An Honest Post Part 3:
Therapists and Theories

I started seeing a therapist for the first time when I was seventeen, the summer before my senior year of high school.
Initially it was by my parents' persuasion--they were hopeful I could receive help coping with my ADHD especially in relation to my school work.
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was thirteen and immediately prescribed Ritalin. By the time I was in high school, I was on the highest dosage the doctor could legally prescribe and I was already developing an immunity to that too.
I was awkward. I chattered too much, laughed too hard.
I didn't mature at the same level as my peers, which left me socially inept, and suddenly I had a difficult time making and keeping friends. But when I started college and unwisely decided to just quit all my medications cold turkey, I learned something. Actually many somethings. I realized I had reached the point where I had been taking the medication, not to tolerate my disorder, but rather to survive the withdrawal I had otherwise. When I forget my pills, I became so lethargic I could not wake up and sometimes slept so deeply that I could be unconscious for several days in the extreme cases. I would have constant unbearable migraines that made me even more nauseated than I was already daily when on the medication, which was itself considerable. I had little to no appetite. I had always been petite, but on the meds, I didn't gain weight, and my body didn't develop at a normal rate. As a result, when I entered college unmedicated, it was like going through a second, somehow more awkward puberty. When taking the pills, I was so subdued, it felt like I had little personality, or at least, that I couldn't express it because my brain and my body felt separate and confused from each other. So when I quit, I was suddenly everywhere--energetic, social, healthy. I hadn't not felt sick in seven years. I could go on a road trip without vomiting, exercise without getting immediately light-headed. It was a revelation. I had friends, and even a brief romance. People enjoyed me, and found my "hyperactivity" more endearing than simply obnoxious.

But we could talk about my ADHD for a novel, and I have another point to make in this post.
While all of that was lovely, there was one freedom I still hadn't been granted, and it bubbled under the surface, ever threatening to engulf me entirely. Depression-- Major Depressive Disorder. The beast that it is.
I was officially diagnosed when I was eighteen, after aforementioned traumatic events made life so unbearable I was on an edge ready to jump. Literally. But this wasn't simply the beginning of a depressive episode, it was an extreme of something I'd dealt with since the earliest I can remember.

As a kid, depression isn't something you realize. To a kid, depression is just a big word you hope you never get on a spelling test. When I was little I had no idea what it was, it was just that, a confusing thing I couldn't name or explain. People often thought I was pouting as a kid--and admittedly I did my fair share of that too--but many times I was actually feeling something overwhelming that didn't make sense and I was hiding to try to deal with it, and wasn't comfortable sharing.  I remember in Elementary School, waking up sometimes completely and inexplicably unmotivated. I didn't want to go to school, but I didn't want to stay home either, I didn't want to do anything at all, and I had no idea why. I was a very needy child. I demanded a lot of affection and required a lot of attention.
As I got older, as it does in many people, it got worse, and I got worse at handling myself.

After the diagnosis, I returned to therapy, but it was different. And I approached it differently. Honestly, I lied a lot. The therapist was always so eager for my improvement and so enthusiastic about anything that they considered a step in the right direction that I just started telling them what they wanted to hear. I preferred the undeserved affirmations to actually having to deal with any of my problems. Obviously, this was not an effective pursuit. I got tired of the guilt and disappointment, so I quit again and didn't return until my primary physician required I see the resident psychiatrist or he would insist on hospitalization in fear of my safety.

I didn't stay with that one long either, but he did say something that stayed with me, and all that semi-tangential stuff before this was the lead up to it.
 In an early session, I expressed that I felt worthless and, specifically, lost. And it was at that point that he explained something to me. He told me, "There is a difference between being lost and being confused. And Abbey, you're not lost. "

I have had a hard time agreeing with that, but I think he was onto something I'm still figuring out.
I have what some have called a savior complex. I collect people, I try to keep everyone. I have never been able to accept that anyone else is a lost cause. But now I'm having to accept the fact that generalizing it so means I have to let that apply to me too.
So here's what I want it to mean.
You're not a lost cause, and neither am I. We might not believe it yet, but let's try. Together.



(Afternote: my experience with medication was completely individual situation, and by no means applies to everyone as many people find medicating highly successful.)

An Honest Post Part 2:

I recognize that last post got a little heavy, so this time we're hopefully going to feel a little more lighthearted about our honesty.
At the end of the last post, I mentioned being "so many other things" and so I decided, in this post, I'd give you some things to know about me instead. So here they are, judge away internets!

(Maybe we'll just do ten so we don't get too carried away too early with the narcissism.)

1) I snort when I laugh hard. Not in a cute, Sandra Bullock kind of way, but in more of a...there may     be an actual swine present, kind of way.
2) Audrey Hepburn once said, "I was born with a enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it." And that's me too. Sounds corny or cliche, but I love to love. I say it early and maybe too often, but actually I always mean it.
3) I meow all the time. At other people. At myself. At everything and anything else. Go ahead, meow back.
4) I own seven different, whimsical panda head hats. Yes, that's a real thing.
5) I'm a Hufflepuff, and I take myself very seriously.
6) Michelangelo is my favorite Ninja Turtle.
7) I can still rap all of the lyrics to Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby", verbatim.
8) Call me bland, but Vanilla Bean is my favorite flavor of ice cream--and for the record it is different and better than Vanilla, it's...beanier. Whatever.
9) I wish they'd stop putting nuts in my dessert. It's unnecessary and I consider it a rude interruption to an otherwise delirious occasion. Especially in regards to carrot cake, like walnuts, really? What gives?!
10) I believe that, as Kevin Bacon taught us in Footloose, punch-dancing it out is the best solution to our problem-solving needs.


So that's out of the way and should get us started in a new direction.
If after reading these titillating facts, you have found yourself passionately in love with me and therefore ardently seek my hand in marriage, the answer is yes. Bring pizza and I'm still bringing my cat. 

A More Sincere Approach To Something.

It's been over two years since I had anything to do with this blog. I could make many excuses to justify this, but the reality is, I honestly felt I had run out of worthwhile things to say.
When I first created this blog it was with the intention of creating a witty persona--I wanted to be charming and impressive and comedic. I wanted everyone who read it to believe I was utterly delightful. But it didn't mean anything.
To be frank, I think maybe I've spent a large part of my life trying to create this idea of a person..a shell of what I wanted to be, shielding the reality of what I am.
That's not to say I don't believe I can be clever or amusing, I'll say I have my moments, but there's a big part of what and who I am that I try to keep unknown beneath those other qualities, and you know what, that's not fair to me, or to the people who know me, or to you.
Mark Twain once said, "When in doubt, tell the truth." So let's tell the truth, and I'll start.

An Honest Post Part 1:

I was raped when I was eighteen, and since then anyone who learns this about me makes it a part of their impression of me. They find me stronger or more sympathetic. And that's a great kindness, but not to be rude, it's not what I think it ought to be.
Because I'm not a victim. I'm a person.
I share it because, yes, it was an important experience in my life, but what I want understood is that, it was an experience, not an identity crisis. It was traumatic. Of course it was. But I'm not angry, I'm grateful.  I'm grateful because it could have been much worse, but wasn't. I'm grateful for the humility I learned in realizing I needed to ask for and accept help. I am grateful for the empathy and love I received, and the new love I could give back. I am grateful that it gave me a lesson in forgiveness I needed to struggle with. I learned that forgiving is a type of freedom. And though, I would never ask to go through it again, I may not have gotten the liberation I needed at that time in my life. I'm not angry with the individual responsible, I'm proud. The redemption process after such a misguided choice, I believe, must have been difficult in a way I can't really understand, and I know he struggled through it. Recently, he was married and sealed to the love of his life in an LDS temple, and I sincerely believe he has made good on his life and he deserves the happiness he has worked for. Some people are haunted by memories after experiencing something like I did, and for a long time, I was. I became frustrated that I couldn't get over it at the rate I believed I should be. That's something else I learned. A time limit doesn't heal. It took me four years to stop thinking about it, but now, I really don't. It doesn't affect or define any part of my daily life anymore. I'm better than fine. But I don't romanticize my recovery and I don't want anyone else to. I didn't instantly become stronger because I got over something so hurtful, and I certainly didn't become a "better person" because I survived such a thing. I'm just a person who survived. And that's all I want to be. A person.
I want therapists to stop focusing on that fact, and making my entire treatment about getting over something that I just wanna be done talking about.
I don't want that to be the  thing that people know about me, a thing that decides any part of their opinion of who I am. I'm a person. And I am so many other things than someone who was raped.
So let me use this blog now to talk about the things I'd rather people knew about me--I'd rather they judged me on. Here's what I am as just another person.

Commentary: High School

Occasionally, when going through my literal plethora of old notebooks, I find little ranting gems like this. Yes, I'm very conscious of the thorough overuse of commas and just general massacre of the grammar, and also the seeming abruptness of how it ends without proper resolution or conclusion, but unfortunately, if there was more to this rant, I could not find it in the chaotic pages of the notebook, so this is all we get. Enjoy?
(It's okay if you're a little frightened, me too amigo, me too.)

"So there we were...trapped inside a room full of stereotypes and embodied cliches, wishing away our adolescence with dreams of prospective successes all fed by the naive ambition of our juvenile minds. High school. It was like being slowly boiled to death, say by agonizing day, and like the frog in that infamous--not to mention, horrendously overused--analogy, we are stuck--perpetual prisoners to our own tragic fate. But, of course, it was for our "own good," to "better prepare us" for that ever-looming future that they never could shut up about. Yes, they claimed someday we really would be grateful, as if it all is truly essential to our survival, even to our very existence as human beings. Seriously though, let me just tell you how breathlessly I wait for the day when, in the progress of my thoroughly average, middle-class existence, my life will be heroically saved by the sudden urge to stop everything, draw up a graph, and find the asymptote.
I have no real vendetta against math specifically, (except, seriously, what the hell is an asymptote?!) the same perspective can be applied to infinite scenarios within the spectrum of that great wonder they have the nerve to call 'public education.'"

The Waking Mind of the Walking Contradiction

It has become increasingly apparent to me, and to those that know me well enough to be aware, that I have become a curious sort of anomaly of many, seemingly contradictory truths. I think it is pretty commonly known that I have always been an unusual person, [haven't we all?] but it appears to me that within the last few years I seem to have tripled in eccentricities. The point of all of this is not to indicate that  I am merely an oddity, as I have already indicated that identification stands well enough on its own. No, the main concept I intend to emphasize here is the aforementioned seemingly contradictory nature of it all. This phenomenon is hard enough to explain as it is so perhaps I will simply direct your attention to a few natural examples and thereby let the evidence speak for itself.  So, let us begin with a list of examples as evidence.

1. I was the figure skater in the black Led Zeppelin T-shirt and purple leg warmers, with the       French manicure.
2. I own thirty some odd pairs of shoes, and yet I am well known for being ever barefoot.
3. My bedroom is rarely anything less than the messiest room on earth, and yet, my bed is always made to near perfection.
4. I love watches and clocks, and own several  of each, yet I am seemingly never on time for anything.
5. I am one of the most uncoordinated and clumsy people you will ever meet, and yet when placed in a pair of ice skates on half an inch blades, suddenly I  can become the near embodiment of balance.
6. I am both an anal perfectionist and an idle slacker with relatively equal force.
7. I tend to be a very trusting person, even too trusting sometimes, yet I have a complete inability to make eye contact.
8. I love games of all kinds, and yet by nature I am not a very competitive person.
9. I have very big dreams, but no real sense of ambition.
10. I am both very critical and very tolerant when it comes to people. It's a complex, I myself continually fail to understand.
    
    There are countless other examples of this curious nature of mine, but my sleep-deprived mind, and general inability to concentrate on virtually any task or concept for any extended amount of time, leaves me rather inclined to simply leave it at that, and let stew in the minds of my would-be readers how self evident this conclusion may already seem from what little I have left them to go on here. In basic fact, I contradict myself, on seemingly unhealthy and unnatural levels, and yet...how can they be unnatural when as I've just proved they all naturally occur right here, within my own twisted character! Dear reader, take what you will from all of this, you have the right. I mean really, you have significant right to do whatever you very well please with any and all of this information just given the fact you are among what few poor peasants of this dear planet actual read said contributions in the first place. I leave you again, as always, seemingly in the middle of some unvoiced thought, but alas, so it is.
    
    Farewellings to you!
    
    -The Walking Contradiction
    
    
    
    

...I Blame It On James Dean.

Recently, I was accused of having an irrational and irrepressible affinity with, what some might call, the "bad boy" appeal. Well, as they say...guilty until proven innocent, and I have absolutely no intention of proving any such thing. I feel no obligation to, indeed, I happily confess! I am completely attracted to the "rebel without a cause" sort of infamy vibe that denotes this class, and, personally, I blame it all on James Dean. Before I get ahead of myself, let me provide some background on our perpetrator here... not to mention some much needed visual representation, for some eye candy and cardiac stimulation, if nothing else.
So dear reader, try not to be too overcome as I introduce you to....
...Mr. James Dean






 I know you are probably wondering, so allow me to relieve your curiosity...he is MINE. He is dead, yes, I am fully aware, but I have already claimed him for the next life, so don't even bother yourself over him. This beautiful man took full hold on my soul a few years ago when I caught a glimpse of his perfection on television as I flipped through local channels. It was a scene from East of Eden, one of only three movies he starred in before his tragic death. I had heard of James Dean...heard he was attractive, rather scandalous, and of course infamous for his characteristic "bad boy" image and appeal. I saw that face and instantly knew, this was James Dean. (I hastened to look him up on Google afterward, merely to confirm my suspicion). And thus, true love---or rather true lust was born. For at that point, the foundation for my adoration was based purely on physical attraction, but true love was still come...and oh how it came! I was soon introduced to the movie Rebel Without A Cause, and I think I can safely say, it was after that movie that I swore my unwavering devotion. It was that movie, and, of course, the man himself, that invoked in me a new perception of the male sex. Firstly, it was decided that every man should be exquisitely attractive, if he possibly can, and more specifically he ought to be the kind of unbearably beautiful--in a masculine way--that would denote the modern perception of a Greek god. Secondly, a man should be manly, but there is a certain sensitivity desired also, but not so much that any actual masculinity is abandoned...it's a sort of "I ride a ridiculously fast and dangerous motorcycle, but I always carry an extra helmet" phenomenon--rather difficult to explain. Thirdly, if one could combine the sex appeal of both James Dean and Mr. Darcy, the planet would simply explode from over-exposure to sheer perfection. Fourthly...well, point in case, you just can't beat James Dean...James Franco, my friend, you come very very close, but you'll just have to settle for second place in the end. Back now to the point of this monologue. The truth is, this--dare I accept the term--obsession, has now fringed into my actual life, breaching the barriers of my secret alter ego's  alternate reality, and affecting aspects of my literal existence. This, I believe, is the only real cause for concern--and when I say concern I do not mean to claim it as my own, I am merely referring to the expressed notions of certain others. Recently it was suggested that perhaps my inclination towards this particular breed of man, is the cause of my lack of success with mankind in general, that perhaps I am deterring the potential for good, healthy offers by wistfully imaging the basic opposite, which is certainly madness! This may or may not actually be true...I offer no confession for this. All I do know is that, healthy or not, I am in love with "the infamy," and I blame it all on James Dean...in the best way possible.
Farewellings for now!
-Abbey Road Rutter

Abbey's Life: A Comedic Tragedy in Three Parts

I created this blog well over a year ago, when I was suddenly caught up in the concept of the thing as it became, in a word: "trendy." Hypocrite that I apparently am, I joined the trend--a habit I constantly profess a certain hostility towards--and "blogged." I feel I should point out (as if it is not already blatantly obvious) that I say blogged as a singular activity. I did not, per say, participate in the activity of blogging as I only ever posted once. Now, however, I return to the venture with renewed vigor! I cannot, and therefore will not, claim to have approached this second attempt entirely of my own volition, and well, as a matter of fact it's kind of a funny story...and given that it is my blog after all, I figure I can go ahead and tell it, whether you like it or not--so there reader! Anyway-- now that I've unofficially gotten carried away--let's get back to the point, or rather, the story. I was having a conversation with my friend Lu the other day (via text messaging as I am, of course, an American teenager after all) when she suggested I create a blog, since, supposedly, I am prone to expressive anecdotes, have an apparent tendency for ranting, and a natural inclination toward sarcasm, and dry and dark humor, all of which she believes makes me amusing.Flattered of course, but ever the business woman, I went on to tell her that as a matter of fact, I already had a blog, but hadn't really been very active on the "blogosphere" since creating it over a year ago. With this, of course, she insisted I make a second attempt of it, and, in response, I employed one of those wonderful qualities of mine she had so flattered in her persuasion, sarcasm. I described how I could almost picture it myself..."Abbey's Life: A Comedic Tragedy in Three Parts." Thus, the name of this entry was born in nostalgic commemoration of that charming discussion that started it all over again, and brought me back to that lost art of... BLOGGING!!!
...yes I was being sarcastic again, do try and keep up, dear reader, won't you?
Well, it could now reasonably be claimed you have officially experienced one of my charming little rants that in a way inspired my return..and will likely inspire your abrupt abandonment of my blog, but if for some reason you do decide to come back, you are hereby assured I will at least attempt to be more loyal to my own pursuit here, so hopefully there will eventually be other blog posts to follow this one. Until then, dearest reader, Farewellings!
-Abbey