A Typical Friday Night

My mom called to tell me she was coming back from NC - but just where the hell am I going to live in Austin for the last two weeks of summer school, how am I going to make my way towards orientation when my finals (for those prereqs to get into pharm school, ironically) are supposed to be on the same week, and would I be comfortable living in a huge apartment with two girls and a guy?

Nothing was quite working out the way I wanted it to, and I was already feeling really tired and stressed, especially since the week before I had just resolved a huge annoying dilemma (asked special permission from the professor and advising office to switch Bio lab out from session 1 to session 2 so I can make it to that class without becoming late to all my other classes in turn). So right there, on the phone with my mom, I began hyperventilating.

I love her though, she's a great mom. She told me to just slow down and breathe deeply (which is not as easy as one might think, especially when your chest hurts and you're shaking and can't control your breathing, so that sort of annoyed me), but then she said:

"Hey, the whole housing situation in North Carolina, I'll deal with it. You, just focus on your studies, and don't stress out too much, okay?"

I really owe her one. I feel so alone in everything right now, and it really sucks because everything else is sort of weighing me down. Nothing seems to be fitting in my schedule, you know? The timing is just wrong.

I spent my Friday switching between feeling sick and lonely and desperate and crying, which is really pathetic, to studying stoically. It was the most awful feeling in the world. I had a sequential panic attack later on that night, triggered by my thoughts and not anything anybody said, and it was worse because when you're done with the first one, you already feel so drained and tired, but then you feel the second one coming on and you think to yourself, "Oh no, you can't let this happen, no, no," and then it happens. And the second one is usually harder to control. The whole thing took about 30 minutes before I stopped shaking and my chest stopped hurting and I could breathe properly again, but the recovery time took much longer. I don't know how others recover, and I wish I knew an easy way. All I can do is hold myself together and cry like a child, and it feels so pathetic.

I ended up calling R while crying during recovery time, and he was comforting, in a possibly humoring me sort of way, but still, it was nice. I haven't been able to hang out with him a lot because my schedule is so horrible, and every time I've seen him this week, it always concerns my Physics homework. So I was really grateful for that.

After we hung up, I then spent the rest of my Friday drinking the remainder of my roommate's vodka out on the patio and feeling so alone. It's funny how I used to laugh about her doing that - I always thought of drinking as a social activity, not as something to do on your own. Maybe it's because I miss them - my roommates, I mean. After a long day at school, I would come home to find D sitting on the couch, watching Big Bang Theory. I'd come and join her and we'd chat and laugh a little bit during the commercial breaks, and then Y would call to order pizza and come sit with us, and it was nice having support at home, not quite like a family, but a good substitute. But now I have no one to vent to. All of my closest friends are in Dallas or Korea or India, and in any case, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer and ruin their vacation time.

And I'm also so scared of being a whiny, clingy, needy little thing, just another one of life's burdens, and worse is the thought that I can't do what I thought I could do.

I feel depressed and miserable, and I can't tell anyone about it. I want to, but then it's also so embarrassing. They all think of me as the go-getter, the one who applies for everything and gets everything done with efficiently, but right now I'm just a mess and my motivational energy is at an all-time low. All I can do is vent in my blog, and feel a little better about how irrational my thoughts are.

(Wow, angst much? I think I'm going to stop right here. It already sounds ridiculous.)

I have support. My family and friends love me. I'll just have to stop thinking depressing thoughts and bite the bullet. In the end, it'll all be worth it.