Emo blogging

I'm attempting to calm myself down now.

Blogging will maybe help.

I'm having a bit of a meltdown- I know a big part in it's intensity has to do with the fact that I am really overtired. I woke up last night at about 2 am from an odd dream and couldn't get my brain to calm down until around 5. Then I had to wake up two hours later to get to school early because the home internet wasn't working and I had to do some reading for my class at 10.

I've had lots of pain lately in my neck and right shoulder. I don't know why exactly, but although it's gotten better, the pain has been randomly choosing to flare up. It's really infuriating because of course I need to read a lot for my classes. It's REALLY hard to keep up with the reading when you can neither look down at the book or comfortably hold it up. I've also had a head cold lately which has made it hard to concentrate- another struggle in my already difficult plight as a grad school student.

I'm taking 16 credits and working about 12 hours a week... I'm usually on-the-go Monday through Thursday from morning until evening. Then after that, I have tons of reading and work to do until about midnight and on Fridays and the weekends. I'm fine with this, actually, I like being busy and I like what I am doing. I am the type of person who kind of thrives when just a bit overextended. However, with these complications with my body slowing me down I begin to feel like the mountain of work is insurmountable and that I am falling short of everyone's expectations of me... and worse- my expectations of myself.

After pushing myself, my fatigue, my bad concentration, and my (for some reason) irritable stomach through four hours of work which followed the class I had this morning, I was driving home. I was driving through the tunnel and planning to stop briefly at Nob Hill to get some food, when all of the sudden my right shoulder pain flared up REALLY bad. It hurt to use that arm on the steering wheel and even just the weight of the arm was bothering it. I was so annoyed because I wasn't even doing anything out of the norm to it and I certainly didn't need to add that to the day. I had to buy food with no appetite for eating whatsoever and then I finally went home. I stepped through the doorway and felt that I was away for a week instead of just around 10 hours.

I have so many things I need to catch up on this weekend because of the difficulties I had with my neck and getting sick. I felt already so overwhelmed. Plus there's the MIIS career fair that everyone says I should go to tomorrow and someone who was one of the chaperons when I went to Japan for the first time with the sister city foundation died and his funeral is this weekend, too. I was so overwhelmed- do I secure the future or show respect for the past that played a huge role in where I am now? And with SO much work to do in the present how can I do any of those things?

So I got home tired and overwhelmed and just kind of broke down.

I was on the phone with my mom a little while ago during perhaps the worst part of this little breakdown. She kept reminding me that I am doing well and that she would DEFINITELY be telling me otherwise if I wasn't.

I don't know why I have so much self-doubt. I don't know why no matter how much I achieve, I never feel like it's enough. I don't know why although I keep striving to better myself, I still can only think of myself as inadequate (at worst) or "passing" (at best). I know I spent my childhood and youth around lots of people who would respond to my achievements with things like "I can't believe YOU of all people won~", "you only got this because someone else refused it", and "you only got this because~"... but I know these things are ridiculous and they shouldn't have affected the way I look at my achievements so much.

I've learned to live and even thrive with the self doubt- working to try to prove it wrong and silence it. It has been a strong motivator in my life for years now. The bad thing is that my self doubt causes me to think that other people think poorly of me- when I keep pausing in my day to day hustle and bustle to remind myself that the only thing I am fighting here is the nagging feeling in my own head. No one thinks poorly of me- at least that I know of. I am not being judged so strongly by outside sources, but in my own mind. This is something I am unaware of, but I find myself projecting these thoughts onto other people all of the time.

What's frustrating is that I know how lucky I am. I have a comfortable place to live, food in my (ingrateful) stomach, I am safe and relatively healthy, and for GOD SAKES I am one of the small percentage of people on this Earth who can say I am where I want to be and doing what I want to be doing. I can also say with no hesitation that I know I will be heading to even more things in life that will make me very happy. I am aware of suffering in both faraway and nearby places and I know about people who are rightfully frustrated because they just can't get where they want to go. I know rationally that I earned being where I am although I can't feel it. Amidst all of this good fortune in my life there's STILL that doubt. Who am I to have this doubt? I feel like I have no place to get like this when overall, things are going so well. Why can't I just be ok with being sick and sore and not be able to read over 100 pages a week sometimes. Why can't I be as patient with myself as I am with everyone else?

There's nothing else to do but to just let the rest of this emotional hurricane finish it's little rampage. Then I'll look over my information about the career fair to decide if I should go or not and look for a place online where I can leave the Sister City Association chaperon's family a message. I'll do my best with the reading and other schoolwork because my best is all I can give any time.

Deep breaths... I think I am starting to really calm down. I actually really do think the breakdown was probably about 97% due being overtired and in pain. Most of the time, I am really grateful for where I am- even if I do often feel overwhelmed with the loans hanging over my head and out of depth around some of the other MIIS students.

Please no lecture-y comments. If you post any, I will definitely reconsider letting you in on my problems in the future. Especially since I am perfectly aware that I am just kind of bouncing off the walls emotionally due to sickness/fatigue/everything else and this is not a proper representation of how I usually am.

Phew... emotional breakdowns make me thirsty.