You know the saying….”I’m not paranoid, it’s a rumor started by those people who are out to get me”.  I guess I’m still suffering from a bit of paranoia.  And it’s not because I think people are out to get me.

Maybe history would help in this case…..

I belong to a small congregation of one of the largest churches in the world.  Because all the congregations are small, and we believe and practice a form of 1:1 type of teaching we all know what’s going on in everyone’s home.  No, we aren’t supposed to gossip, but truthfully, a religion that has almost every carnal sin band  makes gossip fly at a greater speeds.  Not in a catty way, but in a “how can we help her with her depression/anxiety/OCD/financial problems.” kind of way.

The problem is, I’m so bad with helping other people that I feel so unworthy to have other people help me.  I know the Bishop can’t share what he knows about me due to the priest:parishioner relationship.  And you might think that the other conversations you have with your visiting and home teachers would too, and I trust my people but  it’s the ‘other’ person in my home likes to share with everyone she meets about what I’m going through, how I’m making big strides, how I’ve been struggling with the rent and so on.  It’s the Christlike attitude of wanting to help to alleviate suffering and to bear one another’s burdens to make them light

Why am I whining about this? you might ask.  I have this image of me going to church and walking down the hall with people’s sympathetic eyes following me, the silent prayers being said during casual conversations, knowing I’m lying when I say I’m ‘fine’.  See, that’s the paranoia, they aren’t out to get me, they’re out to help me when I want one bastion of freedom from my day-to-day dealings with balancing drugs, mother, emotions, and the surprises bubblings up of morsels if enlightenment from my subconscious.

Like paranoia, I have no proof that anyone knows anything other than I’m normal.  This unfounded fear has been keeping me from partaking of the sacraments of church, the camaraderie of fellow believers and the comfort that comes with it.  I’m denying myself opportunities to grow and to learn and to just be normal.  I have to stop giving into the paranoia, I can’t let it rule my life and after-life.  It’s bad enough the depression/anxiety is robbing me of the now, I can’t let it rob me of eternity too.

So, I’m doing okay with my songs to sing in my head, my ability to stop the eddy that leads to the whirlpool better and faster and I’m even more hopeful now than I’ve been in months/years even.  Mom on the otherhand is acting, I’m assuming, like I used to when I was angry to either give me a taste of my own medicine or to try to get the response/action out of me that will make her the happiest.  The house is messy.  She wants it fixed so she can feel more comfortable.  She feels like she’s been cast away like garbage and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I know that’s harsh.  And not very Christlike either, but honestly she can bite me.  I’ve been staying up late waiting for her call in case she needs help going to use the bedside commode, or needs something.  After last weeks stress and shampooing the carpeting, and all the good things that are happening to me right now, I’m a little, well exhausted and cleaning house is the very last thing I want to do when I am in that state.  She is snarly, growly and very sharp with all her words.  Pretty much, I assume, what I was when I was in that frame.

It’s not pretty seeing my reflection in her behavior.  I’ve been talking to her a lot about what I’ve been going through.  She first said she had no idea, and now that she’s had time to take my words and apply them to her skewed memory, she knew something was wrong and just didn’t know how to help me.  Before, that would make me angry, but now I just find it funny.  The narcissism wouldn’t allow her to not know, and now that she does know, it will be all about how she was at a loss to help me, to eventually she was about ready to call the padded wagon to come and take me away.  That should be coming soon.

I wish I could get rid of her ‘anger’ or as I like to call this fugue she’s in a temper-tantrum.  But it’s something she has to do for herself, I can’t make it better for her any more than she can make it better for me.  What a big fat juicy dill pickle I’ve found myself in.

I would hope that music would be what soothed me when I’m stressed, or chocolate or something more palatable, but no.  I like cleaning the carpets.  Not vacuuming, that’s for amateurs.  I like shampooing the carpets.  Of course, if you repeat this to anyone in the family I’ll deny it.  We make fun of my nephew who gets met at the door by my niece with a vacuum to help him unwind.  He will never live that down.  Can you imagine what it would be like for me?  I know, I shouldn’t be ashamed of doing something productive for my health, but my family shows no mercy to anyone that is beyond the family dysfunctional norm.  Or worse, they’re going to want me to work out my issues in their houses.  That will never happen, never, never, never!

So, the anger isn’t swimming around in my head, whirling like an inertia fueled eddy instead I have songs flipping like a meth-addled DJ on a sugar tare.  Right now it’s “You Spin me right-round baby”, but when I try to stop it it flips to Renee Fleming “Prelude to a Kiss” from her Haunted Heart CD, and when I get tired of that it flips to Sarah Brightman and then to Susan Graham, then back to Renee, and so on.  It’s kind of annoying.  It’s more than just getting one song stuck in my head, like happens to a normal person, but we’re talking DAYS!  I don’t know if it is a drug side-effect or if I’m just cursed.

I’m going to talk to my therapist tomorrow and see if there is something, anything I can do to not hear these songs constantly in my head.  Of course, it would probably help if I stopped listening to the Divas list on my iPod and then I might get a break.

Okay, so I quoted Harry Potter for my title.  Sue me.  Today was a day where I felt the emotions raising in me, pricking at my eyes and making me tear up.  I don’t know what caused it.  It didn’t help that my nephew J kept talking about killing Sammy, my parrot.  He can be very bombastic with his desire to kill her.  I can understand not liking someones pet, but to be as specific as to how he would, and how much he would enjoy doing it hurt.  He know’s I’m overly attached to Sammy, which I think only adds fuel to his aggressive style of humor.

I missed church, I wanted to go but the idea that everyone knows what’s going on in my house, my head and my spirit I don’t want the looks.  So, I was already wound up when he got here.  At least I was wearing my dress so he thought I went to church and he couldn’t razz me about it.

The thing is, I was okay when he was there.  I think it started when Mom got up and demanded her breakfast and “Where’s my ice tea.”  I really have an issue with Mom treating me like a waitress.  She wanted me to unpack her new oxygen system and I told her to do it herself.  When she got up and started it I helped her.  It was a confrontation where she wanted me to “want” to help.  Her tone was “You will because you work for me” and I took the bait, like a well heeled poodle.  I need to stop that.

I let her in on that I was having issues and that I took something for it when she started to get eye problems and how she’s upset that she feels like she’s loosing her eyesight….again.  And again, I let her get to me.  And it won’t be the last time I’m sure….dumb bunny.

A teaspoon is a really small place to live.

Yes, I said happy.  I think I’ve finally hit through the glass ceiling with the help of a Lexapro battering ram and I’m calm enough to not be anxious about the falling shards.  Nice metaphor, don’tcha think?  But over all, I am feeling better, as a whole.  I want to get my housework done so I can attack the things in my life that need attention.  I was thinking th Zolpadin was the extra little push I needed but it seems to making me want to sleep more if I’ve had a hard day the day before.  Like now, I know is expecting me to get up and work to show off how well she has trained me in front of her husband, but all I want to do is just curl up in my bed and give myself to the dreams and unhindered thoughts.

Looking back on that statement I can see where the anger is still trying to re-piece the ceiling back to keep me where the anger can reach me and I’m not going to allow it.  C is one of my biggest pokers.  She is a lot like my mom.  When I was doing 1hr. a day in different rooms during the week, she looked at me and told me that I was doing a good job, in a sort of condescending way.  She probably didn’t mean it that way, but that’s the way I took it.  Only I can decided how things can affect me.  I need to stop and take a breath and relax.  I’m trying to learn the Young Womens Creed’ whatever it’s called breaking it up so i can take in long deep breaths and remind myself of the things that I want to be, need to be happy.   I need to conjure up images for the corresponding values so I can flip through the images and know what it means if I don’t have the wherewithal to remember the words.

Well, no more hiding in the void.  I need to find some Tylenol, suck it up, and get the kitchen, family room, and Mom’s room tidied up for tonight.  Three hours of work.  Yikes!!!  That’ll teach me to letting things slide.  Dumb Bunny!

I’m calmer today, so far.  That’s saying it’s calmer because Sammy and I are the only two up, so that makes things a little better.  I hope to keep getting up at the earlier hours so I can start getting all my work done before Mom gets up so I don’t have to work around her.

I’m still wanting to just be alone.  To be completely cut off from the world and the people who annoy the crap out of me.  I want to fall head first into the narcissistic vein in my soul and revel in it like the rest of my family.  Yet, I’ve struggled so hard not to make my world start with “I” and then “Me” before “you” and “Us”.  I plan on becoming a world citizen, not just a drain on the world as a human.  I may never, ever make that big of a dip in the wide ocean of need, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.

What if, after the world turns for a new season in my life I find that the world pisses me off, I’ll find a new cause, but for now, it’s like the security blanket that makes me hopeful, makes me push forward that someday I will be of use and not a waste to the world.  Now, I’m earning my wings to land on the world stage.