period of fatigue, but the depression this time was milder and the fatigue did not haunt my dreams. I also had the previous lethargy to draw from, and had some hope and understanding that my bizarre recovery period after surgery would last about two weeks, which it did. And that carries us to my birthday, which was just a few days ago. I was busy that day and the next, so we didn't do much celebrating for it; but my roommate and my boyfriend and I did sit down together to watch a movie of my choice; Indie Game: The Movie.

That morning, I woke up and stared at my ceiling for a while. I was still not in a good state of mind in which to be assessing things or making decisions, and I knew that, but at the same time, I was not sure when was the next time I would be, and felt that assessments and at least tentative decisions needed to be made.

I was 25 years old, had had a job in a charity thrift store for almost two years. I was making a lot of headway on my emotional scars and healing, despite setbacks. I was much less often self-destructive these days, and when I was, it didn't go nearly as far. I was being better to my boyfriend, and for that matter, had arranged to live in a house with two people I liked and was capable of getting along with quite well, generally speaking. But was I happy with where I was, and where I seemed to be going?

No. I wasn't. I had been feeling growing frustration and discontent at work. I felt overworked and under-appreciated and lorded over by at least one supervisor that I felt knew no better than me, and often seemed to know worse. I had been having a very hard time not taking the messes I cleaned up at work personally, and felt I had to sacrifice the things my bosses cared about more in order to do my job right. I felt I had learned most all I ever would from my main position on the sales floor. I did not feel I was getting any closer to moving up the ranks, even though I had been trusted to man the storefront mostly independently for a few hours at a time.

So I thought about that, and that night, I talked to my roommates about it. I think I am ready to take one of the next big steps and enroll at a college or university soon. I think it's time for me to investigate the resources and the courses that may be at my disposal. I still have too many interests to be sure there is any just one thing I want to do, but perhaps I never will be. I'll start somewhere. Perhaps somewhere safe; a business administration degree would be useful in finding a higher ranking position... And, of more personal interest to me, might give me the knowledge and skills to start my own small business or few. Perhaps even an indie game development team.

In the few days since then, I've attended the first session of a group counselling initiative rather cheesily titled Making Changes In Your Life, and have been dutifully trying to fill out the rubrics they gave me to track positive things I have been doing to control and steer my reactions and initiatives. I enjoyed some delivery fried chicken and had my roommates bring me a cake covered in candles to blow out, complete with the traditional Happy Birthday, even though it was one day later due to time constraints. None of us minded. The day after that, we went downtown together and my boyfriend bought me a birthday present; a card game I recognized and liked called Gloom. We picked up snacks in the Covent Garden Market and sat in the mezzanine and ate and played a round of my new game. I got the wonderful feeling that I got to have three days of birthday this year, perhaps to make up for the years in which I did not celebrate. Actually, I felt as though the time from my birthday to the second anniversary of the day I met my boyfriend (which is the date I track, since we found ourselves interested in one another right away) a couple weeks later had been made into a festival for my life, our lives together, a celebration of friendship and support, and feelings of family. I was very happy.

I also, by serendipitous chance, popped in to my workplace on the way downtown just in time to hear my boss congratulate and deeply thank all of our staff for the hard work we've been doing, and our excellent results on our most recent sale. Some of the unappreciated feelings and resentment I had been having began immediately to lift. I was glad I had waited on my impulse to complain.

I still think it would be a good idea to investigate university now. But happily now I'm feeling more carrots and fewer sticks about it.

This morning, I woke up and showered... and came here to write. I am taking the time to get around to some things that fell by the wayside during my month and a half of mixed miseries. And I am proud of myself for it. This is progress. This is... Well. Good steps. This is good steps.