Catholic School Girl Syndrome

"On Letting Go" by Circa Survive

https://open.spotify.com/track/3jpIH34vPzbEA9P0KsR7GR

https://youtu.be/MAp3uAk-poo

My previous post was published quite a bit late.

I have this great tendency to start things and fail to follow them through.

Anxiety, Depression, and Attention Deficit Disorder may make studying for a second round of bar exams hard (since I did not pass the first round). However, there is a fine line between self-pity and enabling your own bad habits. Since college and my first year of law school, I have found that I seem to take more time writing essays than my classmates. Where I formerly excelled in grade-school and high school, I slowly came to become an average student where testing required a command of linguistic analysis (as opposed to mathematical analysis).

Honestly, I am still in denial about whether or not I have A.D.D. I grew up with an adopted sister who suffered from severe Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. My sister could not sit still, while I was perfectly able to, but I could never focus my attention on command. My sister appeared hyper as a child, while I suffered from constant fatigue and "daydreaming". When I was thirteen, my "friends" were keenly aware of my absent-mindedness and kindly labelled me a "ditz".  As I progressed through college and law school, it became harder and harder to focus my thoughts and translate my ideas into something resembling English. Expressing my thoughts in a semi-eloquent way has demanded more and more of my time (oh yes, including this blog post).

I finished my my bar exams today.

I took the New York state exam the first day (consisting of essays) , a multi-state exam ( a 200 question multiple choice exam on the topics of torts, evidence, property, criminal law, federal civil procedure), and completed a final day of hectic word-salad grab-bags of identifying legal issues for the MA state exam today.

I did not have a wonderful time on the MA essays today.

Unlike the pointed questions on the New York exam, the Massachusetts section of the bar exam presented a jumble of facts (some relevant, others irrelevant), at the end of which a general question asked : "what are the rights of the parties?"

Even as a self-admitted, semi-intelligent(?) person who appeared to graduate law school with a commendable(?) grade-point average, I was fucking lost the first time I took that exam just as I was the second time. The beautiful thing is, MA essays are a grab-bag of topics. You could study the shit out of Secured Transactions (which i did) only to not see a SINGLE question relating to that topic on the exam. Instead, you are expected to machine-gun the shit out of 50 potential causes of action contained in every other sentence of the single-spaced one to two page jumble of facts spouted. You repeat this five times with 36 minutes to devote to each essay. Then you take an hour lunch break and repeat.

Exhaustion. I wonder if anyone had any similar experiences?

We don't talk about Depression enough.

Robin Williams basically raised me through his movies: Aladdin, Jack, Flubber, Jumanji, Patch Adams, Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire... the list goes on and on. He brought so much joy into my life that i considered him to be an honorary family member. 

When I found out in August 2014 that he had committed suicide, I spent the whole day in bed sobbing. The kind that's so deep you actually feel the pain in your gut. 

Everyone was so shocked and upset that such a wonderfully funny and happy man could have hung himself. I felt like it was only "news" to the world that the man suffered from devastating depression which usually results in self-medicating through alcohol after his death. It turns out, this wasn't "news" - Robin Williams openly talked about his struggles with depression and alcoholism long before his death. 

Here's a nice CNN compilation (posthumous) of Robin being open about his struggles:  

And here he is in a 2006 interview with Diane Sawyer.


Diane starts "Was there one moment that you fell into it again, was there one day..?" 

Robin interrupts: "Well usually its very gradual. Youre standing at a precipice and you look down. There's a voice, and its a little quiet voice, that goes 'jump'. This is same voice,  the same voice that goes, 'just one.' … And the idea of 'just one' for someone who has no tolerance for it, that's not the possibility."

Robin: "It's not caused by anything its just there. It's latent, it waits. It lays in wait for the time you think 'youre fine now', 'i'm okay and then - beep - and then the next thing you know its not okay."

What is it like to have Depression?

Robin William's interview with Diane Sawyer really struck a chord with me. 

I have suffered from depression since I could remember. As a child, it manifested as guilt. There was one incident at the age of 7 where I kicked a boy in the shin. It was a result of some silly game we had been playing in the schoolyard. I dont think I realized that I hurt him, until his mother came marching into the school and demanded to know why her son had bruising on his calves. I was marched out of the class into a room where the 7yo version of demi-gods surrounded me: an angry mother, the principal, vice principal, a nun. I felt like a convict on death row. After my sentence was over (I had bravely cried, apologized, and then proceeded to throw blame on someone else) I wasn't the same. This incident was so big to be that I just didn't know how to tell my parents. How do you tell someone that loves you and thinks so highly of you that you are secretly a terrible person? I thought that if my mom knew, she'd never look the same way at me again. 

So I didn't tell. Hell, decades later she still doesn't know. 

Lucky for me, I was the same school with the same kids for 6 more years. I was always nervous that someone would let my crime slip to my mom. There were several incidents where my mother volunteered at school functions, working closely with the mother whose boy I had hurt. Guilt overcame me and I slowly began to think that I was a terrible person for what I had done. All of my childhood mistakes defined me as a person as a slowly grew. Instead of going away, severe bouts of guilt actually grew over time. It became less about singular incidents in which i had misbehaved out of mistake or ignorance. It grew into a little voice in my head whispering that I was a piece of shit over and over again, continuously focusing its lens on each small error I made. It got so bad that I felt like I didn't deserve to have fun anymore. At the age of eleven, I declined offers from my family to go to the playground on my days off from school because I felt like I didn't deserve to be treated so well. 

This is all very strange, I know. 

I've come to learn that children who suffer from overwhelming guilt during their childhood are more likely to suffer from depression as an adult. 

A surprising amount of people don't realize that depression and addiction go hand-in-hand. 

I've been prone to bouts of depression and extreme anxiety since childhood. Its only recently that I've gone to therapy to address these issues. For the longest time, therapy and even medication did not seem to work for me. That's when I started self-medicating with alcohol. 

It started innocently enough at first. I'd have a glass of wine before bed to treat my insomnia and worrisome thoughts. I've had insomnia since I was a baby and, on average, it takes me an hour to fall asleep. The glass of wine really seemed to help. It made me more tired and I fell asleep much faster. 

This quick-fix slowly and gradually became a problem for me. I really don't even know when it began - but I started to consume more and more alcohol during times that i was depressed or anxious - usually at bedtime. I never got 'drunk'. I drank for the slight euphoria it gave me. It was complete self-medication, and at the time, I thought it was wonderfully helpful. 

It was only after taking the bar exam that it spiraled out of control. The months and days of high anxiety had beaten me to a pulp. I was completely raw. Worse, I had to wait four months to see if I even passed the exam. During my free time (there was quite a bit of that as I was still scraping by on loans), I started having a drink during the day. That slowly turned into a couple days. Then it slowly turned into me waking up and drinking all day every day. I never drove my car when I knew I had a few in me, which turned into self-isolating myself in my apartment so that I could continue my "break from the world". 

As a person who is trying to grow, I regret this. I regret not living the past year of my life and giving in to depression and self medication. I always come back to the habit of self-blame and anxietizing because I cannot fulfill the high standards I have set for myself. The hardest lesson I have ever tried to learn is to love myself and give myself a break. 

If you feel the same way, please message me. 

Hello, Dear Internet.

Hello, Dear Internet. 

I was going to begin my blog with a discussion about sexuality and gender identity... and then I said to myself "Hey, Everly! Do you REALLY want to scare away the crickets that are your audience already?!" 

No, I like the crickets. 

Instead, Dear Crickets, I shall tell you a bit about me and why I decided to write personal thoughts to you (and potentially the NSA).

I've kept a private journal off and on since I was very young. My most memorable journal was kept and written in the days surrounding the events of 9/11. I could only express the horror and confusion plaguing my little 12-year-old brain by writing it down.  I can still see the black billowing smoke spreading through the sky in my head. I had no concept at the time that there were PEOPLE in there. 

Oh my God was a  depressing tangent. Sorry. 

I'm writing this blog mainly to entertain myself and de-stress. Not that I wouldn't absolutely love to interact with you - I just have incredibly low expectations of myself! I'm quite an odd blonde bird that loves talking about non-ordinary things that tend to bore / weird people out. I need to EXPRESS the strange. Love the strange. Here, here's my strange! 

That being said, I do hope that I can say something that you can relate to. If JUST ONE person messaged me and told me "wow! I thought i was the only one to think / do / blog / make dad-jokes about this!", it would pretty much make my week/month/life. 

A Bit of Background About Me: 

I'm a 5'5, 1?? pound blonde love muffin. I'm an ambivert so I love meeting new people while being slightly shy about it. I love spending time with close friends, but i like to re-charge my batteries after extended hang-outs (like sleepover long hang-outs). I have two cats and have no qualms about potentially being labelled "cat lady". Unfortunately no one has called me a cat lady yet :/

I studied anthropology in college and then went on to law school, because what the heck do you do with an anthropology degree anyways? Now, I'm a recent law graduate who is currently studying for the bar exam. After spending beautiful summer days hiding behind a book to study my butt off, I took the three-day exam from Hades in July. Keepin' them expectations low, I told myself that 'I probably didn't pass, but I'm SO lucky to not have run out the door screaming and puking on day 1!' To my surprise, I was actually surprised when I read the short "you have failed" letters. Since the results for my states came out later than others, I had been a bit gleeful when I saw people on the "I'm lucky I even graduated!" level (their words, not mine!) had passed their exams. I was the only one I knew of from my class to fail the exams. Lesson? One is sure as hell the loneliest number. 

After listening to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life!" (Monty Python) on repeat, I picked myself up for Round 2. I'm taking that damn exam once more in February, probably out of spite. Honestly, If I fail again this time (knock on wood), I'd probably sign my Sallie Mae owned ass up for the next bar exam. Because fuck you, bar. 

Oh, did I mention my language use may not be suitable for young children? Yeah, I should have started with that... 

Note to Self: this blog MAY actually be about the insane acrobatics I put into procrastination of something I dread doing. 

But I'll end on a bright note: 

Although I sometimes get wrapped up in all of life's negatives, I am a genuinely grateful person for all that I have been "blessed" with.  I have caring adoptive (read: REAL) parents who worked their asses off to help me achieve my dreams,  a Dad who survived cancer, a dedicated and selfless mother, a sister who survived domestic abuse and brought my amazing nephew into the world, an insanely inspiring birth-mother who may be the nicest person in the world, and I also have a caring partner who I've tricked into sticking around me for nearly a decade. 

I believe that everybody has the power to make a difference in someone's life. If I could hug every damn person going through a tough time, I would.

I know that paying it forward and doing even the smallest act of kindness for a stranger could potentially change a life. Especially for people down on their luck. It only takes some gloves for someone who looks cold, a warm meal, hell I even just treated one guy respectfully and he just about cried! Even if you don't encounter someone in need, kindness is as simple as holding a door for someone, saying 'thank you', maybe even just giving a good-natured smile at them. 

If you or I could convince even one other person to start doing this - it could slowly spread and create a chain of people getting help then giving it back to someone else. How great would that be? 

Anyway, my Dear Crickets, I love you all.