So, yes, the groundhog saw his shadow thus six more weeks of winter. Which is, as we all know, is some ridiculous but cute superstition because whether the groundhog sees his shadow or now…Spring doesn’t officially begin til the 20/21rst of March so we get seven weeks more of official winter whether we want it or not. The correlating factor to the groundhog tradition is…will it be light winter weather or will it be ‘kick you in the nards’ winter weather.
Not even the psychic hotline can predict that shit in the midwest.
Which means for those of us who battle crippling seasonal affective depression…We’re in for a bumpy ride, but just how bumpy? Time will tell…
Like Monday and Tuesday I was half ass functional. Yesterday I shut down. I literally could not drag my ass out of bed except to drop the kid off at school and pick her up. I had every intention of avoiding R’s wrath and appearing at the shop per his request. EVERY intention. But then I shoveled my handful of meds, decided to lay under the blankets until the alarm went off…Then the alarm kept going off. I hit snooze, set for every 5 minutes, and still…I kept nodding off. Which waking every 5 minutes isn’t that far off from waking every hour, like I did last night.
Suffice it to say R was not amused. I was waiting for his snarky text (not that I’d have been roused any more by that than an alarm going off every 5 minutes) but it never came and he had Mark there helping/hanging out so I wasn’t all that inclined to freak out. Fuck ’em. Well, to make him angrier, my lovely Safelink service didn’t even deliver the text til 8 hours after he sent it, which made it seem like I was blowing him off…
What did finally get me up and moving was my mom actually CALLING to tell me to come fetch a leftover turkey to feed the stray cats outside. Maybe because my ringer alert is louder than my text or alarm alert? No idea. But I did get up and moving. WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST CALL ANYMORE? This texting bullshit has lead to so many missed messages and misunderstood “it was meant as a joke and I had to take it as offensive and go off like a jerk” situations. Hate texting. HATE it.
That being said, on days when my paranoia and anxiety are so high I can’t answer a phone call…Texting is ok. Fucked up much, Morgue? I KNOW!
Trying to explain bipolar depression and all the medication side effects, sleep disturbances, to R is akin to trying to explain algebra to me. I am never gonna get it and neither is he. He cannot fathom anyone, even those who work graveyard shifts, sleeping “all day”. What he fails to understand, which even a six year old can, is that if you do not get enough deep sleep at night, then you take a bunch of pills any of which can cause random drowsiness, especially when a new med is added or increased, NAPPING ALL DAY MAKES ABSOLUTE SENSE.
Since he drinks himself to sleep every night and sleeps through, he gets rest. He doesn’t get what it is like to not get enough rest, ever, and to constantly hover between anxious hypo mania or somnolence when it comes to sleep. To him, even a knife thru the skull would just be a lame excuse to be lazy.
But every time I think “this friendship is toxic” he does something so amazing it’s like I can’t afford to cut off that life line. I have ZERO doubt my kid and I would still be without heat had it been left to the landlord and furnace guy yet R fixed it and we have been so toasty since…
Maybe I am the problem. Low irritation threshold. Inability to stop trying to educate those who simply don’t want to know.
The one plus this week was my shrink appointment. Now, I had to fetch my kid 45 mins early from school cos my appt was at 2 and they tend to run behind and I had no one else to get her so I took her with. Thank pegacorn I fetched her because they ran 35 mins behind. I was stunned to step on the scale and learn, in spite of eating a ton of fried cheddar cheese curds last month, I LOST weight. I was also shocked when my blood pressure was taken and it was 158 on top. I normally run 120. Which must have meant my anxiety was off the charts or I have some underlying condition that is probably going to kill me.
Aside from my shrink, the next doctor I see will be doing my autopsy. Hate doctors.
But the appt went well, Spook played quietly with some toys he had. He listened. Asked what I wanted to do. I told him increase the Wellbutrin. He agreed. I explained our last appointment and how I felt him calling disability “my new norm” had made me feel as if he didn’t believe I truly want to go back to work. He said nothing was further from the truth, as he can see, in the 2 plus years he has seen me, I’ve never reached remotely close to stable and reliable even for myself, let alone for work. He’d said that only to convince me to stop flogging myself and accept that at this time, I am unfit for work. A year from now I may not be.
Then came the ultimate compliment cos I got frustrated and said, “I’m 44 years old, this is never where I saw myself at this age.”
He exclaimed, “You’re 44? You don’t look it!”
Flattering even if proof they don’t read your chart.
Today I am going to try to go into the dish and pay bills and run errands. R texted last night asking if I’d come in today and I told him I had plans but could try to work around it then he came back with ‘never mind’. Yeah, whatever, Mark is gonna be there with him today and I have shit to do.
Will I get anything done? Remains to be seen. I’m still upright and awake at 8:30 a.m. so that’s a good sign, right? And I put on clean clothes, put gas in the car, repaid the $20 I owed R for the meds Spook needed for her earache and cold Monday…
So what is different today that is keeping me from being comatose in spite of me getting even less solid sleep last night? I ran out of Wellbutrin, need to get it filled today, starting to wonder if it might be the culprit. Maybe I need to take it at bed time. This medication thing is more art than science.
I just know I am trying my best and while not good enough for those around me, I need to listen to my doctor and stop kicking my own ass with guilt. Easier said than done but I will make an effort.
Okay, a couple of cutesy pics just to break up the same old same old rant.
This was sitting in the school office when I fetched Spook Monday.
And this is the lamp my sister got me for Christmas/birthday.
She also got me two pairs of earrings, middle fingers sticking up, but they are tiny studs and my shit camera won’t take a decent pic of them.
I think they will be the perfect thing to wear to school functions.
Yes. I will do ANYTHING to avoid being drafted into the PTO. That and…I cannot resist these middle fingers on my fists. (Thank you, Wednesday 13 for that lyric, I luurve you.)
And that’s all she wrote, for now.
