Why pamper life’s complexities?
Songs of the Hour: Will Oldham, The Smiths
Wow, so 2 months is a bit excessive, I suppose. I’ve
officially lost all nagging rights against fellow bloggers. Go in peace, lazy
procrastinators, go in peace.
I think the blame lies in part on the study meds I was on,
the accompanying apathy that came with the medication left me uninspired to say
the least. I did set up blogging shop at cup a joe a few times the last couple months,
but I kept running into people I haven’t spoken to in forever and my writing
time was spent catching up. Lame, but true.
I did end up quitting the anxiety study. It was set up so
that the first 2 months you just took the meds and rated anxiety levels. The
second phase either switched blindly to a placebo, or left you on the seroquel.
I waited for the second phase in the hopes I’d get the placebo—but I didn’t. I
don’t know how they expect you not to notice you’re no longer exhausted,
apathetic, or twitchy, but even 8 days after the “switch” I was still
struggling to get out of bed or carry on a conversation, so I withdrew. I hated
to do it, but I was miserable so I tapered myself off and turned in the rest. For
the most part, I feel waaaaay better and alert. The down side was the first
week left me feeling nauseated, excessively anxious, sleepless, and randomly
sweaty. I still can’t sleep. I’ve averaged 5-6 hours a night since I quit the
study 2 ½ weeks ago, and it’s tolled on me until I realized at lunch with Marco
the other day that I can again barely carry on a conversation (sorry). I’ve
tried the occasional benedryl to fall asleep but it doesn’t help—I may get
something over the counter (happy to take recommendations). Lying in bed I’ve
started a dozen novels in my head until I fall asleep. If I could remember any
of it the next day, it wouldn’t be so bad. But that frustration of staring at
the clock at 3 am knowing how worthless I’m going to be the next day produces
it’s own anxiety, you know? Ugh, just sucks.
Adding to my listlessness and lack of blogging, is how
incredibly bored I’ve been at work. I told my boss 3 weeks ago that I was out
of people from previous studies to try to recruit, and asked him for a new
list. We recruit from other studies, so it’s not like I can just put up an ad
on craig’s list. He said he’d get it to me, but didn’t. I reminded him a couple
more times, but I’m not exactly aggressive with it, so I have had nothing to
do. I retyped forms for a few days, making the study materials cleaner and
neater, but I ran out of those. Cleaned up the database, killed an hour. Reorganized
subject files, passed a morning. Otherwise, I’ve spent the last couple weeks sitting
in my office watching lectures on Ted.com and Ricky Gervais’ “Extras” on
youtube. A year ago, I would have thought that to be a rather ideal set-up, but
the day drags on forever, I feel horribly unproductive, and guilty for not “earning
my keep”. Finally on Monday I stopped by his office, and
told him (3rd-4th time) I needed candidates. He dug around
for a file, circled some parts, and cheerfully handed it to me. 45 seconds.
Seriously. I couldn’t wish for a nicer guy to work for, and I see now that when
I need something I just have to go get it. No more waiting politely, he’s clearly
not going to get irritated, and I could have saved myself a lot of trouble. I’m
such a moron.
This week I also started working on his other study. It’s
easier in that I don’t have to do any neuropsych (memory and cognition) testing,
but I do have I have to run through a couple programs testing for any major
psychiatric disorders, and this somewhat uncomfortable series of questions for
screening out personality disorders. There’s something unsettling about sitting
2 feet away from a complete stranger and asking them about possible histories
of crack use, sexual abuse, suicide attempts, or hearing voices. If I were an
actual psychologist I could go on to talk about it, which would make it easier
I think, than the “yes” or “no” responses I wait for on some of the questions.
For the personality disorders, sounding nonchalant while asking “So you’ve said
you deserve special treatment from figures in authority, can you tell me more
about that?” (narcissist disorders) is its own trial. The suspicious nature of
anyone involved in a psych study gives this second guessing element to every
answer I’m given, and I can see the “how does this sound to this person?”
wheels spinning behind their eyes. Sometimes I suspect they’re lying just get the
screening over, which screws with the data, but there’s nothing I can do about
it. Hell, I lied to the shrink in the anxiety study, who am I to judge? Anyway,
with more experience, I think learning how to do this kind of interview is
going to be a helpful skill set. Awkward, but helpful.
Joss starts school again on the 25th. It’s funny,
we’ve been arguing about the first day of school for weeks. He hates the first
day because of the “getting to know each other” games every class goes through,
where you have to say your name and something about yourself and try to
remember everything about everyone else and are constantly being called on to
answer things. He says he’s not going, and I can’t make him. Which is, unfortunately,
kind of true. If he decides he’s not getting in the car, it’s a nightmare
waiting to happen. On the other hand, I
skipped several first days of classes at UNC to avoid the same kind of shit. Forcing
him to go would be incredibly hypocritical, you know, if he knew I did that.
Quite the conundrum. The 21st is the “meet your teacher” day—and this
is going to be his first male teacher. I’m hoping that when we meet him, we can
talk about what kind of games they’ll be playing so Joss’ll be prepared, and
then hopefully not scared. We’ll see. I feel for the little guy, but if I let
him miss the first day of school, it’s a bad precedent and says something I’m
not sure I want to say, about not doing things that are hard, and about
confronting fears.
I finally went to a psychologist to see what could be done
about getting Joss evaluated. I sat and talked about him, his behaviors, his
attitudes, for about 45 minutes. The Doc asked a couple questions, and then
told me he was almost positive he had ADHD, because every description I gave
fit the profile exactly. He told me more of the typical behaviors, which were
pretty much things I had forgotten to mention. So I called the people he
referred me to, but the earliest evaluation I could get was in October. I set
up the appointment, and kept looking for one to get before school started, but
wasn’t able to find anything. So at least the ball is rolling. I’ve always
thought ADHD to be over diagnosed, but I’ll do anything at this point to
minimize the struggle that school has become for Joss. He genuinely wants to
succeed in school now. Last night, after telling me he was going to be on the
honor roll this year, he asked me explain square roots so he’d have an
advantage going into the 5th grade. I used scrabble tiles to build
squares and cubes for a visual explanation, and then a times table, and he had
it for a minute but then got frustrated and gave up. I’ll keep at it—any confidence
he can gain will help inspire him, I think.
Eh, I gotta get home. I’m hoping we can catch a matinee of
Wall-e. I was going to get into this interesting article I just read about
hipsters, but I suspect I’m too sleep deprived to make much sense. Check it
out, maybe, and tell me what you think.
Love ya.
