Hey howdy hey! (name that movie ) *I’ll give you a hint

I really need to stop making claims of when I am going to get a post out next… this one for example, was supposed to be published on Tuesday and uhh clearly that did not work out. It’s important to remind myself that that is most certainly OK and the beauty of blogging as a hobby is that you do it when you both can and want to. (On repeat with this, otherwise though I fall into the “I must blog x times per week,” and other tight credentials… and subsequently the fun is majorly sucked out.

Allow me now to transition into my follow up post from Monday where I confessed to you all that after some of the most horrid months of my life… I didn’t come out on the other side relieved and shiny bright, ready to take on what is next. Failing man, that sh*t sucks and even a week later, I find myself dwelling on such a fact much too often. I understand this situation is a rather large speed bump in my life, yet I’m already tired of the stress it continues to press upon me.

Surprisingly (for myself) I’m getting passed the actual event of last Wednesday and am now concentrating on what my future might hold. What has been the main topic in my catastrophizing mindset….

Now what do I do?

It’s the question I have been asking myself these last few days. My emotions and mood have been crazy, ranging from sobbing and debilitating sadness/depression, to racing thoughts on what I could possibly do next… what I have wasted, that I am incapable of anything, that I cannot possibly repeat this semester again. No more nursing career for me! But then, ahhh there is nothing else I could imagine doing, that I even have the ability to achieve in! It’s not that nursing has been my dream job all of my life; over the years it became what I was going to do, because why not?

At this point though, I’m not sure I even want to pursue this anymore.

Again though, what the heck else. Yes I have a BS in Public Health yet I don’t have a clue what to do with that, because I simply never planned on building a career with this degree, nursing was just what I was going to do. At this time I am asking myself what else might interest me, what I would like to try, and nothing seems to come to mind, a realization that scares the hell out of me. But then.. what about considering the possibility that there are things out there I could find passion in and never given myself the option to explore?

I have never failed at anything and wow, this is throwing me for a big ole loop. I’m fearful of being stuck in my town with nothing but the bridges I have burned with any former friendships I’ve had and basically doing nothing exciting with my life. I recognize that these are rather extreme and dire conclusion… that’s exactly where the whole “poor me, everything sucks,” catastrophizing way of thinking rears it’s ugly head.

For years and years (and presently) I have lacked the courage to go on an adventure of any sort and financially, I do not have the means to do so. I will never be the kind of person that can just throw up my arms and leave it to faith to see what happens next. Spontaneity is no longer a term that I equate with myself and while being completely impulsive is not something to strive for, I wish to get away from the other extreme as well… the “need” to have everything in going my way, in control, calculated with few risks involved. So backpacking across Europe for the hell of it? No way. Going on a road trip because I am young and now is the time to do such things (according to society)? Nay!

Aggravating me off even more? The WTF understanding knowing that the eating disorder has been a main contributing factors in the choices I have made, or not made for that matter. At this time I cannot claim to have done much with my life, other than suffer through it, it seems (at least in these past 6 years). If I am brutally honest with myself a majority of the choices I have made during school, when home from college, on breaks, with jobs, class times, going out to eat/with friends… saying NO to so many opportunities, is because of the gosh darn eating disorder (sorry for the harsh language )

Woah now, it’s safe to say I have a whole lot of WOE IS ME going on and while it’s fine to indulge in such conclusions for a few days, anything after that needs to stop. Plus now that I am reading back to myself what I wrote, I’m also getting a #firstworldproblems vibe and for that I apologize.

So with all of these understandings- how the ED has played a role, that I have only considered one career, that I feel debilitated by my anxiety to say the hell with it and shake things up… What can be done to absolve such things? I’m all too aware of what will occur if I continue down the path I have laid for myself for years now, an existence rather than a LIFE. <– I hard to express in words how much that particular reality frightens me… going through the emotions, never excited about anything…

I am almost feel as though I have a clean slate, an opportunity set before me that I can either take and roll with it, or fall further and further down into my own selfish, negative self, allowing the world I know to become ever smaller. You all might be able to guess which one I am going with… the former is correct! If I was in fact falling prey to the latter, I wouldn’t be here right now, writing out and telling to the world (err internet), my plans to escape from a self-induced and lacking existence.

On that note, I still don’t know what these supposed “changes” are going to be, but the difference now is, I feel hope in my potential to be someone in this world, to help, contribute, and work in someway that is both fulfilling to me and beneficial to others. It is likely to take quite some time to even consider what will truly spark my interest and that is okay.

Representing myself pondering with this adorable bear that I want to hug (and then would likely tear my face off)

From this point, I have to do my best to get the hell out of my own way, overcome the anxieties I have around so much out there… all having to do with my insecurities, my fear of failure (oh wait, I experienced that one and am still alive!), my reluctance of making a true and lasting commitment, never feeling accepted and good enough… All of these have the capability of bringing me down in more ways than one, yet I simply cannot allow it, that is if I am willing to face the stress and challenges that are inevitable.

I’ve been stressed and challenged with the burden of a crippling eating disorder since I was 16, I’d like to see what else there is and take on each bump in the road as it comes along. ME, my true self, the woman I really am, facing it all. So what am I going to do now? We shall see.

-Has anyone been on the path for a certain career/job and then something happened that resulted in changing directions from that former set point? Was it a blessing or did it throw you for a major loop?

-Are you someone who believes in everything happens for a reason?

-What has held you back from taking more chances, or going on an adventure of some kind (what that personally means for you)? As I addressed in this post, my anxieties about failing, losing control of what I eat, when and how I exercise, how much quality sleep I will get… all of thrown serious wrenches into a “spontaneous” life.

*I know my posts have been lengthy and bearing heavy topics… this seems to be what I need right now. Thank you for your continuous support during this craptastic time, and please know, your support is really and truly helping me to get through this. Enjoy the rest of the day m’dears

Good morning!

What a warm welcome I received on Friday’s post, thank you for making the transition back here rather pleasant I also cannot go on with what I want to say today without first acknowledging the incredible support I received from so many of you. There are many reasons for my recent eagerness to return to blogging, and a major contributor is what I get back from this community. No need to say again how things are difficult for me right now, but knowing I have many fabulous ladies out there pulling for me and offering whatever help they can, is a true blessing.

Sorry to get all mushy- gushy on you there, but what I am saying is the absolute truth and I hope everyone knows that.

This was too cute not to put up, am I right?!

Much has happened in the last month that I plan to update you all on in time. Nothing too extraordinary, but some shifts in my thought process has occurred, and the understanding of the extent of my eating issues has solidified as well. I find that more profound thinking makes an appearance when I am sad, isolating and lost for whatever reason. Because of all that has gone on this past year, from the challenge (to say the least) of nursing school, to the unexplainable fatigue I feel, there’s been a whole lot of self-reflection going on.

Although it’s an advantageous to have the ability to self-reflect and gain understandings through such tactics, I find that it can also be burdensome. Over-thinking well ummm everything, is a topic I have spoken about before so will not delve into the specifics of this idea. I am however, correlating over-thinking to what I want to confess and reveal today, something I am incredibly embarrassed by, upset, irritated, and just feel generally awful. The situation itself is pretty darn sh*tty, but my over-thinking, dwelling self is managing to make it all seem 100 x worse.

Alright here we go, I failed this semester of nursing school. Failed, did not pass, couldn’t get the grade… I will not be moving on, I am out of the program.

Holy effing crap typing this out is bringing fresh tears to my eyes (which I didn’t think was possible after the amount I have been crying these past few days). My final for the main Maternity and Childhood class of this semester took place last Wednesday, just about 5 days ago, and I’ve been in a tearful, perplexed and sad daze ever since.

When I learned about this initially, I vowed I would not tell a soul (much less the entire internet) that I failed because of how embarrassed and shamed I am. As the days have passed though, I have decided this unfortunate truth is not something I want to keep hidden, allowing it’s emotional baggage to brew and escalate inside of me. We all know that when you keep dark thoughts and knowledge bottled up inside, one day it’s going to over power your ability to keep contained.

Beyond this though, if I wanted to continue blogging with HONESTY as I claim to do, this situation was never something I could NOT talk about. My transparency style in writing is what I vow to continue to do, plus I believe it helps to squash the too-common belief that bloggers are perfectly perfect, no problems at all, everything is beautiful butterflies and rainbows, cuddly rabbits, and unicorns! Yeah that is a whole lot of BS and if bloggers choose to hide their true lives, that is their choice of course. With me though, I want to explain my current reality, that being I failed something I have never worked harder in.

Would you like to know what is the “best” part (<– major sarcasm) about this all is? I failed by 0.11 points. That’s right, my final grade in the MCN class was a 74.39 and I needed a 74.5 to pass…. and NO FECKIN WAY are they bumping it up… trust me I tried. The meeting I alluded to in Friday’s post was about this, where in a mature, not-anger-fueled way, I made my argument of why I feel this is unfair as the only reason I am not passing is because I can’t seem to take a damn multiple choice question test.

As I have said before, our grades are ONLY based on exam grades and mine averaged out to be just slightly below the passing grade. It doesn’t matter that I received positive comments and reviews from my professors while in clinical. It does not matter that I received a B+ in both my A & P and Pharmacology classes I was also taking. They do not take into account the extra project I did with my clinical group regarding Healthy Snacks and Nutrition for school-age children, which we then presented at a conference.

None of that is considered and my career as a Nurse has been temporarily (maybe permanently) changed…. trying not to have an absolute mental/nervous breakdown here.

So yes there it is and failing by that little actually makes this feel much worse. This entire semester I worked harder than I have in any other class before… tried various methods of studying- with others, alone, with a tutor, concept mapping, note cards, re-writing notes, you name it… and I couldn’t pull it off. The stress, tears, anxiety that were close companions these last few months, were all for NOTHING. I have NOTHING to show for this, other than a badly shaken core and the inevitable feeling that I am plain old stupid. There is a part of me that knows I am in fact intelligent (to some degree), but this entire situation makes me feel like a true dumb ass.

I have decided to make this post into 2 parts because I have much more to say on the matter and splitting it up seems like a good idea

Before finishing up here though, I will reintroduce the over-thinking business from earlier and then continue the thought in tomorrow’s post. I have a tendency to be a negative nancy and believe things are much worse than they are. When a feeling of my world imploding rocks me, well it’s simply no good and that’s exactly what this situation has left me to conclude….And the question that rears it’s ugly head, what am I going to do now?

Sorry about the rather depressing post…. simply no way to make this speed bump in life an uplifting, cheerful discussion. One more coming at you (likely) tomorrow so please come back for that if at all interested! Anyway, thank you for listening to my venting and woes.

-Have you ever failed a class before? Or maybe out of a program as I did? Do you know anyone that has?

-What is your first coping mechanism upon hearing or learning of bad news? There are many negative ways to cope I could choose to engage in (hey there eating disorder crap), but decided a pedicure on Thursday was a much better idea.

-Are you a good test taker, specifically multiple choice? Any tips for someone that just cannot seem to get their heads around it?!

-How about discussing something more fun now, tell me about your weekend! Did anyone run a race or participate in some other sporting event?

Right now I’m trying my best not to feel terribly embarrassed and shamed, and also attempting to keep my head and stay positive as much as possible. I will say though, it’s really hard right now but deep down, I know I will get through this… my mind will and everything will be OK.

Is there anyone alive out there, can anyone hear me?!

Let me first say, I have genuinely missed you ALL.

Alright perhaps not the most cheerful way to open up a post, but I thought this line from Titanic fit the bill for a way over-due greeting. Seriously though, I’m not sure if anyone is even reading my blog or comes to the site as I have not updated in over a MONTH. Yikes, the longest time I have gone in the past 2 and some-odd years of not posting. There is an explanation behind my disappearance, not that I necessarily feel like I must explain myself, but I do want to fill in anyone who cares to read in these here parts again

Hey soooo yes.. I dropped off the face of the earth, errr blog land. I feel it’s a bit odd to say that I am sorry for this because blogging is a hobby, something I am choosing to do when I have the time, means and effort to do so.

However, what I do want to apologize for is not checking in at all, completely falling off the radar and I feel I ought to have put up some kind of post saying I’ll be MIA for a bit. Plus I left off on that rather depressing message following the Boston Marathon bombings, which were just a bit over a month ago.

On that note though, I never really planned to take yet another break from blogging, it just sort of happened and for a number of various reasons. I’m not going to go into all of them right now, but I’m sure you can guess what a major contributing factor was… good old nursing school aka the near death of me.

School taking over my life on top of getting suddenly pissed off with so many aspects of the “healthy” living blog world, my own anger and fears around my relentless fatigue (and therefore the inability to properly exercise), my constant irritability about everything it seemed… Something else too, feeling dishonest every time I was blogging, even just those few times per month I was able to do so.

There were plenty of posts I alluded to my mounting stress, how “tough” things were for me, how the eating issues were rearing their ugly heads again, yet I was not going into the extent of such things.

Of course though (and I have said this before), no one is forcing me to write every grain of truth about my life. Yet Amazing Asset has become the very place that I DO say any thing I please to in order to “let it out” and receive the feed back and support that has aided me during these last two years. And just about one month ago, though the many months before that as well, I felt dishonest and truly fake (weee oxymoron!) as I typed and published each and every one of my posts. The extent to my own true thoughts and feelings were what was being hidden.

From the very beginning, my blog has become the place I write down and record my constant struggle of finding that healthy balance… aka re-discovering true LIFE as I do my best to heal from the eating-related illness that has stolen so much from me.

I was blunt and honest when talking about the struggles and triumphs I faced while dealing with a rather serious eating disorder during my college years, a time that should be the “BEST EVAAA” but one I sincerely missed out on. Was this due to my own interests and changes in personality? Maybe. Really though? An illness that has become a part of my identity has been a significant influence in how my life has played out.

I feel myself rambling here and am trying to make a point so if you have read this far, I appreciate that

There was a time not too long ago, that I was making the positive changes to gain (no pun intended) my life back and get as far away from the sickness as possible. In all honesty though, and this is why I am writing about all of this today, I have taken steps backwards, fell of a semi-high cliff into cold water if you will. It has been during this last school year that those “eating disorder thoughts” have made their presence very well known.

Allow me to say now that I am not crazy underweight or physically compromised, it’s not really about that. My MIND is the main concern right now, how my mind cannot seem to escape the constant temptation to eat less food, isolate more, preoccupy any all free time with eating disorder related ANYTHING. The anxiety around meals, never ever feeling my body is enough, my self-worth and how others view me is primarily appearance based… or that maybe, I am enough and am in fact doing the best I can.<— Nahhh, can’t be true.

It has been the THOUGHTS that are the true evidence of my lack of progression…. and admittedly a certain degree of weight loss, that has done absolutely nothing for me other than escalate the obsessiveness around that of which I have worked hard to get away from.

I shall say it again, all of this I have alluded to here and there but never able to reveal my true thoughts and feelings. I was/am embarrassed that in a way I “let” this get the better of me, although temporarily, once again. I also feel as though I’m not allowed or not supposed to get worse and show my weakness because for the past whatever years I have been supposedly actively “recovering.”

Really though if this were indeed the case, if I had put all my efforts in as I claimed I was or would be doing… well I wouldn’t be rambling on about this now. Alright working on making this come together.

I took a step back from blogging because I felt like a fraud. I found myself writing for what I thought other people wanted to read, rather than what I actually desired to open up about. Rules and regulations around blogging made up in my own crazy mind were now controlling a hobby I used to love.

Every post has to be long and wordy. I must make a ground-breaking point, experience self-discoveries, and learn some sort of lesson, anytime I hit that publish button. I need to make sure I change topics, formats, and ideas each and everyday, to keep things interesting and not disappoint anyone reading this.

Rules, regulations, and restrictions. I have had just about enough of those words in my everyday life and now that it was fitting nicely into my special place of blogging? Oh no no no, hence the fun being sucked out of writing. Again, I was writing for everyone else, what I “thought” a reader who stumbled over here would want to read (and not interested in anything else), that meeting these and others expectations was now the main goal.

I don’t think I need to say here that such rules, regulations and restrictions are made up in my own delusional head… sounds familiar eh? How about with every aspect of my life regarding food, my weight, and exercising? Joyous. Actually no, exactly the opposite. Blogging was becoming the ultimate chore.

Plus all of the other shit seen around these parts, growing increasingly worse each and everyday if you ask me, is driving me BONKERS. Though, that is most definitely a venting post for another day. Nothing too brand-spankin-new on that topic, so maybe it’s the usual things I see now that are annoying the crap out of me more than ever.

Did I even make sense here? It’s possible, although before attempting to write this down, I sensed it flowing much better than what I am reading back to myself now. Ahhh well, it shall suffice because I am writing for MYSELF, no longer under those fake rules.

I do want to continue blogging, but the fakeness on my part is going to stop. Pretending everything is butterflies and rainbows is not going to happen because well, it’s just not true. Besides the eating-related junk, nursing school has shaken me to the core and I am in the midst of fighting my way back into the program after my grade fell under the 74.5 I needed by .11 points. Soooo more on that tomorrow after I meet with the president of the program, wish me luck, I’m certainly going to need it.

Too many thoughts thrown into one post… but so much of this has been in my head for quite some time now. I feel like there is even more to say but will stop for now. It’s getting late and while I should go to bed, I feel compelled to watch another episode of Homeland (holy crap where has this show been all of my life?!)

-While I have checked in to my reader here and there, I have definitely missed out on so much going on with you all! Tell me anything new and interesting in your life! I need updates fo sho.

-What kind of rules, regulations and restrictions have you made up for yourself? Outside the scope of eating/meal times/certain food choices that is…. I already have countless ones of those come and go.

-Have you ever found yourself faking/pretending in such a way, that it became too burdensome or joyous to do so? For me, talking about blogging here.

-Fun question, what is a show or book you are loving or is worth mentioning? Now that school is over, I have free time like woah.

More updates coming soon and for anyone that has happen to come back to ole Amazing Asset, thank yeee

Good evening Everyone!

I just wanted to check in quickly to tell you all that I did in fact not venture to go see the Boston Marathon today. I have a major exam tomorrow along with a Pharmacology quiz and realized I needed to get my priorities in order to succeed in both tests. For once I am thankful for the workload! It’s of course quite unlikely that I would have even been close to the finish though.

I mean, what else is there to say… ? So many questions being posed and the one at the forefront of my mind is, what the hell is wrong with people? Again, this question among endless ones.

There is no need for me to go on and on about how major of a tragedy this is, how awful, how just… horrific. But I did want to at least acknowledge this event here and voice that my thoughts and prayers go out to any and all that have been affected.

Not sure if I will be back tomorrow, but likely Wednesday! Thank you to those that have asked if I had actually gone there today and making sure I was alright. It means so much xox