family visits

my brother was here for a week. my sister came on wednesday. it's nice to have family in town!

i have a week and a day left in my intensive group therapy. it's so weird that the time went by so fast. i don't know for sure that i will cope better. but we'll see.

this weekend i have a ton of reading to do. hopefully (with med change starting tomorrow) i can get some work done.

final stretch

i have a week and a half left in the intensive group therapy program. yay! i have come to really care for the group members. and i'll be happy to have some time freed up to study.

last weekend i slept about 18 hrs in a 24 hr period. i didn't feel good so i just kept sleeping and sleeping. oh well.

tomorrow morning i will be working out at 8 am! wow. i'll be impressed if/when i get there.

strange week

group therapy this week was very strange. two people stopped coming. we had a major upset yesterday in three of the groups where group members got really upset. today we spent most of our energy hashing that out and trying to come up with solutions. i was left feeling angry but i wasn't even the person who was involved in the situations! i guess i was empathizing with the powerlessness the other group members felt in the situation. i have two more weeks of intensive group therapy left. yay!!!

holding on

i don't know how good it is to do this but i'm holding on to my target behavior as an option should things take a turn for the worst. it's not that i'm closed to the possibility that my depression can get better. just in case things don't improve, i know i'll act on my impulses.

on a happier note, my brother is visiting me and it's been great. yesterday we went to two museums that i hadn't been to in ages. it's nice to be able to spend time with my brother.

shock

i'm totally in shock. i got a good grade for the paper i was agonizing over. it's the best grade i've received since i started the program. wow. what now? do i all of a sudden have hope? i am starting to believe that maybe the dark clouds are moving, albeit slowly. thank you God!

special day

today felt weird. it just seemed like any other day. last year around this time i felt really (unrealistically) optimistic about the up coming year. as it turned out the past year was really really hard. many hospital visits, and academic troubles! this year i'm not as optimistic but have realistic "hope." maybe i'll end up in the hospital, maybe i won't. maybe i'll graduate, maybe i won't. i will just take one day at a time.

thanks friends and family for being there for me!

contract

i had to contract for safety after group therapy today. we did a behavior analysis of someone who had just attempted suicide. i got triggered during group and didn't feel so good. fortunately i was able to check in with a counselor after that group then again after the evening ended. i feel much better right now after talking about some of the issues in a group following the behavioral analysis group. thank God!!!

raw emotions

i feel raw emotions from last night when i was brain storming for ways to "final exit." i felt worse after generating some ideas about how the final exit might appear to be natural.

goupd therapy was good. we discussed how i might cope with triggers. there are no easy answers. i just have to keep at working on feeling better. there are good days and there are bad days. i just have to keep working on feeling better.

sunday worship

it is becoming harder and harder to sit through worship service on sundays. why is this the case? i feel disconnected from the worship service as a whole, disconnected from the sermon, the hymns and the prayers. it's not a good place to be for me. and yet i feel it over and over again that i have to sit through the service. maybe it will be better for me just to take a break from going to services?

i'm reading karl barth's dogmatics in outline. it's a challenge to separate out what he believes from what i believe. everything sounds kosher. what will i say in class on tuesday?

sleep is taking over. i can't get enough sleep! it might be time for a med change.

intensive group therapy day 9

it's hard to keep track of each day now. this week, we had two members join the group. they are both nice. each person brings a new perspective to the group.

everyday is a struggle - getting out of bed has been difficult. i don't want to do anything. i basically have to force myself to get to places.

last weekend was amazing. i got the paper done! and i even had time to go shopping and had dinner with my mom both saturday and sunday.

i'm learning new skills in the intensive group therapy program. whether any of it will come handy when i'm feeling intense and awful feelings, we'll have to see.

this week i became aware that i want to communicate with my parents about what it's like to be depressed. i don't know if i'll actually attempt to tell them how hard it's been. i am thinking about it. and maybe that's a start.

i haven't done any reading since i finished the paper on sunday afternoon. man oh man! i'll start reading tomorrow morning. yeah.

good enough is good enough?

i'm waking up so early now that it's more like i take a little nap in the late evening. my mom has jet lag and so she's up early in the morning. so this morning at 4 am we had pancakes. :) pancakes at any time of day is good for me.

mom and i went to a morning service at a korean church this morning. my korean is getting worse. when the pastor was reading the scripture passage i really wanted to crack open an english bible. i had one right infront of me too. i was just too lazy.

i want to turn in my seminar paper today! i think it should be 15 pages at least. but i only have thirteen pages. man oh man. i'm trying to squeeze out every drop of creativity i can find in myself but it's not working so well. i used to be able to crank more pages with less effort!

lord have mercy.

early bird

i got up early this morning because i slept early. doesn't that really make sense? anyway i went to starbucks this morning as they were opening. i got some reading done there. i then came to the library. i gotta say i much prefer the library. it's noisy in starbucks! sometimes i don't mind the noise but man oh man this morning i couldn't stand it.

anyway all this to say that it feels great to wake up early in the morning and study. big day of studying today! i'm hoping to go out to dinner. i know, how can i go out to dinner when i have this major major paper is past its due date? well, i don't think i can study more than 10-12 hrs in a day anyway. so mom and i are going out to dinner. i can't wait!!!

i used to say that i'm neither a night or morning person. but i think i really enjoy being awake in the morning. this is not to say that i don't have problems getting out of bed in the morning because i really have a hard time getting up. but when i'm up i like being conscious early in the morning (by early i mean, before noon).

moody day

today was day five, in other words first full week of intensive therapy! yipee. i got 5 more weeks to go...

group therapy was fine. we discussed weekend planning. people were really encouraging for me to get some studying done. then we had a group for affirmation. i was like huh? but then it made sense. my home work is to repeat to myself "i can do it" as many times as i can/need to this weekend.

man i was up and down today emotionally. i talked to my therapist and then had to take a nap to get over some feelings. then again after group therapy i had to get some sleep too to feel more sturdy. oh well.

big weekend ahead. lots and lots of writing and reading to be done. :)

intensive group therapy day 4

on monday i started an intensive group therapy program. it's starting to become a blur now how the week's gone by so i thought i better write some things down.

day 1 - i just felt that the four hours went by so slowly. i couldn't imagine how the next six weeks were going to be. i learned about willingness vs willfulness and opposite to current emotion action. i talked mostly about how i wasn't motivated to do anything and felt there was no purpose in life.

day 2 - there were lots of laughter on day two. one of the group members has a good sense of humor and laughs at a lot of the things i say. we had a family issue group and i told my story. it wasn't hard. we had self/validation class in which we basically learned how we can be validating of others. when you can't validate others, you have to apply the skills to yourself. that's what i said in the group. i tuned out
(unintentionally) what some people were saying and dissociated in the group. i was able to tell the group what i was experiencing.

day 3 - i didn't talk that much. i was afraid to talk. i felt like i was on some kind of an emotional ship that might sink if i opened up. i got to know group members better. we had a behavior analysis group and i felt relieved that they didn't analyze my behavior.

day 4 - i talked to my therapist earlier and told her that i'm really doing the group for other people and that i didn't really believe in the program. and so i expressed that in some of the groups. in one of the groups we started talking about whether we were sleeping well. i said that i over sleep and somehow we got into a discussion of
how i am living because i cannot die.

then in another group, when we were discussing addictive behaviors, i talked about my many many hospital visits. so on the fourth day i cried. i told the group i hadn't hit rockbotrtom and was doing the program for others. i wasn't really interested in changing blah blah blah. then somehow i got to talking about obstacles to my addictive behavior and i was trying to say that i wished that over christmas break when i went home that i hardly got to see my family. on christmas eve, my dad was busy, my sister didn't want to come over and my brother was out of the city. so my mom and i had dinner by ourselves. i felt a longing in the group for spending more time with the family. i said that even if we weren't doing anything together that it would have been nice if we were all in the house onchristmas eve.

so there it is. my four days at the program. my paper isn't going too well. i am really lucky to have my new advisor. i hope he won't be disappointed by the paper. i hope he'll get a paper from me. at this point, it's unclear.

i wish i didn't have to go to the group therapy again. but i think it's good for me nonetheless.

house keeping

i came home with mom yesterday. there's something peaceful about coming home.

this week i have to write a major paper. but i'm so sleepy all the time.

i start an intensive group therapy tomorrow. the program lasts for six weeks! maybe there will be a snow day tomorrow. hehe

i was at my church today and i realized that i missed the people at my church. it was really nice to see them. the candidate for the headpastor position got voted in unanimously. all that's left is for the presbytery to officially accept him as the pastor of our church to finalize the process.

i'm feeling kind of numb. i'm not stressed. i'm not sad. i'm just numb.

the windy city

it's warm in chicago. i came here on sunday (reserved and bought ticket early in the morning) due to family circumstances... there has been a death in the extended family. it feels so weird to say that. i'm praying for the family.

my sister and niece are sick too. anyway i came so i could help out in anyway that i can. but you know, i'm not much help at all. i just load up the dish washer, unload the dishwasher, fetch things, etc. my sister who is still a bit sick is taking care of my niece who is starting to feel better. on sunday night we went to a restaurant and i happened to sit next to my niece. so one would think i helped her so that her parents could eat, right? but no. i was busy eating. i didn't quite know how to help her. i felt the same way when she was younger. my sister would let me feed my niece but i would feel so lost not knowing what to do.

so after the first night of sleep, a long long night of sleep, i got up late and felt practically bed-ridden. i didn't feel awake until about 4 pm while i was at the apple store. i had to make a visit to the apple store because on sunday morning my computer failed me. the screen just went blank and i couldn't get it to start up again. i hit the power button, plugged the computer into a power source, tapped different keys, i thought i tried everything. my appointment at the apple store was at 3:30 pm. they were so busy! so at about 3:30 pm one of the genius guy opens the computer and voila - the computer screen came on! so it turns out nothing is/was wrong with my computer. i thought it was charging through the night before but somehow it wasn't charging so on sunday morning, just before i got on the plane, the computer simply had no battery life left. so why didn't it turn on after i plugged it into an outlet??? instead of feeling stupid, i was just so happy that my computer was fine.

my sister made lunch and dinner. ideally i would be cooking. but i don't really cook. i mean, i know how to cook and things turn out fine. but i just don't do it very often. let's face it. i don't really like doing house work of any kind. guess i'll just have to live with that.

changing churches, for now at least

when you change churches, especially if one is a small church that feels like a family like my current church, it rather feels like you’re changing friends. of course you can still hang out with friends from the old church, but it feels/it will feel strange b/c it’s a little bit like, oh we weren’t good enough for you? maybe it’s just me, but i feel a bit like that myself when people change churches even though one’s decision to change churches is not all personal. i can’t say that it isn’t personal at all b/c at some level it is personal. if nothing else, it is personal.

i’m going to temporarily “leave” my church (the “old” church) and go to another church that i used to go to before (the “new” church). i’m a member at my church so it’s not like i’m leaving the church for good. but who knows what the future holds, right? if i were to compare my relationship with my current church to a romantic relationship, it’s not like a break up for good, but more like a break. like i was telling a friend earlier today, it’s like switching shampoo from old one to a new one so that the old one will work well again. okay. maybe that’s a trivial example but it makes the point i want to make.

obviously i’ve given it some thought as to why i want to go to a new church for now. i need to/want to worship god in a different setting. partly, i feel that i need to start fresh with respect to how i relate to god. and yes, i need/want a fresh start with my church community too. i’ve been hurt a few times by the people in the church. and i’m sure i’ve done the same for others. i am not trying to place blames or displace them when i should own up to them myself. i just don’t feel a this point that i can worship at my old church because i feel hurt in the body of Christ.

anyway, when a family is dysfunctional, you want a break from them except you know you can’t trade them in for a new one so part of you knows you are stuck and you try to make it work. but with friends as well as church community, well you are not stuck with them. you can move on if you want to. i often move on nonchalantly from friendships and hate committing to communities or to people. but in the recent years i tried to make things work. even so when a relationship gets unhealthy, it’s best to take a break.

i think there is something to be said for sticking out the rough patches and not leaving when things get hard. well, in case anyone comment on that aspect i thought i’d pre-emptively make the remark that i’m past that stage. i’ve stayed at my church for 4-5 years through the good and the bad. there were times in the past when i wanted to throw in the towel. but i didn’t give up on the relationships built in the church, relationships built on christ.

then why change churches now? at the moment, it feels like i’m trying to walk on a broken leg to worship at my old church. perhaps because i seem to be falling apart myself, i just need to be in an environment where i feel nurtured and accepted for who i am right this moment rather than what people expect me to be as i used to be. does that make sense? in my church, people expect that i would do this or that or feel or believe this way or that way. but the truth is at this point in my life, at the present moment, especially after my last desperate attempt for an exit, i am starting over. you can’t start over in an old place easily. you need a new place to start over. so that’s why i’m going to go to a new church for now.

i don’t think i’m writing this just so i feel free of guilt or to justify myself. i think i needed to write this to acknowledge how i feel at the church and to work out clearly why i need a new place to worship god. so thanks for reading.

loving it!

happy new year!!!

i slept early last night and didn't really experience a new beginning of the new year. every one was away so what can you do? anyway, i woke up this morning and had some dry cereal because i ran out of milk. yeah, i know. pretty sad, huh? anyway i put on some smokey eye shadow that my roommate got me and i'm loving it! and i made coffee for myself which is a compromise since i tried to head out to starbucks to study. i will be picking up some friends in a couple of hours and we're going to get some duk-man-doo-kuk which is a traditional korean dish that you're supposed to eat on new year's day.

it's not like anything has changed. my pants still don't fit. and i'm still eating a lot, etc. but i'm feeling pretty good this morning. i might even get some studying done today! yay!!!

i hate, i mean i love jfk airport!

jfk airport has got to be the most run down airports that i have seen recently! anway i'm flying delta so i had to walk over two teriminals. i found my gate, ate lunch, got my fill of starbucks and then sat near my gate. what do i find but my beloved hotspot working in the gate area? so i checked my flight status on line. i found out my gate changed, so i had to rush over to the other wing. when i got there, my hotspot no longer worked and there was no one at the gate. so i checked the screen again and it said my old gate number for my flight! so i rushed back where i happily sat about 15 minutes ago only to realize that the delta air website may not have the most up to date info. phewy!

anyway i was hating being stuck at jfk for hours and hours. i think i got out of customs at about 11 am. it is now 1:30 or so and i still have another hour to go before my flight takes off for boston!!!

getting through the immigrations was really pleasant. the officer just asked me if i was on vacation. so i said yes. she stamped my passport and that was that. i love it! love it, love it!

[edit]
wooh - let me correct myself. to recap: my ticket said gate 29. internet info said gate 17 so i go there. then see that the screens now say gate 29 again. so i go back there. only to find out after asking a flight agent that it really is 17! so am i at gate 17? nope. before i logged off the internet (b/c hotspot works near gate 29, but not gate 17) i looked up which gates the hotspot works near. so yeah, i'm no where near the gate i'm supposed to be departing from. why? my flight was delayed an hour and a half! it wouldn't be so bad except that i have been waiting for the 2:35 pm flight since 11 am and now the new departure time is 4:30 pm!

the love of my life

i don't know why. but once in a while i google the love of my life. today i discoverd a new link when i googled his name. he has profiles on amazon.com. so i clicked on it. i couldn't read the words he wrote. pretty silly, don't you think?

it's not that i am still in love with him. he's just the only person i had a real relationship with, the only person i loved romantically, and the only person i let into my life without reservations.

i imagine that he's happily married with children. he moved on from our break-up with lightening speed. me, it took years to get over him. honestly i missed his friendship more than i did for the romantic relationship.

the thing that gets me is that he pops up in my dreams every now and then. we can't control our dreams, right? at least i can't control my dreams.

anyway, last night he was in my dream again. this time it was different. i told him that i was happy that we weren't together, happy that we weren't married to each other and happy that i was over him. talk about empowerment! so why did i google his name just now???