/ 2007 / 2008 
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D.LAND 
6:33 p.m. - 2008-07-01
meds
Zombie mode has arrived. After sleeping for ten solid hours I wake up only to start yawning again. I notice my jaw feels different, more stiff. My stomach has also waged war and I don’t expect a ceasefire anytime soon, it has been churning for the past three days. The most bizarre side affect you wonder? Around 5pm and 6pm every night I have fits of unexplainable giggles. Right now I am in all out giggle mode, it should wear off in an hour or so. Luckily the giggles wore off around 6pm yesterday, I don’t think laughter in a lecture about Anne Frank would have gone over too well.
I have a mountain of work due tomorrow and I have not even read the assignment. I just don’t feel motivated in the least. All I want to do right now is to enjoy this strange happy feeling, eat a box of cookies and crawl back into bed. I expect this is what the life of a koala is like, sleepy yet giddy from eating eucalyptus all day.
4:45 p.m. - 2008-06-26
It is about time!
I did it. The doctor said I was “pretty much a textbook case”. He assured me that social anxiety and depression are very common on campus . He joked that most people with the disorder wind up in grad school. I laughed in agreement, but said I rather be medicated then published.
He said exposure therapy would be helpful, but then giggled a bit when he saw my reaction. I basically looked at him like he was the nut and said “every freaking day is exposure therapy for me”. He looked back down at his notes and actually agreed.
He gave me three weeks of Cipralex samples. I am to book an appointment to see him before the samples run out. Some of what I said seemed to concern him. He was shocked that I feel more comfortable around strangers than people I know and he winced a bit when I told him about my father’s history - never good. I told him one of the major reasons I want help is to avoid following a similar path… that once I noticed I was well on my way in high school I abruptly stopped. I have had perhaps a few margaritas and some forced Long Island Iced teas over the past seven years but that is it. No drugs and no binges… well, in the drug department. (I have been buying lip balm and nail polish quite compulsively lately).
Apparently Cipralex is pretty much the same as Celexa only more concentrated and better for both anxiety and depression. He assures me the side effects are the same, so I look forward to loosing fifty pounds but dread hitting the floor with exhaustion minutes after I wake up. I have yet to Google the stuff…
I can’t believe I went through with it, the ride home was a bit zen-like. I am now eating a celebratory chocolate bar and diet Coke.
Someone explain to me why I can eat all the shitty food in the world but I can never allow a regular non-diet Coke to enter my system. I can drink boxes upon boxes of RedBull, Rockstar, the occasional lime Crush and heaps of sugary tea but I can’t justify a regular Coke.
I am digressing and deflecting.
Look at that, and I am not even in therapy yet.
The world was a better place before I knew how to italicize things.
Now, the obvious next move is to go for counselling right? I don’t think I have the nerve. I walked past the office today and saw nothing but PhD students leaving as they were closing the doors. I want an old salty man with grey hair and an accent to ask me questions, not some PhD student in his twenties. I bet that has something to do with my social anxiety right there. I have never felt comfortable within my own peer group. A Freudian would say I am also looking for a father figure, that is also probably true. I am shutting up now.1:14 p.m. - 2008-06-26
freaking out
Well, I am here on campus. I went to the doctor's office to find out they are closed untill 2pm. Panic insues. I forced myself out the door and into the office, so that is a good start, right? Now here is hoping I can muster enough nerve again. The councling office closed at 1pm. Great timing huh? I will update later.
12:47 a.m. - 2008-06-20
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As the Academic Advisor of ___________ College I am writing to invite you to become part of the College Peer Advising program for the 2008/2009 academic year. As a successful student in the Faculty of Arts, we feel that you have made an excellent adjustment to university, and would be an ideal participant for the program.
(scoffs at ‘Excellent’ adjustment). Uh, no! No eighteen year old undergrad would benefit from the advice I could give.
OnCityBuses Steps for a 'Excellent' Adjustment to an Undergrad Carrear
Step 1 - At seventeen start binge drinking dispite knowing how stupid it is. make ass of yourself on all too public level and stop drinking. Discover pot, smoke a lot of pot, discover a friend’s older brother’s pot, turn a blind eye when said friend steals pot, smoke said pot, wake up two days later with the room spinning and your extremities tingling.
Step 2 - Detach from said friends, take up interest in art class, spend lunch time in art room, discover you have talent, make rash decision that you no longer like the slacker lifestyle, book guidance appointment.
Step 3 - Switch high schools and don’t tell anyone about it. Have your grandmother die on you during the summer. Have your father fall off the wagon, get blamed for grandmother’s death and fall into depression. Drop out of new high school.
Step 4 - Don’t tell anyone you dropped out of new high school for a month, spend your days crying and sleeping in your bed. Eventually go to doctor and get medicated.
Step 5 - Cut ties with abusive father, spend next four years doing god-knows-what. Teach yourself HTML, surf Google, get addicted to The Sims, discover U2 and Douglas Coupland, think about writing screenplays. (Regret years later you were such a cliché!)
Step 6 - Realise you are waiting your life and earn high school diploma. Apply to local university’s English program as a joke.
Step 7 - University lets you in and state of shock develops, people expect you to go.
Step 8 - English is not practical, switch to Sociology program instead (See part B of Step 13).
Step 9 - Become depressed again, make mistake of not doing anything about it, watch friends disappear, start university career completely unprepared.
Step 10 - Insert family crisis, compound crisis with lack of social network with which to share trauma with. Insert the shock of first year university, throw in concepts that make no sense to you, long lectures you can barely stay awake in and hostile Tas. Have nervous breakdown in proff’s office.
Step 11 - Earn really shitty marks, earn a GPA of 2.0 and be officially kicked out of university. Get angry as all hell.
Step 12 - Drag your sorry ass to doctors and explain situation while sucking back tears. Make doctor uncomfortable. Get medical note and a bit of sympathy, write petition and convince jury your first year experience was not reflective of your true abilities, try to believe these words .
Step 13 - Be re-admitted and laugh at university’s gullibility, question why you are willing to go for a second round.
Step 13 - A) Spend every waking moment with your head either in a book, writing an essay or writing painstakingly detailed notes in lecture hall. Learn to cope with persistent feelings of inferiority. Quote the right people in all your essays and you find yourself with a raised GPA. B) Become shocked when you discover sociology degrees are useless unless you go for your masters or apply to teacher’s college. (See step 14).
Step 14 - Get angry again. Work extra hard and earn your first A from a TA you think is the definition of nerd/sex. Fall in love from a distance, work to impress only to realise he is socially inept and clearly not interested. Get over it and return to studying.
Step 15 - Manage to impress jury and be permitted to continue studies, probation period is over. Flirt with married men, earn highest marks of your life and make Dean’s List and get scholarships. Once again, laugh at university’s gullibility.
Step 16 - Continue crazy study streak, continue with the good grades only to realise you are actually quite miserable and have in turn become quite socially inept yourself. Realise you are taking the academic track a little too seriously and that you can only manage to fool people for so long before you are caught. Contemplate getting help for social anxiety but put it off for the sake of your grades. Seriously think about grad school but then think about how short life is, become utterly confused.
Step 17 - Have head of your program email you with job offer… freak out. Know you will decline offer, but reflect on how absurd the offer actually is.