Daily Archives: July 22, 2014

(I did something to screw up the format of this post, my bad, I can’t be arsed to figure it out and fix it.)

My kid’s new thing is, “That’s not my favorite” (place to sit, food to eat, et al).

So I am gonna rip her off for this post’s title.

I got up bright and early today and showered. Then I went back to sleep, hit snooze six times, and overslept big time. Which put me into a panic trying to rush about and get ready to go to the shop. My mood was livid. I couldn’t think of a single good thing. It was like this dark cloud looming overhead and no matter how hard I tried to talk myself out of it, it lingered and enveloped and smothered me.

It’s the precursor to the seasonal depression, except the last couple of years it’s started kicking in months ahead of the old usual. Yes, there are a lot of stressors on the horizon that affect my mood. This goes beyond that. This is like poison flowing through my veins and brain, telling me everything is shit, nothing will get better. It’s an oppressive all encompassing sadness I feel to my bone marrow and I don’t like it. Sliding down the rabbit hole is the bane of my existence.

Nonetheless, I went to the shop and faked my way through almost 5 hours of multiple tvs running simultaneously, ringing phones, making calls, and being subjected to R’s “Watch this, this is amazing” youtube videos of Styx. I’m not a big Styx fan so it’s kind of grueling. And my brain just wasn’t in it, I made a couple of math mistakes on tickets and he asked what was wrong with me that I couldn’t do basic math. Well, when you’re sliding down the rabbit hole, it gets that way. My anxiety was brimming, my mood was low, and the fact I even got there was impressive to me. Every instinct I had wanted to trip down a staircase just to have an excuse to avoid the dish.

It got better after I picked up the “new” desktop, grabbed some groceries, and came home.

Now it’s slipping again.

Up, down, all around. Ass fucking trash.

I’ve thought for some time now the Lamictal simply isn’t doing what it used to but I am reluctant to speak up because this current shrink seems to be a bit aggravated with my medi-go-round routine. It’s not on purpose, ffs. I’d love to find the magic bullet combo and stick with it for life. My stupid brain chemicals don’t want to cooperate. It’s not personality. If it were, I wouldn’t run in cycles without regard to environment and stressors.

I dunno.

Problem to ponder another day.

Now I am gonna vegetate and see if my head will stop aching from all the tension bundling me up like a bale of hay.

Something I just noticed, because I am dense this way…

Mood is doom spelled backwards.

So fitting.

(Response to Things My Brain Tells Me in the Middle of the Night.) I am here, I am savvy, I am strong, I am strong! Why should I call myself bitter names ...

Well, the process of breaking down a household after 11+ years has begun. Decades’ worth of books are in boxes to be sold at our garage sale; no need to have them around since I can’t focus my attention on books anymore. Of course I’ve kept the 45-year-old encyclopedias and the books from nursing school, as outdated as they are; maybe they’ll be worth something as antiques someday. There is also a set of books on the Presidents that my mother bought me, one by one, as they came out each month at the supermarket. They only go through LBJ—that’s how old they are—but the sentimental value is such that I’ll never get rid of them. Or the books from my childhood.

Oh, look: here is the punchbowl set I’ve had since I first moved out of my parents’ house. I still use it on occasion, so it stays. So will the dining room table and chairs, even though there’s only Will and I now and the only time people sit around the table is when the kids come over for dinner. It’s piled high now with sale items, so we can’t use it right now even if we wanted to. I also won’t be giving up the fancy glassware and dishes I still use for Thanksgiving and Christmas, the electric skillet my sister Louise got for me about 30 years ago and still works, or my mother’s turkey platter.

I AM getting rid of a batch of DVD movies and CDs, though. Most of those movies are on cable often enough that I never watch the DVD version, and of course with 2 iPods, I’m pretty much over CDs. I’m keeping some though, so at some point in life where I’m NOT running around with my hair on fire, I’ll import them to my main iPod and then get rid of them.

What I’m trying to remember, though, is that every single Item we don’t sell, give away, or pitch is an item we have to move, either to a storage facility or a house/apartment we don’t have yet. That’s why about half my wardrobe is going—if I ever reach a size 14 again in this lifetime, I’ll want new stuff anyway—and why I’m going to be tough on myself about the Christmas decorations (I have enough for a 15-room mansion). I mean, who needs THREE artificial trees?

I also have some costume jewelry that makes me wonder just what in the hell I was thinking when I bought it. I know I’ve gone through different fashion phases, and of course there’s that bipolar spending thing where I buy stuff just because I can. I’m not sure I can tell the difference when I look at the crazy earrings and choker necklaces on the table before me…..in fact, I have no memory of even buying most of it. That’s probably a good thing.

Then, there’s my carnival glass. This is glass that’s been made in such a way that there are iridescent streaks in it, and it’s beautiful. It’s called carnival glass because they used to give it away at carnivals way back in the 1920s and ’30s. I went through a period about 15 years ago when I collected tons of it (again with the manic shopping) and now most of it has been wrapped up in boxes out in the garage for the past decade. I know I need to get rid of it—if I haven’t used it or even displayed it in all these years, I certainly can do without it. But it won’t be easy. Maybe I’ll just sell the pieces that I’m not using and keep the ones I have out and around the house…..

It’s overwhelming, this business of moving after so many years in the same house. Everywhere I look, there’s more stuff to be gone through and either marked for sale, put away in boxes, or thrown away. I’ve found family pictures in some of the most unusual places (a hatbox, a briefcase, even among a batch of old 1040 tax forms and bankruptcy papers). Can’t get rid of those…..some of them even prove that I wasn’t always fat and middle-aged.

We needed to do this years ago. Why didn’t we? 

 

It had been a good day, a really good day, actually. Work was a good pace, not too busy and not too slow. I felt that I really connected with a patient who was emotionally pained, and we prayed together. My coworkers and I all got along and laughed. The sun was out and I had a healthy and satisfying meal. As is my usual custom, I turned on Pandora and then a song came on that hit me like a sucker punch.

Had this song not been recorded prior to my relationship with my former fiancee, I would swear it was about us. The pain I thought I was past came rushing back. I wonder if this is a hurt that will never truly heal, if I will be haunted by these ghosts forever.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: heartbreak, loss, music, pain

My mood was good for the most part today, stress minimal, even my kid was in a decent firing mode.

THEN…

I get a call from R, reminding me the dish exists and isn’t some nightmare I conjured up. He found me a desktop and if i come help him he will pay for 60% of it. Awesome. Unfortunately, to come up with my forty percent, I have to bum off bex until my check comes. I hate doing that, it makes me feel like pond scum. But I need a new computer, or different one, even it does come with Vista. (ASS TRASH OS) Meh, I lived with Migraine Edition.

He wants me to come look up parts in exchange for covering most of it. I feel like i’ve sold my soul. I feel smothered. The panic is creeping up. I wanted to go to bed but now it’s out of dread for tomorrow instead of just wanting to relax and rest. I don’t know why I get this way sometimes, i just do. The anxiety is crushing. like being gripped by a boa constrictor and feeling your bones snap under its grip.

I hate being such a trainwreck. I hate even more that no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to talk my brain out of feeling this way. Even if I distract myself on one level, my brain continues reeling and sending the message “you can’t breathe”. It’s insanity.

Toss in the reality (which we both try to deny vehemently) that Becca’s time is dwindling to nothing and she will soon have to go home whether either of us like it or not…

I really can’t breathe, at least not easily. It’s like living in a perpetual mild state of hyperventilation. NO matter how much air you suck in, you can’t get enough and all you can do is ride it out and hope it ends soon.

In my case, it never does end, it just takes a breather (ha ha ha) for brief respites.

Ass trash.

I keep telling myself, i go do this, get my soul back after a couple days’ servitude, and I solve one of my biggest problems, ie, the lack of a desktop computer. I win. Yet it feels like a loss, of self, of sanity, of calm.

I’ll try to make the most of it tomorrow.

For tonight, though, I am in that creepy mental illness place where it feels like I’m locked in a cell with a pillow over my face. Anxiety, the gift that keeps taking and giving.

I don’t know if I have posted this before, I may have a long time ago, but as I feel that I am off to tea with the Mad Hatter and The Red Queen has most definitely lost her head, I thought it might be appropriate. So, much for stable madness….I am moving towards the […]