Dammit. I was trying so hard to get out here on time! But no. I just HAD to finish the episode of Scrubs I was watching because I am a compulsive completer and not in full control of myself.

So now I will have to wait for the next bus, and be late for class and miss stuff.

And I HATE missing stuff.

Especially because we are doing such neat stuff lately. Last week it was vision and hearing. This week it’s memory. Keen gear!

So I am sitting hear willing a 405 to show up. The one I missed was the 12:24, so I am hoping the next is at 12:44. But even if it’s 12:54, I will be at the school by 1 or so, so I will not miss much.

(—)

Waiting for the bus home now. That was quick.

Turns out the next bus was at 12:44, so no worries there. In fact, I should change my schedule to 12:44. Dunno why I would want to get to school at 12:30 anyhow, unless I wanted to eat lunch there.

Not too likely.

Turn out we had an exam today. We had two an a quarter hours to finish it. Took me less than half an hour. In fact, I missed being the first one done by a matter of seconds. Some smugly pleased with herself girl finished right before me. I would like to think I would have handled being first with a little more dignity and restraint, but that is by no means guaranteed.

I wouldn’t have done a half-pirouette when turning away from the prof, though. That i know  for sure.

Not even on my good leg.

I, obviously, did not study for this exam. How could I? The first inkling I had that there was an exam today was when I walked into the classroom  and felt all the tension and fear in the room.

I am so glad I don’t get that way myself.

(—)

Back home, had supper and a nap, ready to resume blogging.

I wanted to resume the moment I got home, but I decided I would be better off waiting till after supper, because once I have blogged, that’s it for today. I have no homework outstanding and I don’t have anything I need to do besides laundry that I can think of offhand. So I have to be careful about when I do the blog entry thing.

Time it right, and the rest of the night will feel like time off. Get it wrong, and I do it too late and end up not enjoying it as much because I feel like I am working against the clock, or I do it too early and the rest of the day feels like a burden instead of a vacation.

Just more senseless hours to slog through. Think I will take a nap.

Doing after supper seems about right. I eat, relax, watch stuff on Netflix, drink my Diet Coke, then come into blogging with a head of enthusiasm/caffeine.

They’re sort of the same thing.

At least, when I can be at one with the caffeine, it’s the same thing. Most of my life, caffeine and I had a troubled and distant relationship. I avoided colas for the most part and never got into coffee or tea. Hell, that would probably still be my preference if I hadn’t developed Type II diabetes and had to switch to drinking Diet Coke when I am out.

See, before that, I avoided caff because it did bad things to me. It made me tense and nervous and gave me a headache. Sometimes it would give me a full blown panic attack.

More on that later.

But once the diabetic Diet Coke thing happened, I sort of had to deal with it, and eventually I realized that the problem was that I had this passive numb paralyzed personality that was, in effect, too heavy for the caffeine to lift. I inherently resisted anything that prompted me toward action, and well, all that energy has to go somewhere. So it went into making me miserable.

It’s like a microcosm of depression itself.

Nowadays, I can ride the black tide of caffeine at least some of the time. It’s really a matter of opening the door to it in my mind. And putting the energy to use ASAP, so it doesn’t have a chance to turn into something ugly.

Honestly, I think that’s a big part of dealing with depression in the first place. They say depression is anger turned inward, and they are totally right. I have written before about how depression makes you both the torture victim and the tortured, the abused and the abuser. You take it out on yourself because that’s easier and safer than actually confronting your problems.

And ever so convenient.

But I think that to a lesser extent, everything gets turned inwards. Your energy, your inspiration, your emotions, everything is trapped within you, and that makes the pressure rise within you. If that happens for long enough, you end up so full of unexpressed everything that you feel like a overfilled water balloon. And that makes you feel like you have to move slowly and carefully or you will burst.

Oh, one last thing. On the subject of panic attacks. This cracked article made me realize the difference between panic attacks and depression with panic expression in a big way.

I mean holy SHIT. Makes me glad for the problems I do not have, let me tell ya that. I have had some pretty serious panic attacks, but none so bad they made me scream for help and end up in Emergency. Also, they have rarely come out of the blue. They usually had a very clear stimulus, namely social pressure. And there was a medicine, Paxil, that has worked extremely well with relatively minor side effects.

That article, then, makes me thank my lucky stars that I am as relaxed and functional as I am.

We all can use a little perspective on our own troubles now and then.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.