Daily Archives: March 10, 2013

For the most part, I have spent 20 years medicated. There have, however, been times when I went off the meds, usually because I either couldn’t afford them or some idiot convinced me there’s nothing wrong with me except a bad personality the meds wouldn’t fix.Oh, and the doctors who think xanax is a invalid medication.

I have been taken off of Xanax about six times.

The outcome every single time, no matter what alleged anti anxiety medication is used (SSRI, MAO,other benzos, atypical anti psychotics) is that I wind up right back where I started. Paranoid, jumpy, panic ridden, and damn near agoraphobic.

I am right back there again, revisiting the past.

It looks like we’re getting a new neighbor. I don’t know the person but I am pretty convinced they will reign hell fire down upon me like the one last summer did. I hope I am wrong. I doubt it. This place pretty much to rents to anyone, druggies, pedophiles, murderers, you name it. Which in my case four years ago with a string of bad references (for having a cat, not for failing to pay rent) was a good thing. Now that these dregs are my neighbors, though…A little selectivity wouldn’t hurt.

I want to let things unfold, rather than make sweeping assumptions. Scumbag Paranoid brain is allowing none of this logic.

We went to the store for groceries earlier. The entire time we were out I was looking around like a freak, feeling like I was under watch. My kid ran through the store like a banshee and my attempts to corral her resulted only in “You’re hurting me” shrieks. I have practically given up. At this rate, I’m rubber room material anyway, not IF, just a case of when.

I don’t want to be around people. I don’t want to read or write or listen to music. I don’t want to watch tv. I want to chainsmoke and that’s about it because my brain is sending so many wrong messages I can’t trust any of them.

To add to the strain, I returned home yesterday to find the neighborhood kids had been in the yard on my kid’s swing set, left trash in the yard, oh and stolen her princess ride on car. Then a neighbor informed me these kids were also siccing a pit bull on the stray cats under my trailer.

Think that helps the paranoia and terror?

I am a wreck. Afraid to leave now, lest the little feral brats set the place on fire. They’ve already spray painted every shed (but mine) and pretty much destroyed all the empty trailers by putting boards through windows and ripping off siding and doors. They don’t mess with shit when I am home but when I am gone, it’s a free for all. I don’t know what to do with it, I cant bring a swingset inside and I don’t see why my kid should not be allowed to have something without others destroying it. These are kids who run till 11pm, 12 am during the summer, they have no parental supervision. Kids 6,7,8 years old. It’s disgusting. For all my kid’s tantrums, she doesn’t act as bad as some of these kids.

So…I was starting to lose the paranoia and anxiety, the panic was getting under control, and now I am becoming the same neurotic trainwreck I was before I went back on Xanax.

Ringing endorsement for  my treatment plan.

I don’t care if the literature says Klonopin is the same thing as Xanax. I swear it’s actually making me more aggressive. Which the doctors deny and yet I found six different message boards today of people who say it did the same thing to them.

What are you supposed to do when the people you count on to help you seem to go out of their way to do the opposite?

I am trying to retrain my brain and learn to be more optimistic but when your brain keeps sending you all these altered perceptions…How the fuck does that even work?

My mood crashed after the outing.

I don’t want to even breathe right now but my kid is awake so I have to keep functioning.

Which I will continue to do…Right up until I don’t.

I think a twenty thousand dollar hospital bill that solves nothing is totally more sensical than just giving back my xanax.

God, this system is so fucked up, it’s not funny.

How bad was it?

I went to bed at 7:30 pm as soon as my kid was down because I was emotionally bankrupt and one more stressor would have likely sent me into a screaming tissy. I tried watching TV to unwind. That went away because even that noise was pushing my buttons. Curled up with my cat Azazel and even his purring seemed to be too much noise. How pathetic is that? So it was back to the tic tac o pin. I mean, I have to take SIX (3mg) of them to get the same result as 1mg of Xanax. How is this better? This is gonna turn me into an abuser, just trying to get some damn relief.

So…I sucked up all my misgivings, determined to be a normal mom and take my kid to a birthday party even though for all my smiles and pseudo normalcy,I might as well have been facing a firing squad.

Got there.

Go inside and it’s wall to wall. I kid you not, there were fifty adults and 25 children of varying ages. The pile of presents was mind boggling. One word came to mind: OVERKILL. I love my daughter but this kid at the party was turning ONE. Like she’s gonna remember any of it. What they spent on that party would cover all my bills for two months.

Fine, I’m a killjoy. If I WERE rich, though, I’d totally have something wicked like elephant rides or monkeys or something not frilly.

My discomfort was off the charts. Unfamiliar home. Unfamiliar people.  R’s exwife, the baby’s grandmother was there. They put the baby down and rather than go to grandma’s open arms, she toddled over to me and Spook. That got me some dirty looks. Not my fault kids like me and Spook, we visit L regularly, probably more than Grandma J does. To J’s credit, she didn’t make a scene, which is unusual. This is a woman who once busted in R’s door and we had to call the cops and it took three cops to haul her off in cuffs. Being wary of her is not paranoid, it is wise. Maybe there were too many witnesses, I dunno.

I was so glad when R and his wife and his mom got there. Finally people I know. For all the good it did, R was being his social butterfly self,  and amidst the chaos, you couldn’t get across the room. So I sat, watching while my kid played musical chairs and listened to nothing I said. Yeah, mom of the fuckin’ year here.

Eventually they said the kids could go play out back where they’d set up a princess sort of carriage. Spook went nuts playing with other kids, although right off the bat a 7 year old girl whacked her with a toy so she has a mark on her forehead. I did not like that little girl. She saw Spook playing with her brother’s truck and took it away but then tried to help herself to my kid’s tye dye puppy. NOT cool, you little demonoid. (I was so uncomfortable and panicky, I may have been under altered perception.)

Anyway, it’s not a great pic cos the sun was bright and my phone camera is crap but here is Spook poking her head out of the princess carriage.

The coolness points for L’s second set of grandparents went way the fuck up when I found this beauty in their yard. I love freaking gargoyles.

Anyway…I spent most of the party outside with the kids, I mean, I attempted to go inside with my kid to get food…But oh no, she had to have a screaming mimi, running through the house screaming had the top of her lungs “No, mommy, you hurt me!” Which considering I couldn’t get within a foot of her without her kicking me, is funny. R’s stepfather actually took her outside and gave her money cos he thought she was upset that L was getting gifts and she wasn’t. I tried to tell him it was not necessary, she was just mad that I was going to make her eat, but he told me to go buy the kid a present. Nice gesture, but…

Her fit and his gesture of kindness (which made me feel like “people see me as too poor to buy me a kid a damn toy) damn near had me in tears. I sat outside while she played and fought it off, but I couldn;t wait to bolt. Especially when R’s sisters showed up. T likes me, we used to work together and be friends. The other sister, M, never could stand me when R and I were together so that was not fun. To my credit, I didn’t return her dirty looks even tho I had to turn my back to avoid doing so.

I had to keep doing breathing exercises to ward off the panic, even at one point taking Spook out to the car so I could gather my bearings. With all those witnesses and me acting so squirrelly and sitting outside, seeming so anti social…It sucked. For me. Spook had fun, though, and I guess that’s all that matters.

I saw others making an exit, and so did we. Said bye to T and the baby and thanked her for having us, then straight home.

I fed my kid, put her in jammies, then to bed we went.

I woke feeling  more hungover than I ever had from any drunk.

Everyone says, hey you made it, you survived, it wasn’t so bad.

It was bad. For me. No one gets that. That two and a half hours pretty much sucked everything out of me and took my whole day away for the most part. Yeah, who wouldn’t view that as a victory?

Today…I must get groceries. Then I must get caught up on the laundry that amassed while my drain was clogged.

Other than that, I am doing shit. I am watching The Vampire Diaries and tending to my spawn and that is it. Reality can bite me.

I survived, but the thought of 15 more years of outings of this nature…Selfish as it may be, it just points out that maybe I am not a good mom and she would be better off without me.

Oh,well. This particular hell ride is over and she had fun and now a bunch of people I don’t know are likely talking about the mom who couldn’t control her kid and who ruined part of the party with her fits.

Yeah, a success.

Fuck me.