2L Time

This past Monday, I started school as a second-year law student, a.k.a. a 2L. Since my last post, I've been busy taking care of all the things inherent in going back to school as a transfer student, i.e. buying textbooks, getting a student ID, getting frustrated with financial aid, navigating the virtual maze that is the federal student loan system, figuring out my new school's e-mail system and building layout, finding and completing my first assignments, and getting back into Law Student Mode (TM).

You know what's crazy? It's been nice.

When I first started law school, I hated it so much. I was constantly depressed, and I felt overwhelmed. Everything that I had loved about school growing up was absent in law school, replaced by a tremendous pressure to memorize large amounts of mundane facts and arguments for the sake of becoming familiar with caselaw, even though all that would matter come finals would be the holding of the case and the policy considerations behind it. It was hell. Though according to everyone who went to law school, that was to be expected. It followed the stereotype: first year they scare you to death, second year they work you to death, and third year you don't care, you're just trying to find a job. Some of the lowest moments of my life were during my first year, and I felt like I was under an astronomical amount of pressure. I worked myself half to death, and when I lost my scholarship over 0.04 GPA points - when I managed a 3.22 despite all the shit that happened my first year (illnesses, injuries, my mother's health scare, getting rear-ended really badly, etc.) - I didn't want to get out of bed for days. I've been low before - it's par for the course with depression - but my whole life felt like a lie. I'd always believed that if you worked hard enough, things would work out okay, and to me, nothing felt okay. The year off I took wasn't much better. I couldn't find a job, thanks in part to the economy, my disability (no walking/standing/lifting regularly means no retail/food service), and my time commitment (no one in my undergraduate degree field wanted someone who didn't intend to work at the company long-term). I was poor, I was stressed, I was bored, and it just wasn't good.

Being back in school and working towards something again has made me feel so much better. My new school has a very different atmosphere than that of my former law school; it's much more positive and upbeat. My first year, it felt like everyone was against us, trying to trip us up, testing us, and making us question whether or not we could do it, but thus far, my professors and all the people I've encountered only seem encouraging. Part of that probably has to do with being a 2L (professors know you've survived your first year and come back for more), but I think part of it also though is definitely the school itself, and that has given me an overwhelming sense of peacefulness. I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. I felt like that my senior year of college and throughout the summer afterward, but I was plagued by doubt as soon as I started law school. For the past year I've constantly questioned myself and my decisions, and it's a relief to start feeling more like I've made the right decisions.

I'm planning on posting about my summer adventures later on this weekend or early next week (I did a lot of cool things locally this summer, and I took a ton of pictures), but until then...

Have you ever been in a situation where for a time, nothing felt right, but it led you to something that  did?

Is it TDaP or DTaP?

Last Thursday, August 1st, I had an appointment with my doctor to get a school physical done. I normally don't get a physical every year (I see enough doctors during the year and have enough testing done that there rarely seems to be any point), but since I'm transferring, my new school obviously wants one done. No big deal.

It was only after I was in with the P.A. that I found out I needed a vaccine booster. I have no issues with needles, so I stuck out my arm and in went my booster TDaP/DTaP shot. Once again, no big deal.

Until, you know, about a minute later, when most of my arm went numb and the place where the needle went in started to itch. Neither the P.A. or the nurse seemed worried, so they finished filling out my paperwork and sent me on my way, telling me the arm would probably be sore tomorrow and not to worry about it. Of course, the next morning, I woke up with a hard lump on my arm right where I'd gotten the booster shot. Like any good millennial, I turned to Google. Google informed me that this was relatively normal; some people got a hard lump after getting the shot, and it was likely a minor reaction to one of the vaccine components that would go away in a few days.

Over the course of the next few days, the lump grew to the size of a golf ball. It was itchy and warm to the touch. Pain radiated up to my shoulder and down to my elbow. First, the lump wasn't discolored. Then it was red. Then it looked like I had a massive purple bruise. That's when I decided to call the doctor, who wanted to see me immediately. I drove myself to the doctor, and lo and behold, I was running a fever for the first time in 21 years! (I don't ever get fevers. Like, seriously. I've had sinus infections, ear infections, colds, bronchitis, the flu, and all those other things you're supposed to get a fever with, and I NEVER get one. The last time I ran a fever, I was 2 and had walking pneumonia.)

Yeah, apparently I'm allergic to one of the vaccine components...

On a brighter note, while my body is being difficult, I'm actually getting kind of excited for law school, which is beyond insane (and which I'll insist was never the case when finals week rolls around), but... I like justice. I'm actually trying my hand at the transfer writing competition, which for those of you unfamiliar with law, isn't really what you'd think: it's basically how you get on to law review/a law journal, something which employers generally like to see and which gives you the opportunity to potentially publish a piece of your legal writing. I'm not really sure I'll finish the competition, because I'm nervous about how my legal writing will come across when I haven't done any of it in a year, but either way, going through the sources has been a nice re-introduction to law school. I was petrified I'd have forgotten everything during the year off I had, but thankfully, that isn't the case.

Everything has also improved as far as my relationship goes, which is a relief. We still have our issues to work on (who doesn't?), but I think we've managed to find the common ground that we needed. We'll see how things go, but they're looking up from here.

Standing on the Edge

One thing I absolutely loathe about being in my 20s is how frequently I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down, and wondering what the heck is going to happen next. All of my expectations have gone out the window - I have no idea if I could fall off the metaphorical cliff, if I could be pushed off of it, if I should retreat to whatever's behind about me, or if I should jump to whatever is to be found below me. It's exhausting.

All to frequently, I feel like I'm having the day/week/month/year from hell. Sometimes, it's so bad that I feel like Earth must be hell, only people are too caught up in themselves to realize it. Of course, when I realize I'm thinking this, I tend to think about how screwed up that thought must be, and what a drama-llama I must be for having it. Then I wonder if it's just my depression talking.

I was twelve when I was formally diagnosed with depression, and looking back, it wasn't a surprise. Yes, I was young. But by that time, I had also been exposed to the deaths of several loved ones, the deterioration of my parents' marriage, and physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. On top of puberty and all the crazy crap it does to your hormones, mental illness runs rampant in one side of my family.

Needless to say, I often wonder - and worry (yes, my anxiety diagnosis went hand in hand with my depression diagnosis) - if things are really as horrible as they feel. It's a product both of my depression and anxiety and the way people close to me have treated me over the years, always quick to tell me that whatever I was feeling was wrong and pathetic and weird and screwed-up. It made me become exceedingly careful about revealing my feelings or allowing myself to even feel them, for fear that I would be judged harshly for it.

At the moment, I feel like I have a lot going on.

• I'm in the middle of transferring law schools, something I really didn't want to do. Unfortunately, I didn't really have much of a choice after I lost my scholarship. I'll have a longer commute, a more hectic schedule, a very new/different campus environment, a number of new traffic laws to remember, a new group of people to get used to, and new challenges related to my mobility impairments to deal with. I'm hoping it will be a better environment for me, but I still haven't been able to let go of the resentment I have towards my old school for making this change necessary. I was comfortable there, and despite the constant stream of bad luck I got hit with during my first year (shingles, cellulitis, an allergic reaction, numerous joint injuries, a severe concussion, getting rear-ended, and the major health scare of a loved one), I still managed a GPA over a 3.2.
• My hypermobility is worsening, probably due to the lack of exercise I can do without dislocating something/subluxing something/ending up in a shit-ton of pain. In the past six months, both my shoulders and my knees have started dislocating, mostly notably when I'm trying to get to sleep.
• I've become estranged from two close family members. Even though one was extremely abusive during my childhood, it still hurts.
• I don't know where my relationship stands. There's an issue my SO (?) has had since pretty much the beginning of our relationship. At first, I was understanding, and it wasn't a big deal. It did, however, present issues for the long-term future of our relationship if it remained the way it was. I encouraged him to seek the help necessary to become psychologically healthier in that respect, doing whatever I could to make him realize the gravity of the problem while trying not to push too hard and respecting the fact that these things take time. Nearly two years later, even after seeking help, the problem is not better but exponentially worse, and it makes me feel horrible. I can't help resenting him for putting me through this and not doing the necessary work to get through it. I love this guy - I want to marry him someday, for fuck's sake, but I've gotten to the point where I lash out at him in desperation to make him see how much he's hurting me. He insists he loves me and that he's working on things, but I can't take it anymore. How long am I supposed to wait for things to get better?

Above all, my relationship is what has me the most stressed and upset lately. That's what has me on the edge of the cliff right now. We're not talking, and everything feels so hopeless. I love this guy and want to be with him and be happy more than anything in the world, but he doesn't seem capable of meeting me halfway... or even realizing that he isn't. Whenever we try to talk about it, I feel like he's so insensitive and/or completely out-of-touch with the reality of how this makes me feel; he de-values my pain. First, he seems to understand, but reacts by beating himself up about it and getting down on himself. Then, he does a one-eighty and suggests that I'm taking out my stress from other things on him, and that he's the one who deserves an apology.

It makes me infuriated and extremely depressed all at once. I've had eleven years to get used to my depression and anxiety and how it can cause me to react, and I have become almost hyper-aware of the things I'm feeling or not letting myself feel at every moment. I DO NOT let myself take my stress and unhappiness about something on a person unrelated to it under any circumstances. Doing so is one of my worst fears. If I feel like I'm going to, I tell the person that I can't talk at the moment, need to be left alone, etc. and that I need to decompress and calm down; it isn't personal, I just don't want them to be the victim of misplaced anger/agression/whatever.

I don't know what is going to happen, and part of me wishes I could freeze time right in this moment, so that I'd never have to deal with any of those questions standing on the edge gives you.

Do you ever feel like this?