I think I’m getting hot flashes at 24. Several people recently told me that I look significantly younger than my age and I took it as a great complement before I realized the meaning behind being flattered. I believe being excited over not looking your age or older means you’re getting old.

This post turned out to be rather long. More after the jump.

I had to go to a funeral this weekend of someone who I met only the week before in the hospital. I’m vaguely related to the deceased. Things like this make me angry. Here I go - I’m about to sound insensitive.

I hate attending funerals of people I do not know. I do not think I have any right to be there nor do I have any emotional attachment whatsoever to the person who did the dying. I have to watch people cry, tell them I’m sorry about it, and then leave feeling no different from when I first arrived, only slightly more uncomfortable because I’m wearing black clothes in 90 degree weather and heels. And while I do understand that my presence is more for those still living whom I’m close to rather than for my personal benefit, I can’t help but being angry still. I’m not mourning while the vast majority of others are. I have no right to be there. I feel like I’m spying on something private - something that I should not view. I don’t like the sense of voyeurism. It isn’t fair to everyone else who knew the person who died.

I don’t want anyone who did not know me at my funeral. Invitation only. There.

I think I’m weird about some things. I get angry when I should be sympathetic. There’s probably some deeper meaning behind my emotions other than the explanation of “I’m weird”, but I get tired over the implications. I’ll just accept this as an aspect of myself.

Moving on.

The place where I work is supposed to be haunted. Keep in mind, it’s a mental institution for children, housing everything from schizophrenics to the severely depressed; patients there range from seriously homicidal to suicidal and everything in between. There are two ghosts. One is supposed to be a young girl in a white dress who runs from the clinical wing to the administration workroom, a span of hallway that stretches across the institution. Several direct care staff, supervisors, nurses, and even a couple of psychologists have laid claim to seeing it. She moves stuff and turns on the copier from time to time in the workroom. The other is a shadowy figure of a man in one particular room of the adolescent girls’ pod that whispers names. It was only ever seen after this one ex-patient left who had delusions of grandeur and claimed she was married to God but screwing the devil. She would masturbate to her Bible. She was diagnosed as bipolar with severe psychotic features but I swear up and down on everything that she was possessed, Exorcist-style. I’m not the only one, either.

The kids, from time to time, report seeing the above in high detail and it’s always the same. We have to document it as a hallucination and the psychiatrist usually ups their dosage for night meds. I think it’s funny that the adolescent girls are the ONLY ones who report the shadowy figure. They get up at night sometimes and ask if there are any guys working and if they called their name and why. I’ve heard my name called before, but I’ve written it off as sleep-deprivation. If I hear voices, I assume someone left on a radio somewhere in another part of the building. An overwhelming majority of my co-workers have more in-depth experiences with the two, minus me, who never wants to and hopefully never will. I usually stand with my back to that one specific hallway and while people have said “holy crap, she just ran by,” I’ve never nor will I ever turn around.

By the way, I’m up for a promotion to assistant supervisor, which basically means I’m a bad-ass. I’m also, incidentally, terrified that I’ll get the position. I haven’t felt this way since the day I was hired. I’ve had therapists, RNs, and program directors coming up to me recently and giving me constructive criticism about my demeanor, tone, tendency to be sarcastic, and how I do a lot of things wrong. What it all amounts to is a test to my receptiveness and confidence. I don’t like it, but I pretend I do. Say a prayer or two for me. I have an interview later on this week. I’m (no so) secretly insecure. Half of me doesn’t want it at all and the other half will be hella pissed if I don’t get it considering I now compulsively pick up small metal objects, hang on to scissors and keys with a death grip, can eat an entire meal in 2 minutes, and have the urge to do a pill count on my cold medicine to make sure none is missing whenever I use it.

Speaking of eating and small metal objects, the hospital was uneventful.

Onward, or maybe not.

This really isn’t about depression, but the tendency to get hung up on things as I do on occasion and remembering a time when I was. I don’t know why I let myself, other than if I didn’t from time to time, I wouldn’t be me. I usually save it all for November, but I’m indulging here. Things change dramatically - I’ve changed dramatically - but essentially some things don’t change. I think I was told that once. I guess it’s true. This all probably doesn’t make any sense. I do not care.

Stepping forward, as it’s called for.

I lost $20 playing Hold ‘Em this weekend. I don’t mind. I think it was strangely cathartic, though to what, I do not know.

I’ve been holding a lot in, it seems. Maybe I should try to write more frequently.

Maybe.

I’m done.