Alone At Last

Both roommates have moved out as of this last Sunday. Their outstanding utility bills are still unpaid and I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort to pursue them or just be done with them. I trust Karma will eventually bite them in the wallets, heaven knows this is a slice of Karma for me. I’m good with personal debt paying, meaning if I borrow a dollar from you I will make every effort to pay you back and to make sure you know that I’ve paid you back……credit cards, not so much. But then using credit cards in the past was a way for me to stretch to the end of the month and when you use plastic to stretch eventually you or it breaks….and I shattered. So, pursue or not to pursue is the karmic question.

I haven’t lived alone in YEARS. I’ve lived in this place for over 20 years either with family or the denizens of CraigsList. I always valued having the house all to my self, and I become disgruntled when the other residents would come home. Especially before the apocalypse, it wasn’t often enough I would get my sister to take my mother off my hands for even an hour so I could just sit and feel myself quietly vibrate and pulse with the anxiety and anger I stewed in for all those years. I treasured the time post-apocalypse when the roomies were at work or on dates or doing whatever it is they did outside the house so I wouldn’t have to pretend at being happy, or hiding my irritation at them/the world/my life. Now, I have the house all to myself and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I like it but I’m constantly on edge thinking someone is going to come home and my zen will shatter. I don’t want to get too comfortable in it because I will have to give it up, but I don’t want to miss the opportunity to get comfortable either to build the strength for the adventure ahead.

A big part of the problem is I’m still hyper-vigilant in checking to see if the last one’s car is in the neighborhood because her aura (for lack of a better term) gave off a certain whiff of menace (which is why I took Sammy to my sisters) and my aura and hers were not compatible in any way shape or form. I didn’t fear for my life, per se, because anything she did to me I knew I had recourse through law and the courts, but I had to protect Sammy and I’m waaay to attached to that bird to take the chance of letting anything or anyone happen to her. I didn’t like feeling unsafe in my own home. She didn’t move out until late Sunday night and I had to be up early so I went to bed. I asked her to leave the keys on the table, which she did. To make sure I saw them she left EVERY light on in the house she had access to and she LEFT THE FRONT DOOR UNLOCKED. But she’s gone….she’s gone…..she’s GONE!!! When is the anxiety going to be gone too?

Ghosts aren’t corporeal enough to make the kind of noises which are ratcheting up my anxiety and dread. I’ve come to believe accumulated psychic trauma weighs on the studs and floorboards like a pregnant elephant causing the wood to groan, mimicking habitation in the house when I am alone. I’m sure it does it when I’m gone, but that’s the whole tree-in-the-forest kind of thing that no one can prove. When I hear the creaking or what I interpolate to be the swinging of a door I collapse inward like a paper bag before I could push against the embedded folds. I would like to sand over and smooth out this ingrained reaction but I don’t know if I will be able to until I actually put down roots in a new plot of soil all my own. It won’t be here because I need to get more roommates (sigh) and I will have more roommates when I move in with my Sister. I don’t know if the psychic trauma will be packed up with my belongings and travel with me, but I think that’s why 95% of everything I have will be donated, thrown or given away to disperse it back into the universe. Believe you me, that’s one roommate I can live without.

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.

Moving Forward

So, it’s been a while.  I go in spurts, either blogging, writing, journal-ing or binge watching Netflix.  Since my last update, I have gotten a job, broke my foot on said job, re-wrote a novel, worked in my company’s call center and am nowback into the world wearing heavy-duty boots so if I should miss a step and break something I would rather it be an arm or a leg or anything other than a foot.  Eighteen weeks in non-matching shoes is NOT how I ever want to live again.

To say things got bleak during those weeks is an understatement.  I was blessed by the women of the church who brought me food, chatted with me and lent me their knee scooter so I could actually get around on my own when I was home alone.   I also still had Moms motorized chair which got me out on a daily basis where I could keep a pity party bag of M&M’s on hand while I wrote.   There are times when I am still fighting the darkness, when I think about getting up and going out to strangers houses I hear this elfin voice in my head which echos in my heart I don’t want to leave the house.  It’s not that I’m agoraphobic, I’m not.  Seriously though, if I had my druthers, I’d stay home, in bed and write or sleep….basically just hide from the world.  The world doesn’t work that way…Hell, I don’t think anything short of an asylum works that way.  An asylum isn’t an option, my insurance doesn’t cover it nor would they allow me to bring my birds.

Moving forward is the only course of action for me right now.  It’s hard.  At times painful.  The void creeps up on me, and I convince myself binge-ing on M&M’s is the way to keep the darkness at bay, but I know that is the scared little voice in my head trying to keep me close.  I don’t know if ‘she’ will ever come completely out of the void and I might continually have to ply her with Lexapro to keep her quiet; one does what one must.  My goal for moving forward this month is to get my Soul Searching: House of Dragons out to a publisher I identified back in September.  They require an online presence.  Though I count this as an online presence I’m pretty sure it’s not exactly what they were talking about.  So, I bought pamelagartner.com (as such is my real name) and am struggling to figure out a way to get a website set up and hosted for as close to free as I can get it.  I checked certain companies that promise a free website, but they charge  you for hosting.  Then I thought I’d check WordPress since they do a lovely job at hosting my blog, and this is what I learned….Blogs and websites are interchangeable.  It’s just all in how you design it.  Who knew?  I’m waiting for a reply now to see if I can upgrade my bloggingfromthevoid.com domain name and also use my pamelagartner.com domain name for the premium price and if I can use the domain name I purchased from a different site.  I wish I had known then what I know now, but all you can do is continually move forward.

Almost a Year

I had a dream this morning, half awake and half asleep kind of dream.  I heard my mother call me from her room.  Not her normal morning call but more of a genial kind of invite.  My mom was in her room and my sister S. was asleep in her bed while C was asleep down the hall.  I walked into my Mom’s room and she was sitting on the far side of the bed while S slept.  She was a solid vision, no apparition, do diaphanous edges, but solidly real.  She came around to the end of the bed and I sat with her.  I could feel her arm, literally feel. her. arm.  I held on and hugged it.  I apologized to her about not taking care of her the way I wanted to take care of her.  I wanted to do better by her, but I just physically couldn’t and I couldn’t seem to rise above the fray in my mind which exhausted my body.  (you know depression).  I don’t remember if she accepted it or not, but it didn’t matter.  I was able to say it to her.  S. woke up and saw Mom but couldn’t hear her and C. came into the room and could hear her but not see her.  Mom was happy.  There wasn’t the roiling discontented aura she had in life, I think she was at peace.  We wanted to know if she had seen my brothers J. and D. but she hadn’t.  She didn’t want to face them.  We encouraged her to see them.  We didn’t believe they wouldn’t want to see her.  I think I fell out of the magical level of sleep and into a deeper sleep because my dream degraded into something more surreal than pseudo-reality.

So, it’s been almost a year.  10 December 2017 feels like five years ago and yet it hasn’t even been a full 365 days.  So much has happened this year, considering what I was dealing with there are days I am amazed I get out of bed at all.  There is still a part of me that is a recalcitrant depressive but it has always been there, I’m learning how to work around it and move forward.  The post Rectal-Cranial Inversion talked about how I “accidentally” hit June 6 as my start date for phlebotomy class.  Had I stuck with that date I would have taken my test about the same time I took my test and I probably would have gotten my externship the same time too.  Having the benefit of hindsight I realize the June 6th start date would have been a better time for me to go to school because my head, some days, is still solidly inverted but mostly not now.   I wouldn’t have needed Red Bull to keep me awake through class, but it tweaked my anxiety to the point I couldn’t trust myself.    For the externship I changed my buspar (anti-anxiety) and then dosed down my bupropion, my puppy-upper than can also tweak anxiety.  Once I did that I didn’t panic and my externship people saw a noticeable difference.   I’m planning on dosing down again in the new year to see if I can finally be free of some of these meds.

So, yes, I passed my test; 96/100.  Not bad at all.  I finished my externship with glowing reviews.  I’ve gotten my certification and card from NCCT and I’m going to work with someone today about my licensing.  I feel I am ready to go out on a job interview and nail it.  At least I have the chemicals straight in my head so I don’t blather on like an idiot through the interview.

On the darker side of life I am still dealing with some of the little, annoying aspects of the depression.  Like not taking care of myself.  I have food but I don’t want to cook it, I’d rather go without or take a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter and be done with it.  I’m working as a Lyft driver so I’m having to have to be more social than I like and than still wipes me out.  I need to shower more, but who doesn’t.  To help with pushing out my bandwidth I have started courses that will put me back on the path to getting my bachelors degree.  I’m going for a basic interdisciplinary degree so I can include my history credits from 100 years ago but then I’ll be able to put on my resume I finished university.  I might even go further to get an MFA in writing.  Again, my dreams writing checks my body may not be able to cash.

I’m happy though.  I mean for the first time, in a long time, I’m happy.  I’d be happier with more money, but God has always provided when the world wouldn’t.   I don’t think I’m ever going to mourn for Mom, not the way some people do when they tear up when you mention their mother.  There are still parts that are angry with her but after the dream not so much.  It’s done and I’m moving forward…..one step at a time.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

Self Love is

Knowing what you need

EVERYDAY

Then making sure

You RECEIVE it.

💜💖💜

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.

New Year, New Dynamic

Mom died.

It’s been about seven weeks since her passing.  Time seems to go buy at different speeds at the same time.  I’ve hit new levels of stooopid I never knew I could.  I’m still not eating right, sleeping well or taking care of myself as I should.  The only thing I’ve been capable of doing is making crochets shawls.  I can count to 8, I can sit and watch it grow and not have to do anything else.  Since December 1, her last time to the hospital, I’ve made seven shawls.  One is my “house hold” shawl because I would rather wrap up than turn up the heat.  I seem to  keep going back to the hook for comfort.  They feel like hugs.  I’m trying to make one for all the women/girls in the family for the boat ride out to skater Mom’s ashes.  Hopefully I will be more back in the world by April.

I  haven’t really cried yet.  Maybe writing this out might break open the flood gates and release the torrent of tears that are just waiting for the opportunity to flow.  I don’t know why it seems so hard to express myself that way.  It could be the general fear of crying; if I start I won’t be able to stop.  Or it could be the medication is still providing the buffer that keeps me from completely dissolving into a puddle.  I’ve gotten the basics down in my journal but not really the emotions.  I wonder if I’m actually going to have any.  I mean, it’s not like this is out of the blue.  I’ve spent the last 12 years taking care of her as she, well not exactly slowly, declined.  The last three to five years have been the hardest, and living with her and taking care of her really tore the wellspring of hope out of me several times.  It did happen really fast, in the hospital on the 1st, back home by the 5th, then dead by the 10th.  There wasn’t  a rally coherent good by on her end due to the hypoxia from the lack of oxygen.

My team of professionals and myself have held the theory/belief that part if not most of my depression and anxiety was due to my environment.  Maybe I’m overmedicated now that the environment has changed or maybe I’m so completely overwhelmed (I had my car broken into after the memorial service and I drove myself to see my sister C. run in the Carlsbad marathon, I lost my job when I lost my mother, going back to school in February, and creditors filing suit).  I’m overwhelmed.  I guess I should stop trying to push myself so hard and try to do things one day, one task, one blog post at a time.

I’ve had some dark days, but in general I still have the light and hope for my future, so I don’t believe I’m back in the void, although, truth be told crawling back into that warm dark place to hide sounds really inviting..  I’ve had more bouts of anxiety than depression, I’m becoming more aware of my desire to take care of myself (like eat, bathe, change clothes, etc.)  In some ways I feel like I’ve been reborn into this world but I’m going to have to fend for myself.  I’ve got to find a job that pays well enough for me to write until the nectar of creativity runs dry.

My nephew gave me the best advise yesterday.  I didn’t want to go home, it felt like a trap so he told me when he feels that way he goes out into the world and tries to find something beautiful.  So, I went home briefly and grabbed Sammy and we took a trip to the coast and watched the boats in the marina and on the way home on Highway 35, I got pictures of a beautiful sunset over the foothills in the valley.  It was beautiful and my anxiety was calmed.