Category: Moving Forward

Life – Medication = A Dawn Of Discovery

I know, I know it’s been quite a while. I’m sorry. Some basic bullet points about me now….

  • I’m healthy
  • I’m happy more often then not
  • I’m working (and like most Americans I love my work but hate my job)
  • I drive a blood red hybrid with an astronomical car payment (soon to be refinanced)
  • I’m sane (thankfully)

So, it’s been over four years since the apocalypse. Proof that time flies even when you aren’t having fun. COVID-19 has been a boon for the medical industry and everyone is rushing out to get life insurance, and I, as the trusty insurance examiner, have been working pretty much non stop since June 2020. I found a fabulous therapist who has helped me curate tools and helped me build the shed to keep them in. When on medication I didn’t realize how desperately I needed them until the influence of the chemicals is waning and I’m left to my own devices. No one needs a lawnmower in a rock garden, kind of thing. When we last spoke I think I was on 20mg of Lexapro, 300mg of Wellbutrin and 30mg 2x day on Buspar. They are effective tools, but blunt and limiting. I’m now off Lexapro, 75mg Wellbutrin and 10mg Buspar 1x day. Life is starting to have sharper edges, my disdain for complacency is magnified and my utter frustration with the human race not being grown-ups is starting to take center stage in my mind these days. I can’t change the human race but I can make my life more comfortable so when the sharp edges stab at me I’m able to bob or weave or endure.

I am moving. My New Years Goals is to move away from this place….whether it’s up the street, down the block, a city over or a continental divide. Just get out of the rat hold I’ve lived in for the past 20+ years. With that goal comes the need to disgorge my life of everything I’ve collected, every piece of crap that I kept because it was associated with a happy memory, a piece of flotsam which is a representation of who I was/am/want to be. I haven’t seen most of it in over 10 years, I don’t need it. We’ll see what happens when I actually go through the stuff and I have to fight against the emotional currant to keep it. Getting rid of Mom’s stuff has been easy-peasy. It’s going to take a lot of effort and time so I’m giving myself a year to get through it. It will also give me time to get some sort of savings together for the move. I’ve been thinking I’d keep my job as an examiner so I can just transfer, get settled, get a new job then quit but I don’t think I’m going to be able to hold on that long. My job is the major part of my current frustration of the human race not being grown-ups thing.

For the last several years I’ve lived with a less than stellar array of roommates. One was a carry over from the Mothers care team, who told me I killed my mother because I didn’t clean the house (I kid you not, those were her exact words.), one was creepy kind of quiet who was desperate to get married, another doesn’t like anyone to touch her stuff and has threated twice to “make your life a living hell” and the final one believes, again, I kid you not, that solid cancer tumors are filters the body creates to remove the poisons out of the persons body; essentially saying they are good for you. I must attract them, I dunno. They have good qualities, those are just the high-lights. While medicated, I have always done my best to be personable, pleasant and honest in all my dealings with them. In essence I wanted them to like me, to be my friend to make up for all of the things I’m not as a human being. Off medication, I don’t care, well I do care but I don’t need them to love me, like me or even address me, they do have to respect and pay me. That’s all. This is scary territory for me, not being loved by everyone.

The voices in my head are still trying to convince me that if they don’t like me then there’s something wrong with me. That if they are unwilling to pay their portion of the utility bill it’s because I’m not explaining it correctly. It is my fault they are too afraid to ask to use the family-room the two hours I’m home to use it even after I’ve told them to tell me they wanted to use it. The reality is, I’ve explained my explanation to two different people, I’m explaining it correctly. Someone wasn’t expecting the bill so she doesn’t want to pay it. Period. If you want something and are too afraid to ask then that’s on you. That’s the way the world treats me. Period. The voices in my head are wrong and maybe I am a holy terror to live with, I think I’m fine, but until you live with someone you never really know, but the voices saying there is something wrong with me because they (the roommates) aren’t happy, that’s wrong. Maybe someday the feeling of frustration and irritation with people who behave like this will turn to sympathy and understanding of their lives; I just don’t think I’m that enlightened yet. Medication does wonders, but it’s not a miracle worker.

I have learned I hate living with people. I hate them touching my stuff, I hate them being disrespectful to my crappy furniture, and I hate having to have to knock on the bathroom door when I need to go, I hate them talking to my birds like they are friends with them (I know that sounds a little crazy, but if you are a bird person, you understand), I hate them eating my food, I hate having to have to tip-toe around them because they’re having a bad day/week/month/life, I hate unilateral conversations. After a long day of dealing with people I just want to come home, let the birds out of their cages and relax. I think it’s just human. It’s not wrong, it’s not weird and it’s not crazy. It’s just me.

Part of my New Years Goals is to have a writing block every day. This is my first public attempt. Let me know what you think.

Bad Bad Ju-Ju Go Away…

Come again some other day. (Perhaps I should preface that with NEVER)

It was a long weekend, and far too short at the same time. I eested mostly on Sunday because of what happened on Saturday. What happened on Saturday you ask….

  • Got up and walked to the bank to get cash in case what I had in my checking wouldn’t be enough.
  • Arranged for the tow on the Geico app and waited inside for about 1.5 hours and then went out to stand by my car….in the driveway.
  • Had a nice chat with the neighbor for about 30 minutes until the tow truck driver showed up (Finally!!!)
  • J. hooked my baby up to his truck. He tried to turn it over, you know, just in case. We chatted about birds and UFOs.
  • Got to Priemier Nissan in San Jose.

So far so good, right…..

  • Started to climb down from the cab of the truck, it the first step, I was out too far for the second step and missed the step. Luckily, the Lord was with me and kept me safe, though my arms got one heck of a stretch and my back slammed against the inner door frame. Ouchie!
  • Talked to Doc at Nissan and he was honest with me and said his team probably wouldn’t even get to plug it into the computer so no use waiting in the lounge, so I decided to go home by their shuttle.
  • The shuttle driver wasn’t coming back. I growled to myself. I still have a problem asking people for help….in this case pride literally went before the fall.
  • As I was gathering my stuff to go to the lounge to call around up DRIVES Doc with my car.

Sunday I got a call from him that said on a cursory look at the diagnostics there doesn’t appear to be any problems with her. He wanted to keep her until today so he could make sure.

Now I know I have a part in all this bad ju-ju. I consciencly decided I didn’t want to take ANY of my meds. There wasn’t a coherent reason other than I didn’t think I needed it. And I skipped again on Sunday. I couldn’ sleep last night, almost called in sick to school (in a two week course is untenable) so I got up, med-upped, donned my scrubs and went to school. I’m out now and waiting for the shuttle. I did okay sticking people and I was a good sport and let people stick me. However none of this explains why I’m tearing up. Stress is really kicking my a** right now.

I Vant To Draw Your Blood

I did it. I am in class this very moment, on lunch of course. The plasticity of the grey matter hasn’t snapped like an old rubber band with the effort, so I guess we can call it a success. I only have one more week and then two weeks off to study and then the certification exam, then externship and then getting a job. So I have a path that is laid out before me, and I’m confident I can stay on this path…..today anyway.

So as the last post mentioned I have been having a spate of bad ju-ju. It didn’t stop with denial of unemployment or getting my school date messed up….

  • My car worked early, early morning on Monday my first day of school but was totally dead when it was time to go to school. Result: had to take the bus AND the train and I was late to school. Positively though, I’m walking more than I have in months and I’m feeling better for it.
  • My grasp on acronyms is pathetic because there are soooooo many floating in my head from tech, from CNA, and just by making them up as I go along in life.
  • I’m not stupid, I’m not difficult to work with and I will conquer it. It just feels like it’s going to take forever.

I’m giving myself a pass on disposing of Moms stuff and finding a job that will pay extra money to save, to pay bills and to move is my next hurdle. I remember hurdles in high school. The aren’t something you can do without engaging your brain and your feet. Doing both takes the pressure of focusing on the fear, I’m not that afraid…at least not right now.

Rectal-Cranial Inversion

I suffer from two unknown syndromes.  RCI (Rectal Cranial Inversion) is an intermittent syndrome where my head somehow finds it’s way up my a**.  Lately it’s been in a constant condition that is starting to feel like the new norm.  The second is FFS (fat finger syndrome) where it doesn’t matter how hard you try to hit the right key you always hit the one next to it.  And with my current state of nails, even a larger keyboard poses a problem.

Why am I sharing this?

In Frailty to Faith I was talking about how scared I am about starting school Monday (Feb 5, 2018).  And I’m sure you can understand that given where my head has been lately.  I got my confirmation from school today to start June 4, 2018.  Somehow my lack of clear thought and fat fingers signed me up for the wrong class!  If I can’t extricate my head from my rear soon, I may never be able to watch Jeopardy again.

I’m terrified.  I don’t know if I’m going to get the right date at BAMA, I don’t know if I can financially survive until June 4.  Ideas like Lyft, Home Instead to be a granny nanny, Trader Joe’s to work the register and I’m still trying to get back on board with IHSS to keep my insurance. I know it will only be for a few months, that is if I can keep the job with my head so firmly up my fanny they don’t fire me for blatant stupidity.  I’m not being hard on myself, trust me, this isn’t the first RCI adventure in the last week or so.  The others are more embarrassing than this one.  I seriously felt my IQ drop at least 60 points….it was really, really, stooopid bad.

Faith is the key.  I keep telling myself to have faith, to have courage and to just trust in the Lord….but I’m still scared.  I tell myself I have faith, I have faith, I have faith.  Courage, like faith, is an action word but I don’t know how to act.  Trust is a rare commodity for me, but I am trying.

While working on the resolution for this kerfuffle I blundered myself into,  it occurred to me there are things that I can do in those four months that would really be useful and would give me time to piece my brain back together again.  So, if money wasn’t a problem, would it really hurt if I had to wait until June?  I dunno.

=========

Resolution: I was able to change my class back to Monday.  Now I just need to get rent covered and everything will be fine again…..well, once I pull my head out anyway.

Facing Frailty with Faith

The post I created on November 17, 2015 was about how I finally crossed the line between void and light….though the dimness was about the same but my psyche started leaning more towards the light instead of the dark (and bed).  I started reducing my meds, and then I started putting requirement on me like getting my CNA and HHA so I could get a job with hospice.  The only thing I learned from that course is that being a CNA is not what I want to be.  The information and skill set I learned helped me with Mom, but again, I don’t want to do that again.  Maybe if I were a mother myself the wiping my mom’s nether region wouldn’t have been as traumatizing……I dunno.

I mentioned that I came down on my anti anxiety pills, which is good, and I haven’t gone back up other than as needed for extreme stress/anxiety inducing situations….like the day Mom died.  I think I took 2 Xanax throughout the day instead of just one.  However, I’ve held steady with my other meds for the last 2 years since I wrote that post.  Now I’m unemployed, I have until February 10 before insurance goes poof so I need to get back into the field of being an in home support person.  I just signed up for school, so that’s going to put a strain on me, and I can’t exactly go down on my meds at this point…..

I’m scared.

What if I can’t afford COBRA, or Covered California?

What if no one wants to hire me because of my age/weight/toothlessness? (Mom liked to hammer on that nail all the time and I can still hear her “You’d be so pretty if you just got your tooth fixed” in my head).  We’ll get to this kind of stuff some other time.

I am teaching myself to self-soothe that doesn’t include cookies or candy or shopping.  I remind myself constantly that Heavenly Father didn’t create me to fail.  If I fail it’s because I fail to try.  I have to put my foot out to step and trust the ground will be there.  And though all these sentiments are rather trite they are no less true.  I just don’t know how to quell the fear that I a going to overload my brain and then rush back to the safety of my bed.  Staying in bed is so safe, so peaceful and so not the way to get anything done, but the warmth convinces me not to care……

I guess I sort of went off point, or maybe not.  I’m not, for the lack of a better word, better.  I’m also not back in the void.  I can feel the attraction still, the safety of the known.  I am looking forward to taking the Light-Rail to school, studying in the coffee shop just down the street from the school and how I’m going to study.  (key words, looking forward to)  I have the mobility to go back to the void and look in and choose not to be subsumed, and it can be a big pull some days/hours, or I can walk back out to the shaded sun I’m in now.   Maybe it will break me, maybe I’m not ready but it’s not going to stop me from trying.  Papa always paraphrased Matthew 17:20 to me:

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed…

nothing shall be impossible unto you.

I should be able to muster up the faith of a tiny mustard seed.

Clipping Time’s Wings

Everyone knows that time flies, and I’m getting to that rounded age to see it zoom by at super-sonic speeds.  I was looking at the calendar of this blog, how many times I wrote in one month, how when I was in crisis there would be a darkened square two to three times a week, and when things were masquerading as ‘normal’ it was lighter.  Then I saw when I birthed this baby my jaw dropped.  May 2011!!  It’s been over five years, and before that it was about five years before with round one.  I’ve been trying to grapple with this for over ten years now.

The goal of this blog was to find my way back into the light but to make sure I didn’t trip the dark fantastic again if at all possible. I know life isn’t going to be all sunshine and flowers, there will be bouts of sunburn and allergies too. Now where once there was blackness and anger there is hope and joy . I am not cured, I don’t know if there is a cure, but this is working for me, the writing thing, I just wish it didn’t need to take so freaking long. I guess I should work on my instant gratification issues too

The new goal is to re-post the enteries and figure out a plan of attack in the event of a fresh hell in the void and to shore up the processes I found helpful. Time willing it shouldn’t take another FIVE YEARS!

Reverse Pride

Reverse pride isn’t humility.  Humility is humility.  Reverse pride is when you are prideful of the fact you aren’t better than anyone else.  We all know this idiom:

Pride goeth before the fall.

I didn’t think that really applied to me because I was on the floor, I would never be ‘worthy’ of the grace of God, to take part of the sacrifice Christ provided for me.  Which is why my thoughts when I do something less than Christ-like I hear, “It doesn’t matter, I’m going to hell anyway”  I wrote it off to self-esteem problems.  I’ve been reading a book called “The Miracle of Forgiveness” and in the beginning it talks about pride.  It talked about how pride is also telling God who/what/where/why anything that isn’t in your responsibility to change or judgement you can pass.  I realized in a moment of clarity I hadn’t just been telling myself I’m bad and unworthy but I’ve been telling Christ I’m bad and unworthy and the grace He secured with his blood isn’t going to save me.  EVERYONE will have a share of His grace, no matter what they’ve been in this life.  Life is eternal, growth is eternal, the Grace of Christ is eternal.  With this knowledge came the realization of there is absolutely nothing I can do about my future, well, other than be the best person I can be.  No matter how messed up I perceive myself to be.  I have no control, and I am not perfect and neither of those are within my grasp or prevue anyway so I’m trying to figure out how I can better utilize the time feeling like an eternal-bug-in-the-radiator kind of person.  I’m moving forward towards my future again, it’s nice.

This begs the question: Why do I feel this way?  I’m not a bad person (in comparison to like Hitler, Dahmer, and the ilk).  They’re going to receive grace.  I’m not ‘useless’ or a ‘waste of clay’.  Where do these thoughts come from?  Is it that sometimes when someone corrects you by calling you stupid, where every other time it just bounces off your psychic armor until one day the chink is displayed and you are mortally wounded?  I’ve called myself stupid most of the time when I do something wrong, from burning dinner and blowing a tire to stubbing my toe on something I’ve left on the floor.  I’m far from stupid.  I still compare myself to others and, yes, that’s wrong, but I’m finding out all the useless information I seem to gather has made me rather intelligent.  Not to be prideful, but my last IQ test (online) I hit in the high 120’s.  If I could do math it might be a little higher but I suck at math.  How can I be so easily fooled and so completely without guile that I would believe everything bad and evil that I am told both inside and outside my head?  The bigger question is, how to I seal up that chink so the darts of negativity aren’t hitting the pink flesh beneath?  I am correcting my thoughts when I become aware of them, I try to keep positive quotes handy on my phone, my notebook, my walls, but how can I paper the inside of my head with them?  Any suggestions?  Please share.

Slip Sliding Away

In a lot of ways I’m still trying to stop the slip so please bear with me, I’ve tried to write this a few times and it just comes out in disjointed gibberish.  I will try to keep everything as simple as I can without too much fluff, which is when I get generally get lost.

I don’t remember what day last week I slept through my early AM pills.  Because it was late I didn’t take them but I did take the one I should have taken after breakfast.  It had been close to a full week since I was taking all my meds early, morning and evening pills.  I was barely holding on.

Tuesday I finished my CNA course and we had a certification program where we were all presented our papers which is my ticket to take the state test to start a new path.  It wasn’t that big of a deal to me until it was.  I made a point of getting a picture so I could put it in my journal.  I looked horrible.  The crush of the room was bothering me and ramping up my already jarred psyche so when it was over and the eating began I left.  I knew if I started to eat I wouldn’t stop and no one and nothing would be spared.  And there was food waiting for me at home and I could binge to my hearts contempt.  What I forgot to mention is that though I laid out my meds the night before, I didn’t take them…..and you can repeat that all the way to Saturday morning but by then it was too late.

Thanksgiving for my family was on Friday.  I was in a full blown anger hurricane and no one was safe.  I stayed in the corner and pretended I was ‘tired’….well, tired of all of them.  I ate only what I wanted; turkey, potatoes and dressing.  I was kind to the kids, although the youngest was put on my lap and when he felt the disruption in my aura he began to cry and try to get away from me….I really couldn’t blame him.

Saturday I took my pills again but my heart was racing, my breath was shallow, my blood pressure was all over the place and I just wanted to scream – I took a tranquilizer….and tranquil I did become.   My emotions flattened out and I slept for three hours, but my mind still hasn’t returned, it still can’t grasp anything and hold onto it for a long time.  Words slip off the tip of my tongue, ideas float just out of reach and my memory pulls up the wrong information and my mouth can’t stop it from tumbling out.

I’m back on my three doses a day.  I don’t know if I need to continue to slip to get back down to stable ground or if I need to start the climb again to where I was.  I just hope which ever it is it doesn’t take me back to a place I don’t want and can’t be again.   If there is any take away from this whole hellish experience is: DON’T GO OFF YOUR MEDS.  I’m not well, I’m not better, I’m not quitting.

Crossing the Line

Sorry, I’ve been distant, silent even.  Mostly because I did something wonderful and it confused me.  Let me explain…..

I went on vacation with my family, it was a wedding onboard a cruise ship and we were invited to join the happy couple for the honeymoon.  We all had our own rooms of course.  I brought a long two books; one pleasure and one enlightening.  I chose the Enlightening book first.  Before the end of the first day at sea I grabbed my book and went up to the top deck, sunglass/reading glasses in hand and a hat and read.   Within the first ten pages I came across a statement (that I can’t quote because it’s not exactly what I read but what I needed to hear) to the effect of:

There comes a time when introspection becomes indulgent.

It struck me so perfectly at that moment and I realized, every aspect of me said it was time to move on and move forward.  There was nothing more I could do with the deep dives into who, what, and why that makes me who, what, and why I’ve become.  I needed to put myself out there and try to put into place what I have learned, to build on the foundation that I have laid and hopefully not have any dead bodies hidden in the cement.  At many points in life we need to stop and do the self evaluation/inventory/mind-tripping that helps us move to the next level, but I feel like I’m all caught up now….

Crossing that line, the invisible line between the two worlds instigated a miraculous change in my psyche: I’m happy, I’m hope-filled, I have more energy, I am making plans for my future and are anxiously waiting to put that plan into motion.  (Mom is still doing well, so things are still as they were).  Crossing that line also gave me the push I needed to start  whittling down my meds.  I’m off one of my anxiety pills completely, I’ve cut my Lexapro in half, I’m still taking all my puppy uppers (Welbutrin).

I don’t know if I’m ready to go down another 10mg on my Lexapro.  This last jump down brought up the realization that I don’t really have the skills that I thought I had when  I was fully medicated, and emotions are starting to break through the chemical barricades.  I’m getting caught in the angry loops, but I have more success of talking myself out of them before I spin out of control.  I get overwhelmed and stymied easily , but if I just plug away at it, it gets done.  I’ve had to put some exercises into place so I could deal with the mental stuff, one of those is writing every day.  Which brings me back to the confusion….

For the longest time I used this blog as an integral part of my self exploration.  Anything too private was taken care of in my journal, and I’m back to journaling now too, but if continual introspection is self indulgent, it’s not something I should be engaging in if I want to move forward in my life.  And I’ve made some major strides in my life from March to now, but I didn’t know if I should start a new blog post-depression to write all the plans and the executions with both successes and failures or if I should just continue here; or should I do it at all?  I miss it, so I need to keep doing it .  I found that blogging my personal truths out into the world is an act of courage and bravery that makes me feel more courageous and brave in the real world. I think it’s not self indulgent if it isn’t wallowing in the dark but instead sharing the joy and excitement of rediscovering my life now that I’m outside the void.

Any input from my readers would be helpful.  Please,

Surrender Follow Up

I can breath again.  I never understood in the OA book how they wanted me to surrender to a Higher Power, I thought I had given myself to God and Christ years ago, but after the surrender, I realize I really haven’t. I don’t think I fight against Heavenly Father, per se, but I don’t always do things His way (meaning I’m addicted to the hard way) and in that I need to surrender my faith and trust that He will carry me through. I know if I could I would have a higher sense of the peace and comfort I’m feeling now in what I’m doing in my whole life. I can be a stubborn idiot in the face of simplicity..

On the darker side of the depression, I won’t surrender.  Yesterday I was close to tears more than thrice and I have no idea why.  It’s annoying to have emotions.  I know I will eventually need to give in and feel them again, but right now is not a good time.  I’m fairly happy, I’m hopeful and I’m planning for my future.  I have everything I need.  My wants on the other hand……