Arthrograms, Seattle, and the day that still haunts me.

Today I had my second arthrogram on my shoulder. An arthrogram is a fancy way of saying a doctor ties you down to a table and inserts a needle into your joint capsule to inject some shit in there to make your MRI more readable. And the reason for the MRI? A possibly torn labrum and/or bicep. Whoops. And I say second arthrogram because I went through these shenanigans two years ago, and ultimately had surgery on it. Oh yeah, I might have busted my stitches from that surgery, too. I guess they weren't Courtney Proof. Or tkachev proof. Or stupid proof. Ugh. Honestly, let's just get the joint replacement surgery over with now, because surely I'm going to need one (or six) eventually.

Uh, oh...I detect...The Story of The Shoulder and Why Courtney Quit Gymnastics and Other Things Too!

The Hierarchy

When I was in high school, I only attended 2 classes at my public school. The rest of my studies were done at home to accommodate my gymnastics schedule. Senior year, I took AP Psychology at public school. My teacher, Ms. Ross, was so cool and smart and awesome that I wanted to be just like her. So I declared my college major as Psychology. That didn't last too long, because I knew I needed to study something more...tangible (but props to Ms. Ross for making psychology so awesome that I thought I could spend my entire life doing it). Like food. Food is certainly tangible.

I decided that I would be a Registered Dietician for young athletes. I knew a lot about nutrition from being a gymnast, and I knew a lot about athletes, too (obviously). It was perfect. So I changed my major to Global and Community Health with a concentration in Nutrition - the closest to Dietetics you can get as an undergrad at George Mason. After the whole eating disorder thing, though, I realized that counting calories and weighing people for a living might not be the best choice I ever made. Meanwhile, my friends Kalvin and Jessica and Angie were applying to the nursing program. "Apply with us! Apply with us!" they pleaded. I ignored them until about 2 seconds after the nursing application deadline, when I realized that nursing could be perfect for me, too. I had wanted to be a surgeon as a kid but gave up on that when I found out how many years I'd be in school (a more accurate reason would be that I'm deathly afraid of math). I also wanted to be a teacher as a kid, but gave up on that when I found out how much - or how little - money they make. But nursing? I could help sick people like I wanted to do as a surgeon, then go to graduate school and become a Nurse Practitioner so I could specialize in kids or athletes, and use nutrition as a heavy component to my practice, and then get my Ph.D when I'm old and burnt out and become a professor of health and nutrition! EUREKA! Obviously the details need to be worked out a little, but that is the general plan. I graduate with my BS in Global and Community Health this Spring, and then it's off to an accelerated nursing program to get my BSN. That is, if I get in. Note to self: start working on my applications.

This is my long way of saying that over the years, I have become very familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow was this psychologist dude that realized people are like a cheerleading pyramid. If the bottom layer of the pyramid isn't strong, then the top layer will collapse. Except we aren't really talking about a bunch of girls in impossibly high ponytails. Maslow's hierarchy looks like this:

Basically, we need to master each level before we can focus on the next. It's like gymnastics. You can't do a back handspring, for example, without first mastering the bridge, the handstand, the snap down, and so on and so forth. Or like weightlifting: you can't clean and jerk your body weight without first mastering the individual parts of the movement, and then gradually increasing the weight you lift. This makes perfect sense to me. So then why am I freaking out that I am not reaching self-actualization, when in reality I don't even have the first level down yet? Oh, Courtney.

So I'm minimizing. I have gone from 18 credits at school and two part-time coaching jobs last semester, to 15 credits and NOTHING else this semester. I am even on leave of absence from my once-a-week volunteer position in the ER at a local hospital. It's just me, my books, my barbells, and my brain. And let me tell you, it's horrifying. I have never had this much time to do everything on my to-do lists AND get a decent night's sleep. Seriously, this is completely foreign to me. 

My therapist called this selfish, wish is why I'm looking for a new one, but a lot of other positive people in my life have called this "being 21" and "you do you." Which I am perfectly okay with. A couple of people have suggested to me that the reason I take on so many tasks and keep myself so busy is that if I have free time, I'll be forced to deal with my problems. Uh, duh. I was a big believer in "I'm fine" and "seriously, I'm FINE," all the while praying they wouldn't believe me and sit me down and tell me to stop it already.

Back to Maslow. 

Let's look at physiological: breathing? Yeah, got that down, except for when I'm lifting and sometimes forget to. Working on that. Food? You'd think someone who studies nutrition would have that down too, but it's very much an evolving process figuring out what works for me and what doesn't. My post-rehab eating disorder plan tells me to eat one way, while my cranky digestive system tells me to eat another way. Finding the balance is very much a full time job. Water?  We could all work on drinking more of that. Sleep? I tend to not during the night, and then nap extensively during the day. Clearly not okay. Homeostasis (AKA stability)? HA, if you read my first post, you'll see that the LACK of stability is what is driving me to write this blog in the first place. In the past year, I have moved 3 times, and since my parents' divorce 13 years ago, I have called 14 different places "home." As you can see, stability has not really been a big thing in my life.  

...This is not the profile of someone who is self-actualized. Not at all. Why do I feel like I should have gotten there 5 years ago? Why do I feel like I'm running out of time to be happy? Ugh. 

And that's it, that's my epiphany. 

Or maybe the Hierarchy of Needs looks more like this? (Couldn't resist!)

A Blank Page

I am Courtney, but you can call me Court, or Coconut, or one of my other various nicknames for now. Courtney is temporarily on hold until I find out why its old connotations have disappeared. You know, things like "happy," "spunky," and "sure of herself." Yeah, those words are gone, and in it's place are words like "Bipolar 2 Disorder" and "100 mg of Lamictal at bedtime."

Wow, that got real real fast.

But really, I have no time to dillydally. This question has been burning in my head for some time now: what happens when suddenly you realize that everything that made you who you are doesn't exist anymore?

Well, after some thought, I have determined that first you cry a little. And then focus on what you know, and then you search for what you don't. Already got the first part down SOLID, so onto part two: what I do know.

I know that I am no longer a competitive gymnast training to be an international champion or be the star of a Division 1 school. I know that became true almost 5 years ago, but that I still speak of it as if the head coach from UW told me "no" an hour ago. I know that I am still in mourning for the yes I never got.

I know that I am in my senior year of college, studying community health and nutrition. I also know the irony of secretly using that knowledge against myself in a silent battle against an eating disorder.

Finally, I know that my diagnosis - Bipolar 2 Disorder - is not a characteristic of who I am or an adjective to describe me, but merely a word to put on paper so that I can get the right medication to stabilize my brain while it's desperately grasping for anything that resembles an identity.

So, on to part 3: what I don't know. Hm, that's easy: who the heck I am.

Hence the blog.

So here's me, a 21 year old girl on the verge of entering the "real world" with not a clue of what to do with herself, while half-assedly searching for a new therapist because I fired my old one for not agreeing with me, and occasionally lifting really heavy things and then putting them down again so that I can say I'm good at something. Essentially, I'm a blank white page with a dark past, waiting to be colored in with yellow and mint and sparkles and chevrons. Hashtag, classicwhitegirl. Sure, I plan on applying to nursing school in a few months and hope to one day make the world a healthy place free of all that is evil, but honestly? Even a few months from now looks like a great big land of I Don't Know and I Literally Cannot.

There's only one way to work this conundrum out: write about what I do know so that I can figure out the whole "what I don't know" part. One, it just sounds wise. But two, it's a better use of my time to share this with the entire world than than to agonize over it alone.

I hope you will follow me on my journey to discovering what a Courtney is again. It'll look a little like ranting, but also like random epiphanies and throwbacks to the events that led up to this sudden loss of identity.

Here goes nothin'.