1) I want to graduate from my second degree with a decent GPA so I can get into grad school. I scored Verbal 680 and Quantitative 690 on my GRE last week, which is pretty good. My Quant could be higher, but I really expected to bomb it entirely and it's higher than the average. So, all I need now is a decent GPA, some letters of recommendation, and for the Eloquence Fairy to bless me with poise and the ability to say the right thing at the right time if and when I get asked for an interview.

2) I want to find a job to replace the one I will be getting laid off from at the end of August.

3) I want to be happy with myself. This means stopping my negative self talk, being psychologically nice to myself, and doing things to make myself feel better about myself, like lose some weight and spend less time playing computer games and more time doing things that actually matter like spending time with people and working on some projects I've been putting off.

4) I want to be a better wife to my husband. My husband has his problems, don't get me wrong, but he's a great guy most of the time and he's trying to work on his problems, which I respect. In the past I have been very critical of him, but I've realized that I'm holding him up to the same impossible standards I hold myself to and that's not fair, not only because no body should be held to those standards, but because it's not fair for me to expect him to excel in the same areas I do. For instance, I do well with academic work and reasoning, but my husband is really good at making friends and is very artistic. So, I've been trying to be less critical and more supportive, and I've been trying to do more things to show him I love him. He's been doing the same thing, so it's working out reasonably well. I just want to keep it up and get better about it all.

5) Make more friends. I've been relying on my husband as my social life preserver too much. I need to make friends and intereact with people by myself, too. Only, I never know what to say and I get really nervous when he's not around. So I need to fix this.

I've been feeling particularly bad lately, so I've decided to try and give journaling a try. I've been reluctant to do journaling in the past, because the few times I've tried it, someone has found my journal and either gotten angry at me or taunted me about it unmercifully. So, I've been reluctant to ever put my real thoughts down in written form. But I think the risk here is relatively low, since I'm writing under a screen name, and maybe I can get feedback now and then.

So, the first thing I should say is that I'm actually a psychology student, headed for a career in clinical or counseling psych (I hope). I feel weird about being here, because I feel like I shouldn't have these problems, but I do and I know that denying them isn't going to solve anything. I have a hard time actually talking to people about my problems (no time to schedule therapy appointments due to grueling work/school schedules, no friends close enough or that I would want to bother with my problems, and definately not my husband, because it would scare him), so maybe writing about them to strangers will help a little and get me some catharsis.

There are two problems that are currently upsetting me. The first that is upsetting me most right now is that I have intrusive suicidal thoughts often. On a good week, maybe three out of seven days in the week, but on a bad week, every day on an hourly basis. I'm not going to kill myself, not while there are people who might be hurt by it (parents, husband, etc.), and I know that wanting to die is just a metaphor for wanting my psychological pain and discomfort to stop. Even though I know this, it's still distressing, more so because I can't seem to stop the thoughts from occuring. All I can do is tell myself that it's not what I really want and I can't right now anyway and try to ignore it or distract myself.

The second problem is that I have developed some really upsetting habits, like twitches and vocalizations, over the past couple of years. Looking back, I realize I've done similar things since childhood, but it seems to have gotten worse and more noticeable over the last year or so. They seem to be triggered by memories of things I've done wrong or hurtful things other people have said and done to me. I'm good about keeping it underwraps around other people, most of the time, but sometimes I get facial twitches even thought I try to stop it. I'm trying to stop it, but I don't seem to be making much progress.

I think the reason I feel bad right now is because this is a really stressful time for me. I have a really important test coming up that might make the difference in getting into grad school or not. I'm pretty sure I get into a local social work program if it came down to it, but the school is not great and I really want to get into a good school and get a Ph.D. Also, I will probably be getting laid off in a couple of months, which is bad, as the economy is not great right now and I might not be able to find another job quickly. Actually, just trying to get into grad school period is stressing me out. That's normal, but I wish I could just get it all over with and know one way or the other. It's the not knowing how it's going to turn out that gets me.

I feel like I'm a bad person most of the time. I feel like I don't try hard enough or that I'm just not smart enough to do I want to do. I feel like I'm ugly and useless and that no one would like me if they really got to know me, because I'm not really a very nice person. When I was younger, I lied alot, and sometimes I still do when I'm not paying attention. I'm trying to do better, though, but sometimes I slip. I've never admitted that to anyone before, actually, now that I think about it.

So, that's what I'm going to try to do in this blog: try to talk about things that I don't talk to anyone about so that I can maybe deal with them and figure out what to do about it.