I am such a freak

I went to group therapy again last night. This was the first week of official exposures. We were supposed to get up in front of the group and talk for 3 minutes about a semi-random topic. The group (mainly the therapists) came up with a big list of topics and we were supposed to choose three, then they'd choose randomly from that set so we wouldn't know which one we were talking about until we got up there.
I wasn't feeling all that worried about the idea of talking in front of the group, but I couldn't pick what topics to talk about. We were supposed to pick ones we thought would make us anxious enough to score a 6 on a scale from 1 (no anxiety) to 10 (complete panic attack). Some of them seemed pretty easy, like talking about your job or where you came from, and some I didn't think I'd have anything much to say about, or would be more afraid of sounding like an idiot. I wasn't sure if I should pick the easiest ones to be safe (in which case, would they think I wasn't challenging myself enough?) or something harder (but then maybe it would be harder than I thought and I'd completely look like an idiot). I just sat there being indecisive while everyone else went around saying what they wanted to talk about. Some people wanted the therapists to pick the topics for them, to make it harder. I couldn't decide if I'd prefer that (since then nobody could judge my choices) or not (in case they picked something too hard).
Finally, I was the only one left who hadn't said anything, so one of the therapists asked me directly what I wanted to talk about. By this stage I was already feeling crappy for being so pathetic and indecisive and not saying anything, so when she asked what topics I wanted, in some way that implied she knew I was having trouble, I ended up crying. Every time I've said anything in the group, I've been close to tears, and have had to stop talking to avoid crying. I'm not sure why exactly, other than being generally anxious and self-conscious about not being able to talk. Having someone notice I'm anxious and try to be reassuring generally makes me cry, too, out of embarrassment that they noticed, which creates a nice feedback loop. You can imagine how embarrassed I was with the whole group watching me cry.
I just sat there digging my fingernails into my hands while the therapists talked about how I didn't have to do anything that was too hard for me, or something; I wasn't really focussing on what they were saying. The fact that they (reasonably) misunderstood why I was crying didn't help.
We broke into two groups and once I was no longer the centre of attention, I calmed down a bit and thought I could do the talks. When it got to my turn, though, they made a fuss again about how I could talk about something really easy or for a shorter time or something, which made me embarrassed again. I said I could do the same as everyone else, but when they started the timer I was already feeling like I was going to cry and I couldn't talk at all. We each had to do three talks. I managed to talk a bit about my lab and project in the second one, but then I ran out of stuff to say and got embarrassed again and couldn't finish it and the third one I couldn't talk at all, again. The worst part was that after letting my three minutes run out with me just sitting there wishing I could disappear, they all clapped. It was so humiliating.
The therapists made a big deal out of how great it was that I managed to sit there, even though I was anxious. What else was I going to do? I had to rate my anxiety before and after, with the idea that it would go down. Mine didn't, though. It actually went up, but I was too anxious to talk and just nodded when the therapist asked if it was the same.
I tried to explain that I wasn't actually anxious about talking; I was just embarrassed about crying and that makes it hard for me to talk. I didn't feel like they heard, though. We were trying to get through a lot of talks, so I guess there wasn't time to stop. I guess that's one of the disadvantages of group therapy.
I ended up feeling like a complete freak the whole time, because everyone else (most of whom listed fear of public speaking as the reason they were there) managed to talk and ended up hardly anxious at all by their third one. I just got more and more embarrassed and ashamed.
I think it didn't help my anxiety go down, because I wasn't really feeling anxious, just incredibly ashamed (of crying, and of letting them think I was crying because I was anxious about talking so they were all sympathetic). I don't think shame goes away if you're forced to experience it, and not escape, the way anxiety does.
This kind of group therapy is supposed to be the best treatment for social anxiety, which is why I went to this place. I'm not very optimistic that it's going to help now, which is depressing.

now I'm sad

I just discovered that my very favourite singer played at the perfect venue, 5 minutes from my house, in August and I missed it. What's the point of being on his mailing list if he's not going to announce things? At least I went to an awesome gig of his when I was home...
Now I'm going to waste the afternoon googling to make sure nobody else is touring without telling me.

good day

Today was a pretty productive day. I was feeling bad about wasting yesterday, although I did go to the block party for a bit, before being overcome by social anxiety. Today, I went to the gym, then grocery shopping, did some laundry, read papers for lab, made Anzac biscuits and cooked dinner, including some farm share veges, which I haven't done in ages.
I thought I had more to say than that, but apparently not. I just felt like posting when I wasn't feeling all whiny, for a change.

books #71- 91 (2007)

These are all out of order because I'm reconstructing the list from my library records, having completely forgotten about tracking books as I read them, despite my early enthusiasm for GoodReads.


71. Inglorious by Johanna Kavenna ***1/2. I quite liked this book, which is about a woman whose husband leaves her after she's quit her job, but I spent most of the book irritated at her aimless drifting and willingness to impose on her friends. There was obviously some deeper psychological issue preventing her from taking control of her life, so you'd think I'd be more sympathetic, but apparently not.


72. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon ****. I think I liked this as much as I did because it reminded me of The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, although it's nowhere near as good. I don't even like mysteries at all, usually, but I did enjoy this one.

73. Look at Me by Jennifer Egan ***. This started out seeming like it could be interesting, but it got too outlandish by the end.

74. Y: The Last Man #2: Cycles by Brian K Vaughan ***1/2. Maybe I should lump all of the series together as one book. This was interesting enough to keep me reading, but I'm still not wildly enthusiastic about it.

75. Ghost World by Daniel Clowes ****. I think I might have liked the movie better, but I liked them both a lot.

76. Spook Country by William Gibson ***1/2. I really loved Pattern Recognition, so I was hoping this would be equally good, even though I didn't love Neuromancer. Sadly, it's not. It was still interesting, but I didn't care about the characters so much. It seemed much more just about the cool ideas (and the ideas for the artwork were very cool) than Pattern Recognition.

77. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro ****. This book was so sad.

78. The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd ****. I wasn't expecting to like this book so much. Chip Kidd is better known for his book covers and design work, so it was interesting to read the graphic design teacher in the novel critiquing his students' work. The actual story was good, too.

79. Original Bliss by A.L. Kennedy ****1/2. This book sounds depressing, and it kind of is, but A.L. Kennedy writes deeply flawed, but real, characters so well, and it does have a satisfying conclusion.

80. Shut the Door by Amanda Marquit **1/2. This was written when the author was 16 and, while it was interesting, you can kind of tell. A family basically disintegrates over the course of the father's 10 day business trip. If the drama had been spread over a longer time period, it might have been more believable.

81. So Much for my Happy Ending by Kyra Davis **. This could have been an interesting book, but it wasn't, so I'm going to spoil it. It was about a woman whose husband's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. He's eventually diagnosed as bipolar, but instead of showing how they dealt with his illness, he just became cartoonishly evil so she'd be justified in dumping him and going off with the hot musician.

82. Everything I Need to Know About Being a Girl I Learned From Judy Blume edited by Jennifer O'Connell ***. My mum used to flick through any Judy Blume book I borrowed from the library, making sure it wasn't the sex one, before I was allowed to take it home. I ended up reading Forever standing in the book section of a department store while she was shopping elsewhere, instead. I remember being disappointed at how un-exciting the experience was, given all the fuss about it being banned from my school library. I used to read Judy Blume books, hoping to learn some secrets about being a girl, but unlike the authors of the essays in this book, I usually just ended up feeling more out of touch with girls my age. I definitely didn't understand Margaret - why would she want to go through puberty?

83. People I Wanted to Be by Gina Ochsner ***. There were some great moments in some of these stories, but I don't think I was completely satisfied by any of them.

84. Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall ****1/2. I picked up this book because of the pretty rainbow-coloured text on the spine and the fact that colour was spelled correctly. It turned out to be an excellent book, so maybe I'll rely more on cover art in future, since I don't tend to do that well at choosing books based on the blurb.

85. You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett ***. Apparently, I got over my hatred of short stories enough to pick up at least one collection every time I went to the library. I think I might have to go back to only reading ones that have exceptional reviews, though. It's not that they were bad, and I shouldn't be picking on this book in particular; some of its stories were very good. It's just that I find mediocre short stories more unsatisfying than mediocre novels.

86. How You Can Be More Interesting by Edward de Bono *. This book was painfully boring.

87. The Better of McSweeney's ***1/2. There are some very good stories, and I enjoyed the copyright information, but I was wondering how some of them made it into a "better of" collection, unless the rest were very bad.

88. Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists ***1/2. Some of the lists are definitely worth 5 stars, but then some of them probably only rate 1 or 2, so it balances out.

89. Light by M. John Harrison ***1/2. I started this with very low expectations, which I think was a good thing. I would've been disappointed if I had been expecting it to live up to the blurbs on the cover. I got more interested towards the end, when it got easier to see past the futuristic SF stuff to the characters' stories.


90. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ****1/2. I'm reading this for a book club. It's been fun to discuss. I keep imagining the characters in their BBC series incarnations, which isn't a bad thing, but I wonder how I would've seen them if I'd read the book before then (I've read it before now, but only after seeing the series).

91. The Moon by Night by Madeleine L'Engle ****. This isn't my favourite L'Engle book, but it's the only one I own in this country, so I'm reading it. As I read, I've been wondering how much I would like it if I read it for the first time now; probably not a lot. Still, for all her outdated notions and preachiness, she captures a certain awkwardness that I still identify with wonderfully.

science outreach

I got the third and final HPV vaccine injection this morning (it's now covered by insurance, so only costs $25, instead of $150, like the first two). After I said I was a grad student in a program based at the med school, the nurse made conversation by talking about how she's dubious about the vaccine because it's so new and who knows what the long term effects could be. She was worried about whether you could get the virus from the vaccine and she'd also heard that they put aluminium in it, which sounded alarming.
I tried to reassure her that they have to do a lot of testing before it could be approved, that it doesn't contain the actual virus, just some parts of it, and that alum is in most (all?) vaccines and is unlikely to cause any harm. I'm not sure how much she believed me, though, and I didn't have any real argument for why I don't think long term adverse effects are likely (I just don't see how an immune response to viral proteins could go terribly wrong. Maybe you could get an autoimmune response to similar-looking self proteins, but that could also happen if you're infected with the virus, so I'd rather have immunity).
I'm assuming she doesn't raise these concerns with most patients, but I was glad I knew how the vaccine worked, and therefore didn't start worrying that I might get HPV. It's disappointing that people who ask her for advice as a professional (she mentioned that she didn't know what to tell parents when they asked if their daughters should get the vaccine) might have their fears validated, rather than getting accurate information. Although, hopefully, she would refer them to someone who knew more about it.

I thought we were supposed to work up to the exposure part gradually

I can't remember if I ever blogged any follow up to the social anxiety screening I went to months ago. I got a letter in the mail saying they'd diagnosed me with Social Anxiety Disorder (at least I got the all clear on the rest of the long list of possible disorders) and the person who did the screening called and asked if I wanted to see a therapist there individually, or go to group therapy. She was in favour of the group and I wasn't exactly enthusiastic, but I don't really do well one-on-one, anyway, so I agreed. Then I didn't hear anything for months until last week, when I got a call from another therapist saying a group would start today.
Unfortunately, I got stuck at lab and was half an hour late to the session. Then, the person at the front desk sent me to the wrong room, so I knocked on someone else's door and disturbed them. Then, I had to find someone else to ask where I should be, and she told me another wrong room, so I disturbed someone else. I was starting to wonder if it was set up as part of the exposure therapy. Finally, when I found the right room, I had to walk into the group with everyone watching me.
I don't think I missed too much. They were just finishing introductions when I got there, which meant I had to introduce myself without knowing what kind of thing I was supposed to say. Then, after saying they weren't going to make us talk if we weren't comfortable, they made us go around the room again to say why we were there and explain a bit about our anxiety.
Most people said public speaking was their biggest problem, which made me feel like a freak. It seems far more acceptable to be afraid of speaking in public than to be afraid of ordinary conversation. I didn't say much about my anxiety, because I didn't want to admit to the extent of it, if everyone else is only afraid of public speaking, and also because I was going to cry if I kept talking. I didn't talk for the rest of the session, I don't think, because I was feeling sucky about being the most pathetic person there.
The actual therapy is pretty much exactly the same as outlined in the book I was starting to work through a while ago. Our homework for this week is to write down negative thoughts, which should be easy enough, except that I don't want to have to talk about them next week... I guess the whole point of it is to be honest, otherwise it won't help, but that's hard when I still feel like everyone else there will think I'm pathetic, rather than being in the same situation, and therefore able to relate.

I miss you

I feel like I've gotten out of the habit of blogging somehow and now I'm not sure what to write about... Anyone have any questions and/or suggestions?


Here's a comic for you, at least. I was amused that it appeared right after I spent way too much time last night making graphs for the post below.

(Supposedly, that is large; sorry. Click to go to the actual comic page.)

something very wrong with this picture...

I copied StyleyGeek's idea of keeping track of time for a week (it was only 4 days for me, but I think it was representative enough) and the results are kind of horrifying. See that enormous red wedge? That's 6.25 hours of internet a day. At least work was (a distant) second, with 3.5 hours a day (which was my aim with the stars). Sadly, travel was third, but I don't think I can do anything about that. It should also count for fun reading, though, which even further unbalances the proportions in favour of "fun" stuff.

Unfortunately, a lot of those 6.25 hours of internet aren't actually fun. It would be useful to separate out the worthwhile internet from the times I was just hitting refresh on google reader or Facebook Scrabble... (I just installed this time tracker, so stay tuned for further alarming statistics!) It's also kind of depressing that I have hardly any (real life) social interaction on there. I went to the first meeting of the book club I just joined this week, but that was about it.

If I plot just the time spent at work, it doesn't look quite so bad.

Work-related stuff is over half now! I still spent equal amounts of time on actual work and on the internet (3 hours/day), which means I was leaving work to be done after I got home. I'd like to finish all my work while I'm actually at the lab, which should be easy enough, since I'm only aiming for 3.5 hours... I know that's still pathetic.
Even if I manage that, I need to figure out what to do with my evenings, other than the other 3.25 hours of internet... I could cook actual meals for a start, I suppose.

The Plan kind of fell by the wayside again, which is okay, because it was due to good things with higher priority. I was doing surprisingly well with adding an hour of reading every day before that, anyway. In the end, I got close to a bronze medal, but didn't quite make it. I think I'll keep the same requirements for this month. Unfortunately, I won't be pleasantly distracted as much now, so I'll have no excuse not to do more work.

1. Health



I still need to do more weights stuff. I've probably delayed long enough that they'll have another orientation session, so maybe that will help.
I haven't cooked anything since the last Plan post, a month ago, so I need to start using some of the farm share veges.
I want to bring my lunch from home more, too, and get up earlier, but still get more sleep.

2. Lab



Considering how little I did last week, this isn't bad. If I just do my 2.5 hours of work plus an hour of reading every day, I'll be okay. I want to concentrate on doing things that actually move my project forward, though, rather than just filling in the time.

* stage 1: finish optimising the assay conditions, repeat the big set of experiments, analyse
I haven't finished repeating these experiments because I want to change them slightly and I haven't figure out exactly how yet. That needs to be a priority.

* stage 2: make/find the new reagents I need, use them
I need to pick the most important ones to make now.

* stage 3: in vivo stuff.
I can actually try this now! Or almost, anyway. I should start this month, anyway.

3. Social
I was back to hiding in my room today so I should avoid doing that again. I joined a book club, so I'm hoping that will be fun.
I also got a message from someone at the social anxiety group therapy place, so maybe something will happen with that.

I don't really have goals for the other categories. The Plan is shrinking... I don't want to waste all my free time on aimless procrastination, though, so guess that's another aim. I kept track of my time a while ago, in an attempt to figure out where it all went, but I never got around to posting about it. I might copy Styleygeek and try that again this week.