Cursed art thou!

As a Christian, you soon learn that the devil follows your every move, and that he is willing to intervene in your life whenever he sees a possibility, whenever there is an open door. He and his demons that serve him slavishly might be responsable for some of the curses on people's lives. Well, people, it seems that my thesis is cursed. By whom exactly, I don't know, but every time I'm in a good writing mood and I'm working hard at a new chapter or at the correction of some previous chapter, something terrible happens unexpectedly and it hits me real hard. Don't believe it? Then read on and I'll tell ya all...

You know, back in the year dot, I started studying Languages and Cultures of Latin America. I got my BA degree Cum Laude, and then I started a Research Master in Linguistics, but that didn't turn out to be the best choice I'd ever made. So I went back to my roots, and decided to return to the department of Latin American Studies. All went well, until I had to start writing that bloody thesis. It's not that me and my thesis don't get on very well, it's just that, since I started working on it, many unfortunate situations have intervened my working on it, and I've had my "episodes", if you know what I mean. 

I started the investigation in January 2012. It took me about a month and a half to finish the research, and everything went well, I was so cheerful back then. I was travelling by train to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague,... without any problem. People came to my place, I went to people's places by bus, by train, you name it. I saw the sun shining in the blue sky, heard the birds singing in the blossomed trees... I had a lot of things to do, but it was fun. I was finally doing some fieldwork after all those years of theoretical input. However, it seems that things were going too well, apparently. When I finished the research - I interviewed no less than 44 people, Dutch people as well as Spanish speaking people - that was the point where things started to go wrong. Just because I was feeling so well - and honestly, I'd been feeling very well for quite an extensive period of time - my psychiatrist and I decided to lower the meds, the antipsychotics to be more precise. That must have been in January, and all went well for about a month, but when we had lowered the dose by a third, I just seemed to collapse. At once. I had these extreme emotions once again, I was utterly depressed, I lost the sense of life. I wanted to die... I just didn't see the purpose of life anymore. Furthermore, I wanted to kill a whole bunch of other people too, just because. I had lost my way in life completely. So I had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital - once again. However, as my situation didn't seem to improve, they kicked me out after a mere two weeks, and I could only spend the nights there. I felt lost and rejected. Luckily I could count on the support of my nurses and my psychiatrist, although I didn't trust that last one completely. He's still a rookie if you ask me, although I've never doubted his good intentions. I mean, I've got more years of experience with personality disorders than he has... Still, I needed them very badly, as I couldn't count on the support of the clinic anymore, nor on my family (with very few exceptions).

Somewhere in that period, when I was feeling a little bit better already, I started this blog. And then, after the worst had past and after we'd reinstalled the meds as they had been before, even with a higher dose of antidepressants, I wrote this post, in which I referred to my therapists. It was somewhere in May, not coincidentally the Borderline Awareness month. They're good people, they've proven that more than once. Even the psychiatrist with whom I still have difficulties when it comes to complete trust. 

Anyway, it took me more or less three to four months to recover completely from the setback I'd experienced. Three or four months in which I couldn't work on my thesis. Lost months. So it became quite clear to me that I wouldn't graduate in 2012, but okay, the Dutch government still gave me some credit, I could use one more year and they gently offered it to me. During the summer holidays, I didn't do a lot when it comes to my thesis, but hey, everyone deserves holidays, right? So I just enjoyed the time in France and I was more or less stable again, that for sure. Then, when I wanted to start working at the thesis again, I got torn apart by a family dispute. It wasn't that bad, but it already showed that there was no way that I would work on that bloody thesis with a certain discipline. The new semester started, and I wasn't the same person anymore. Guess I got confronted with the autumn blues I have to go through every year. I hardly worked on my thesis, although I tried, but I wasn't feeling too well. Still, the worst yet had to come. 

I started working on the perception chapter of my thesis, but then I was left broken-hearted by some family issues. And now I finally got over that crap, and also with aging, I have to admit, I eventually picked up the thread and I started working very hard again, correcting previous chapters and perfectioning the language used. And then word got to me that doctors have encountered a tumour in my grandmother's bladder. As she's had cancer before, chances exist that this tumour is malignant. Tomorrow she'll have to undergo some extra tests, and you know what, I feel so despicably angry. Another setback. How many more do I have to endure before I can finally put the last dot after the last sentence of that bloody thesis that freaks me out?! This thesis is cursed, there is no other explanation for all this sh*t. 

I'm so angry I feel I could kill someone. You know why? Just because. Ow, I've had these fantasies in which I enter the Lipsius building at Leiden University and I shoot down a handful of people. Why? Just because. That's why! I know I won't do it, so if you're a regular visitor of the Lipsius building, don't be afraid. It's just in my own fantasy world. I'm just desperate. What do I have to do to stop this curse? My pastor would surely tell me there's no such thing as a curse on a freaking thesis, but I'm so sure about it... 

I'm off now. Got some serious things to do, such as studying English vocabulary, grammar and collocations. My favourite activity for the coming 3 weeks, I suppose, because then the exam takes place. I'm not confident at all, normally I'm well prepared, but as I've had these setbacks, I haven't prepared anything at all. Not yet, and ok, there's still time, but I feel so insecure about this, especially because there's also an oral exam. This is important to me, I want to do a good job, to get a straight A once again! If only I could exchange all those excellent grades for another year of living for my loved ones... Oh, I'd certainly know what to do! Anyway, time to stop blogging and get to the more serious things in life. Meanwhile, I'd appreciate some prayers for my grandmother. She doesn't deserve to have to fight cancer! If someone has to have it, let it be me. I'm physically stronger than my granny, she's so fragile... By the way, you can see her picture here. Isn't she the loveliest granny you've ever seen? Well, I'll tell ya, she's mine :) Let's keep her another couple of years with us...