Stress, Procrastination, Paralysis

I’ve been completely stressed out lately.  Stressed to the point of being overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed to the point of near-paralysis.

I spent a rather eye-opening hour with the shrink last night who pointed out how connected my home-related stress is to my work-related stress is and how it all is just merging with my Winter-related depression and weighing me down to the point where I’m allowing myself to live up or down to whatever expectations certain people have of me.

I don’t know if I can explain this.  It all seems so circular.

So, at work, my top thought is always that I’m going to lose my job, though that’s not necessarily the case.  That, of course, is the result of my last job and looking back now, the jobs before that where the threat was always made present by the higher-ups as a form of possible punishment.  So, the more negativity that MJ and FW present toward me, the more MJ hovers and tells me that I’m not doing my job correctly, the more FW unprofessionally berates me in public and tells me that he and MJ are worried they are going to have to finish my work, the more anxious it makes me — especially since I am currently already highly anxious due to a very high-anxiety-producing deadline looming.  I just want some sort of validation that my job is not at risk.

On top of that I just bought a house, right?

A house that appears to have some “issues”.  The beadboard in the kitchen appears to be drying out from what little heat I’m using.  The paint is bubbling and splitting.  It looks horrible.  Cracks are forming between the ceiling and the slanted part of the wall in the rooms upstairs and the hall.  The paint between the wall and the linen closet in the bathroom has split.  The wall where the wood and the drywall meet beneath the stairs has distinctly separated.  I’m starting to see where seams and boards are in the walls and ceiling.  Oh, and there’s two small cracks in the paint in the bathroom over the shower/tub, which I suspect is hiding an army of mold spores beneath it’s plastic sheath.

My father wants me to talk to the people I bought the house from and make them come fix it, though I doubt I they are liable.  And someone told me some houses resettle every Winter.

However, I’m so miserable because I worry that there’s something wrong with the walls that I don’t want to do anything like finish unpacking or hang pictures or window treatments because that would be a waste of time because I’d just have to undo that stuff.  If I hang stuff, it’ll have to be unhung when the walls have to be fixed after all.

But my mother has decided to come for my surgery next month, which means I need to get the house in some sort of order or she’ll be disappointed, but there’s just so much to do and I just don’t know where to start.  I need to hang the shelves I bought for the office to finish unpacking, but the curio cabinet I bought and haven’t put together is in the way.  The curio cabinet is in like 1000 pieces and it just looks too hard.  I don’t want to do it alone but I don’t have anyone to help but I don’t want it still sitting there when my mom comes.

And on and on it goes…

And part of the house comes back to work…why unpack and finish the house if I’m going to lose my job and have to move.  Traditionally I take years to finish unpacking and hang every thing up and then it’s time to move.  Everyone who knows me knows this.  Which is why my mother keeps asking if I’ve hung stuff on the walls, I’m sure.

And some of the stuff I keep putting off saying I’ll do it when it gets warmer.  I have a ton of boxes from the move.  They’re all broken down and against the wall in my garage.  I want to put them in the rafters of my garage, but it’s friggin’ cold outside.  Who wants to spend that long outside?  I’m waiting for a warmer day.

Anyway, my job isn’t at risk.  I still have an immobile deadline.  MJ and FW are just unprofessional, nasty people; I think no matter where you go, there’s always one or two of those.  My boss is entirely understanding, if conflict avoiding.  I hung some curtains up last night and even unpacked a box.  I’ll have to see how I feel about my Susy Homemaker list when I get home tonight, but I’m o.k. with the stress I feel for work.  It’s just regular deadline anxiety and not “I’m going to lose my job if I don’t meet this deadline” anxiety and that’s o.k.

Maybe I’ll be able to crawl out of the overwhelmedness and depression and stressful paralysis and start posting again.

Tags: work, anxiety, job loss, depression, overwhelmed, stress, paralysis

Out Of Sorts? Check Your List!

I like today’s Fibromyalgia Tip of the Day : Making Lists:

Make a list of things that you enjoy doing. Days when you are out of sorts and bored, this list can come in handy. It sounds silly to think that you might forget what you enjoy, but bad days can be heavy with “fibrofog” and so reminder lists are always helpful.

I think everyone, not just fibro sufferers could stand to put this tip into use.  When you’re out of sorts and having a bad day, even when you’re healthy, it’s easy to forget the good stuff.

I’d take this tip a step further and do something on the list to cheer yourself up.

Tags: fibromyalgia, depression

Discombobulated Thoughts — 12/22/06

• I’m feeling incredibly grumpy today.
• I don’t have any clue why so don’t ask.
• Apparently my GP was supposed to order some follow-up lab work after the ER visit.
• Obviously they didn’t.
• I have way too much to do around the house and I just haven’t been doing any of it.
• I picked up a “Tofurkey Feast” dinner for 8 at Wild Oats for Christmas Dinner.
• I can’t decide if I’m excited about it or not.
• Though “Tofurkey” is kind of fun to say and my dog looks at me funny when I say it.
• I keep forgetting I have fresh raspberries in the fridge.
• Pugly was not happy about wearing his Christmas hat to doggy daycare this morning.
• I’m very sad that PW hasn’t returned my emails.
• I’ve been feeling particularly lonely lately.
• It’s probably just the holidays.

Tags: discombobulated, Tofurkey, Christmas, holiday depression

Exercise Your Mind - 11/08/06

Election 2006

• You have your marching orders…. — Nicole Belle @ Crooks and Liars reminds us of the Republican’s “Contract with America” when they took control of Congress in 1994.
  

  This year’s election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.

  Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to act “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.
  

  Let’s hope that the Democrats learn from the Republicans’ mistakes.

• A Remedy for Negative Political Ads — Paul Silver @ Donklephant has a remedy for all of those negative, deceitful ads since there’s not likely to be any law regulating truth in political advertising anytime soon.
  

  Perhaps the solution lies in changing the geometry of the question. Instead of trying to regulate the content of ads, we use public funds (or funds from the Parties) to run a frequent public service message that corrects the inaccuracies of any recent ads - perhaps produced by the Factcheck.org folks. Since a candidate would not want to have the airwaves filled with objective criticism they would be inclined to stay as reasonable and civil as possible.

• A Remedy for Election Tampering– Paul Silver @ Donklephant also thinks there should be a reward for information leading to a conviction in crimes related to election tampering.

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Tags: 2006 election, Republicans, Contract with America, Contress, ethics, scandal, Democrats, negative political ads, election tampering, politics, factcheck.org, DHS, TSA, passports, Hasan Elahi, FBI, mental illness, anxiety, depression

I Should Be Happy

I’m thirty-five years old and I am intelligent enough to know I do not need the approval of someone else to make me happy or give me self-worth. However, being brainy enough to know that is somewhat different from being able to control the emotion or the need. I’ve never quite been able to disconnect the wiring on my insides that would allow me to be free from seeking the approval of my parents in all of these years. I’ve said so many times here. That’s why even now after doing triple handstands and cartwheels I still pause at the end to look in their direction to see if they’ll clap.

O.K. Technically I’m not going to do handstands or cartwheels for anyone. I don’t think I can actually do those, but you get the point.

The thing is that for years, I’ve been hearing from my parents that I should get out of debt and buy a house.

I got out of debt last year — something that my father seems to keep forgetting because he keeps asking me how paying my debt off is coming. For me, paying off my debt was a really big deal because not only was it weighing on me financially and not only did it cause panic attacks but I felt the weight of my parents’ disappointment with each passing month that it wasn’t paid off. I felt shame. For me, paying it off was redemption. I thought as though paying it off would somehow be more satisfactory that it was. But when my father asked again last month during his visit how that debt was coming, I just felt like I was in a sinking boat.

Now the house-buying thing is something else. It’s something I’ve wanted too. I had gotten excited about it once before back in 2003 right before I lost my job. I had even gone looking at houses and had tried to get a realtor who had turned out not to really want to sell me a house because I never saw her face, kid you not. She actually never showed for any of our appointments. I even found a house I liked but I couldn’t afford to buy it at the time and then I lost my job and ended up moving to Maine, so everything works out, right?

Here’s the thing. I don’t see the point in going to all of those Parades of Homes and open houses unless you’re actually ready to buy a house. My parents have been pushing me for six months or so to start getting out and looking around at houses that are out there though I don’t have anything in savings because I just got back from a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the UK and I’m in the middle of a 1 year lease on my apartment. To me, it’s a waste of my time and gas, especially when gas prices are high. I kept trying to tell them that I have no patience for it because what if I see the house I want? I am not the type of person to just ignore that and hope it’s still around in the Spring when my lease is up and I have money in the bank. I’m just not.

You have to understand. My father agonizes over every decision. There’s no such thing as an impulse buy. Everything is researched to death. He went back and forth on the moving to New Mexico thing for years before they did it. In fact, they had bought property they were going to build on in Louisiana…but they had it for like five years and he couldn’t decide on the finalization of blueprints. Every time the final prints were made, he’d back off.

My father still has a laser printer he bought in the early 1990’s. It isn’t really compatible with either of the computers he has but he can’t make up his mind about a new printer so he’s making my mother suffer. He won’t let my mother upgrade anything on her laptop. She still has Win98. Two years ago, he still had Win95.

It’s not just because he’s cheap and wants the best deal though that’s part of it. It’s because he can’t make the decision.

Me? I know what I want most of the time where material things are involved. I may not always know the best ways to get them, but I know what I want. For big things, I generally give myself a little time to think things through, but I don’t like to agonize over the what-if-something-better-comes-along thoughts. There’s always that possiblity. You can’t help that. All you can do is make the best decision based on the information you have now.

In 1995, I wanted a green Jeep. My dad forced me to shop around. The whole process was torture. Months later, I bought one. Interestingly, in 2006, I still want and have my green Jeep.

Someone told me that there are some houses you walk in and you just know that’s the house. I know that this little red house is the house I want to live in and make my home. I can imagine myself there doing every day things — cooking, doing laundry, snuggling with my pets, playing piano, reading a book, starting a garden, getting ready for work, having friends over. I can picture where my belongings will go. I can’t imagine changing much of anything (except to add a second bathroom later). I think I can be happy there.

Mind you, I wasn’t ready to go house hunting last week, but my mother insisted that I go while she was here. I would never have seen the little red house but for her. Now I want it.

So, I talked to my parents, I talked to various people, I read up on buying a house in books and online. Mostly, I wanted to find out how to go about it. I wanted advice on the mechanics. I wanted to know the etiquette. I was sorely disappointed in the results of my research. No one seemed very helpful, especially my father. He was very evasive on the subject. He kept telling me that he couldn’t tell me specifically what to do or say. His suggestion though was of course to spend the next three weekends looking at two houses in the area each day so I got a better idea about what the houses in the area where like.

O.K. I get the whole idea about knowing what houses are selling for in the area and being able to comparison shop. However, in this day and age of the internet, it’s not hard to do that from the comfort of your living room. And I did. It’s quite clear to me that comparable houses are not selling for less than $215K, which in the end is what we agreed on, btw. (Sorry, did I give part of the story away?)

What I really wanted to know from my father is how he would handle the negotiation. What things he would ask for in the purchase agreement, etc. He never would tell me.

Friday night, I went into the negotiation for the little red house completely unprepped for the event. It’s not the same as bartering in Mexico for crystal turtles or handmade blankets — both of which I’m excellent at getting cheap. The fact is that those “How to Buy a House” books don’t really tell you what you need to know. My advice is to get a realtor. I think they’re probably worth it if they actually want to sell you a house. The fact that I’d been burned in New Orleans by that one realtor and the fact that these folks are selling without a realtor meant none of us wanted to deal with one, but probably I could have used one on Friday night. Though possibly the flippers and I might not be on as friendly terms now.

Anyway, I put down a deposit of $1K and signed a purchase agreement of $215K contingent on a building inspection and the seller putting in a garbage disposal as well as fixing a few odds and ends I noted. I was very excited though it was more than I originally offered.

My father quickly put a damper on it when I called my parents full of enthusiasm. His first response was that it wasn’t that much lower than the asking price. (Only $3K less.) Then he was upset that I hadn’t asked for things like a termite inspection. Well, gosh, I didn’t know I should ask for one. I wasn’t aware that there was a termite problem in Maine. It pissed me off too because I asked for his advice about what I should ask for and talk about at the negotiation and he didn’t have anything to say beforehand but he was sure all disappointed in how I handled it after.

Then of course, there was no cheer about the closing date, tentatively set for Nov. 27th. No cheer about hiring moving men — I don’t know how he thinks I’m getting my furniture over there. No cheer about breaking my lease. Then all of a sudden he had to get off the phone because the evening paper was arriving.

My mom just kind of went along with him. Oh they said, “Congradulations,” but I just didn’t get the satisfaction I was hoping for.

I haven’t slept well since Friday night and yet I slept all day Saturday. A bout of depression. I told my mother yesterday that it’s hard to be excited when no one else is. She at least sounded a little more excited yesterday.

I should be happy. I’m getting the house of my dreams. I’ve paid off all my other debt.

So, why do I feel like I’ve done it all wrong?

Tags: little red house, depression, parental approval, dysfunctional family

Sadness = Not Enough Coffee

Oh! I get it!

(Click for larger view.)

Tags: Dilbert, cartoons, coffee, depression

Maybe I’m Doing It Wrong

(Click for larger view.)

Tags: Dilbert, cartoons, friendship, depression

Demythtifying Mental Illness & The 100 Comment Challenge

I found the below on demythtifying mental illness at Brony’s blog, Parenting with a Mental Illness .  She closed out Mental Health Awareness Week by posting her 100th post on a blog she started “in part to create awareness of what it is like to have a mental illness.”  With this 100th post, she wants to meet 100 new people and generate 100 comments.  So please head over and comment on her 100th post and add your name to the 100 new people.  While you’re there, you might check out her other 99 posts too and become a little more aware about what it’s like to be a parent with a mental illness.
Oh, and here’s a teaser:

In Honour of Demthytifying Mental Illness, here are some common myths:

• People who have a mental illness are just “crazy
• Depression and other illnesses, such as anxiety disorders, do not affect children or adolescents.
• People with a severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, are usually dangerous and violent.
• Addiction is a lifestyle choice and shows a lack of willpower. People with a substance abuse problem are morally weak or “bad”.
• Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), formerly known as “shock treatment,” is painful and barbaric.
• People with mental illness are poor and/or less intelligent.
• Mental illness is caused by a personal weakness.
• Mental illness is a single, rare disorder.
• Mental illness only happens to people with a family history.
• Mental illness is the same as mental retardation.
• People with a mental illness are unable to function well.
• Depression and anxiety disorders are part of growing up.
• Mentally ill employees tend to be second-rate workers.
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) happens only after you fight in a war. That’s why it’s called shell shock.
• Depression is all in your head.
• Mental illness is the result of bad parenting.
• Schizophrenia means “split personality,” and there is no way to control it.
• Mental illness does not strike the “average person.”
• Mental illness is not a serious health problem today.
• Most people with a mental illness are receiving treatment.
• Mental illness is not like other “Physical” diseases.
• Most people who are mentally ill live in mental hospitals or on the streets.

Fact: Don’t be too quick to judge. Someone you knows suffers from a mental illness.

Tags: mental illness, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, Mental Health Awareness Week

Approval Whore

I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days. It’s normal, I think, to grow up, seeking approval from your parents, your Sunday School teacher, your school teachers, your bosses. I think it’s natural to want their respect, their approval. You want to please them. You want them to be happy with the things you do. Obviously with the teachers and the bosses there are benefits like grades and financial things that come with the approval.

That is normal approval seeking.

But I think all of my life or at least as long as I can remember, I’ve been desperately wanting the approval of these other people…most of them never give it to me and that has caused this aching void in me. Sometimes the pain isn’t so bad. Sometimes I barely notice it. Some days like the last few, it’s as if it’s swallowing me up into a great nothingness and I’m not even me anymore. Not so much that I want to die. Just that I don’t feel I am at all.

Who are these people? Who have they been?

They are the prettiest girls, the smartest, the most popular, the best writers, the wittiest, the best singers, the seemingly most nicest, the most independent, the most successful, the seemingly most mature, the trendiest, the most outspoken, the most judgemental, the most talented, the nicest smiles, the cutest boys, the most eccentric, the most free-spirited, the most sought after for attention, the most creative, the best athletes, the best dressed, the snarkiest, the ones who seem to be on pedestals already holding court when I arrive. They’re the ones who barely notice me and who protest if I point that fact out.

And for some bizarre reason, I always believe, that we can be friends if they gave me the time of day, but they don’t really even give me respect and then they make me feel guilty for bothering them in the first place with my silly little desires like breathing on Earth…and I try to hold my breath for them to make them happy…anything to make them happy…and I wonder what it is that’s wrong with me that I’m not good enough for their attention, approval, or respect.

And the ache continues in the void.

Tags: approval whore, depression

A Personal Victory

SQ pointed out something to me this afternoon.  She said that in my personal life, I tend to avoid conflict by waiting for things to happen to me rather than causing things to happen.  For example, I should have left my old job long before the axe came down or I tend to stay in unhealthy relationships and put up with crap way longer than I should because I’d rather not rock the boat and actually stir up shit myself.

So, she said while N2 might not realize the big deal that my sending the email to her last weekend was, SQ realizes that it really was a big deal for me.  I hadn’t thought about it that way, but she’s right.  It was quite an accomplishment for me.  I wrote that email because I was tired of the status quo and I thought that the relationship was unhealthy and heading in an unhealthy direction for me.  Rather than let it continue, I faced the fact that there might be conflict…and trust me, the fact that there is unrest does bother me…the fact that there’s someone all pissed off because of me kind of eats at me.  I prefer to have everyone happy happy joy joy.

I guess I need to accept that not everyone’s going to be happy with me all of the time and in the end, I’ve got to do what makes me happy most of the time, which sounds selfish, but I don’t think I do it enough.

So, I’m giving myself a pat on my back, literally.

Tags: wellness, therapy, depression

Low

There’s nothing like hitting a depressive phase when you’re home alone on a Friday night.

Tags: depression

What The Doctor Said

Well, today was the big visit with the doctor. In preparation, I emailed her a few days ago with a list of things that I absolutely needed to talk to her about and why and the two most important issues were the acid reflux and the muscular pain in my legs and elsewhere.

O.K. So I’ve got a new temp prescription for Prevacid but I have to go on Tuesday for bloodwork and when I come back I’ve got to have some tests for ulcers and for my gall bladder. I’m very tender to touch where my gall bladder is but then I’m tender everywhere but she wants to see if I’m just an acid machine or if something’s gone wrong in there; so there’s going to be an ultrasound and also a tube down my throat, which makes me gag just thinking about it, thanks.

She’s also scheduling me for some tests for fibromyalgia when I get back and some bloodwork for that also next Tuesday. This is due to the increase in my muscular pain and the tender points that I have. She noted that my joints do not appear swollen which is the first thing most people think is the problem because I’m overweight. It’s definitely the muscles that hurt.

Anyway, it takes time to get in with a specialist, of course; so they’ll set up the appointment while I’m in England.

In the meantime, she gave me a tranq for the airplane to help relax the muscles since the plane trips seem to aggrevate the problem and I end up in agony and told me to take Tylenol Extra Strength twice a day every day. She also gave me some tylenol with codiene to take with me on the trip in case I have a really bad day. Unfortunately, I should also be taking some sort of anti-inflamatory but because of my stomach, I can’t take Ibuprofen or Alleve.

We think that maybe last year’s car accident might have made whatever it is (if it is fibromyalgia) worse and now that I’m not all fogged down with the depression and actually active, I’m more aware of it.

Oh, and when I come back from England, she is looking in to seeing if my insurance will cover aqua-therapy even before the fibromyalgia work-up. Aqua-therapy is supposed to be really good for your joints and muscles, I’ve heard. Though I think it requires owning and wearing in public a bathing suit and I don’t think that’d be good for anyone…

Anyway, I’ve been chatting off and on with J this evening about fibromyalgia which she calls FM. She was diagnosed 10 years ago and she is what I would call a good role model of what to do right (as opposed to El who refuses to do any of the physical therapy, etc.). Anyway, talking to her has made me feel much more certain that I’m on the right track this time toward a real diagnosis. As I asked her questions about her symptoms and she described things to me, it was as if someone finally understood my pain, like a kindred spirit. She knew exactly what I was talking about when I talked about the weird aches and pains and bizarre symptoms like random limbs falling asleep for no apparent reason and the worsening of the pain in airplanes. I feel kind of relieved to have someone to talk to and ask questions and yet I understand that there’s no diagnosis yet.

Tags: fibromyalgia, acid reflux, Prevacid, depression

Trust No One

Remember that was one of the slogans from The X-Files? “Trust no one.”

Apparently, it’s one of my “Core Beliefs”. My Cognative Thinking Therapy Group is over now and the last two weeks was about “Core Beliefs”. My understanding is that these are the inner beliefs that we have that shape our lives and how we deal with ourselves, others, and the world. In fact, that is how they are broken down — beliefs about ourselves, beliefs about others, and beliefs about the world.

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Tags: wellness, therapy, anxiety, depression

Update On Last Week’s “Crisis”

I know I’ve been quiet a couple of days.  The truth is that there’s been some more arguing on the phone and in IMs and a couple of emails.  Mostly it’s been one-sided so-called “Tough Love” coming from N2; at least that’s what she calls it.

I feel kind of beat up and sore and raw right now.  It’s all been rather eye-openning.

Imagine finding out that the things your most afraid your friends will think about you are actually the things they think about you.  But they “love you anyway” or they wouldn’t be talking to you about it.  Quite frankly, I wouldn’t love me if I were all those horrible things she said I was.

And trust me, one of the things she said to me came very close to being on the list of things I might not have spoken to someone again for.  Right under the one PW used on me before we didn’t speak for 3 years.

And she said all these horrible things, but I’m “not a bad person.”  I’m just too negative and I make things too difficult for myself and I’m not reliable (because of my depression — though she refuses to accept that as a reason).

This is the one that I struggled with her on.  She said that I refuse to accept responsibility for anything being my fault, but when I accept responsibility for things being my fault, she doesn’t seem to hear that.  She says I blame everyone but myself.  When I try to explain the situation, I’m making excuses.  She doesn’t understand that someone can have an explanation and still know they are at fault and not be trying to excuse themselves from blame.  So therefore because I try to analyze everything to explain why things happened, I ‘m making excuses and therefore blaming everyone but myself.

When I tried to explain to her that I am a self-blamer for everything in the world, she didn’t buy it.  When I told her that I assume I’m always at fault and that one of my big issues is that I’m a failure and that I’ve disappointed my parents, I suddenly got the huge laundry list of how she failed her parents and how I couldn’t possibly be a bigger failure.  Like it’s some competition.  I didn’t even know how I was supposed to respond.  I mean, I was trying to point out that I always assume I’m at fault and that I’ve done something wrong and suddenly I can’t possibly have screwed up more than her?  How does that fit in?

And even stranger, one of the other people involved in the little Pow-wow that started all of this nonsense to begin with told me Thursday night that no one is 100% blameless in this — meaning everyone has to share the blame, all of us, right?  Not just me.  I’d really like to shove that down N2’s Tough Love spouting throat right about now.

Oh and the real kicker was being told that I’ve screwed up so bad that I’m going to have to “prove myself to them” all over again with these PBeMs.  Quite frankly I don’t know that I care enough to want to “prove myself” to anyone, particularly them.  I told N2 that I felt like they were going to need to prove themselves to me because right now I didn’t think they could be trusted again and as much as they say they’ve changed since the game we were in together last summer, I haven’t seen it.  So it’s not fair for them to insist that they’ve changed and tell me I can’t use that as an example to not trust them when they’re using stuff from last year to hold over my head now.  People change and I’ve been changing over the last month and if they can’t see that, then that’s their problem.

I finally did force her to listen to me talk about my Cognitive Therapy.  I was really getting pissed off.  She was just like my dad; she kept going on about how I dwell too much on things and how I need to just not think about things and I kept telling her that I suffer from General Anxiety Disorder and it’s not something I can just control; it’s a chemical imbalance.  I told her that I’ve been trying to tell her about my therapy group/classes for a month because that’s what it’s about — teaching me how to retrain my brain to deal with those kinds of thoughts and situations.  (I wish that we’d finished the class before I’d had to deal with last week. )  I kind of think she finally got it, I hope.  I explained that while normal people may be able to just make that decision not to think or dwell on something, I actually have to go through a process and I’m not done learning that process yet, which is why I’ve been trying to talk to her about it because I wanted to show her that I was in recovery and making important moves in my life to get well so that we wouldn’t continue to have the kind of issues we’ve had in the past.

Anyway, so I’m going to work on the being too negative thing….though I wish I knew if Janeane  Garofalo’s friends complain about her being too negative.  (Although to balance it out, apparantly I’m damned funny when I want to be…thing is I think being negative and funny are the same thing…)

Anyway, when I started this post I really didn’t mean to write all of this because I didn’t feel I was ready to share.  I hope it didn’t come off as blame-y or negative.  It’s going to take some time for me to heal emotionally from this, but it’s been a good reminder that I really need to make new friends, preferably ones with little need for drama.

(Also, I had a migraine from Wednesday until last night that finally went away.  Yay.  Obviously the trigger was stress and crying.)

Tags: friendship, dysfunctional drama, wellness, depression, anxiety

You May Pat My Back Now

I really need a pat-myself-on-the-back moment right now. (I’ll explain later in another more lengthy post).

I’ve been mening to make of list of recenent sucesses and accomplishments as far as pulling myself out of this last big depressive episode. That way they’re all in one big place.

• Started making to-do lists on my Palm Pilot and maintaining them daily. I’ve divided them into Home, Personal, Financial, PBeM, and Work. Each one has 1 to 3 things that are the top priority for the day and I have given myself permission to be able to move them to tomorrow if they can’t be accomplished today. I’ve set up recurring items like laundry, taking out the trash, the litterboxes, posting on the pbem, etc. so they automatically show back up on the next due date.
• I’ve started getting up between 6am and 6:45am at my leisure and I try to do one little chore during that time, plus answer any PBeM emails I owe before getting ready for work — not to mention make coffee.
• Working with the personal organizer has been very theraputic and is helping me set up new systems to get through the daily. Plus, clean kitchen and hall!
• I’ve even lost a few more pounds since I saw the doctor a few weeks ago.
• I’ve been working hard in that Cognitive Therapy class. While I’m having trouble decifering the “evidence” chapter, I’m looking forward to the chapter on balancing thoughts. I have great hope that somehow this therapy class will be of significant help in teaching me to deal with these rampant out-of-control automatic thoughts that seem to poison and overwhelm me sometimes on a day-to-day basis. Maybe I’ll never think like normal people, but maybe I can counter my brain’s runaway train thoughts somehow and fake it out.
• I’ve been buying bright shiny colored things for the apartment and sitting in the sun and enjoying it.
• I’ve been smiling a lot more and up until Tuesday night was in a very good mood. I even told my mother that I was feeling better.
• I’m very excited about the puppy.
• I’ve been working with my mother with some success to delve into memories of my childhood to try to figure out what makes me tick, what went wrong way back when.
• I’ve been getting out of the house fairly regularly to go to the Sunday write-ins, even if I haven’t always been writing.

The shrink says that I should worry less about what hasn’t been accomplished and be proud of what has so there’s my list of accomplishments for the last month or so and it’s not so bad at all.

N2 rudely told me that she thought I was getting worse the other day, but I think she’s wrong. I think maybe my life is a little more chaotic right now because I’m trying to pull myself out of the bog and I’m trying to find a place for the things I love — sometimes when you’re sorting out something, it looks a little messier before things clean up, you know?

Tags: anxiety, depression, wellness, therapy, personal organizer, PBeM

Crashing

When it feels as though your friends are abandoning you and that you’ve been betrayed and the world is crumbling around you, how do you stop the crying so you can just go on with your day?

How do you behave as if all is well in the world and your heart isn’t breaking while you sit at your desk wondering who you have left on your side?

When you’ve turned to a person you trusted and opened yourself up and been honest and needy and asked for understanding only to have them kick you even as you were reaching out for help, how do you face the tedious meetings and endless, boring daily routine?

Goddamit, why am I so fucking fragile?

Tags: dysfunctional drama, depression, anxiety

A Conversation With My Mother

I’ve actually been meaning to write about this for several days but at first I was too frazzled about getting lost for over an hour and then I was distracted by other things. Life happens that way.

I have a fairly good relationship with my mother now that we’ve got a country between us. What I mean is that when we lived in the same city, we hardly ever spoke or saw each other, I guess because it was always there that we could do so anytime we wanted so we put it off. When they moved to New Mexico, that kind of changed. we got in the habit of talking far more often on the telephone. Now that I’m in Maine, hardly a week goes by without a phone call or two. The time difference is a little troublesome, but somehow she still manages to find a way to call early enough to wake me up on a Saturday on occassion.

However, this Saturday, I thought I’d surprise her and call her at 8am my time. Hah! They were barely out of bed! Kind of odd for them as they’re early risers. By 5am their time, they’re usually up and have the coffee going and are anxiously awaiting the newspaper while catching CNN’s headlines. My father was raised on a farm and my mother was an army brat — they never outgrew that early morning schedule for some bizarre reason, though I tried to break them of it for 18 years or so.

Anyway, Saturday, I called my mom bright and early from the comfort of my bed, beneath my covers piled high with kitties. I wanted to talk to her about the incident on the bus.

O.K. That’s not true. I don’t really care about the incident on the bus. I know there’s some women’s rights women who might be angry or horrified by the thought that I don’t really care about the fact that I was victimized by two little boys on a bus fifteen years ago. By all means, include me as a statistic somewhere, but the truth is that I don’t actually feel anything toward those two boys who probably don’t even remember the incident, the bus, or me. They probably didn’t even remember it the next month, which is probably where the true crime is. Probably they never really knew what they did wrong.

What I am upset about is how I became a victim after the bus. How I did everything I was supposed to to. I told a grownup, my parent. I told an authority figure, my principal. My life was the life that changed. I lived in fear though not the shame that many victims reportedly fall into. I lived in a kind of punishment as my priviliges were the ones that were stripped and my movements were the ones restricted.

I discussed this all with my mother. She doesn’t really recall a lot of these changes though she does recall the incident. She did admit that these sorts of things do happen to victims of sexual assult and rape afterwards as a result and it’s a shame.

So then I wanted to know if she recalls if I started to withdraw more after this event. Did she notice a significant change? Really this is what the phone call was about for me. I really want to know what happened to me in my childhood. When did things go wrong? Maybe if I can figure out the when, I can figure out the why and maybe then I can start working on fixing it. I don’t know.

Well, she didn’t think that I did withdraw after the bus incident and for some reason, this lead me to comment that I thought that I had been fine until we moved to New Orleans. Suddenly, she said, “Yeah!” This lead her to tell me that when we lived in Florida before I was seven, I was a bright and sunny kid, completely different and I thought everyone loved me and I would walk up to complete strangers and talk to them. Once I scared her because I walked up to a complete stranger in a grocery parking lot and started talking to him and when she tried to tell me that it wasn’t a good thing to do, I wanted to know why and she told me that not everyone would love me; apparently I refused to accept this as fact.

Something changed between Florida and New Orleans. Where that bright and sunny kid went, I don’t know.

However, she pointed out that the other really big personality shift she noticed in me was when I came home from college. She said a friend of a high school friend of mine had called to ask me out or ask me to do something and I had said no and when asked why not, I told her that I didn’t know where he’d “been” or what he’d been doing the last three years. Now, I don’t exactly remember this incident, but it has the sting of truth to it. It kind of sounds like how paranoid I felt about people when I first got back to New Orleans, how I sometimes still am.

So, having had plenty of time to mull this over, particularly while I was lost on the backroads of Maine, I got to thinking about the really “hard times” in my life, the times when I think I was having life crises or depressive episodes or I maybe was going through some sort of personality shift as my mom described it.

• There was the move to New Orleans when I was Six/Seven. We moved away from everything I knew where everyone loved me into a neighborhood where no one else lived and the great unknown where I started a fundie private Christian school.
• Started a new private school (leaving new friends twice) after not adjusting to public school after nearly getting expelled from fundie private Christian school — mom agrees I shouldn’t have been suspended in the first place — plus I was held back a grade to catch up with my age group.
• Went away to college (once again leaving everyone behind) which was not the grand adventure I thought it was going to be.
• Returned to New Orleans (leaving friends behind) without a real job to live at home with parents and work at video store.
• Parents move 2 states away.
• Six years of abusive job stress to be fired and leave work friends.
• Move 1700 miles and leave behind all friends and everything I’ve ever known.

So it’s kind of possible that this is the pattern. I’m not saying it is. I’m saying it’s possible. Maybe each school change and move was just reliving the move from where I was loved by all into exile subconsciously. It’s something worth exploring, I guess.

I haven’t discussed the moving theory with my mother, I kind of developed it after I talked with her.

I do want to say that I think she’s been much more supportive this last year and a half of therapy than she was when I started therapy ten years ago. She’s been willing to help me analyze and review and explore and that’s been very helpful to me this time around. Though I wish she’d stop pointing out that I have a lot of quirks just like my bipolar grandmother. That’s just too helpful. She’s also been telling me a lot how much she loves me and how proud she is of me and trying to be supportive of my ideas rather than critical and I appreciate that too. Then again, maybe my negative hearing is dimming a little too. Either way, this is much easier knowing she’s with me.

Though I still don’t have the courage to bring up the subject that maybe there’s some mental illness on her side of the family too.

Tags: dysfunctional family, depression, rape, Women's Rights, therapy, wellness, Me

Promises & Friendships

Well, I made two promises last night.  It looks like I can only keep one.

I promised PW that I would march down to the bridal shop and order my bridesmaid dress this morning as apparently she was a little miffed and stressed about the whole thing.  Apparently brides don’t like it if you put that off.  Procrastination is not the bridesmaid’s friend.  Well, it turns out that the bridal shop is not open on Mondays.  They also have a sign that says they are by appointment only.  Plus, they don’t have an answering service.  You have to call between the hours of 10am and 4pm Tuesday through Friday.  Like I’m going to be able to remember that.

She is going to be so pissed off at me.

So I’ve got to make a big sign or something that forces me to call at 10:01am tomorrow morning.

Oy.

The other promise I made, I made to myself and I managed to keep it, though I kind of got stressed out doing so.  Yesterday I blew a gasket realizing that I’m hopeless as far as getting anywhere with my house on my own.  So I promised myself to call around today.  It’s frustrating because have you ever googled “personal organizer”?  By the way, I tried calling Merry Maids as my first choice but they told me that they could not help me.  It’s horrible to be rejected by Merry Maids as too big a job.  So, finally I found a personal organizer in my area and I agonized over calling her for a bit.  She’s not cheap either, but I finally called her and explained my personal situation and I talked to her a bit and I really liked her.  She’s got a sunny personality on the phone.   She sounded understanding and she sounded like she knew exactly what I was looking for — not someone to do the task for me but someone to work with me and help me figure out how to organize along the way so I’ll be able to maintain it later.  She was pleased to hear that I want to purge too — though I think we might have a fight when it comes to the clothes closet.

Anyway, it might take a good part of my savings but I think this is a positive move on my part.

The interesting coincidence is that as I was driving to work, I was thinking that PW was always the kind of friend who I could be myself around and never be ashamed to show how low I’d gone in my depressive states and she’d come over and help me clean up and she’d put on that annoying, loud pop music and roll up her sleeves and sing brightly and chat and we’d work together and it’d be done in no time and then I’d either cook us up something or I’d buy us dinner and we’d veg or something.  Mind you, I’d done the same for her.  We understood each other.  It’s a rare friend you aren’t ashamed to show even your lowest moments to and who’s willing to roll up their sleeves and help you out.

O.K. 10:01am.  It’s in my Palm Pilot.  I’ve got stickies all over.

Tags: wedding, personal organizer, friendship, depression

Thoughts on Depression & Togetherness Go Awry

I have a question I’d like to ask someone who suffers from depression and who’s been both single and not through depressive episodes, but I’m not sure who to ask.

I wonder if it is easier to get through the little daily things if there is someone else kind of going through it with you. Oh, I don’t mean that there’s someone doing everything for you or taking care of you. My grandmother is bipolar and yet managed to raise three kids, have a husband, and manage a farm alongisde my grandfather who also had a day job. How she did it, I have no idea, and, yes perhaps I could work up the courage to ask her about it but it just isn’t something you discuss with her.

I just wonder if it didn’t help her to have my grandfather and my dad and aunt and uncle about to keep things going so things didn’t slip into great decline and irreparable chaos.
Since her kids grew up, moved out, and got on with their lives and since my grandfather died, she slipped further and further into an oddly familiar hermit-like life. She was always a packrat but apparently my grandfather kept that in check. After he died, treasures from thrift stores, antique shops and garage stores filled that 1800’s two-story home and it’s basement from wall to wall till there was barely a walkway or anywhere to sit. She slept in her lazyboy recliner with her cockateel napping on her shoulder. A great cook in her day, she just gave up cooking in favor of take-out and microwave dinners. She took to leaving the television on all the time just to have the noise and not answering her phone just because she didn’t feel like it. She never remembered about mailing bills or birthday cars or calling relatives. She developed an extreme fear of flying.

Eventually she had to be hospitalized because she had forgotten to eat of take her bipolar medication far too often. She now lives in a senior community where someone daily ensures she eats and takes her medications but she’s also surrounded by people her own age and she seems to be doing much better. She has not returned to the old house. She doesn’t want to.

Funny, i started to write this post because I wanted to aske someone if they thought it was easier to get through the every day parts of live while suffering with depression when someone is around, but I’ve just stumbled on something far more frightening, I think.

I think I’ll finish that point first though. My theory is that I wake up every day as a single person suffering from depression and I look around and I see that I have let myself and my apartment seriously go for well over a year and I really would like to just take the cats and Pugly and just start anew somewhere else — except for that damn obsession about not being able to leave behind my things. I think it might have been easier if someone had been around to help me keep things “up” so to speak in the meantime while I was in my major depressive episode so that now that I’m ready to try to crawl back out and try to face the world, it wouldn’t seem like such an overwhelming hole I’ve dug myslef into. It would be easier to face the world with a clean house, for example, or even a clean bathroom.

So, now the scary part I stumbled on…one of the things that keeps annoying me about my mother is that she keeps pointing out similarities between my grandmother and myself. I keep grumpily pointing out that in order for me to be bipolar, wouldn’t I have to have manic episodes?

However, I think it’s quite clear from the paragraph above that in the last year or so, I’ve been living my grandmother’s life. Granted, I don’t have her eye for antiques and I have cats not cockateels. I refuse to sleep in my rocker; I will always sleep in my bed. But…

And I wonder if what really pangs me about the idea that I could be just like her is that by my age, she had been married, had three children and had a fullfilling life despite her illness, but for me this sort of news seems like just another forty or fifty years of heart-breaking agony. She had happiness. She gets to look back on her life and relive those memories and know she was loved and I’m jealous.

Tags: depression, bipolar

The Difference Between A Mood & A Thought

Bet you never put much thought into it. I never did really, but, as you know, I’ve started that Cognitive Therapy group, which as it turns out is more like a class with lots of homework (5 chapters this week alone). One of the things we covered last week, which is in our required reading in Mood over Mind is the difference between a Mood and a Thought.

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Tags: wellness, anxiety, depression