Daily Archives: June 7, 2013

I have to share with you that I am feeling better this Friday afternoon than I have felt in several weeks.  This is because I kicked a toxic person out of my life a few hours ago.  I have now released the breath that I’ve been holding for the past six months as I walked […]

R beckoned this morning. I agreed to come in. My mood was stable at that time. Dropped my kid off at Mom’s and I was telling her about yesterday’s character assassination by his daughter…And I dared to make mention of mental illness and psych meds…And my mother tore into me about how NO ONE needs anti depressants and the like because then you get addicted to them and you can’t feel right without them…

The woman knows how to wound. I don’t know why I let it bother me. I’ve gone off my meds enough times to know that the problem I have is not some superfluous “I feel sad, give me pills” thing. But my mother somehow always manages to launch into a venomous tirade that makes me feel totally invalidated.

In fact, I am surrounded by people who seem to invalidate my existence on an hourly basis.

Wasn’t it Eleanor Roosevelt who said no one can make you feel inferior without your permission?

I don’t give anyone permission to make me feel inferior, and yet, day after day, it happens, because I spent so many years basically drifting through life without conscience or self awareness, now I have a conscience the size of the grand canyon and enough self awareness to second guess myself ay every turn. It makes my life kind of miserable. I don’t know how to shut it off, though. How do you not care anymore when everything people say seems to be directed at your flaws?

Part of me thinks I am just a pathetic wimp with a weak psyche.

Another part of me is convinced this newfound sensitivity to all of this outside stimuli is fall out from my mood stabilizer not working. Because this shit has been going on daily for, well, most of my life, so it’s nothing new. I handled it fine when the Lamictal was working. Once upon a time, on Lithium, judgment was everywhere, and I felt nothing.

So I don’t think I suddenly became the owner of a weak psyche. I think my emotional responses are running wild, because my moods are not being properly stabilized. Doesn’t make it a less bitter pill to swallow, but it’s logical.

Day was uneventful. I was fairly quiet. Did shit in robot mode. I am really hoping his intern shows up soon and he can have the whole kit and caboodle. Because R has always kind of irritated me with questioning my abilities, but lately, he has been second, third, and fourth guessing me. “Are you sure you can’t find it here?” “Are you sure you can’[t find it cheaper?” “Here, let me see what I can find.” He wanted me to reformat a computer the other day, because he had an outcall, so I sat down to do it, and he just kind of took over and was late for his outcall because he wanted to handle all the discs and make sure it all booted up properly. So what was the point of asking me to do it???? I  have mentioned it to him and he accused me of being overly sensitive. I wonder if someone second and third guessed him if he’d feel the same way. I am trying not to get my panties in too much of a bunch, but it’s difficult. My emotions are galloping off into the sunset these days.

Went to get lunch and started having a massive panic attack because there were these noises and I thought it was my car about to spontaneously combust. It wasn’t, but the pounding heart, sweating, terror, and paranoia were in full force.

After closing the shop, I was asked to take him to my dad’s place, which is 12 miles out of town in Bumfuck, so he could fix their dryer. And being the good shop wench, I agreed. Though I did make him pay for gas. I’m a bitch that way. Actually, I’m just really poor. 12 miles out of town is wayyyy outside my neurotic comfort zone, so I was not in a good place mentally. I almost never go to my dad’s and of course, everyone assumes its being unfriendly or lazy, but the truth is, I start freaking out being so far from my safe space. I have tried to explain this, but of course, no one buys the truth.

The whole time there all I could do was think about being home. How much longer is this gonna take? What if my place burns down, do they have a number on file at the rental office to call me? Are the cats out of food or water? Is his wife gonna be pissed off that he’s not home yet and blame me since he’s doing this work for my family? Round and round went the psycho thoughts.

Spook was playing with a neighbor girl so she had fun.

I had a headache. It just got worse. And while he finished the dryer in like an hour (well, diagnosed the problem, anyway), I was ready to  go and he stayed for a half hour yapping to my dad and his woman. He likes them, calls them salt of the earth people. (What his wife and daughter would call poor white trash.)

On the way back, he continued to talk about busted stuff, although he did extoll my virtues for finding a color wheel for sixty bucks when the average was over a hundred. Yay, I can use Google, give me the Nobel prize. I am not down on myself, at all. But honestly, I don’t do anything special. When I do something awesome, like write a 500 page novel, I do toot my own horn. But using Google and finding cheap prices? Not rocket science.

Wasn’t home five minutes and he called, prattling on about more busted stuff he wants to work on tomorrow. He was on beer 5 by then (the tall boys, not regular cans) and he was feeling good and talking about how clear his mind felt.

Whatever.

I took Tylenol and my headache is fading, but my kid is bawling because the neighborkids had to go home, so I can feel the edges of the headache coming back.

I am just tapped out. I feel so weak, but it’s the truth. I want to put my kid to bed, curl up in my own bed, finish that Kellerman book, and go to sleep.

I eagerly anticipate the many ways I will be invalidated tomorrow. NOT.

R invited us for the “regular” Friday night thing with his granddaughter. Said maybe we will play lawn darts. It sounds pretty concise, but I have no idea what they are. But Friday is my one day a week to have a couple of drinks, so maybe I will loosen up and have fun. Ha ha ha. It could happen.

Not likely in my current mindspace. Why did the Lamictal have to quit working, damn it? If there was a time to crumble into insanity, it would have been after the donor split and left me with a partial income and a kid to take care of. Instead, I sailed through all of that well, and now I am coming apart. It’s fucking stupid.

Ya know, I don’t expect to be validated by other people. I can find reasons that make me a worthwhile person. It’s just that being around people who have such negative opinions of people of my “ilk” really tears me down, day after day. I am fine, until I have to be brainwashed into thinking because I am poor, have a mental disorder, and don’t fit some societal norm that I am not a worthwhile human being.

I asked the counselor how to regulate my emotions and not feel this way.

In fact, I asked several times.

She never did give me an answer.

Geesh, my kid is in my face, I can’t think straight right now…I’m probably not gonna be thinking straight for two weeks, the Lithium, if she gives it to me, will take a few days to kick in, then a few more to get to therapeutic levels.

Perhaps the med situation is the biggest invalidation at the moment. I was doing so well, and now I’m not. I am not handling this fall from grace well.

Now…time to deal with this whiny child then go hibernate myself for a few hours.  I don’t like being in this place where reality is too exhausting and sleep is coveted. But with my mind so out of control…sleep seems the safest thing to do.