next!

the neurologist was just as puzzled as everyone else. he offered an MRI but also said, "i'd be deeply surprised if we found anything" (read: let's not waste the money on something we know isn't there). he is going to refer me to an ears, nose and throat specialist. that actually makes more sense. keep you posted

on a redundant note, i think i am a compulsive shopper (don't snort at me). i mean, not in the "Confessions of a Shopaholic" sense, but i do have an addiction. i bought decorations for Hallowe'en and fall yesterday at Michael's and at HomeSense. I'm returning half of it this week. I was on the shopaholics anonymous website, and found this helpful checklist. it doesn't have a description, but i think i am a "bulimic shopaholic". i love to buy stuff and then return it because just the sheer act of buying it makes me feel good. actually owning the thing is of no great importance in 95% of my purchases, but buying it is a must.

i like to think that mentally, i'm quite healthy, but it's quite obvious i'm not. the fact that i have a need and desire to obsess about something...anything, really... cannot be considered healthy. so, if i focus my energy on something other than shopping, then the credit card bill will lessen. but everything else i like to obsess about (men, mainly) leads me to unhappiness and self-doubt. shopping at least makes me feel good. that addiction feeds me and clothes me and makes me smell good (i think). but obsessing about men or my weight/health or career/education has never led me to happy places. i end up feeling very unsatisfied about love or physical being or education. i think all of that has sunk me into deeper depressions than shopping too much ever did. the money aspect does sneak its way in, true, but it's never about what i buy or whether i need it vs. want it. it's always about control.

perhaps that's why i like to control other aspects of my life. what happens at work, for example. complaining about my co-workers and their poor work ethic is one thing but if it's solely because i am trying to control them, that's another thing entirely. i don't want that. i don't want to control them or be the boss of them. but i do like things to run smoothly. so maybe that's it. or maybe it's not.

my rhetorical question, therefore, is what?