No, this is not beauty...

I am so unhappy with myself. Not just my life at the moment, but me as a person. It's funny, I used to really like myself back when I was in high school. Most other people didn't, but I was confident that I was smart and interesting anyway. Now I'm in the unfortunate situation of having people not like me while also not liking myself much.

One problem is that I somehow acquired a boyfriend a month ago (which is why I've hardly been on the Internet, though I do miss it). I know that's not generally seen as a problem, but it is to me. I wish it weren't, which just makes it even more of a problem. I've only ever had two relationships (including this one), and I haven't liked either one of them. Not only that, but I can't just see people EVERY DAY; I'm too much of an introvert for that. When I'm not busy I just want to be alone and mess around on the computer and read and wear my ugly fleece pants and sit on the couch watching Jon Stewart while eating bagels.

If I don't break up with him I'll be unhappy, and if I do break up with him I'll feel awful about it and be unhappy about the likely possibility that I'll never be able to have a relationship that makes me feel the way people do in movies or books. It just makes it worse that when I'm not in a relationship (which is pretty much all of the time) I think about how it would be nice to have someone. After I do I just wonder what I've gotten myself into and why I ever thought it would work. I broke up with my last boyfriend even though he was smart, interesting, and had similar thoughts on important topics because I just couldn't get myself to care about him that much and I didn't want to do any relationship-y things. The only sadness I felt afterward was from my own worries about how abnormal I must be to not have formed any romantic connection.

I feel the same way now, only instead of merely being worried I'm outright depressed about it. After having the same feelings two out of two times it seems highly unlikely to me that I'll ever have a relationship that I can even tolerate for more than a few months, much less be happy with and want to stay in. Even if I think I like someone, I'm pretty sure I'd end up only wanting to be friends or just getting annoyed with them entirely. This is probably tied in with the irritating condition that I have of not being able to tell if I have crushes on any or all of my friends - since I have high standards for friendship, I can't differentiate between my criteria for liking someone as a friend and liking someone romantically and can't understand how people even know when they like someone. Sadly, I think this might be because I wind up only wanting to be friends with everyone anyway.

The thing is, I know I can be attracted to people, but I suspect that even if I were in a relationship with my ideal person (which, let's face it, is totally just Blixa) I'd feel the same way about it as I do now. I think I'm only okay with being attracted to people from afar and imagining them in relationships with people who are not me. I guess that makes it easier to pretend that I'm not alone on account of being completely messed up and confused.

Tonight I got my boyfriend (it's still weird to say that) to leave earlier than usual because I needed to do my German homework, but it's two hours later now and all I've done is write this, start crying, and feel so anxious that I can't breathe properly. Now I need to write a short paper describing someone's physical characteristics, personality, likes, and dislikes. My professor said that fictional characters and celebrities were fine, so I think it's safe to do mine about 80s-era Blixa. I don't think that half a semester of German 101 is quite sufficient to capture him, but whatever.

Marc Almond's voice is really soothing. I just want to curl up on my bed in the dark and listen to him serenade me nonstop. Whenever I feel like this I usually go for early Neubauten, something with Blixa's tortured shrieks, but this works well too.

For years now I've had this feeling of frustration and panic because it seems like I'm not living up to my potential. I don't do anything, really. I get these grandiose ideas that never come to fruition. My parents always told me that only boring people get bored, and I always resented that saying, but I guess I am boring. I want to do so many things, but I never get around to doing them or I feel like I can't do them or I don't even know where to start. It's depressing.

So far, my dad's told me no fewer than three times today that I need to either get a job or start doing something important. For some reason, he thinks that I can just decide to write a novel or a script (which, apparently, he thinks would be sufficiently important) and that it would be publishable. He only wants me to write something because it will make the company look good (although, even assuming it would be good, given what I like to write about, he's wrong).

I realize that this is a weak complaint, but my dad has an inflated idea of my abilities and a naive, simplistic view of "doing things." Not only am I a far worse writer than he thinks, but I can't just decide, "Hey, I'm going to write a script in the next few months!" and have it amount to anything. It would just be more crap sitting on my computer. When I tried to explain this to him, he suggested that I critique movies or work as an extra on movie sets. You can't just do that! Anyway, I critique movies all the time, but I do it in the form of commenting on the internet like the millions of other people whose opinion no one wants to hear. He's decided that when I'm in my room on my laptop I'm wasting my time "on some website," but I'm often doing what he wants me to do! I just don't do it well enough to tell anyone about it, so it's not important to him.

Anyway, he's given me a week to look for a job instead, but I don't know how he expects me to be able to find one that quickly. All he's doing right now is sitting in the theater watching American Idol, too. He keeps getting up to tell me about the singers (and said they were fantastic but acted like Marc's vocals were unimpressive, yeah right). As if I fucking care. I know I'm only ranting on LJ, but still. The only things I ever even see him do are play tennis and watch news/tennis/stupid shows. That's not, in itself, better than the things I do; he just sees them as being better because he's the one doing them. It's not like I wanted to be home this term; I'd much rather be at UCL right now - alone, depressed, debilitatingly anxious, and unable to sleep. I don't feel much different here anyway.

I had another doctor's appointment today, and my mom came with me this time because she wanted to make sure that I told the doctor everything that could be relevant. She's been telling me for a while now that she thinks my problem is caused by my diet, that I'm not getting enough of some essential nutrient. Despite me telling her that -contrary to what she wants to believe- vegans are perfectly capable of having a balanced diet, she brought this up with my doctor only to hear that my extensive lab results show that my nutrition is perfect. That's a bad thing, because it means that whatever's wrong can't easily be fixed, but at least she'll quit bugging me about it now.

My dad, who thinks that my problem is lack of exercise (because of course it has to be something that's my fault rather than something I have no control over) said today that he's not going to include me on the new packaging for the company's products. He doesn't even want to bring me up in his talks anymore because he's worried that someone's going to find out that I've been having academic problems (which, again, are obviously the fault of me being stupid or lazy!) and that it will cause a giant PR scandal. Also, he decided to tell me that he said I came back from London because of a boyfriend when someone from the company asked him why I was home. Thanks, dad. I happen to think that deciding to take a semester off from college just because of a boyfriend is worse than being forced to return because of health problems, but, you know, whatever.

In other news, I'm quite pleased that my German teacher already knows to look at me when she asks the class a question. Even though my professors usually like me (because I'm smart, answer their questions well, and sit in the front), I'm always relieved when I can tell that they do. I hate going to classes when I feel like the professor doesn't like me; it makes me nervous.

Speaking of nervous, I got distressed in the doctor's office today and started crying for no explainable reason. I guess I just get anxious when I have to talk about myself like that. My doctor told me that I can't be on any kind of anxiety or depression medication until they figure out what's causing my fainting spells, though; it'll interfere with the diagnosis.

The transitions in this entry are repulsive, wow. Sometimes I try to write, but then I realize that I'm not very good at it. For the time being, instead of writing, I have decided to carve Blixa Bargeld's profile into a pumpkin. I've already drawn the template, so I'll probably carve it this weekend. I guess that's silly and pointless, but I don't care; I love carving pumpkins.

I’m staying home this term on an interruption of study from UCL, and I’m taking French and German at the local community college while regularly seeing a therapist (a requirement for the interruption to be granted) and a doctor (so they can keep trying to figure out what’s wrong with me). Today was my first day of classes, and it sucked. Health-wise, at least.

Last night I hardly slept because I was cold despite the space heater in my room and sweating despite being cold. I also somehow managed to pull a muscle in my back during the night, so even after I was warm enough to sleep I couldn’t get in a comfortable enough position.

After I was up, I was about to get out of the shower and had just turned the water off when my back suddenly started hurting so badly that I couldn’t move. My vision and hearing left; I couldn’t do anything but stand there senseless, hoping I wouldn’t fall over. Finally I kind of rolled onto the toilet and sat there for a while, waiting until I was able to see or get up. It only got worse, so I maneuvered myself onto the floor and somehow managed to pull my towel over myself in case something even more serious happened to me and someone found me in the bathroom. I can’t help but think of such scenarios and take precautions against them even when nothing’s happening to me at the time.

Anyway, I was freaking out (I genuinely thought there was a chance I would die – it seemed really serious at the time), so I called my dad (I always keep my phone with me in the bathroom because of a similar experience I had last year), but there wasn’t really anything he could do. I just waited for a while until I could see and think clearly again. It took me about ten minutes to get up off the floor after that because my back was hurting so much that I couldn’t sit up; I had to pull myself up with my right arm by grabbing onto the cabinet beside me. My dad drove me to my classes because I was scared of fainting again, and I couldn’t miss them on the first day without getting dropped.

The classes themselves were good, though, even if it was torturous sitting in a desk for five hours feeling like someone just stuck a rod up my spine. My German professor is familiar with Einstürzende Neubauten! She told me (well, the whole class) that she’d tried to use songs of theirs in her more advanced classes, but they didn’t go over well because they’re “not exactly a pop band.” She also, without any further prompting from me, said that their lyrics are written at an extremely high level and that they’re an intellectual band. I was impressed and pleased that she knew and seemed to have a high opinion of them. My French professor is a native speaker, so that’ll be a welcome change from my high school French teacher (whose French exchange students snickered at her pronunciation behind her back). It’s been four and a half years since I finished AP French, so I don’t remember lots of it, but I’m confident that I’ll pick it up again quickly. I’m good with languages.

Oh, but back to the “complaining about my health” thread of this post, on the way back from school I had another terrible headache and had to concentrate all of my energy on trying not to throw up out the car window. Ugh. I do, at least, feel significantly better than that now.

I just realized today that the medication I'm on is (most likely) what's been making me feel so odd. For the past month I've felt unusually tired and dizzy, and sometimes I feel strangely depersonalized. I'll be standing in the kitchen talking to my dad or whatever and it's like I'm watching someone else having the conversation. It feels like everything is hazy - as if what I'm sensing is merely a vague approximation of what exists. For most of the past month (although it had previously happened intermittently) I've been a prisoner inside Plato's cave.

Earlier this evening, I was on the phone with my mom asking her what I should put on my stepdad's cake for his birthday tomorrow, and I started crying OUT OF NOWHERE. I was talking (and thinking) about cake decorations! I was still crying when my dad came home. Tomorrow I'll make another doctor's appointment, I guess. In addition to this, they still need to figure out why I'm fainting.

This does, at least, explain my behavior on Christmas Day. Everyone just thought I was being difficult on purpose. So there, mom. Also, I proposed to my dad that we watch Seele Brennt in honor of Blixa's birthday, and he agreed; that probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been crying earlier. Yeah, there aren't many positives to it.

My family's new puppy is still unnamed. My dad kept up a steady stream of horrendous suggestions all evening, and unbelievably, the best of those was probably Acropolis. Seriously. My sister and I were trying to think of a fitting scientist's or philosopher's name. Copernicus is pretty cute and references Back to the Future, but...eh. I like Artemis too, but I wouldn't want it shortened to Artie.

My sister said that we should name the puppy after someone "intellectual and influential," so I suggested Blixa - mostly as a joke - and she and my dad actually both liked it a lot. Although I'm averse to the idea of naming pets after artists because I wouldn't want my foremost association of their names to be with my pets, I do think Blixa is a great name. Later, though, I was praising the puppy for peeing outside and realized how awkward it would be if her name were Blixa. I can only name pets after people if they've been dead long enough that I primarily see them as a list of accomplishments instead of a real person. When we named Watson (after Dr. Watson from Sherlock Holmes), I even worried that I'd think of my dog as the character when I read the stories, but since that hasn't happened I think I might be overly concerned about it.

I'm lying on my stomach right now and the puppy is sleeping on my back. She's so small that her whole body can fit on me. I feel really guilty because even though she's amazing, I've been wishing she were more like Chloe. I guess I'm just selfish: Chloe loved me the most out of my family, and I want this puppy to love me just as much. I miss it. I miss her. I've been trying to give this puppy as much attention as possible so that she gets attached to me, and I feel even more guilty for having that motive.

Oh, and this song just reminded me: I was playing Live at the Royal Albert Hall earlier (because I got it for Christmas, hah) and my dad REALLY wanted to name the puppy Eliza Day. For some reason he adores that song and dislikes/is indifferent to most other Nick Cave songs. He never tires of hailing the Kylie version as vastly superior and acts like I'm trying to disappoint him if I play a Blixa version. While I love both...come on, it's not even the best song on Murder Ballads, let alone his entire discography. Also, though it's a great song, I am not naming my dog Eliza.

My family has a new puppy! She's a Yorkie/Jack Russell Terrier mix (we think). She's only three months old and actually makes our tiny Silky Terrier look massive.

I was alone when I saw her at the shelter and filled out the adoption application, but I told them the truth about our current dog, so they wouldn't let us adopt her unless we brought proof that we'd had Watson neutered (even though the puppy's spayed already). My dad refused to get Watson neutered and said that I was an extremist who'd bought into everything the Nazis at the shelters had fed me, so he and my sister went to the shelter by themselves, pretended they didn't have a dog, and filled out another application. The shelter hand-files the applications, so when they pulled it out again at the very end of the adoption process they actually gave him mine instead. No one noticed, though.

Anyway, it was a pretty big hassle to get her, but she's perfect. She doesn't have a name yet because we always take weeks to name pets. I usually want names that are references to/names of characters in things I like, but it also has to fit the personality of the particular pet. Everyone who came over for New Year's kept suggesting names, but I hated all of them.

In other news:

- I wish I could sleep through the night. I can't fall asleep easily, I wake up every hour or so, and then I can't stay asleep in the early morning. I feel like I've been continuously tired for months.

- I also wish that my dad would realize that I'm not being rude every time I speak to him. I can't help that I naturally have a low and kind of dry voice, and this is just how my face looks. Sorry.

- I'm learning how to play the guitar again. My sister and I got this awesome game for Christmas that lets you plug a real guitar into the PS3 and teaches you how to play along to the songs it has. Of course, I suck since I haven't even picked up my guitar in a couple years, but it's fun.

- I haven't even started writing my papers yet. Aah.

- Oh, and my sister got the Foster the People CD from a white elephant gift exchange at Davis, so I put it on my iPod. Yay.

Well, I'm finally back home. Surprisingly, my dad hasn't been visibly angry with me over school.

I've been pretty busy - Christmas shopping, doctor's appointments, and looking for a new dog. It's been a few months since Chloe was killed by a coyote, and Watson seems pretty lonely. My sister and I have been looking for a small female dog at all of the nearby shelters, and I think we're taking him tomorrow morning to meet the friendly black terrier I saw today. We had him meet a male terrier yesterday and they didn't get along at all, so my dad got mad that we'd asked him to come and embarrassed us by refusing to speak and then being unbelievably rude to the women who worked at the shelter. Ugh. Hopefully Watson likes one of the dogs tomorrow.

Oh, and while I was writing down a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe half an hour ago, my dad came into the kitchen to get ice cream. Apropos of nothing, he informed me that he's been frustrated with me ever since my mom told him that I told her that I talk to her and can't talk to him about anything. While that's generally pretty true, it's not something I said to either of them. Anyway, if you hear that your daughter feels like she can't talk to you, it's probably best to think about why that is instead of silently fuming for weeks and then suddenly letting her know you're upset before returning to the theater to watch football.

I didn't even get to make my cookies because we don't have sugar or vegetable oil. Nothing like that gets bought in this house unless I buy it myself, so I guess I'll go to the grocery store again tomorrow.

I really wanted cookies, too. I did just eat a taco, but before that I hadn't been allowed to eat anything since yesterday evening because of my doctor's appointment. They did several tests to try to figure out why I've been fainting, but the blood work won't be back for several days. Thankfully, according to the EKG results, my heart is fine. I do wish I hadn't gone to the only young and attractive doctor at that medical center, though. It makes me uncomfortable.

My grandparents are coming on Wednesday, which is annoying. I was hoping that I'd be able to do a few fun things before they get here, but I was at the doctor's most of the day today and I'll be looking at dogs until my eye appointment tomorrow. I suppose looking for a dog should be fun, but seeing all of the mistreated dogs in small cages that I can't adopt only makes me sad.

I do have three 2000-word essays that I have to write over the next few weeks, so at least I'll have an excuse to not be there with them all of the time. Last time my grandma was here she and my mom acted like it was an unforgivable affront when I decided not to go to the rodeo with them.

I haven't been having a good term. It's better than the last time I tried to go to school here and got so depressed that I left without telling anybody, but it still sucks.

I had an appointment with my faculty tutor last week because I haven't been going to my seminars. I pretty much had a complete breakdown in front of him and told him about the problems I've been having - insomnia, crippling social anxiety, intermittent and unexplained blackouts- and he was unexpectedly nice about it. He said that he was worried about me and that I should focus on getting help with that before concentrating on anything academic.

Today I had an appointment with my academic advisor, who'd spoken with my faculty tutor about me, and that meeting went about the same. I cried at her most of the time. She told me that my attendance isn't high enough for me to be assessed at the end of term, which means that I might have to start the course over next year. They're going to make a case for me with the college due to special circumstances, but they don't know if it'll work. Attendance here is only taken in seminars, with which I have serious problems. I've been going to lectures and doing the reading, but apparently I'm still not allowed to write the final essays.

According to my academic advisor and faculty tutor, this is okay, because I don't seem well enough to be away at school right now and I should take some time to get help before returning. It sounds like a fucking nightmare to me. I've already delayed school enough; doing it again seems unbearable at this point. In theory, staying in school for as long as possible sounds great to me, because it's not like I have any idea what I want to do afterward anyway, but I just feel like such a failure.

I haven't been talking to my parents much, and I haven't been talking about school more than I have to because I don't like people to know when I have problems, but earlier today I tried to tell my dad what's going on. Predictably, he was a jerk, so I blocked him on Skype.

My dad's one of those people who believes that mental health problems don't really exist - when I was depressed he thought I should just decide to be happy and get over it. He'll send me these annoying messages that say things like: "Hi. I saw a study that showed that women who exercise more sleep better and are happier than women who don't. I hope you're having a good day!" I feel so insulted whenever he does this, and he doesn't understand why. I don't know what he expects me to say. "Oh, thanks, I hadn't thought of being happier! It had never occurred to me to just decide not to have a panic attack over being forced to talk in discussion groups! You've fixed me!" Anyway, he's upset. My academic advisor said that I should give him her email address so that she can explain what a hard time I've been having, but I doubt he'll contact her.

I did register at the doctor's office today, and I talked to the nurse, but I have to come back tomorrow so the doctor can try to figure out why I've been passing out. I passed out twice in front of my flatmate, who's a doctor, and she says that it could be neurological. I really hope not, but she's really worried, so that doesn't bode well. I also finally submitted the form for student psychological services, so hopefully they'll get back to me with an appointment soon.

My eyes hurt from crying all day. I was even crying a bit in class, and I didn't want to go to the grocery store this evening because I couldn't stop. I went anyway and I was such a mess that people were staring at me, but at least I have soup now. I've stopped crying and now just have a terrible headache, but my eyes still hurt.

My grandma and grandpa are coming to visit for ten days this Christmas, and they're bringing my preteen cousin with them. To be honest, I'm really not looking forward to it. My grandparents live in rural Indiana, and they embody most of the backwards stereotypes that exist about that area of the US. Whenever I'm around them I'm always having to either bite my tongue and sit through blatantly racist and homophobic conversations or speak up and validate that side of the family's belief that I'm an uptight, insensitive jerk who doesn't care about other people (and no, the irony of this is not lost on me).

I mean, my grandma's always nice to me (which is, quite frankly, astonishing, given that for years my mom did her best to make everyone on her side of the family believe that I'm a horrible person), but I get a bit sick of her constantly asking me about boys I might have a crush on or if I think I'll have a boyfriend soon. No, I don't like anyone, and no, I don't see that changing any time in the foreseeable future. She also seems convinced that I am not only capable of making friends normally but also that I care to do so, which results in me getting lots of well-intentioned but entirely useless advice.

I've accepted that I'm distant, aloof, and unsociable. I rarely find people interesting enough to want to know them, and if I do I wouldn't/couldn't initiate conversation with them anyway. I often find company tiresome. None of this is accepted by my grandma, who insists that I should be able to just "get over it" and force myself to talk to people until it becomes natural. She keeps telling me that I should just talk to friendly people and that it'll do me good to have some company.

"Friendly," though, isn't enough for me to warrant being friends with someone. Nor is "nice." There needs to be something more than that, and I'd rather get by with just a couple close friends who live halfway around the world than spend time here with empty acquaintances. I don't want to have friends if they're only friends of convenience.

Wow, this post really ended up going in a different direction.