I’m Writing!!

Yes, I know blogging is a form of writing, but the stuff that I pull out of thin air, the writing that makes me feel like I am who I am meant to be, that’s the writing I’m talking about.  True, it’s not Chaucer or even Cartland, but it’s mine, it’s me and it’s wonderful!  I’ve had a really good day.  I mean, really good day emotionally, mentally the whole shebang.  Taking all but one of my social meds first thing in the morning is the best idea I’ve had in what feels like eons, but it’s working.

I know what I said earlier, in my last post that I wasn’t going to drop my class for school, but I talked it over with the one person that knows me better than anyone living, and she was a little shocked and made me think that the sleeping in the car had a few too many moving parts to it and it really wouldn’t be safe.  It turns out the knives I’ve bought are illegal to carry, but another friend of mine told me about some other tools that would be more effective and legal as all get out.  They’re called tactical pens and tactical flashlights. 

But I’m going to save that for another blog.  I just wanted to shout from the top of the Blog….I’M WRITING!!!

Lucy is an IDIOT…….5₵ Seriously?

I don’t really see how Lucy kept her sanity while counseling people for 5₵.  Maybe chasing the ever aloof Schroder is her release from the cares of her patients.  5₵ is not nearly enough, $5,000 an hour doesn’t even intrigue me.  I am as interested I practicing psychiatry or participate in the mental health profession about as much as Charlie Brown liked Peppermint Patty “that way”.  Yet Mom seems to insist on using me as a one-stop-shop kind of therapist where she can drop off her cares and troubles and have me just happily take on the vitreous she spews about me, about my sisters, about how horrible and unsuccessful her whole life has been.  She is hurting in so many ways because the prednisone seemed to have ripped off the rose-colored glasses she used when looking backwards at her life.  With clearer vision she, of course, begins to compare hers to the people we know now in Saratoga California and they are successful and well moneyed.  She feels that she is entitled to having money because she made bad choices that really hurt her, if not physically then emotionally.  I just wanted to grab her at one point and tell her to get over herself and stop dwelling on what you don’t have and on what she does…..but that too, would give her cause to call someone and accuse me of Elder Abuse so she could add to her cadre of horrors.

My portion of her raving comprised how I don’t do my work here, and what I do do isn’t worth my hire.  She wants me to put in at least 45 minutes a day, because most people in the world have a full time job AND come home and fix dinner.  Heaven knows she did.  Though the kindness I show her is nice, it’s not what I am hired to do, and I need to put more of an effort in to make sure we don’t lose the new care giver.  Apparently she wasn’t happy with the three or four things I left in the sink.  So, I did the math.  52 hrs a month works out to be about 1.75 hrs a day.  So, I will do my hours and then be done with it.  There!

Making that decision seemed to end the conversation in my head until I started to peel back my motives and her motives behind everything.  Even before she got on the steroids she was hinting that I wasn’t living up to my end of the agreement.  I was feeling overwhelmed with work, church, family, OA, and now school.  I’m both excited and scared for that.  But it means that she will be seeing less of me, she is scared that she will be left alone, or whatever it is in her brain that makes it hard for her to let go and let me be out in the world.  It’s the “I don’t feel well, can you come home early?” instinct that she doesn’t say outright but the actions are there.  Yes, I’m inferring a lot of this from her body language, and from past behavior I have nothing specific and recent to present.  As much as she wants me to fly and to reach my goals, she doesn’t want me to because she is afraid I’m going to quit her and go to Oregon.  I’m not, I’ve told her I’m not but because of how many times she’s been hurt in the past, because of the abuse and the feeling she isn’t worthy to be loved, because the only tools she has to express herself is anger and venom she doesn’t have the wherewithal to not only be open and honest with me let a lone herself.

So, what does this mean to my future as a phlebotomist.  Am I going to quit and stay home with her….HELL NO.  I need to do this, and I need to do this now.  I need to push myself until I can’t take another step.  If I can’t do it, I’ll add more medication to the pile until I can.  (Yes, I know, drugs aren’t the answer, but they are a tool).  I will be conscious enough to put in my 1.75 hrs a day, which will be even less per day if I have to give some hours to the new one to stay, but I won’t just be her employee, which is the true meaning behind the “There!”.  I was going to work for her and then go to my room and go to bed.  That’s not who I want to be, that’s not who I’m meant to be.  A fully mindful person doesn’t allow her own anger from seeing the thorn in the side of the person that bit her to begin with. 

The one thing I need to never, ever do again, is to be Lucy, my own sanity is worth more than 5₵.

 

Disturbing Thoughts

Okay, nothing new for me but Mom made a point of pushing every single one of my buttons today with a 15lbs sledge hammer. Doing the dishes this morning, (a victory by her standards as a result of her tantrum earlier) I kept holding the fugly football shaped glasses and wanting to smash it against the side of the white sink just to see how bad bad could get. I know that’s wanting to cause myself harm but I really don’t think I would nut-up to do it. At least not today, I have a hair appointment. My calendar is free next Saturday.

Little Miss Cranky Pants

Mom is happily watching her 49ers play while I’m tucked inside the “cooling room”, the only room in the house where I can  bring the temperature down to a livable level for me…like in the mid 60s.  With headphones and a stockpile of cookies you’d think I’d be a happy camper, but no.  I’m irritated, my eyes want to pull down the lids and block out the world.  I’ve only taken my puppy upper pills this morning but that’s about it.  I need to change that so I don’t miss them any more.  I can be such an idiot sometimes.  I know better, I’ve seen the difference in myself between medicated and non medicated, the world knows the difference when I’m medicated or not medicated.  And yet I let these slips happen.  I’m such an idiot.

I want to just hide away in my room, in my bed where it’s safe.  And I would too, if my mother could take care of herself in the least.  She likes having a lady-in-waiting.  It fulfills her imagined royal imagining that she is of royal blood, the she was ripped from the courts of the refined and noble world and put into the mire with the rest of us peasants.  I’m not kidding.  It’s put more sarcastically than I probably should state, but since I discovered that we really are related to the Plantagenet kings of England it has amplified her delusions of royalty.  I haven’t researched the bloodline but I’m sure we’re there by way of a Fitz-Something*.

Okay, I know, cranky.  If I had the patience I’d try to write this out in my journal, or if I had the energy I’d try to get some work done or my beads put together.  I’ve decided that when I can sit and do 100 Om Mani Padme Hum’s in one sitting with beads interspersed for deep breaths then I will have the discipline to move into a more focused, or Zen like mediation.  That is a worthy thing to do, especially for the Sabbath, but F it, I think I’ll take a nap instead.

Om. Om. O My!

I started meditation. But not guided meditation like before. The woman’s once soothing dulcet tones were starting to annoy me. So I decided to go the more Old School traditional. So I chant…….

Om Mani Padme Hum

Yes it feels silly some times but trying to remember the sounds takes a lot of my mental concentration. Each syllable has a meaning. For example Om means generosity or hum means wisdom. I say this to myself when I need to take a pause or when I have a pause and instead of doing I chant. I can’t say that it’s miraculously cured me, dang it, but I felt the hum of wisdom this morning while I was stuck in traffic already irritatingly late to work.

I guess what it basically boils down to is I’m scared. I’m scared that I won’t be able to handle the extra load of taking classes, that I’ll drive off the twisty-windy road and plummet to my death because my eye lids were too heavy to keep open during the coming and going to class. More likely than not it will prove too much for me and I’ll have to withdraw from class and take an F or incomplete and have to start all over again. Wisdom stepped in and calmed my mind and simply said:

“Not trying is guaranteed failure. Trying and failing is practice for the time you try and achieve.”

So I’m now trying to decide which is better. Going to a semester long class close to the ocean or two quarter classes close to home. I guess I need to keep Om Mani Padme Hum spinning along with my brain until something flys out at me.

What do you think I should do?

Wanting Vs. Doing Vs. Needing

I want……….

  • to go back to school to spiff up my phlebotomy credentials (long story)
  • to write at night and on weekends
  • to have a clean and neat room, with my bed made and laundry done
  • to go on hikes on weekends and maybe learn to Glamp from time to time
  • to make jewelry for gifts and for myself….maybe even to sell
  •  to keep working a full time job so I can have a full time pay

Vs.

I’m doing……….

  • 8hrs a day on a less than taxing job but still need to take a nap in my car
  • I’m registering for school but will have to do it in person instead of online, terrified I’ll sleep through it or fail
  • I clean my room by turning off the light and turning on the TV
  • I get out of bed late on weekends and then require a few naps to get through the day
  • The thought of pulling out and putting away all my jewelry making stuff is exhausting in itself
  • Honestly, I don’t know how I’ve been able to keep a full time job.

Okay, I’m tired right now. I really have no reason to be, other than I stayed up too late last night. But when I’m in these moods I wonder if I will ever be able to have a normal life, if I’ve ever had a normal life. My Mom is insistent that I just need to “push through” and “fight back” and basically “get over it” and I will be fine. Sometimes I think she’s right, very rarely, and I try and spin myself back out of control. I think I need a routine…a “doing” and slowly build from there. I keep changing this idea of what my day should look like beyond going to work, going home, going to bed, getting up and going to work, going home, going to bed.

Right now I’m thinking that Mediation is the direction I should be going in. Of course I can’t do that until I have a space cleaned in my room, which means I need to work in my room, which means I need to do my laundry and find a meditation pillow and make hand knotted-silk strung beads and a tassel for meditation……See how the wanting and the doing are always dancing?

I need to……….

  • JUST meditate

    • I don’t need a clean room to do it
    • I don’t need my laundry clean to do it
    • I don’t need a special pillow to do it
    • I don’t need specially strung beads to do it (yet, I want them because it means shopping and creating)

The only thing I need to do is make time. Or in my case take time.  And take comfort in the hope that the needful will allow for the mental space for doing the wanting.

Good Bye, Mr. Williams

I wanted to express my deep sadness at the passing of Robin Williams.  It saddens me that a man who brought so much joy and happiness to so many people was suffering so deeply inside.  I know the angels in heaven are falling off their clouds with laughter, but it doesn’t soften the tears on earth.  You will be missed.

The End is Nigh….or not.

The diaphanous veil between the living and the dead is getting thinner.  I can feel my father closer, my brother.  They are waiting.  I can’t really say this to my family because we’ve been saying “Mom won’t make the next XYZ” for the last 24 years. It’s gotten to the point where we won’t believe it until we see it.  And who knows how long a person can.

I want her to have a good end of life, but I don’t know how to bring that about.  She has a DNR, C. will make the final judgment if we need to turn off her machines and pacemaker. (there will be mighty discussions between the three of us girls before hand, it’s not just hers alone)  Her cremation is paid for, our plan to have a boat take us out to the Golden Gate Bridge or beyond to allow her to travel the way she never could in mortality.   I guess now it’s just a matter of all the family to make amends with their own soul and forgive grandma/great grandma and let her go being loved.  She wasn’t trying to hurt us, not consciously anyway.  She wanted what was best for us, even if what she wanted was skewed towards what she needed more, but truly is that her fault?  She relied on the way she was raised, and the pain she experienced on our side of the conversation must have been worse as she believes she wasn’t loved or wanted.  Mom wanted us, she loved us to the best of her ability and with the few tools she was given, and isn’t that all what we can do?  Holding someone to a standard you hold yourself to is just as unfair, lacking compassion and sincerely extremely selfish to the point of narcissism.  True narcissism isn’t something you choose, it’s not like fat where you can go on a diet and emerge a shadow of what you used to be….Narcissists don’t believe the need help or to change, the rest of the world should.  I wish I could take this understanding, acceptance and love and share this enlightenment I’ve been given to my family but I can’t, and even if I can will they have the frame of reference of the months past to understand it with.  Or the desire to truly forgive her and let her go?
The depression and the tentacle like grip the other accessory ailments has robbed me of the ability to feel a lot of feelings.  Well all feelings except anger.  With the containment and proper placement of that merciless flame  the other emotions are coming to the surface and I can say something I never thought I would be able to say.  I love my mother.  I started this journey hating her and silently planning her funeral like a mother plans her daughters wedding.  My biggest fear was that I would hum “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” in my pew at her funeral, now I’m not afraid to loose her, or my reaction to it, but mostly that I will be unable to take care of myself without her to remind me to eat, to wake me up when I fall asleep on the couch, to guilt me into cleaning up the house. (I know, I’m a grown up, for heaven sakes, I should be be doing that for myself already).
This feeling of love for my mother and the spiritual lifting I’ve had over the last several weeks makes me wonder if that’s why I am able to feel the veil so close.  The only thing you really take with you is your knowledge and your love.  Love you give is the silken strands that weave your body for the next life and the love you receive is the decoration.  Or so is my belief.
(I’m not saying my Mom is in the throws of dying, she’s not.  I do know her body is starting to give up and betray her in ways she never thought it could.  I’m just saying there are people waiting for her and I can feel their presence.  It could happen today (better not it’s my birthday and her sister already died on my birthday) or it could happen next week/month/year/decade etc.  My nephew J has a saying “At the end of time there will be Dick Clark (rip), Grandma and cockroaches.”  There are days when I look into her eyes and see the steel will to live and I actually start to believe that he isn’t far from wrong.)

The Waiting Is The Hard Part

I have a vacation coming up.  Not really a vacation the way you think of it.  Both of my jobs don’t have any kind of paid time off per se, but even if I don’t get paid for one, not having to have to do it would be a vacation, and that’s what I’m looking at.  Mom is going to go to Baltimore to visit P with my sister C for TEN WHOLE DAYS including two weekends.  The waiting is driving me insane.  Though the Wellbutrin is doing me good, the stress of both jobs in general is sucking the serotonin right off my brain.  I believe it’s referred to as burn out, but I can hold on….I can hold on…..I can hold on….until Thursday of this week.  I go to work, Mom is at home, I come home and Mom is gone.  I can go to bed when I want, I don’t have to watch TV if I don’t want, and I can read, do crafts, play with Sammy, do anything I want for ten whole days.  Even if I do nothing.  

I know it doesn’t sound like much of a difference since I’m still doing 8 hrs a day at a job, but my life has been very hectic (thanks to the Wellbutrin!! Yea):

  • Job
  • Mom
  • Church
  • OA
  • Work out
  • Mom
  • Sammy (who has been seriously neglected in all of this)
  • Writing (mostly poetry about Grace and my Steps…the Steps poetry will be posted here eventually)

(Yes, I know I put Mom twice.  There is the doing with Mom and doing for Mom, two different jobs in my mind)

And then I keep reminding myself of what I need to do:

  • Meditation
  • Planning my meals
  • Cooking for myself
  • More exercise
  • Laundry
  • Cleaning
  • Sammy
  • Writing/Editing my books
  • Journaling

Well, I say I need meditating, I have found a form of meditation.  It’s called 750 Words.  It’s a site where you can just let your consciousness stream out all over the page and be done with it.  Basically clearing all the detritus off the brain from the day and dreams before and just get it out in preparation for the day ahead.  I’ve found it good for dumping anger, for working out personalities in my books, especially when they keep asserting themselves during the day when I’m trying to focus on other things.  I copy and paste blogs and poems into it because I consider that to be part of that kind of writing.  And I work on the concepts behind my blog posts as well.  The cool thing is no one but me can see them.  I can write all sorts of nonsense, I don’t have to spell correctly, I can swear if I’m inclined to without fear of offending…not that I fear offending but I’m trying not to take the simple way out.  It keeps my head from spinning and spinning and spinning and I’m able to focus more on specifics.  It’s a cool idea, a really cool site, and so helpful for me.

It’s still doesn’t abate the anxiety of the wait…..

Putting the Coo-Coo Back In The Clock

So, yea, that’s what I’ve been doing in my long absence.   It came to my attention that the chemical assistance I have relied on was failing me.  Not totally, I was better.  Really better.  I didn’t want to kill myself, or anyone else.  My work situation had improved, I wan no longer banging my head on a brick wall trying to do two different jobs, one with continually shifting rules so nothing was cut and dry.  I was surviving, and I thought surviving was enough to be well.  I couldn’t write, I couldn’t think to do anything beyond work and sleep.  Mostly focusing on sleep…sleeping and eating.  If I could combine the two I would have been in heaven.  I lost my ability to pray beyond “Heavenly Father, please just get me through,”  And He did.  But nothing more.

Finally I broke.  I realized what I needed to do was to get more drugs.  Yes. I know, I am a walking pharmacy with the anti-depression, anti-anxiety, diabetes, high blood pressure, vitamins and workout supplements.  Yes, I said workout supplements.  I’ll get to that in another blog.  I made an appointment to see my psychiatrist because he holds the prescription pad and talked to him about supplementing my already full pill sorter.  He gave me Wellbutrin…the generic form of it anyway.  All I’ve got to say is Dopamine is the fountain of youth for me.  Whoever thought up that drug is a demegod, he/she should win the nobel prize in medicine.   There are some things I’ve needed to adjust because of the side effects….like taking it at 5:00am or earlier every day, even the weekend.  I had to up my fiber intake because though I’m moving, other aspects of my life really isn’t.  But obviously, the side effects are NOTHING compared to the benefits of the drug.  I truly am, right now, a perfect billboard for the axiom:

Better living through pharmacology.

So, is the coo-coo completely back in the clock?  Does it still threaten to escape?  Of course, but at least now I have the energy to chase the little bugger back to where it needs to be.

I did want to point out it has been three years this month that I started this blog. I truly did not want this process to take so long. Looking back now I realize how even if I wanted to “fix me” quickly the very nature of depression makes it difficult to move quickly for anything. Especially if it requires me to get out of bed. I can finally say, though, comfortably, I am out of the void and starting to get traction away from the gravitational forces that keep wanting to hold me down.