Over It

Well, I had my exam--which I was way over-prepared for--yesterday morning. As expected, I was not the only one in desperate straits over scantron sheets. There were about ten or so students (nearly 25% of the class) who had also waited until the last minute. I gave away a couple of the scantrons that Kelly gave to me, which I considered to be good pre-test karma. Maybe I should have given away more, because I think I missed two questions (of a 50 question exam). But we'll see. Best not to count your chickens and all that.

After my exam I came home. I was still suffering from hives (what I thought were the insect bites turned out to be large, isolated hives on my arms, legs and face, I'm pretty sure), which were made worse by the stress of the exam. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a benadryl and collapse because of course I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon! (I made the appointment six months before and didn't think to cancel it in time.) It was just for a cleaning so I didn't have to see the dentist, but even going to the dentist's office stresses me the hell out. That stress on top of the exam stress did not help the hive situation, so I came home with clean teeth and hive-covered arms.

Finally, I got to take a damn benadryl (half of one actually) and sack out. I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before--not because I was cramming surprisingly enough, but because I kept waking up all through the night convinced that I had slept through my alarm--so after I took the benadryl I went out like a light. Dave came home to nudge me about going to the gym and I slept right through that. I was up for about ninety minutes--long enough to order a pizza and wings for dinner and eat a slice and four wings--then, since the half benadryl I had taken earlier was starting to wear off, I took another half and went back to bed.

That was yesterday.

Today the big thing was more benadryl. The hives are mostly gone, but there were a few sticking around just in case the day got stressful.

I also made an appointment with a new therapist for this coming Monday. The old therapist, the one I've seen twice, I am over. I was over her the minute she suggested that my experiences dealing with racism could possibly be my "personal baggage." (Which, you dumb white woman, guess again.) That, and despite my telling her that I was seeing her in response to a severe bout of depression, the most I got was a photocopied list of daily affirmations ("I like myself!" "Other people like me!") and a photocopied chapter from The Feel Good Handbook by David Burn.

Gee, thanks.

So the new therapist is an African-American woman and I'm hoping that, if nothing else, I won't have to explain to her the seriousness and insidiousness of racism.

Despite all that I feel like I'm slowly getting better, but it's still touch and go. I really need to be in therapy right now, if for nothing else than to have to deal with this and show up and be accountable. Finding a therapist has been awful though.