My first group therapy session was yesterday. It was obviously awkward at first sitting in a small room with 10 other people all sitting on bean bag chairs. In each corner of the ceiling were old security cameras. The wall behind the therapist facilitator was mostly a big two-way mirror. You could still see some movement in it. Everyone in the room could best be described as kids you never really notice. Their body language and eye contact was anxious but you could tell that they were all hoping to get some kind of help. We were all pretty confused at first and there were always lots of awkward silences. After about 45 minutes people started to speak up and we all found some common ground talking about how we interact with others. One of my favorite moments was when we were trying to establish some protocol for how we'd act if we saw each other outside of the group. Everyone agreed that we could acknowledge each other but try to keep it minimal. (There's kind of a rule that it's not good to form relationships outside of the group so as to prevent cliques from forming.) The facilitator asked, "So do we all agree that we can acknowledge one another outside the group?" There was just a long silence where everyone nodded and looked around. I figured that I was there to learn how to say what I really think so I spoke up with "If I see people on campus that I know I do my best to ignore and avoid them so don't feel bad if I do that to you." There were some laughs and one girl said "Oh I do that all the time! If someone else is with me they'll ask me if I hate that person and I just tell them I don't want to talk to them right now and everyone thinks that's weird." That made me feel good.
I met with my psychiatrist on Monday and told him about my weird withdrawal symptoms. He had no idea what that happened either but we both just kinda laughed about it. He's a pretty cool dude. I told him about my recent realization that I don't express latent learning at all. Latent learning is when you do a series of actions in order to get to a delayed reward. It's like the opposite of instant gratification. I noticed this when we learned about it in my entomology class of all places. The more I thought about it the more true it was. I don't want to finish school. I just don't care anymore at all. I used to at least study some before tests and do my homework. I have missed whole papers and quizzes now just because I didn't want to go to class. I have no goals for the future so there's nothing to work toward. Everything I do is for instant gratification. I skip probably 60% of my classes because I'll wake up, think about getting to class, and then consciously choose to skip and sleep. It's so powerful that I can't fight it most of the time. Then, I feel terrible because I see myself as lazy and throwing away precious class time just so that I can do nothing. The examples go on and on. My psychiatrist suggested trying another SSRI. I'd taken Cymbalta before so he put me back on that and doubled the dose. So now I'm taking Wellbutrin to up my dopamine levels, Cymbalta to up my serotonin levels, and Vyvanse to allow me to do things.
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