straight off the boat

Although I am not supposed to be working at the moment, I have been advised by the doctor to keep my brain active by reading some challenging books. He had Dickens and Trollope in mind; I have instead read A Guide To Developmental Coordination Disorders, which was interesting from an academic point of view but told me nothing about myself or my condition that I hadn't already figured out through trial and error, and at the moment I am part of the way through Eve Was Framed, Helena Kennedy's scathing account of the way the English legal system employs and treats women.

This quote - recorded from a divorce trial in 1954 - amused me:

"At the highest the wife and Miss Purdon were seen hand-in-hand, used to call each other darling, kissed on the lips, spent a good number of holidays together, were constantly alone in the wife's bedroom at the vicarage and on two or three occasions occupied the same bedroom at night ... It was a very odd business, two grown women spending all this time together often in the same room and often in bed together, but the court is quite satisfied that that is perfectly innocent."

The judge refused to grant a divorce to the couple in question as he could see no evidence for a lesbian affair on the part of the wife.

(Women don't have sexualities, you see, which is why lesbianism doesn't exist. Women are sexual beings only insofar as they are objects or receptacles for [straight, cis, white] male desire. Lie back and think of England, girls.)

;; ;; ;;

Today I got to work overtime as I was asked to cover for someone (who had to cover for someone at her other job, it was all very complicated). Being Tuesday lunchtime, it was very quiet, and so I mostly hung out with my boss and watched When Sports Go Bad and Man Vs Food and Ace of Cakes, and one of the regulars tried to juggle some ketchup bottles for us.

Also I got a free milkshake, as the person for whom I was covering was working at one of those bijou little custom milkshake places that seem to litter Oxford, and she brought us back free vegan shakes as compensation for filling in. I didn't mind; I got paid to watch bad TV and flick beer mats at a juggler, so the milkshake was just a bonus bonus.

;; ;; ;;

From now on, entries will be crossposted from my dreamwidth account, which is robette  (no _wild, there, just me). I am not leaving LJ and I am not deleting my journal, far from it. I am just going to be available in two places.

;; ;; ;;

My doctor rang while I was at work, and he said he'd call back but no dice. I really hope he's not going to shout at me for missing psychiatry appointments - they're pretty hard to come by, and I feel terribly guilty about bailing with no notice - but I suspect he's finally received their letter, which should contain a recommendation for meds.

Aside from the college nurse, no medical professional has actually told me exactly what I have. I'm assuming, based on what the nurse said when my friend dragged me to see her back in second year and on all the questionnaires I've answered, that it is standard-issue depression with a side of childhood issues. But none of my doctors or psychiatrists have ever outright said, to the best of my knowledge, either one way or the other. I'm usually the one who explains my medical history to them when we first meet, and since I explain it as depression, that's what they diagnose me with - at least, I assume so, since they've never told me otherwise.

I mean, I'm fairly sure they're right. It would just be nice to know for sure.

;; ;; ;;

On the importance of diagnosis: even though it has been a while since the educational psychologist's report came through, I still forget that I am allowed to be a bit slow or clumsy, and I don't have to be embarassed about it any more.

Consistently failing at the little things adults are meant to be able to do - tying shoelaces, getting somewhere on time, understanding what other people are saying, knowing about taxes, folding up the ironing board - dents your self-confidence in ways you don't actually notice or comprehend until someone points out that you sometimes can't do these things for a legitimate reason.

I am not a failure as an adult; I am an adult coping with a world that is not set up for the way I function. I can cut myself some slack every now and then, and get someone else to fold up the ironing board. (Timekeeping and shoelaces and taxes and auditory processing are things I mostly have to do on my own. But at least if I get them wrong I can feel a bit less guilty about it.)