Category: Random Voidness

Closed for Business

Okay, so I’ve been hunkered down getting my New Years Resolutions together for the new year. This is one thing OCD is good for…organizing thoughts on paper and then trying to achieve the different tasks that are assigned each year. I will do a post later where I outline my mental/emotional goals. The overriding goal for the year is to be HEALTHY. I want to pull myself out of myself and try to re-engage in life and to no longer be a afraid of it. It will take some time, and I’m aware of this. I think with all the internal deconstruction I’ve done to turn myself inside out to be among the world would be like exposing a third degree burn to the sun on the hottest day in July. Much, much too painful. But I’m taking baby steps.

I’ve discovered if I make my bed in the morning I won’t crawl back into it at the first chance. I learned yesterday that it needs to be done while the bed is still warm otherwise I snuggle back into it. If I can find comfort outside of my bed to make me feel safe then I will become stronger. I’m not saying their won’t be bad days ever again where the only place I’m safe is my bed, but I’m saying in general, until the sky starts to fall again, my bed is closed  for business. Mom, of course, is thrilled I’m following her example (well, her helper person makes her bed). To her doing things like that means that I’m all better, not still in the process.

The other step I’m taking is trying to get my room organized and to keep it organized. For example, I want to turn part of my room into a yoga/Meditation space. But that is the space that I normally drop my clothes when I change out of my work attire. So, I’m training myself to change on the other side of the bed, tear down the pillows and fold back the comforter before I walk around and turn off the light. If I choose to leave my clothes on the floor, I can, or if I choose to put them in the sorting hamper, it’s totally up to me, but I will have my meditation/yoga/Zumba space if it kills me.

As for the near future, I am going to try and participate in Lent again. I didn’t do it last year because it’s not something I regularly do. So this year, instead of giving up anything I’m adding meditation and showering to my schedule. I know, showering is a strange thing to put down, but I’ve not been showering as much as I should and I want to fix it. So maybe if I do it every day for six week is something might stick….instead of stink.

Crazy + Christmas = Anxiety

I started my weekend before Christmas with a disturbing night of my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest, bringing with it images of me going to the ER, and trying to convince them I didn’t want to die, I wanted them to find out what was wrong but things just kept going wrong. I tossed a little and my heart settled down briefly before it would start again. I overslept, afraid to get out of bed.  Dressed in a dress that I used to wear to church and collapsed on the couch.  I was supposed to do so many things in preparation for the Holiday but I was torn between doing what I was supposed to do or go to the ER and get checked out.  To be cautious I took my pills, the blood pressure and anti-anxiety and anti-depressant.  It alleviated some, but I swear to you my chest was sore, and I wasn’t breathing deeply (although when I wanted to I could) I was sure I was going to die.

For someone who has the odd insensibility to take a serrated blade diagonally across my left wrist, dying of something I couldn’t control would be a blessing of sorts….right?  I realized I didn’t want to die.  I have been having too many ideas for books and things that I can do with my limited funds and time.  I was convinced in my terror that I was going to die.

When my sister came home with Mom and Mom had to run to the bathroom we had a few minutes alone.  I expressed to her my fear and then the floodgates broke and I cried.  I didn’t want to, I wanted to keep everything in.  Keeping everything in isn’t always the best way and just the brief amount of time I cried on her shoulder did a world of good.  I still felt frail and I wasn’t keen on the idea of driving to San Francisco and having an anxiety attack in the car or in my friend’s car or anywhere actually.  I missed church the next day, again afraid that I wouldn’t be able to not break down again.  I used the excuse that I didn’t have appropriate clothes, but we all know Heavenly Father loves us if we wear the wrong clothes to church, but I didn’t want to get out of my bed.

I survived the Christmas festivities with the family on Christmas Eve, and then the Dr. Who Christmas Special with friends on Christmas evening.  I’m back a work now, able to be back on my schedule of shots and pills and knowing that things will be okay if I just stay stalwart on that path.  I need to meditate.  I need to find things for myself.  Mom can join me, but I won’t pay for her and I won’t stay home unless she asks me.  I don’t ever want to be overwhelmed by Anxiety like that again.  It wasn’t a needful Christmas present.

OOOOOhhhhhhhmmmmmmm

Meditation. It pretty much says it all. I was incredulous at first. You hear about all these Born-Again Hippies chanting and making their lives better. How it’s the next weight loss fad. So, yes, I jumped on the fad-wagon and tried it. I don’t know what I was going to expect. Let me explain:

I had gone through a horrible patch where I wanted to just take a knife or scissors or something and just stab my thigh over and over again, thinking that would fix it or maybe cause me to feel something other than anger and disgust and anguish at my life. I settled for just pressing really, really hard with my needle and insulin and I ended up with huge rings of bruises on my thighs. It didn’t really help. Mom got her feelings hurt and her little tantrum really didn’t help either. But given time, and almost three months to pull myself back out of the whirling dervish of the emotional storm and get myself back on the voids edge. I’m still dealing with the set backs. It scared me suitably enough for me to go back to talk therapy at 7:00am Wednesday mornings. It’s helping. Right now we’re trying to figure out why I just don’t want to shower any more. I wash my hair when I absolutely have to, but beyond that, nothing. I am trying to do better, I really am.

I downloaded a about a year ago on our Kindle the “Simply Being” It’s a very simply guided meditation that doesn’t stress you out about not being able to hold your thoughts at bay long enough to do a 10 minute meditative session. I’m doing 20 minutes. The first couple of times I felt myself relax and a very agreeable and pleasant relaxation sort of just covered me. Lately it’s been a struggle. But doing it, whether or not it’s been successful or not has been a boon. I’ve been able to turn off the gushing spigot of anger when it hits me, I’m able to be patient when my mother is driving me up a wall with all her little requests and her ever so obvious mis-directed requests so she can get me to do things for her. For example, ask me to come from my room to see what I’m doing then asking me if I could get her water, dinner, desert, or whatever she needs at the time. (It’s almost funny, she really thinks I can’t see through it.)

My goal is to no longer need guided meditation, to have an hour a day to just relax and turn off my brain. Between that and the pain medication I’m taking for my stomach, I’m sleeping so much better, which again, aids in keeping my emotions in check. Although, I will say, I’m still susceptible to outbursts. I need to watch out for them. It’s silly, I know to believe I can completely eradicate all the anger and hatred in my life right now through 20 minutes of introspection three times a week, but I’m willing to give it a try.

My Last Birthday EVER.

That statement was my mothers “Good morning” to me today.  We missed church, and we are going to my sisters where she is going to feed me beef and cake.  Not on the same plate, but you get the idea.  Anyway, the statement got me thinking, and not that she’s right, just that I’vee been climbing back into my head and not leading with my heart.  True, she meant it because I’m fat, not that I’m regressing and retreatimg into my old world, living an internal life instead of forging forward and moving away from the bleeding edge. Let me explain….

I’ve been sort of planning life after Mom’s funeral.  How I’m going to decorate the house, what I’m going to get rid of and I’m not really going to keep anything.  Part is purging for my move out of state and dreaming about what that will be like, and part is just I don’t like the style of the crap we have.  I took time on Friday to go through the consignment store and took pictures of furniture I would like to use to make a salon in the front room, something Mom would never be for.  How I’m not going t show relief at the memorial no matter how much I want to.  It’s crass and cruel and even in some ways vicious to wait with baited breath for a loved one to die.  What can I say, I’m only human.

The other part of living in my head is the idea that I can eat anything I want because my doctor would rather I focus on my stress level rather than the diabetes at this time.  Apparently the heart is more important than the sugar.  So, I’ve been allowing myself the simple pleasures denied to me as a diabetic.  Safeway’s Colossal Carrot Cake is my current “stress relief” of choice.  They have got the cream cheese frosting down to perfection.  It’s sweet without killing your sweet tooth and moist with a lot of raisens.  It’s divine.  True, I shouldn’t be praising the virtue of carrot cake, but it is the best I’ve ever had.  And like the name says, it’s colossal.  Yum.  But it does count against me, though I’m not supposed to let it worry me.  I’m sure I’m stretching the doctors good advise to fit my palate because I have a great doctor and she wouldn’t give me advise that will only hurt me in the end. But the emotional stress relief has been so wonderful, that I can buy something so yummy and be content for days afterwards is wonderful.

Okay, praise of the food is over, the reality I’m avoiding is starting to over flow my waist band.  To begin with I’m starting to see the extra girth it has added t my already generous form.  There is a new layer of fat on my body, brand-spanking new fat. You you can tell when your skin looses that crappy look and sooths out like a baby’s bum.  That doesn’t last long whenyou are over 40 (and in my case pushing 50).  I’m starting to get too big for my britches and my credit card is maxed.  So I need to figure out some way to make things work for me again. 

The main change that has to happen is not living, or truthfully, hding in my head and leading more with my heart.  No more planning on my Mom dying before my bad habbits killing me.  I know that’s a bit extreme, but I feel it’s true.  I want to live the life I’ve planned, I want my library and my own house that is just mine.  I want to be published, and to be able to support myself as a writer, having a simple job to hold me over between royalty checks.  I can’t have that if I don’t hunker down and start now.  I’ve forgone a lot of my life for my writing, I don’t want to loose any more for it.  Spending the time consoling myself with redcoration plans and my library I should be writng, I should be sending out my manuscripts and offer letters to other publishers until I get a bite.

If I can pick up speed with the amount of drag and hill I’m cruising on now, how much faster I will go when the girth and baggage is gone will make up for most everything I’ve had to give up for present, for the birthdays past and the girthday present.  I’ve only ever wanted to be published,  it would be a sin to die before that happens.

Lulu Blue

My car is blue, and I call her Lulu.   Lulu has been having motivational problems.  The engin is fine, the tires are fine, the brakes are fine, the transmission, on the other hand, is whining like a school-boy after getting his family jewels rearranged for the first time.  It seemed like the perfect metaphor to depression for me.  I recognize the engagement of the mind, racing and racing, going around and around in circles, having everything needed for forward motivation.  Sometimes jolting forward and squealing the tires, sometimes just listlessly motoring along praying to get from point D to point E on the journey of life.  Feeling like you’re never going to get to H no matter how long you try.  Don’t even think about J, that’s completely out of the question.  I consulted a professional and he told me t get this stuff called Lucas Slip-Stop.  So, I picked up a bottle and poured it into Lulu’s transmission.  And we got traction again!  There was motivation without whining.  I had my Lulu back.

How is this like me….Seriously, you need me to spell it out.  I feel like my beat up old Chevy in so many ways, and it’s like the physical incarnation of my emotional persona.  I feel every single mile of the more than 200k miles it’s carried me through, and seriously, I’m tired of carrying it around with me. (Not Lulu though, I love Lulu, that car runs on tithing blessings).  Because of the weight of all the baggage, the dirt, the grim, gunk and other deteriorating factors in my life, I am weighed down, unmotivated to move forward.  Enter Lexapro, the pharmaceutical equivalent of Slip-Stop.  It arressted my decline and with increased use and improvement I’m able to engage better with the world.  I can even contemplate navigating my own life, I think for the first time.

Like an idiot I kept fogetting to take my social meds over this week.  And trust me it doesn’t take long for the seratonin to drain out like transmission fuid through a faulty seal.  Stuff happens at work and I’m spinning and upset, frustrated and incapable of focusing.  I was even in enough of a snit to want to quit today.  I thought I progressed enough so when something so predictable happens I shouldn’t be phased by it, it’s an indication that something is low or in need of topping off. The best and most remarkable thing is that even though I’m angry and I keep having to have to take refuge in my “happy place”  I’m still fundamentally, deep-down, hopefully happy. I’m a little worried that I won’t ever be able to get off these meds to be normal…or to what my semblance of normal should be…..but I know that I can and will get through it.

I’ve purhased a few new books:

Darkness Visible

Fixing depression through mindfulness

Jesus Wept

And another one I don’t knw the name of right now.

I recognize that I’m out of the darkness of the void but being firmly planted here on the bleeding edge of it is scary and I’m aware it’s going to take work, preparation and in sme cases a heroic effort not to fall back into depression’s strong, locked, comfortable ever-waiting arms.

Happy Happy Happy Days

I have felt so happy lately.  Hopeful, happy and even, when I’m really still and listen really hard, I can feel joy.  Of course I love this feeling until the darkness, which shrinks away from the lightness of my soul, whisperes (you’re always happy, just before you die.).  Bastard.  But it’s a real fear.  It’s like I feel complete, that I’ve learned what I’ve needed to learn so I will depart from this earth, after wasting most of my time trying to get a grip, without becoming or completing my plans for this life.  But then wake up the next morning, happy, hopeful and almost giddy to face another day.  I am truly blessed.

And The Beat Goes On….

Though I am trying to embrace my inner child and not make some snarky remark about it, I have refrained from some of the other New Age philosophies of crystals for healing (I think they’re pretty, and I love what they’re supposed to represent, but I don’t use them in place of medication/medical servcies/common sense).  Just as the concept of “re-birthing”, trying to force yourself to remember emerging from the womb.  LIke ANYONE wants to have a visual passing through the cervex and vagina of their mother.  Ewww!  That said, I am completely in love with playing a heartbeat beneath all the sounds that I’m trying out to find what will put me straight to sleep, or at least comfortably to sleep.

I know you can do a repetitive sound and it will calm the baby and make them think they’re safe and back in the womb.  Well, it calmed this baby and I woke up so refreshed, so happy that it was down-right startling.  I felt so good about me, about life, about my jobs.  I was just plain happy.  It was as if all the medication, for one moment, worked in harmony and I was done.  So, the beat is going to go on as the third sound, the lowest sound and my mission while relaxing is to try and tease the stead thud-thum out from the crashing waves and crackling fire.

I need better sleep,I know that is a key if I want to get out of the void.  However, it’s at odds with my mother who is afraid I won’t hear her if she falls down in the middle of the night.  It’s a valid fear.  I sleep deep enough at times to sleep through a bomb explosion, but lately I just skim through the dreams and the skip off the slightest sound back into consciousness.  I realize I probably won’t have a full and complete night sleep until after Mom passes.  The question is, will I be able to hang on until then. My stress level is high enough for my doctor to want me to come in to have my blood pressure rechecked after having one high reading and to tell me not to exercise, just eat three meals a day for my diabetes and not to worry about anything else.  After having been lulled to sleep by the Tin Man of sorts, I feel like I’ve dropped almost half of the load that I have been carrying.  Yea Me!

How to Be….

There is this idea in the bible about casting the mote out of your own eye before you try to pick it out of someone elses.  It’s a good mantra to live by.  Why is it in my family, well, specifically my mother and sister C, believe they know what is best for me and have full license to tell me how to be.  I don’t need to be their creation, I don’t want to be their creation because from the safety behind my mote it appears they have totally f***ed up their life.  Okay, strong words, but one has to rely on the kindness of her family, and he’s damn lucky we are innately kind, and the other keeps chasing her happiness at the tip of a penis and is willing to sacrifice everything to that happiness, is no way to live.  You shouldn’t be….You need to be…..You have to be….I don’t want to be.  I’m in the process of redfining myself, that’s not a secrete, but the idea of rebaking myself isn’t to invite other short-order cooks to put their tooth-picks in to decide if I’m done yet or not. 

I will be who I am when I a have decided I am who I am meant to bs me.  How do I communicate that to people whose motes seem to extend into their  ears because when I try to explain what I am trying to be, they don’t hear it.  So, I will continue to whittle away my mote and try not to let their motes push me into a rage of insecurity against them and mostly, against myself.

Tumbling Backwards

I’ve got a job, I’ve got money.  You’d think that would be enough to make me happy, or sane, or whatever it is I’m supposed to be striving for here.  But no.  I’m sitting in my bed, twisted up with anger because Mom said something to hurt me, and I know she’s doing it on purpose.  No one can be that vile without knowing it.  And of course I fall prey to it every freaking time. 

I’ve been unable to continue with therapy, so I don’t have the sounding board that I normally have to help me put things into perspective.  I’ve not had the time to read and to center myself because as soon as I get in from work I have to play slave to the mother.  In her defense she is just coming off a gastric bleed and a stint in rehab, but that’s no reason not to say ‘Please’ in stead of ‘get me’.

I”ve bought a Franklin day planner again, I’m trying to get back to scheduling my life and my writing so I do it again.  Part of that is writing here and in my other blogs.  I need the creative release even if it’s just for a few minutes before bed to vent.  

How far have I fallen?  Well, the fact that I can kill a bag of white chocolate M&M’s in less than thirty minutes should be an indication. 

The Two Faces of Narcissism

We all know the basic truth of narcissism, the I Me Mine syndrome.  Yet, I’ve learned (Okay from a rather dubious source) there is another side of the big N.  The ever pressing need for approval and being liked.  Sound familiar??  I’ve worked hard for people’s approval, their laughter, their acceptance and then, thanks to my lack of trust issues, I don’t believe it when they approve of me, laugh with me or accept me.  Am I the antithesis of my mother?  It seems logical if you live with a sucking black hole of need for most of your entire life (pathetic, I know), you’re going to be continually pulled on by their gravitational yearning for fulfillment.  They never being able to be filled by your continual homage you rip from your soul to feed them builds the questions: Why aren’t I good enough?  C is.  S is getting there, but it seems like I will never be.  That’s not Mom’s fault.  That’s all mine.  I need to fill my own needs, balancing the I Me Mine syndrome with this self debasing, self-sacrificing (not in a good way) need to gain love, approval and attention.  I don’t need to step into the spotlight, but I don’t need to be the guy in the little alcove feeding lines and direction to the stars on stage either. 

How is this going to help me in the end?  How is this going to help me with my writing, other than the brutal honesty of just writing it?  I dunno.  It just struck me odd when I heard the second definition of narcissism on TV last night that it was me, I am a narcissist, just not a sucking void but a spewing void….a white hole, I believe is what they’re called in astrophysical circles.

This is something I’m going to have to discuss with Connie when I get my sessions back up and running now that I’m at work.  I don’t want to be a narcissist.  It’s a poisonous life to live.  It’s like poison oak, it’s pretty when you come across it the first time, but as you make friends with it you find out it completely contaminates everything you own, everything you are, and nothing short of peeling off your skin will make the pain stop.    I’m going to have to spend time with my journal on this as well….how can I stop it, how can I heal and how can I move forward are topics that need to be addressed.  Hopefully I’ll be able to make time for that sometime soon.