Thursday, January 5, 2012

Twitch...Twitch

When I was writing up my thesis, I was beyond stressed.  Mr. Dr. Zeek and I had moved to post-doc city which was about an hour-and-a-half commute  from grad school city (and hometown).  No biggy, in the great grand scheme of things, until you realize that grad adviser was still having me set up experiments.  I was running experiments until the week before my thesis defense.  That meant a Mon-Wed-Fri or Mon-Tues-Thurs-Fri 3-hr round trip commute to grad school.  This along with writing the thesis, adjusting to a new city and lab (I was unofficially working in post-doc lab before I defended) and taking care of Mr. Dr. Zeek, who had just had major surgery exactly 1 month before we moved to post-doc city, made for one stressed out soon-to-be Dr. Zeek.

This went on for three months and it was three months of hell.  During that time, I =had developed a "nervous" tick.  My lower left eyelid would *twitch* (it's hard to describe, but I could feel it moving).  No one could see it moving until I got really stressed.  It was the most annoying thing in the world.  No, wait, the vertigo that followed (another stressed-out tick?) was the worst. Thing. Ever.

After all the bullshit was over, the nervous ticks went away and I wondered how I got through those few months.  I never thought I would ever be that stressed out again.  Never had the twitching eye again either, or the vertigo.

Life is good, no?

That is until last week when I noticed that weird wiggly feeling in my left eye. Which has progressively been getting worse.  Which has now reached the noticeable stage. Which also seems to come on stronger when I think about job applications, grant writing, failed experiments.  Even the internal debate of "what am I going to make us for dinner" seems to trigger a bout of uncontrollable eye movement.  Now I knew I was stressed a bit these last few weeks, but I didn't realize how stressed out I was until the eye-twitching.

As long as the vertigo doesn't come back, though, I think I'll be good. 

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