The last cigarette

I haven't had a cigarette all day, despite having an interview and going out to a big lunch. I'm stuffed, and that usually means cigarette. But last night I took the last two, crushed them, and threw them in the trash can. I haven't gotten rid of my lighters yet because I want to give them away. I just bought them, and there's no point in wasting them. I may throw one in my dad's match collection, too, just to have it for candles and stuff.

No, that's not an excuse. I thought about it already, and I do use my lighter a lot besides smoking. So I'll keep one around and get rid of the other ones.

Not smoking is hard. Everything is associated with smoking. Walking is the worst, or waiting. I used smoking to kill time. I knew it took 5 minutes to smoke a cigarette, so if I had 10 minutes to kill I knew I could go in early, after my cigarette. I have urges to smoke, but I know they'll pass. I think it's supposed to get worse before it gets better, but two people today have told me I smell like girl instead of smoke, so that's a benefit already.

Stop quitting

Apparently we're all bad at staying on our meds. "Only one in every five patients properly completes their treatment," say the researchers. Apparently you have to wait 6 months to see if your drugs work, and people go off of them before then for all sorts of reasons.

I have a friend on anti-depressants who is experiencing some of the more crappy side effects. He's kind of ok with it, though, which I don't know if I could be. I already have a few side effects I'm none too happy with. I bet new drugs would do it, but he probably just needs the Prozac and nothing heavier. I'm going to see the doc next Monday, so we'll see what he says. He might up the Abilify because of the creeping depression, but I hope he doesn't. I also hope he puts me on something other than Lamictal, cause I think that's the cause of my perma-headache.

But I won't quit my meds. Jesus, Adam and I were talking about how messed up we both were a few years ago, and it just made me remember how absolutely nuts I was. Besides the daily drinking and partying, I was off my meds and in a horrible job. That's the year I tried to kill myself, too. Man, I have a lot of amends for that one.

Is this rude?

We were supposed to try and go out to lunch, Adam and I. I told him I couldn't go til 1, and he wrote back that 1 was not good, so I asked about 2pm. He never responded. I understand that he backs away every time we talk about "us," but that's just rude, methinks. You should always respond, whether in the affirmative or the negative.

I'm off to a meeting tonight to hear Erin speak, and to go to dinner beforehand. She says she's got some stuff to talk to me about after seeing me with Adam last night, so this should be interesting. I wonder what she's got to say. I know Adam can be an ass sometimes, but I love him anyway.

You know, sometimes I think I love him more like a brother. I don't have any brothers and sisters, so I don't know how that feels, but I feel like he knows me better than anyone. Which is not true. He knows the old me, and a lot about the deep dark shit, because I can't seem to lie to him about how crappy I'm feeling, but I do leave things out. What's funny is the person who probably knows me best is Michael. Michael and I would be great together if he weren't such an ass in relationships. He's calmed down a lot, and so have I, but we just made each other mad all the time.

Maybe the common denominator is me. Maybe I just push people away. Am I too needy? Am I not needy enough? It seems to be different with different people.

Carolyn Hax is always right

"Feeling bitterness is essentially conceding that the end of the story has been written--but until you actually stop breathing you don't know that it's the end."

Carolyn Hax is always a good person to go to for advice. Someone wrote in about being bitter about where her career is taking her, and Carolyn said that. "Bitterness is conceding the end of the story."

It's not the end of the story for me. It's the beginning of the journey to a new future - one I may not have imagined. One I couldn't have imagined. It might be really different from how I pictured, which is probably good. I wasn't sure where I was going before, so it's not so different from right now, now is it?

It's not the end of the story, and the journey is what counts.

Insomnia and shopping mix well

Apparently the insomnia is back. I suppose that's what I get for sleeping all day. I thought it was just depression that was keeping me in bed. I suppose it is depression and boredom. I sleep when I'm bored. For some reason, now, I can't sleep. I'm getting tired, I think, but I can't turn off my brain. All I can think about is being unemployed and how much that just sucks. I think even Michael went to sleep, cause he's not answering emails anymore.

I just online shopped again. I got 4 things for 30% off, and two of them were on sale. I like a good sale. I got more sweater dresses. I love those. They cover the tattoos (if I had a job that would matter), they're warm and cozy, and they're cute. I like looking cute. I dress up just to dress up, nowadays. I can't seem to shake the need to look good, which is a good thing, I think. I don't like just running around in a t-shirt and jeans, though I have some cute t-shirts.

It's finally getting cold here. I like the cold, and some say it's going to be a blizzard again here this year. I kind of hope it does. I missed snow. I like the fresh crunch of the snow under my boots. I don't really have good shoes for snow (I have a pair of snow boots, yes) because I've been wearing heels a lot more lately, but screw it. Sometimes you have to sacrifice to look cute.

Self will run riot

"Psychological theories have traditionally explained depression as "Anger turned inward against the self." If you fail to live up to some internal standard of who or what you are supposed to be, some internal watchdog notes your failure and begins to let you know that you haven't been all that you could be--depression. People often talk about being angry with themselves because they have not accomplished or achieved or done what they think they should have. This explanation accounts for the diminished self esteem depressed people often report."

This is from an article on depression. Ah, the failure to live up to ideals. I think I need to be in one place in this time of my life, and I'm not. I thought I would be married with kids by now, but I got over that. I wonder if I'll just get over thinking I should be a career woman right now, and go back to working retail? I wonder when my unemployment runs out? I should look that up.

I do have high internal standards of who I'm supposed to be. I suppose everyone does. I'm constantly being told I'm too hard on myself, but aren't we all supposed to try and achieve? Aren't we all encouraged to reach for something better for ourselves? And what happens when it's all taken away from you by one swift action from an asshole like my old boss? What happens then? Well, wouldn't YOU be hard on yourself?

"Extinction learning"

They've found an interesting way to help addicts recover:

"This is the first time that a therapeutic treatment has been shown to block the retrieval of memories associated with drug addiction, a major reason many addicts experience relapse, says Mueller.

Along with the discovery of propranolol's cocaine-memory blocking effects, the researchers also have identified the primary players in the brain responsible for "extinction" learning -- the ability to replace cocaine-associated memories with associations that have no drug 'reward.'"

So when you block the memory of the good times, you can focus on the bad. Kind of like AA. People tell their stories all the time, but the focus is on the bad things it did to them. They like to walk through the drink, and focus on the consequences associated with taking that first drink. I like that. It makes you remember what an ass you were, or all the trouble you go into, which wasn't the fun part. Apparently it really is a step towards the cure.

It's interesting how they call it "extinction learning." Changing that learning and associating the drink or the smoke or the drug with something bad instead of something good. I need to associate smoking with smelling bad. I think that's my biggest problem with it right now: I stink. And with getting out of breath in the first 30 minutes of running. Once my lungs warm up I'm fine, but those first 30 are a killer.