This is what I remember from people I saw on the bus and at stores.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Face Blind Portraits
This is what I remember from people I saw on the bus and at stores.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Another thing that's "wrong" with me: Face Blindness
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| Hannibal, as seen by someone with face blindness (I think) |
So, if you’ve watched the most recent season of Arrested Development, you know there’s a character who has face blindness (I won’t say anything that’s spoilerish about that). It was the first time I’d seen face blindness come up on TV. And… I was kind of annoyed by it. There are different levels of face blindness, and for some people it gets really extreme, but folks with face blindness (like me) learn to recognize people with other cues. Like their hair color and style, their voice, the clothes they wear. If I concentrate real hard, I can take note of whether people are wearing glasses or not, if they have facial hair, and sometimes things like eye color and moles. We use these little reminders to help us recognize people. As far as I know, there is no such thing as a person with face blindness so extreme, that they can never recognize the person they’re talking to ever.
And then I realized I am going to talk about Hannibal spoilers (sort of, it's not super important to the plot of the episode itself).
Friday, May 31, 2013
The Great Mental Breakdown of 2013
I don’t know if there’s an official definition of what is a mental breakdown. But I have a few instances that I think of breakdowns for me. Maybe because beside breaking down, they were the straw that broke the camel’s back, and would spur me on to do something. Not always healthy somethings, but something. They’ve been things like bursting into tears while in the break room at lunch, around people who had never previously seen me do anything except smile (this was at an oooold job, before I learned how to be grumpy in public). Two years ago, I stopped being able to go to work, and had to take a leave of absence. And about three weeks ago, I have once again had to take a leave.
I just noticed all these examples involved work. There’s been other times, that only friends or family witnessed, and that didn’t visibly affect things at work. But I don’t want to talk about those right now.
I do want to write about my experiences currently, though. Partly because writing is how I process stuff. Partly because I have friends and family who are concerned, and I figured if they want to learn more about what’s going on, they can check these posts out. Partly because depression and anxiety don’t get talked about enough. Not in a constructive way, at least. There are so many misconceptions about depression and anxiety, things that kept me from seeking help until I was 30, and things which still make it hard to communicate what’s happening with me to others.
So I’m going to write things as I go along. And this may go on for a while, so a cut is in order.
What is wrong with me anyway?
When people ask me what's wrong, I have a long list I could go down. But I don't. I usually say one innocuous thing, shrug, and change the subject.
I grew up thinking that being sick was a failure. That I was somehow doing something wrong. As a child, I would try to hide my illness and go to school anyway. Once, I broke my arm in the middle of our living room, but when asked if something was wrong, I said nothing was, and nobody realized there was a problem until we sat down to dinner and I was too upset to eat. Mom says I didn't complain at all when we went to the hospital and I got my cast (but I screamed bloody murder when they got out the saw to take it off, apparently believing they were going to cut my arm off).
As an adult, I refused to go to the doctor, went to work sick, ignored signs of any problems. That went on until I was about 30, when I finally admitted I needed help with depression, and eventually realized it wasn't shameful to admit that to my doctor. Since then, I've been learning a lot about how to take care of myself, by first admitting there's something wrong.
It turns out, it's ok to go to your doctor if you worry about things constantly. Something is wrong if you sleep 10-14 hours a night and are still tired (and it's not because sleeping too much makes you tired, either). If parts of you hurt, and have hurt for years, to the degree that sometimes you just can't do your normal activities, then you should tell a doctor. If you have constant migraines, it's OK to get help. Oh, and no one is going to lock you in a mental institution if you admit to having hallucinations and being afraid of leaving the house.
That last one was a big deal for me. I was convinced for a long time that I'd get locked away if people knew how crazy I was.
What's really distressing is that there are a lot of other people who think the same way that I always have. Because we don't talk about this stuff very much. So many of us are afraid of what people will think of us if they know that we're sick. Seriously. That's what we worry about. That's what I worry about. I'm afraid that people will think less of me if they know that I have medical problems. As I type all this out, I worry about people I know reading it, and then deciding that I'm too crazy to be friends with, or that I have too many issues to do my job. Logically, I know that the people I care about want to help me, and I know that there are laws protecting me when it comes to my job. But one of my problems is my anxiety disorder, which in a way, makes logic not function properly.
I actually have made this blog for coworkers and acquaintances who I know have been worried about me lately. I talk about a lot of this stuff in other places (like Facebook) but those places are also where I talk about things that really is only of interest to family, or friends within a certain group. I know that at work, my boss isn't telling anyone exactly what's going on with me. That's partly because she doesn't know, and partly because she can't tell people what's going on. Legally, she needs to stay as much out of it as possible, and let HR and insurance deal with it. That's the way it should be.
However, that's to help ensure my rights are protected. That doesn't mean that what's going on with me is secret, or shameful, and should be kept hidden. I am allowed to share as much as I want about it, and I want to challenge the assumption in our society that we should keep this stuff to ourselves. So I'll talk about it here.
I grew up thinking that being sick was a failure. That I was somehow doing something wrong. As a child, I would try to hide my illness and go to school anyway. Once, I broke my arm in the middle of our living room, but when asked if something was wrong, I said nothing was, and nobody realized there was a problem until we sat down to dinner and I was too upset to eat. Mom says I didn't complain at all when we went to the hospital and I got my cast (but I screamed bloody murder when they got out the saw to take it off, apparently believing they were going to cut my arm off).
As an adult, I refused to go to the doctor, went to work sick, ignored signs of any problems. That went on until I was about 30, when I finally admitted I needed help with depression, and eventually realized it wasn't shameful to admit that to my doctor. Since then, I've been learning a lot about how to take care of myself, by first admitting there's something wrong.
It turns out, it's ok to go to your doctor if you worry about things constantly. Something is wrong if you sleep 10-14 hours a night and are still tired (and it's not because sleeping too much makes you tired, either). If parts of you hurt, and have hurt for years, to the degree that sometimes you just can't do your normal activities, then you should tell a doctor. If you have constant migraines, it's OK to get help. Oh, and no one is going to lock you in a mental institution if you admit to having hallucinations and being afraid of leaving the house.
That last one was a big deal for me. I was convinced for a long time that I'd get locked away if people knew how crazy I was.
What's really distressing is that there are a lot of other people who think the same way that I always have. Because we don't talk about this stuff very much. So many of us are afraid of what people will think of us if they know that we're sick. Seriously. That's what we worry about. That's what I worry about. I'm afraid that people will think less of me if they know that I have medical problems. As I type all this out, I worry about people I know reading it, and then deciding that I'm too crazy to be friends with, or that I have too many issues to do my job. Logically, I know that the people I care about want to help me, and I know that there are laws protecting me when it comes to my job. But one of my problems is my anxiety disorder, which in a way, makes logic not function properly.
I actually have made this blog for coworkers and acquaintances who I know have been worried about me lately. I talk about a lot of this stuff in other places (like Facebook) but those places are also where I talk about things that really is only of interest to family, or friends within a certain group. I know that at work, my boss isn't telling anyone exactly what's going on with me. That's partly because she doesn't know, and partly because she can't tell people what's going on. Legally, she needs to stay as much out of it as possible, and let HR and insurance deal with it. That's the way it should be.
However, that's to help ensure my rights are protected. That doesn't mean that what's going on with me is secret, or shameful, and should be kept hidden. I am allowed to share as much as I want about it, and I want to challenge the assumption in our society that we should keep this stuff to ourselves. So I'll talk about it here.
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