Posted on by damynx

Accentuate the Poisitive

There is the quote by Emerson or someone famous like that:

“Your attitude determines your altitude,”

My attitude, then, has me tunneling through life.  I know I’m tired, I know I’m a little burnt around the edges, but I don’t need to be so negative/nasty about they way I describe taking care of Mom.  For example, people ask how I’m sleeping, and I tell them I’m getting used to hearing Darth Vader on the baby monitor…..again, an attempt at humor with the intent to let people know just how put upon I am.  I wonder if this is something I do for everything?  Do I make sarcastic and caustic jokes about things that I have committed to because I’m regretting the promise and not liking the work load?  I don’t want to be seen as a victim, but when someone asks how I am, ‘fine’ doesn’t quite cover it.  I want to warn them if they are younger than me to move close to a home where you can visit your difficult older parent daily, if you have always had problems being in the same room with him taking in your parent will not magically make you and her get along together.  That is the mistake I made.  You can’t make anyone change, you can only accompany them on their road and support them love them and be present for them.  I need to stop telling people to move as far away from their parents, in an almost too small house or in a house close to an old folks home.  I can refer them to read “Coping with Your Difficult Older Parent“.   It helped in getting that aspect in my life put in it’s place so I could work on the anger, low-self esteem, eating compulsively, anxiety, depression, and everything else that I’ve been dealing with.

Okay, so changing my attitude with Mom should help me…. will help me.  Even if it’s just adopted the words when someone asks how I’m doing, “Fine.  Really, I’m fine”  No snarky comments about Darth Vader, no side remarks about her attitude or her roid rage.  Maybe I can shine up my personal reality by “Eliminate[ing] the Negative”

Posted on by damynx · 2 Comments

The Evolution of Abstinence

Food abstinence isn’t enough there needs to be more for me.   I realized this after troughing through a Chipotle burrito bowl a few days ago that though it was lunch, and I’m suppose to eat lunch, I wasn’t abstaining. I was shoveling it in my mouth as fast as I could to bury and silence the anger attacking me. Though it was the letter of the law the Spirit of the law was shattered.  However, it was still abstinence because I was eating a meal.

Everyone is supposed to define their abstinence, I have yet to really come to terms with what mine is….and I have yet to have a full week of abstinence.  Perhaps I’m expecting too much of weakling self.  I hear talks of people taking to abstinence right away, like a duck to water but I’ve not been that graced yet.  I tried to go on a diet earlier in the year.  It lasted all of three days and then cookies arrived and….Yum…..  Need I say more.  I realized then the work that it takes to start a diet; planning, cooking, thinking, was too much all at once for me.  My bandwidth for life in general is still quite limited with full-time work, part-time work, family, friends, working out and church.  I needed to start slow.  And slow I go….

My first abstinence was eating three meals a day with healthy snacks if needed.  I’ve never really stuck to eating just three meals a day my whole life.  I’ve started it, and I give it a good try but then I’d oversleep, don’t eat breakfast and eat a huge lunch to make up for it and then huge dinner, snacking all through the day and “tasting” while I cook.  I was fairly successful with that abstinence Monday through Friday, the weekend not as good.  The boon of eating three meals a day meant that I was taking all my medications in a timely fashion as well.  The way I worked the eating aspect of the program (since I’m sponsorless) is I would write down in my OA journal the date and the topic (Meal Plan).  The first paragraph is the Serenity prayer, then my meal plan of what I knew I could get a hold of for the day, then the Young Womans Theme slightly tweaked for the fact that I’m not a Young Woman any more and some of the things I’ve done.  It was a solid 10 to 15 minutes of writing.  Then I lost my hands (Okay, I didn’t lose them.  I know where they are, I just can’t use for that much writing without my thumb and wrist threatening to go on strike)  Writing it down first thing in the morning helped me to keep it in the forefront of my mind.  I use a program called Happy Ritual where every day you can tick off what you’ve done and then track it over the weeks and months.

Second Abstinence was to add exercise.  So, like I do my morning meal plan I would write out what I would do for exercise.  I put that on my Happy Ritual, both what to work out and that I’ve committed to it.  I need to move every day.  I’m good at the committing but not good at the doing.  At least not of late, but you know what we say ONE DAY AT A TIME.

Third Abstinence is to add Emotional abstinence.  Which is where I’m at now.  I can’t eat when I’m angry, I can’t eat when I’m bored, I can’t eat because I’m frustrated or when I want to celebrate.  I need to be mindful, and yes, there are books for that.  I wish I could ingest the book and then have it be so.  Learning and fiber in one fell swoop would be very helpful.  To help with this I’ve started praying again, and yes, I have to put it on my HR because I will forget and I am addicted to check-off things because it makes me feel productive.  I commit my food every morning to Heavenly Father, then when I’ve got a few minutes I type it into my To Do list for the day.  Google Task lets you do sub tasks so I can spell out Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner AM Snack and PM Snack and if I want desert I can put that on as well and as I click them off it gives me a percentage of how much I’ve accomplished for that task.

I will eventually get back to writing it down, I think it writes it on the brain when you sweep the pen across paper leaving an guide map for the day and then sleep sort of erases it, well things like this anyway.  Important things are normally filed before it can be erased.  Kind of like a blog.

I’m curious as to what the next step in my abstinence will be, and when it happens, gentle reader, I will let you know.

Posted on by damynx

It’s All About Me……

Everyone has a favorite word or phrase.  Lately my word has been anachronistic and my favorite phrase is “It’s all about me,”  Which, really, it is.  I’m aware of the narcissistic vein that runs through my family line, have been for decades.  And I realize I struggle against that tide of self-interest on a daily basis.  It’s a bit like trying to paddle upstream with anvils as your oars.  I don’t always make a lot of headway, but it keeps me anchored when I’m too tired to row any longer. As long as I struggle to keep ahead of it, the better off I feel I am.

I bring this up because I heard a comment on Sherlock (BBC version) that I liked….”I’m not a psychopath I’m a high functioning sociopath.  Do your research,”  I have been called a sociopath before, never bothered to look up the definition because the person that called me one was just projecting and was mean-spirited child at the time. There are ten questions on the Urban Dictionary that I took, and it turns out I’m just a touch of one, but I think everyone can be everything (unless they are truly stuck in a diagnosis and can’t pry their way out with meds of EST). So, no I ‘m not a sociopath. I have a conscious, I don’t take pleasure in making people cry, I can have an acid tongue, but I use it jovially instead of as a jousting lance.

I have been known to tell people they can’t do something because I don’t like the way it will effect me, but I don’t require them to keep that in mind when they make their decisions. If they don’t want to hear me whine they should do it because my whining can make dogs ears bleed.

Of course blogging is sort of a self-fulfilled sociopathic exercise in me. I’ve said things here that I felt at the time and now I’m sorry I put them in writing. Not enough to take them down, but I am ashamed at some of the things I’ve called some of my family members, I might do some redacting to take out bits, but not the whole, so they won’t get hurt if they should read it…..I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to figure out how it’ll truly affect me either way.

Oh, and for a general update on me…..I’m down 15mg on my Lexapro and 20mg on my Buspar…..and I haven’t unraveled yet. True it’s only been two days on the Lexapro so I’m still floating at a larger dose, but still, I’m working both sides of the program….getting drug free and trying to work the 12 steps…..it’s exhausting, but I’m feeling better all the way around. I cringe at the amount of work that is left to be done, but I will do it. I’m the only one who can because, well, it’s all about me.