Why aren’t you posting?

The world might be vicious and treacherous and deadly, but it couldn’t kill laughter. Laughter, like love, has power to survive the worst things life has to offer. And to do it with style. 

Blood Rites By Jim Butcher

I’m a slacker. I know. Not only have I not been posting, but I have not been reading. I barely have the energy to pick up books and read a page. But there are reasons for my absence. Here is why:

1) I FINALLY FINISHED MY THESIS! I turned it in and defended it! Last Thursday! My whole body feels the lightening of the stress. It was as if I had weights dangling off of me, and they turned into birds and flew away. I’M DONE!!

2) My adviser and I had a talk. I decided NOT to continue on with comprehensive exams and dissertation. Meaning, No Dr. Kwon. It was a hard and easy decision at the same time. Hard because I felt like a quitter. By not finishing it, was I saying, “I know I’m not smart enough, so I quit.” Am I failure? But my adviser told me “You are brilliant, but I don’t think you want to do this.” And he was right. I was not motivated to finish. Research was NOT a direction I wanted to go. And hearing someone who is 10 times smarter than me say that I’m smart was a huge ego boost. In the end I realized, I wasn’t quitting, but I was starting something new.

3) Travels, visits, holidays. This is just a busy time of year. Just went to Chicago, sister coming for thanksgiving, and in a few weeks going home for the holidays. There is no break. It’s cleaning, packing, unpacking, cleaning, and the circle goes on.

4) I got off my depression meds. Completely. Bye bye Welbutrin XL! I went cold turkey, too. It has been nearly two weeks, so far I am still sane. No breakdowns, no tears, and no suicidal thoughts. Life is good! I have had no negative triggers lately, so there has been no tests. We’ll see what happens when I run into negative triggers.

5) The husband and I decided we needed more space. We are moving sometime in April of next year. So we are sorting through stuff, getting rid of things, etc. etc. He has been doing most of the work. He’s such a trooper. ❤

There is one major life change I have not mentioned yet. However, it will take a long post just to talk about this one item, so I’ll post about that later. As if finishing your master’s, getting off of depression meds and moving isn’t enough of a life change 😛

As for plans, I hope over the next few weeks I can settle down and read more and review more. I have huge backlog for NetGalley and Edelweiss. They will be a priority for reviews, so my regular reads may or may not get reviews. Sorry for that! But I hope to get back to my creative writing, also.

For a long time, life froze me from moving forward. I was stuck. Now after all that hard work and a few laughs later–I’m finally moving to Act 2!

 

The Family You Choose

“Blood is one thing, but that’s not all that goes into family. The family you choose is the family that really matters. They’re the ones who’ll keep you standing.” 

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

The husband and I celebrate 3 anniversaries. And by celebrate I mean I remind him what day it is, and he says, “happy anniversary.” Sometimes.

In April, we celebrate our official wedding anniversary. The day we got married in the eyes of god, or more precisely, the eyes of the government, and witnessed by a few friends. All of our paperwork match that date. That’s the day we started receiving extra BAH. Technically, it’s our only anniversary.

August is when we celebrate our relationship. Our first real date. That’s the day our love story started. It was when we found the missing piece in our lives. It is the real start of the Zeenat and Husband show.

But officially and reality aside, marriage to the both of us didn’t start until the world accepted us as a couple. Obstacles were put up to prevent that day from happening. From family to the army, from flower issues to my worsening depression, I thought someone, who didn’t want this marriage to happen, would come in and ruin our weekend.

But four years ago, family and friends, those that loved us and believed in our love, got together to make my dreams come true. People from all stages of my life, from childhood to college, Shuttle and Army, took up responsibilities and jobs to make the 3 day event happen. Because of them, four years ago I got my dream wedding. A wedding where we redefined the meaning of family.

Happy anniversary to my “family”. Thank you for all your love and support, and for blessing our hard earned marriage. You are the family we choose.

 

I Probably Won’t

“I think in some ways every single person, human, vampire, whatever, has a choice to make: to be full of rage about what happens to you or to reconcile with it, to strive for the most honorable existence you can despite the odds.”

Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn

Hopefully by now everyone has heard about the rape of the Steubenville girl, the delinquent verdict of the two perpetrators  We have probably heard about the town and it’s members rallying for the two guys who raped the girl. By now, you have probably heard the tale of the sympathizing attitude of CNN and other leading news outlets. No, they were not sympathizing with the victim, they were sympathizing with the perpetrators.

I can talk to you about how disgusted I am by the ordeal. How appalling it is that grown men and women made excuses for these guys. I could tell you how journalists compromised human decency when they revealed the victim’s name to the public. You probably have already heard of the “drunk girl” and the “boys will be boys” rhetoric, and one or two of you may even be a part of it. You have heard of living in a rape culture and wondered who would perpetuate such horrid ideals.

But we are not going to talk about others say or do. Because I may also be participating in rape culture.

I was molested as a child. I am pretty open about it, it happened, and that’s reality. One thing I always held on to was, “at least I wasn’t raped.” Or, “so much worse has happened to children so much younger.” “I was just molested, not raped,” was my to go mantra.

But this tragedy brought up the question: What is rape? How is it defined? www.womenaresafe.org defined it as:

Rape is sexual penetration (genital, anal, or oral, including any intrusion – however slight) into any part of a person’s body (with emission of semen not required) and involving one or more of the following elements:

• Force or coercion
• Victim did not consent
• Victim is unable to give consent

(8 to 30 years in prison)

The FBI defines it the same way, as do most organizations that are experts in the field.

But like the people who are denying that what happened to the girl was rape, I do not want to view what happened to me as rape. My mind rejected the notion immediately. But then logical reasoning started to fall in place. Men can rape women, men can rape men, women can rape women, and women can rape men. Any kind of object can be used, from body parts to candlesticks. And if it’s not consented and sexual in nature, then it’s rape.

And that meant I had to admit something that I have been avoiding my whole life…

Days later, and I still can’t say it aloud. Just the thought of saying the words  makes me nauseous. I couldn’t even type it out without feeling wrong.

Yet, by not admitting it, am I not letting the rape culture fester? By not admitting it, am I not saying that those high school boys did not rape the girl? Am I dishonest? Dishonorable?

I don’t know. I’ll get back to you on that.

Actually, I probably won’t.

 

Reminder

I’ll never give up
Never give in
Never let a ray of doubt slip in
And if I fall
I’ll never fail
I’ll just get up and try again

“Win” by Brian McKnight

I needed a reminder.

Today, my therapist reminded me about myself:

You have depression. People who do not have depression can tell themselves to refocus, and they do. They could say, “I’ve been depressed, and I snapped myself out.” They didn’t have clinical depression. The same doesn’t work for you. Beating yourself up is going to make it worse. You can’t just wish away cancer, and you can’t wish away depression.

Thank you. I have been feeling like a failure and needed to hear that. I needed to be reminded that I can do take the same steps as everyone else, but it’s that much harder for me to dig myself out. I am better off than I was a few years ago.

My efforts don’t seem as fruitless anymore. I am reminded that all the cognition work and trying to get through my goals will become a reality, even if it doesn’t happen today.

 

Confusion

“It took me a long time to accept what happened. The world seemed muddied, confused. My thoughts were always clouded and heavy. I couldn’t find my way in or out of my own mind. Everyone thought I was crazy, and eventually I thought so too.

The Neon Graveyard by Vicki Pettersson

It seems like I may have confused you by my post yesterday. I have not been suicidal in two and a half years and I am NOT suicidal now.  I am not close to it.  I am in a bad place, but not one that is “that bad”. I am not anywhere close to rock bottom.  Just struggling. A lot.

I have to meet with my advisor today. Joy. How to convey to him I got no work done? Ugh. I hate this part.