Tag: mental-health

Health & Healing

The loss of my job in January was bad enough, but it was insult to injury after I got the message from my states ACA program that my insurance premiums were going up by 160%+. It worked out to be what I managed to scrape together and save from refinancing my only tangible asset, changing my insurance and phone coverage. I wasn’t worried. I began to believe the fear mongering by the press about how the ACA subsidies were expiring at the end of the year were going to double or triple our premiums. It made 160% not as horrible as it could be. Fast forward to the beginning of this month and I checked to make sure my autopayment cleared my card and the cost was $1,500+. That was a 300%+ jump in the premium., or close to 500% jump total. I’m still shocked…terrified…bewildered…dumbfounded…pissed off.

The bureaucratic two-step I’ve been doing to get my money back and set up the state funded medical program has been intense, confusing and frustrating. I’ll admit, I do have a mental block when it comes to stuff like this, it’s a lot like figuring out taxes for me. I hate it and need it and it’s written in legal double speak and I allow it to confuse me. I try to push through, but by the time I get to the end of the paragraph I can’t remember what it was talking about. I’m assuming it’s willful ignorance, but I don’t know how disengage my will. I’ve filed a complaint to get my money back and I’ve set up my state funded medical which will be available to me 1 April 2026.

Not a moment too soon, either. I thought I was suffering from sinus issues because of my nose clogging and my face hurting due to the pretty, pretty trees in bloom but it turns out it was more. I didn’t check to see if it was COVID because it didn’t go into my chest. But this messy, goopy, sticky, blood stained mush came out of my nose when I could get air through it to breathe. I power-washed my sinuses regularly with my battery-operated neti-pot which I think saved me. If I were working, I would have taken OTC meds and powered through but it was nice to stay in bed, literally for days and sleep and allow my body to heal. Today is my first day out of my room and I’ve been off all meds since Monday. As much as I love Nyquil and Dayquil they don’t do my body any good. So, yesterday my body forcefully ejected the unused or unnecessary portions of the meds from my body and, honestly, I feel five pounds lighter.

What made the recovery a little easier was knowing I could take my state funded medical card to an urgent care or emergency room and get help if I needed it. It’s just a fact of life, when you don’t have insurance even a benign common cold creates the most uncommonest of scenarios in your mind about death or drowning in debt. People who are against the Affordable Care Act, I believe, have never had to decide to wait out chest pains and hope it’s not a heart attack or go to the emergency room and not be able to cover rent. I have. And I have to say, jumping through the fiery hoops of bureaucracy is better than betting your life to make rent.

Doom Scrolling

We all do it. Someone sends you a cute video of (insert favorite subject here) and then you swipe up to see what’s next and then it’s three in the morning . By then you’re all tangled up in knots because the terrifying truths from your favorite influencers have enraged you and then your gears get stripped by a cockatoo tap dancing along with a Fred Astaire movie. (@jackson_huhniverses) And you keep going, hoping for another spoonful of sugar to make the horrors perpetrated in the world go down a little easier.

This solid waste of time is a symptom of the anxiety, and an excuse to submerge myself in the depression, I know this. Last week I spent 40 hours swiping instead of doing something productive, positive or useful for my mental and/or physical health. I wish they would put guardrails on these sites so you can’t go careening out of control. Can’t the algorithm that learns what you want and like learn to cut you off like a conscientious bartender? At least when I’m crocheting because I can’t deal with the sudden rush of anxiety over (insert crisis here) I’m making something…..doom scrolling doesn’t accomplish anything.

What I’m realizing is my depression, or the Void, is looming over my life again. I’m talking medication-upping, therapy-seeking depression. I’m hoping my desire to get out of bed before 7:00am, well, up and doing something like write or job search in bed, is a sign the light is coming back. I started walking with the ducks again and I’m putting forth a courageous effort to stop the scrolling before my alarm clock goes off. I’m ten toes down withstanding the void, but I am terrified. Rereading my post Distraction was a giant flashing red light and I blithely went about my life like “It is what it is,”

The answer is the beginning of my last paragraph: “…I’m realizing…” I can do something about it, and I’m trying. God help me, I am trying, Then I scroll up in my brain to make plans and a perfectly balanced cinematic short of the evil pixie pops into my mind to remind me this is my life. I will always be depressed, I will always be paralyzed by anxiety and I will die that way. (I won’t lie, death has been on my mind lately). I need to recapture the hope I had in Beyond Surviving, I’m not starting at zero, I still think I’m further along than when I started this blog what feels like a hundred years ago, I guess that’s something the evil pixie can’t take away. Celebrate the small wins, is what they say.

Distraction

I am struggling and instead of doing something to alleviate it, (writing in my journal, looking for work, exercising, praying) I’m reading excerpts from my writing and crawling into a word outside of what is going on in the world right now. I love fiction because it allows me to write the world the way I want it to be. A world where we protect our children from predators and themselves. For example, a parents who see a suicide note and yells at her daughter instead of getting her help. Yes, that happened. Though, at the time, I didn’t think of it as suicide. I wanted to just disappear. At 11, a very sheltered 11 to boot, I didn’t know really what suicide was. I didn’t know anything useful about protecting myself from myself any better than I knew how to take care of myself then or now. I typed on the typewriter I just wanted to leave, I didn’t want to be there any more. My plan, thin as it was, was to hike up into the foothills behind the stable where we boarded our horse. The one time I was allowed to take the beast into the foothills I found a decrepit shack, no bigger than a normal shed today and it represented a life completely cut off from people, from the confusion and ignorance I lived in. It also cut me off from water and food and any form of real protection from cold and rain. I recognize it now for what it is, a form of passive suicidality.

It pisses me off all over again that my mother who knew, who read the note for what it really was, never did anything. Who I felt I had to hide my first go-round when I attempted suicide and subsequent antidepressants because I couldn’t let her know or talk about it because she wasn’t safe. A doctor put her on Decadron for a pseudo brain tumor to reduce the swelling in her brain and that somehow sparked some sort of mental break which required anti-depressants and after she became RFK level anti-anti-depressant spokesperson. (She revealed in ‘couples therapy’ with my sister she was faking it so we wouldn’t move to the Virgin Islands for a job opportunity for my father…..Yes, that happened.)

The most useless distraction is wondering how my life would be different if she had done something other than yell at me for scaring her. If she had gotten me therapy or took me to the bishop, or just ANYTHING. Would I be constantly second-guessing myself now? Would I be struggling with depression and anxiety? Would I be able to take care of myself like a valued human being instead of just doing the needful? Would I still be in pain every morning wondering if I should just stay in bed and forget the fight, surrender and die? I have really, really been hating her all over again. This is something that has recently bubbled up from the emotional archives and has rekindled the hate and anger and self-recrimination for not protecting myself better. (way to really add to the emotional maelstrom.)

Let me be clear, I am not suicidal. Disturbing Thoughts is the closest I’ve come since I’ve started this journey to be that close to causing myself harm. When the disturbing thoughts disturb me I correct them and remind myself I have faith (not always hope), and that everything will be okay. I know it will because I’ve seen it happen. I have a very loving family, I have friends around the US, and I have a bird no one wants so I can’t go anywhere. Some days I just need to allow myself distractions to get me through. I need ignore the feeling of being at the bottom of a hill and having to push my whole life up it again to see the future.

If the abuse/neglect I received in childhood did this to me, my heart aches for the survivors who suffered at the hands of the pedophiles and rapists on and off that Island. Every man who takes privilege and forces it on children should be publicly humiliated, excoriated with acid and castrated. NO ONE has the right to do that to a child. Period. Not a parent. Not a politician. Not a billionaire. Anyone who protects, supports or defends these men are JUST AS GUILTY. Period. PROTECT THE CHILDREN not privilege,

I Protest

Last Saturday, January 31, I actually left my room, stood on a corner, held a sign, and protested. I didn’t get shot, I didn’t get arrested and nothing more than people flipping me off happened. My response to those disapproving souls was to blow them a kiss.

My sign read –

Stop the devils servants. Justice for Good and Pretti!

A little more religious than I would like, but if men can murder innocent people and either curse their victim or run away, what else can you call them.? The happy part was there were more honks than fingers and more than 175 people crowded on the corner in front of a business profiting handsomely from the current administrations shinanigans.

I won’t deny I was afraid. Even though we don’t have ICE en masse in our city, but like I said in Right of Way I live in a community with a large immigrant population. What has been interesting since the protest, and the subsequent meeting after to learning about our software ‘EveryAction’, I am not crocheting like a woman on a mission. I’m still crocheting, but there isn’t this “Dear God, make it stop!” kind of screaming in my head when I do it. Doing something about it, protesting and volunteering, has staunched the bleeding from that particular open wound. I am still trying to figure out work in this economy as an older person and I’m scheduled for eye surgery next month all the while watching the totals on my credit cards mount exponentially. As trivial as ‘not manically crocheting’ sounds, it’s a blessed start.

In the back of my head I still hear the evil pixy telling me my miniscule action don’t really mean anything. My boycotting stores, my protesting in a mostly red community, my help with the membership team for TRAC Indivisible…all of it. I am insignificant, I’m useless, and nothing more than a floating dust mote in the political arena. I ignore the little malicious sprite and remember: The Right likes to compare my political personality to a snowflake. A snowflake is a delicate ice crystal that will melt if it’s not cold enough or if it comes into contact with any kind of warmth to be absorbed and forgotten into the earth. However, when snowflakes stick together they can have the force of an avalanche whose influence will for miles.

SURJ’ing Forward & on TRAC

These postcards represent my very first action in resisting. All four were sent to my senator, basically asking him if he would like his due process, freedom of speech and so on denied him. My point here is that I did it. It’s not holing a sign singing, chanting and marching, but I did it.

I’m a good talker about what’s wrong with the government (no matter who is in the oval office) but I’ve always believed when you deny any right to any person you are opening the door for those rights to be denied you. Benjamin Franklin, I believe, said:

Any man who gives up his freedom for security deserves neither freedom no security.

I love my freedoms, and I’m not going to let them go easily, I am going slow because I don’t want to terrify myself under the bed. So, I’ve been to two national call to action meetings (another one tonight) to unite against the tyranny and brutality in Minnesota. There is a national call to action to stand up against the companies in our neighborhood which are supporting ICE while they occupy any area….Target, Home Depot, and Hilton. Tomorrow, if you can, please don’t shop at them or if you’re traveling try not to stay in a Hilton property.

My new years resolutions requires me to see how far I can take each aspect of the two organizations I’ve adopted. TRAC Indivisible (Tracy Residents Action Coalition) which is within the Indivisible grass-roots organization. SURJ is Standing Up for Racial Justice, specifically White People Standing Up for Racial Justice. Theirs is the call to action for tomorrow. Within these two groups I need to do certain things like doing the postcards (done), going to a protest, doing call-banking, and actually going door to door to get my neighbors involved. I’ve done all of those things for jobs or charity work but I had something to hide behind. This is standing up for what I know is right and asking people to join me.

The goal for getting involved? Mostly to re-enter the world. It’s so easy to stay in my room, crocheting obsessively and repeating the mantra ‘everything will be okay in the end’. The end being when I’m dead and the worries of the world won’t trouble me any longer. I’ve also tasked myself to join a writing group and to join the church choir and see if loud makes up for talent.

In all honesty, I’m scared. I don’t want to be shot, I don’t want to be hurt and I don’t want to bring down any of that hell on my family. But, for me, it’s gotten to the point where doing nothing is no longer an option. So, here I am on the bleeding edge of action and I’m trying really, really hard to leave my room and jump.

Coping Strategy For The Nonce

The world, not just our nation, is in chaos. Wars, incursions, kidnapping, school shootings and women and mothers are being destroyed by the dozens. Some in places where their safety has been guaranteed by a democratic constitution. As a woman who is known to be mouthy, that kind of frightens me…..A LOT! I try not to think beyond prayers to the families because that path leads to panic and sleepless nights.

Unemployment gives me time to think. Its helpful to untangle the plot knots I often find myself ensnarled in, but not so good for the anxiety which makes it impossible to concentrate. Writing gives me escape from my stress and anxiety, crocheting provides an outlet and a filler for times when I’m trying to ruminate on my problems. It also fills a need for me to help out in the world without totally getting involved….by that I mean leaving my bedroom and bird and actually putting actions to my beliefs. Crochet isn’t going to be enough while this country spirals through the machinations of a greedy and slowly dissolving mind.

So, what to do….

A friend at church has started TRAC Indivisible which sent me to a site http://www.mobilize.us. It’s a platform dedicated to help us to, well, mobilize and realize we aren’t alone in this struggle to restore the America like-minded patriots believe in. After signing up for TRAC Indivisible mobilize.us directed me to SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) group. I’ve attended one Zoom meeting which covered the wins and goals for the nationwide group. The first meeting for TRAC Indivisible is IRL this Saturday and I can see what I can physically do. Talking about it isn’t enough any more, it only adds to the angry and terrifying spinning in my head. I’m hoping by doing something tangible, like the crochet does for the anxiety in my immediate sphere of influence, I will surmount my fear and anxiety over the local, national and global terror playing out on all news outlets every freaking day.

If the current state of the union is tweaking your anxiety and you think doing something will help, please check out SURJ at http:mobilize.us. You will need to certify yourself, that you’re not a bot or whatever. If you are in my area, Tracy and San Juaquin County, you can sign up for TRAC Indivisible.

I’m afraid I will fail. My CBT rebuttal to that unkind thought is: Failing means I tried. Failing means I was moving forward. Not all paths are marked, not all roads are paved and sometimes you have to stick your toe in hot water before you realize it’s perfect for a long soak.

Reflecting on Life: A Robin’s Journey to Freedom

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This isn’t my photo. I found it on BlueSky. It just spoke to me. The single branch swamped in dark water with a single red breasted robin on it’s arthritic finger. It is a story of rebirth, renewal and recovery from a dark and solitary life to the freedom of a bird to soar on the winds of time. Too dramatic? Possibly. I just really like this picture, it gives me hope.

Eviction Day

Well, I did it. I finally finished the third book in my trilogy. I can now evict the people who have been squatting in my head for the last, what feels like, 100 years. The time differential between the time I wrote it (March 1 until April 8) feels like the whole eighteen months which elapsed on paper. I realize a lot of my anxiety from the pressure of time was from the fictional days flying off the imaginary calendar, not the real one. I wrote close to 500 pages in about 40 days. It’s both amazing and dumbfounding and makes me wish I could just sit and write for a living. Adventures in publishing awaits; Any advice?

Reality Schism

I’ll admit it, I’ve been struggling. I’ve been fighting the good fight for weeks but today the void is sucking me back in. Yesterday I realized I was doing it to myself and I need to stop…..but I’m having too much fun!!

I’ve been free writing again. I’m blissfully living in the space between my ears. I broke one book I wrote (Heart of My Mothers) into a trilogy. The original was too dense because I wanted my character to grow and experience life adjacent to the plot. My readers liked the story but it was suggested I break it up into three books so I could bring in more detail.

  • Book 1 Andi (Mother): Is ready to be sent to an agent or publisher, I just have to create the query letter and do it. It terrifies me I’ll do it wrong. Wrong means I fail…..again,*
  • Book 2 Veronica (Grandmother) : Is written and needs editing….like Edward Scissorhands level of editing, which magnifies my skewed reality I can’t write perfectly the first time around.*
  • Book 3 Claire (Great Grandmother): Free writing where even the original book isn’t a reference and anything can happen. I’M LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

The problem? I still have to live in reality. I still have to drag myself out of bed every day and face the world. I still have to take my medication. I still have to apply for jobs. I still have to go on interviews. I still have to remind myself death isn’t a solution.

This morning, by the time I convinced myself to get up (It took an hour today), take my meds and feed my bird I was crying. My reality is just really hard right now. I’m looking for glimmers, I’m walking more than I have to (goal is three times a week) and I still feel like I’m failing. Failing crushes me.*

My character isn’t failing. She fabulously wealthy, she’s popular and she’s the hero in her own story. I’m poor, few people know my name and I’m trying hard not to be the villain. Is there any doubt why I want to live there?

So, right now I’m straddling these two worlds. The endorphin rush from creation strips the serotonin on my brain. Low serotonin makes me want to escape into the story. I don’t know how to heal the schism without tearing me in two.

So I bought yarn.

Any suggestions?

* I know this is wrong thinking. I feel like Sisyphus constantly pushing the right thinking up an impossible hill only to get flattened when the rock rolls over me.

Constant Vigilance Is Everything

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The color attracted me. Its like purple with a green undertone. Then I realized it represented how insidious depression can be. I broke a long time ago and I’ve been putting the pieces back together wanting to be whole and then a hidden root wiggles it way though a crack to remind me I’m not. The positive take-away from this image is just a little concerted effort and the little tendril of doubt/sadness/darkness can be yanked out and the crack repaired. All it takes is constant vigilance.