Wut r werds?

 I haven't been sleeping well. I have been super anxious about writing and creative expression. Honestly, I've been super anxious about pretty much everything. So, I talked to my doctor and we're tweaking my meds to see if they can resolve the sleep problem. That's great and all, except I had a panic attack last night over the fact that I was taking a new medication and a part of me was convinced it was going to negatively interact with my other medications and kill me. I only calmed down when all of the medication kicked in and then I had a bit of a hard time falling asleep because I was still ratcheted up on a slightly lower key.

I finally fell asleep only to wake up at 4 in the morning. I have no idea why I keep waking up at 4 am. I don't know if I do it every night or not. I know that when I remember it, how long I stays awake varies. Some nights are like last night, I'm awake about long enough to curse the damn clock and then fall back to sleep. Other nights, I'm just awake for the day. I honestly can't say how frequently it happens because my memory has been wonky for the last few months because of things like ptsd triggers and my bipolar being a pain in the ass.

My short term memory isn't completely shot. But it's not as good as it typically is. My doctor is pretty sure that the sleep disruption is the problem. Which makes sense, because if you're not getting a solid night's worth of sleep, your brain doesn't work right. My executive functioning isn't doing too hot either. Again, a casualty of poor sleep. I have a feeling there's going to be a shift in my medication because of this, like a permanent shift. I don't know what it is going to be, but when I talk to the doctor on Thursday I'm going to try to remember to detail what I'm having difficulty with.

In the mean time, I'm attempting to be more authentic in my presentation to the world. I read somewhere over the last week that a woman over 40 shouldn't wear the weight of other's opinions. (Beloved argued that no woman should wear the weight of other's opinions and that no body should be policing anybody's bodily presentation. I love this guy for so many reasons, his outrage that the argument wasn't inclusive enough is but one of them.) As a result of the meme that I saw, I realized I really could wear whatever the hell I wanted as long as I was comfortable and not breaking any nudity laws.

So, I've taken to wearing that leather collar around the house. I feel more like myself in it. I'm not ready to be wearing it out and about beyond to the mailbox and back. It's just a matter of getting more comfortable with the concept that I can wear what I want and no one is going to punish me or my kids for it. Who knows, maybe at some point I'll wear goth style stuff again if I can find it in my size that's comfortable. Interestingly, the alternate 'collars' that I've been wearing have all developed some kind of issue that made them difficult to wear. There was one that I kinda liked that was fit similar to the leather collar that just fell to pieces. Another one that I liked was a lighter weight choker style necklace that I hadn't had any problems reacting to suddenly started causing me to react to it. I'm most disappointed that the macramé choker that I've had for forever started to unravel. 

The kids are completely indifferent to what I'm wearing and are more concerned about what's for dinner and if they're going to get into trouble for their latest antics. The neighbors that we have immediately about us who see me on a semi regular basis haven't batted an eye. It helps that they're under 30. I am not likely going to wear this to our weekly visits with the in-laws just because I think it would make them uncomfortable. I have other styles of collars that I made to wear that are not quite as comfortable as the leather one, but to the random bystander they look like funky necklaces.

But, I've come to realize that I can't play the mostly vanilla housewife anymore. I started because it was expected of me by people around me. It has been stifling. When I started covering my hair, I felt a bit better and a bit more authentic. Then the community's xenophobia came into bloom and I switched to wearing kerchiefs 90% of the time. Now, I just can't do it anymore. I think part of my need for authentic expression via my manner of dress and such is part of why I struggle with depression so much.

I'm working to get myself back to the level of authenticity I had when I was out and away from the farm in my 20s. I was happier and I felt more like myself then. I may not be a skinny thing anymore but I'm not trying to drop weight. This isn't about looking like I'm 20. This is about recapturing some of that mindset of "this is who I am, deal with it." I'm pretty sure if I can accomplish that, I will feel much better in many ways.

It's funny, I've been struggling with writing but I cranked out this whole post with out too much difficulty. Maybe this effort to be more authentic will lead to a place where I can write with out fear again.

Writer's block sucks.

 So after the wonderful experience of a depressive episode and a mixed episode, I have writer's block. I am consumed with anxiety when I sit down to write which makes it just about impossible to do. Same feelings hit me when it comes to other forms of creative expression. I'm just not doing well on this front. I feel a rather significant amount of despair that my writing is futile and that I am shouting into the void. I have always been taught that writing is having a conversation with your reader. It is hard to have a one sided conversation.

The same part of me that is full of despair over my writing having any worth is telling me to delete all my blogs and abandon all of my projects because it will never go anywhere worthwhile. I know that this is a passing thing. It still hurts, however. I will pick up my pen and try again, because eventually this mood hangover from being unwell will lift and I will be able to get back to work. I just need to be patient. It's only been a week since the mixed episode ended and it tends to take me a little bit to bounce back from it. 

Finally out of the mixed episode, what's next?

 After a month of basically being non-functional between my cptsd acting up, a depressive episode, and a mixed episode, I don't know where to begin to pick up the pieces and get back to work. I'm not quite clear headed as I try to get things sorted out. I still have my anxiety bothering me. I'm still pretty emotional, but this is because it's that time of the month again.

I am vexed because I am sufficiently terrified of having an allergic reaction to the vaccine for Covid-19 that I am having a hard time thinking when it comes to getting the shot. Add to that the fact that it's a crap shoot as to when vaccination times are available anywhere and we're not sure who is giving out which vaccine, there's a lot of unknowns that are making it hard to get through this process.

I am so frustrated and tired of not being able to just do things like I could before bipolar came on the scene. It was hard with just the cptsd in the picture, but I could bulldoze my way through to some extent and make things happen. I kinda collapsed afterwards but I made shit happen even when I wasn't feeling well. Now, I simply don't have the energy to do it anymore. I remember having the energy. I'm so angry that I can't force myself past my fear and make this happen.

It is complicated by the fact that in the time it took for me to go from absolute terror to 'I think I can do this.' (which was only a few minutes) all of the open time slots for getting the vaccine were filled. I'm so frustrated with myself I could just about cry. I can't do that, however, because the boys get scared when I cry. I spend a lot of time forcing myself to be stoic about difficulties and misfortune because anything else distresses the kids. And when I am in a depressive episode, I have to work even harder not to break down because the kids know I'm not well and they worry about me.

It makes me feel awful that my sons worry about my welfare. I feel guilty for it. And there isn't anything I can do to magically make everything all better. Because, there is no cure for diabetes or bipolar. I do my best to put on a brave face and push forward. But it is exhausting and gets harder whenever my brain isn't functioning properly. April was a bad month.

I started the month out mildly depressed. Then there was the whole business about Cuddle Bear getting a psych evaluation that triggered my cptsd and then a serious depressive episode hit for two weeks. The depression acted as a trigger for my cptsd and I was having emotional flashbacks left and right. Then the mixed episode came and just wouldn't go away. It was awful. By some minor miracle, my brain was close to fully normal when it was Sunday. I wasn't Fighty McFightface but able to keep control over my responses to everything and hold my temper in check.

There was stuff that pissed me off, but I focused on my knitting and did my best to ignore it. If I could have gotten away with just leaving, I would have because the longer we were there the less I wanted to be there. The kids had a good time. Beloved was feeling kinda how I was, tired and like we were just bodies there. It was Easter. It's a Christian holiday and we're not Christians. There wasn't a lot of 'Yay, Jesus is Risen.' going on, but there was a good deal of discussion about how much they disliked not going to church because they missed their community.

I swallowed my bile and refrained from making comments about how they should be thankful for the fact that they have a community and can practice their religion safely, with out any restrictions on it. But, the inconvenience of Covid-19 protocols brought out complaints about how it wasn't the same and some grumbling that the government was treading on people's toes. If I was still in a mixed state, I would have made those sharp comments and that'd be when the fight started.

I am so angry with how being inconvenienced is a bigger problem in their minds than the public health hazard of Covid-19. I figure they just all forgot I am part of the population it could kill. I figure they all just forgot that I have been stuck in my home unable to even go out grocery shopping for the last year. And I know that there was no consideration of the negative impact this would have had upon my mental health. But, you know, the fact that they couldn't go to church on Easter with out making a reservation or going to a Zoom session is a bigger problem than the idea that someone could catch this thing and be an asymptomatic carrier and kill people. 

If you list to the way they tell it, Covid-19 is dangerous to people who are in nursing homes and over the age of 60. It's been a year of this kind of talk. Throw in some comments about "oh, so-and-so is diabetic and in frail health and they've been stuck at home all the time" while ignoring me sitting right there, it has been a hard year of keeping silence. And now they're acting like the vaccine is no big deal and saying that people who are worrying about allergic reactions are nervous Nellies. And some indignation that they had to wait for the lines of people who were ahead of them.

It's been made clear who in my life give a damn about other people and who in my life just care about themselves. It's unfortunate and disgusting. I don't know what to do about it. A part of me says I shouldn't go around them. Because I don't want to be where I'm an afterthought. But they'll tell me that I am taking it all wrong if I do that. It feels like going into my parents' house and I am coming to hate it.

Brain still out of order.

 I'm still mixed. I'm still super anxious. And I am now really irritable, like even more so than I usually am with these. I talk to my doctor Monday. I'm kinda hoping that there's some kind of silver bullet because this game sucks and I don't like it. I am dreading a number of things that rationally I shouldn't be. It's bullshit. I keep having emotional flashbacks. I am sleeping horribly. And it's really hard to be a rational person right now. Also, fuck this weather. It is stupidly cold out but sunny. The kids are having a ball, but I NOPED out of going out there when I checked on them a minute ago. I don't feel like freezing my tits off for a few minutes of sunshine. I want this weather to settle down and be warm.

Mixed episodes suck as much as depressive ones.

 That's my thought here and I'm sticking with it. It's been about a week now that I've been slogging through a mixed episode. The mood tends towards depressed but I'm finding myself ready for a fight. As such, I've been avoiding social media and not posting content on any of my blogs (mostly). I know that when I am mixed, I have the tendency to say stupid shit just as I do when I'm hypomanic. Throw in the irritability and it's just a bad time waiting to happen.

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is going on with that report for Cuddle Bear after the meeting with the psychiatrist from Strong Hospital. Our family doctor doesn't have it. The autism center doesn't have it. I tried calling the chair of the CSE office for the middle/high school. First attempt, I got dumped into a full voicemail box. Second attempt, they hung up on me. I'm not pleased. I am at a bad headspace for people to be playing stupid games like this with me. It ratchets up the anxiety and the irritability. It sucks.

But, like I said in the title of this post, mixed episodes suck as much as depressive ones. I have this feeling that I must do ALL the things and none of the energy to do it. My brain is cranking away but on bad shit instead of on the 'I must clean EVERYTHING' that runs through my head when I am hypomanic. It's hard to focus but I feel like I have to do shit and I get frustrated because I can't focus well enough to do it. I don't quite know what to do with myself. My usual calming activities aren't working so great.

And, in the midst of all of this, the kids have spring break for the next week and a half. Then they're doing distance learning for the remainder of that week. I'm trying not to be surly and snappish but it's hard. I want to be alone but I don't want to be alone at the same time. And my head is still haywire, which is exhausting by itself. Fuck bipolar with a chainsaw.

Ugh. Arthritis can die in a fire.

 I wasn't feeling too hot yesterday. I had a migraine. So, I took some medicine for it and tried to rest. That didn't work out great because I was too uncomfortable to sleep it off and then the kids got home from school. By the end of the day, the worst of the migraine was gone and I was feeling marginally better. Cue this morning. 

I wake up and almost all of my old injuries and joints ache intensely. Why? Because of the weather and my arthritis. I'm hobbling around with a cane. The cane helps but the pressure on my knees from standing is pretty intense and makes it feel worse. So, I've been spending most of my morning sitting down doing just about nothing.

Why nothing? Because the pain is making it hard for me to think. And my mood is dropping because of the grey weather and the persistent pain. So, I don't know what to do with myself. I tried to nap a few times but couldn't do it because of the pain. I just feel awful and my scumbag brain is telling me that I'm an awful person because I'm not up and moving around doing stuff. After all, my arms and legs aren't broken. It sucks.

On the plus side, I haven't tripped over anything yet today. I ran my knee into the chair next to the kids's room but that spot hurts less than the internal grinding sensation of the arthritis. I took some pain medicine. I'm hoping it will start working soon. I don't know what to do with myself right now and I feel upset. I want to nap but I can't. It just sucks right now.

Ah, gods, wtf am I doing, again?

 This business of my sleep not being sufficient despite getting around 8 hours of sleep every night is really wearing on me. I'm not sure what the solution to it is. I'm pretty sure that I'm having nightmares and that's the problem. I have a lot of unresolved issues surrounding 2010-2011 and the experiences that went with my postpartum depression. I think they're popping up because the anxieties that I had during that year are running around at the back of my head. It's hard.

I'm afraid to write about it because I'm afraid that someone is going to use my words as evidence to try to take my kids from me. Not writing about it, I feel as though I'm going crazy because this anxiety is rattling around constantly. It's making it hard to sleep for reasons that I can't fully express. I've been struggling with fear of sleep again. Those two facts are the basis, aside from my deep and overwhelming sense of exhaustion in the morning, that I conclude that I am not sleeping well or getting down in to deep and restorative sleep. I'm going to be bringing it up with my psychiatrist when I talk to him next week. I hate having complex post-traumatic stress disorder. It messes with everything.

There's a teacher at the school who is in the process of turning herself into a problem (as I mentioned in my previous posts). This is part of what is triggering my ptsd. At the same time, I am angry. I am concerned at the IEP meeting in April that they're going to try to use my disability as an argument to change the IEPs of both kids. I am equally concerned that they're going to use the findings from the psychiatric evaluation that was done of Cuddle Bear to change his IEP to mainstream him and kick out the academic supports he has in place right now. They're making noises about pulling Suggle Bug out of speech therapy. I don't fully understand why.

Snuggle Bug has a difficult time using parts of speech correctly. It's a marked difference compared to others. We're regularly correcting him on pronouns and tenses for verbs. I'm going to ask them in the IEP meeting if this is something that he was supposed to be working on with his speech therapist or his teacher. And then, if it is a thing for the teacher, I'm going to ask why we're not seeing progress. Same question for the speech therapist if it is their wheelhouse. Beloved is talking about taking the day off to sit in on the meeting.

A lot of this is hurry up and wait for the write up from the psychological evaluation to arrive. When I signed the consent for Snuggle Bug to be evaluated, the form did not say that his teacher or any administrator was going to be present for the meeting. I'm questioning the ethics and legality of their presence in that zoom meeting last week. I have to ask some questions of my psychiatrist regarding the evaluation of minors and who is permitted to be present when it happens. Because, when the school requests a physical evaluation of a student's physical fitness for their gym classes or sports activities, the gym teacher isn't permitted to be present. I want to know who the person who was identified by the string of numbers on the screen during that zoom meeting was. If it was the school psychologist, that's not a problem. If it was the CSE chair for the middle/high school, I'm questioning it.

I don't even know if I am doing the right thing right now with all of this. There's a lot of questions up in the air and I don't have any good answers. I hate IEP season because as we get farther along in the schooling, things get more complicated. I feel like I don't know enough to be in these meetings and properly advocate for my kids. And I don't necessarily trust the rando parent representative who could get picked to help with the process because I can see them pressuring me to just agree with what the school says.

Beloved is optimistic that this whole situation is a case of the one teacher taking stuff out of context and creating a mess. I hope that he's right. And I hope that this mess doesn't screw over my kids. It all makes me wish that I had the spoons and brain power to home school the kids. Because it was exhausting and maddening, but we didn't have to deal with people being asinine over the kids having active imaginations.

Took all day but I'm making progress.

I am taking a brief break to type this up as the kids' dinner is finishing up cooling. April is Camp NaNoWriMo. I am torn. I want to participate but, at the same time, I am concerned that life's going to go sideways again and I won't be able to. You know, like last year? I am struggling to get back into my disciplined schedule of the last two months. This depressive episode and the stress of the last few weeks have thrown me completely off my feed. I just feel like things are going to keep getting harder. It's probably my depression talking. But, that's where my head is at right now.

I slept a lot today. I don't know why I was so exhausted but I just about slept all morning after the kids got on the bus and Beloved headed off to work. After I got up and had lunch, I started trying to catch up on my to-do list from the last few days. I am tired but I have a lot left to do. I've given up on having this place clean by Ostara. The kids' room looks like a train wreck and there's no way that can be solved in 48 hours short of lighting it on fire and scooping out the ashes. (No, I'm not contemplating burninating their stuff but I am exasperated.) The living room is marginally better, but it still needs a fair amount of work.

I have to figure out how to put together the damn vacuum cleaner. Then I have to convince the kids that it isn't a terrifying menace. Somehow, I have a feeling that's not happening this weekend either. And we won't talk about the cobwebs. Let's just say that I'm not completely cured of my arachnophobia but I've gotten to where I don't freak out over small spiders unless they're literally on me. But, there's a bunch of housework that didn't happen over the last two weeks because I didn't feel well and stuff happened. I'm not pleased but oh well.

It took me just about all day but I got to where most of the dishes are clean and the kitchen resembles being orderly. The kids are bickering. I'm pretty sure they're only going to eat their chips out of their entire dinner because they're picky about food. I just don't have the spoons to fight them over it. I don't know what I'm going to do if I'm still down like this in a few weeks when Spring break happens. Ugh.

When you're dealing with idiots...

Be prepared to need a stick to poke them with.

The big meeting regarding Cuddle Bear happened. I was not pleased with the fact that my son's teacher and the chair of the Special Education department for the middle/high school were sitting in on a psychological evaluation. I was not pleased at all but apparently this was how things were going to go. Cuddle Bear answered the questions asked of him politely and respectfully. He did a good job of paying attention. And got a little worried he was going to miss the bus (he didn't). According to theory, the specialist that he sees and our family doctor will be getting copies of the psychologist's findings. According to theory, I will be getting a copy as well. 

Initially, when this was brought up, I made a point of stating that this should be included in his IEP documentation just like any of the evaluations done by their staff psychologist. The doctor confirmed the autism diagnosis. The doctor said that Cuddle Bear is a boy with a very active imagination and he tends to hyperfocus on it (as I was saying at the outset of all of this alarm/panic). I am annoyed that the doctor took the opportunity to inquire as to my psychological welfare. Somehow, he was aware that I have a history of mental illness. 

I have not hidden my condition. At the same time, I do not believe that my mental illness is an influence upon my son's performance at school. I, however, kept that opinion to myself and answered rather bluntly the questions asked of me with the minimal of answers required of the questions. I would understand if the question was asked to establish familial history of such things. It was not presented as such for they didn't ask about his father. And, regarding Beloved, there was the implication that he is an absentee father that I took offense to as well. I made it plain that he is active in the lives of our family and the biggest thing to be a problem for us has been the impact of Covid-19 on our lives. They were, for some gods rotting reason, surprised by this information and possibly, mildly chagrined. 

I'm angry. It's been a day and I'm still angry. Their IEP meetings are scheduled for the same day as a Google meeting. This was a Zoom meeting. I'm not sure which platform is more secure but I know this is happening this way because of Covid-19. If I don't get my copy of this doctor's findings, I'll be talking to the specialist and requesting that a copy of the one that she is getting. We've got our next meeting via phone in about two weeks. If neither of my son's health providers have copies and I don't have a copy, it's going to be a bad day for the school.

They had been working with us so well. And then the teacher got a wild hair up their ass and decided that Cuddle Bear was delusional and excessively aggressive. That's what got this whole ball rolling. I am just letting that line run out and watching to see what the results are. The teacher may be looking for another line of work in a bad economy if this mess causes my son problems. And I will claw my way through the entire school food chain until the problems are resolved, because I know how those food chains work. Right now, I'm just going to simmer and watch. I am not happy. Not at all. 

As the kids said the other day: Screw Gravity!

 It has been a rough couple of weeks. I'm mild-moderately depressed. All of the cleaning I have done has fallen into disrepair in record time. And, to top it off, I fell up a flight of stairs today while I was getting the kids out to the bus this morning. My right side hurts but I don't think I injured much more than my pride. Seriously, who the hell falls up stairs? Me, apparently.

I'm trying to stay focused and get things done but it's been really hard. I haven't been sleeping well. I'm still getting 8 hours of sleep but it's not deep and restful sleep. As a result, I am a zombie in the morning and through about half of the day. Last week was particularly fun because Snuggle Bug had a misadventure over the weekend and scratched his eye. I got him in to see my new eye doctor. The prognosis was good, his eye was healing from a shallow scratch and the doctor was confident that he'd be fine by Friday. Then I had to schedule another eye exam for myself because the machine malfunctioned when I had the last exam. That ate up Thursday morning and then the afternoon hit and I was busy with the kids.

Monday was phone call day trying to make arrangements to get Snuggle Bug seen. Tuesday was his eye appointment and him spending the afternoon with me trying to screw around instead of doing school work. Wednesday I felt awful and barely had energy to get anything done. Thursday was, well, as I described it above. By Friday, I was just 10000 percent done with everything. I felt like I couldn't accomplish anything. I had watched pretty much all of the cleaning I had done fall apart before my eyes because I have kids. And the weekend was trying to get the kids to clean their room before juggling the groceries that Beloved had gotten before he had to leave and run more errands. Sunday was busy with family business. Then today happened.

I feel like garbage emotionally. I really stuck my foot in my mouth today when I was chatting with Beloved and that doesn't help much. He isn't mad at me, but I am mad at myself because I was an insensitive idiot in how I phrased things. I feel like I'm just not going to be successful in getting this place clean despite how hard I work. I feel like I am going to make zero progress on my personal projects because I am trying to juggle a ton of housework that the kids undo right behind me as I go along. (Legos, legos everywhere.) And my brain chemistry is telling me that everything's awful. At the same time, my trauma memories are popping up like mushrooms over a corpse because apparently some part of my brain decided that now is the time to process these things. This is probably why I am not getting good sleep right now, my brain is cranking overtime trying to process the horrors I grew up with.

And my Keen business is suffering because of this. I logged on only for an hour last week. My goal is 1pm to 4:30pm every Monday through Friday. I was on Monday. For an hour. That was it. My writing has been suffering because I just haven't been getting any of it done. It has me seriously questioning if I should even attempt Camp NaNoWriMo this April. I honestly don't know what to do. I keep expecting for everything to go sideways like it did last year as stuff is opening up around the country and people are putting pressure on Governor Cuomo. Sure, it looks like Beloved and I are eligible for the Moderna vaccine (that's the one being offered in our region) but I don't know if we're going to find time to do it. And I have a bit of panic over going out and doing stuff (even with the premise that being vaccinated will make it safer) because I've been stuck inside this damn apartment for functionally a year. This has not helped my social phobia. 

So, yeah, I'm not doing great right now. Here's hoping my brain chemistry will straighten itself out in the near future and that my right side will let me catch up on some of my housework this week.

Shield up and push forward.

 When I was a young child, I had an active interest in medieval things and was (almost) a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. My aunts were members and among the things that they had taught me was the subject line of this post. I had asked what knights did when dismounted. I mistakenly assumed that they were functionally helpless on foot. My aunt who was a fighter laughed and said "Keep your shield up and push forward."

That became a motto of mine. Keep the shield up and push forward. It's been a rough week. I've a tired shield arm. Because of the business of the school being confused by Cuddle Bear's presentation of his autism (which Beloved and I are absolutely at the root of the behavioral issues), I have been having emotional flashbacks. They're talking about having an expert in child psychology evaluate him. As this is on their dime, I'm alright with this because all information is worth having, especially in the case of trying to help Cuddle Bear develop, mature, and succeed in life.

It is, however, especially difficult for me to handle all of this right now because I keep having flashbacks to when CPS was in the picture and we were living under the threat of having our children taken from us for arbitrary bullshit reasons. That year was hell. Yes, some good things came out of it, but that is just proof that we're stronger than what tried to break us and there were some actually decent people in the midst of the parade running through our home on a regular basis. I got through that year by taking each day as it came. I dissociated heavily and put on my mask (mental armor) every day to get through with out melting down in terror.

All of the unresolved things are coming back up now. It's been triggered by the school's psychologist referring Cuddle Bear to the consulting child psychologist from Strong Hospital. This brought up all the memories of my going to a forensic psychologist and doing my best to toe the line of 'normal' and yet still be truthful. As Loki calls it, I used strategic deployment of truth on his tests. I know how to throw psych evaulation tests. I did it regularly in psych classes, much to the vexation of the instructor. There was a lot of things I held back when I did that test because I was terrified of the consequences if I laid all my cards on the table. 

CPS had already screwed me by way of false presentation of being there to help when I was in the hospital. I wasn't about to give them any more ammunition. Playing things as conservatively as I did, the doctor didn't hesitate to say that I clearly had complex post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II (with psychotic features). The doctor voiced amazement that I was as glued together as I was and that I had a very rare capacity to identify that my hallucinations were not real. He declared that I had suffered trauma equivalent to going through a warzone. He eyed me and suspected that there was more to the story but worked only with the information he had at hand. I think he had a feeling that I threw the test a curve ball and held back information.

If I could go back in time and do it all over again, I would do the same damn thing. Because, I have zero doubts that if I presented as severely in distress as I actually was at the time the court would have ordered our kids into protective custody with somebody else. The judge was all set to do that when we went to court and my lawyer had to get into a screaming match with him over the fact that I was the one who called for help and my children were perfectly safe when help arrived. They were terrified of me and the fact that I was hearing my mother in my head telling me to do awful things and screaming awful things at me. 

The one thing I would change if I could, I wouldn't have shown that damn woman my journal. They took my words and used them against me in court. If I ever am in a position where someone of some official capacity asks to see my journal, I'm going to ask them if they have a warrant. Otherwise, the answer is no. Or I may burn all the damn books. I don't know. I have flashbacks to that day too. Beloved postulates that my trouble sleeping these last few months have been due to stress and to my brain getting ready to unpack more trauma. He's quite likely correct. 

I've been trying to find a therapist to work through this stuff with. At the same time, I find myself concerned not that the health insurance won't cover. I already know the health insurance are dicks and I'm pretty  much on my own financially because of it. My concern is that my therapist can't handle what I'm attempting to process. I've gone through a number of therapists in the past and I've had several of them NOPE out of working with me because it was too traumatizing for them. It's vexing to know that.

I am exhausted.

 First, the good news. My old meter was reading approximately 11 points off. I did my first test this morning with the old meter. That read 126. Not a horrible number, but higher than I wanted to see. I did my second fasting test with the new meter. That read 115. A much better number and made me rethink what I had planned for breakfast. (Breakfast was diet yogurt, biscotti, and coffee. Total carb load was 35 carbs. I still have to establish if I am doing my math right on total carbs vs. net carbs. Because the net carb load would be lower.)

Next, the meh news. I just haven't been sleeping well for the last month. The bags under my eyes have bags. I'm not sleeping so poorly that I am putting my mental well being into danger. It's been things like the rapid shifts in the weather causing migraines and my arthritis to act up and make it hard to sleep. Or in the case of last night, hard cramping due to my period making it hard to sleep. Mainly, I'm finding it difficult to remain asleep. My prazosin (aka anti-nightmare pill) wears off around 3 am. That's been about when I've been waking up. I don't know if I'm having nightmares too because I don't remember them. It's a surreal experience still to have gone all my life able to remember my dreams and now because of a little pink pill, I don't recall them unless they're especially horrific.

Finally, the wtf news. Cuddle Bear (I'm going to have to come up with a new nickname for him soon, he is 13.) is having some difficulty at school. He's been perseverating on his fantasy life to the point that it is impacting his dealings with peers, teachers, and his performance at school. The teacher is concerned that there's a disconnect with reality here. Beloved and I don't think that he's delusional but that there's something going on that needs to be addressed. I suspect that he is diving into his fantasy life to escape some sort of stressor. It's become more prevalent over the last three weeks. 

At first, I thought it was just a thing happening at home because school had stressed him out. It was the time when classes for that semester were doing final exams and such. I figured that was what had him going. But the teacher called me today to explain that he's having these difficulties. She voiced concern that he was not as grounded in reality as he should be. I didn't dismiss that outright, but noted that he tends to do it more when he is stressed out and as an escape from a situation.

I've no idea what situation he's trying to escape. We've been strict and not allowing boundaries to get pushed, but we're not traumatizing the kid. Beloved and I work very, very hard not to use the parenting skill set that we were handed by our respective parents. I don't know if the stress of Covid-19 is getting to him. I don't know if he is having difficulty with someone at school. I don't know if he is having difficulty with a subject at school. I don't know where the stressor is. If I could track it down, I'd be able to provide him with some guidance on how to handle it.

I allow him free reign to play how he chooses through the afternoon. I figure it lets him let off stress from school. But, I think I am going to have to put my foot down on some of his imaginative play and tell him that his desire to express his fantasy world is going to have to be via some medium other than spoken word and performative action. That's going to suck. And I am going to have to police his dress code for school because he is sneaking to school garments that he uses for imaginative play again. I'll be calling the autism center to ask for guidance on this. I'll be talking to my psychiatrist for guidance on this. And I'm going to probably be trying to find him some manner of therapist that isn't affiliated with the county clinic (who are sufficiently infamous that the school is telling people DON'T go there). 

This is just a huge headache and a mess that I don't know how to sort out. I know that my son is not disconnected from reality. He's not demanding extra plates be set out for his wives or smuggling food into his room for them. He isn't behaving in a delusional manner. He just gets very angry when you confront him when he is hyper focused on his imagination versus reality. (I.e. when he wants to play firefighter and has been directed to clean his room.) I don't want to remove things like the toys he associates with this stuff, but it might be a necessary step to box them up until he can play appropriately with them. I don't know.

untitled no. ??^n+1

 I'm not sure where to begin. Technically, today has been a typical to good Monday. The tarot decks that I ordered arrived ridiculously early. I got about half of my chore list done. I made around $20 reading cards this afternoon and the kids were reasonably well behaved.

My brain, however, is not at a great place. I now know that the problem over the last year wasn't me but the fact that my glucometer was over 2 years old. Apparently the things last for a year to two years at best. I have adjusted my diet back to what it was at the beginning of last year. My A1C might bump up a few tenths of a point because of that. Or, it may stay where it is, I don't know. But the doctor was dismayed and disturbed that I had curtailed my diet as severely as I did. He assured me that I didn't need to do so and all but ordered me to go back to the initial diet I was prescribed.

He also prescribed a new meter. He was surprised (and perhaps embarrassed) that he hadn't prescribed one to me to begin with three years ago. I still have the old meter. I am using it because it's sort of working (it is off somewhere between 10 and 20 points high) as a stop gap measure until all the testing supplies are here. The weather today was such that I didn't want Beloved driving over the hill to the next town over to get prescriptions (when not everything was ready) in the middle of a windstorm.

The winds were enough that they blew over the kids' play house and then blew it apart in the lawn. It's been screaming around the corners of the building and making an eerie sound. It snowed a little bit but the winds have been whipping so hard that it didn't really settle on the yard. There's a bit of drifting up against the tree line along the property line to the east of us but not much.

I started today out feeling alright enough. But as the day has progressed, my mood has been dropping. I think it is no small coincidence that I am due to start my menses anytime this week. I had the beginnings of a migraine but I narrowly avoided it through a liberal application of caffeine and naps in the morning. That, however, threw off my schedule for the day and left me in a bad headspace for the rest of the day.

I still have a half dozen books to port over to KDP. I still have a manuscript to finish editing. I thought I was going to get that done last week but it didn't happen. Because I was so anxious over the appointment I had on Friday. The anticlimactic quality of the end results of the appointment should have been a source of relief, but my anxiety brain is still spinning. I am mightily vexed. 

Depressed? Or is it anxiety? Why not both?

I have my appointment with our family doctor Friday. My mood's been gradually tanking as the day draws closer. I am deeply concerned about the fact that I am eating approximately 70 carbs per day and my blood sugar is still doing stupid things. I'm supposed to be at a minimum of 90 carbs. It's been a year now. A year of this bullshit where I eat less and less with my blood sugar continuing to be stupid. They say that I'm worrying too much because my A1C looks good.

I am really struggling with the urge to just ignore when I feel hungry. This is not a good thing. Because, when I ignore feeling hungry my blood sugar can get fairly low before I realize I need to eat. And that's because I go 'huh, I feel hungry? it is real or is it my blood sugar is high?' and I test. I've been told that I'm testing too frequently. This is after I was told I wasn't testing often enough. 

I have cut dairy just about completely out of my diet. I'm considering cutting the meat that I eat to push back the hunger cravings out too because it's probably not doing my cholesterol any favors. I've cut out processed foods. My lunches are now peanut butter (no jelly or jam of any sort) on diet flat bread. I am eating salads but my blood sugar still spikes. I can't eat a 'normal' breakfast anymore. When I try, my blood sugar spikes. So, I am eating this ultra diet yogurt that's 3 carbs and granola that is 20 plus a cup of coffee with 1/2 and 1/2 in it (another 1 carb). That makes breakfast 24 carbs and I still feel rotten. I'm seriously considering going back to what I was accidentally doing and having a breakfast of 14 carbs. (I misread the label on the granola and thought it said 30, not 20 for total carbs. There was a few weeks where breakfast was 14 to 15 carbs.)

50 carbs for a diet is the beginning of ketosis level of carbs. Ketosis is fatal to diabetics. I am desperately attempting to avoid it. I have cut snacks out of my diet. My meals keep getting smaller. I am starting to fall back into patterns of avoiding food or avoiding eating with other people until I absolutely have to eat. This is taking a toll on my mental health. I know this is part of the reason why I am having so many flashbacks to when I was a kid.

I spent the first 20 years of my life with an eating disorder because of my tyrannical parents policy on food. This business of being hungry all the time and being isolated due to Covid-19 is proving to be a big trigger for bad memories. I can't find a therapist who takes my insurance. I really should have one, but it's basically impossible. I tried changing health insurance providers and I was denied because of preexisting conditions. So, I'm stuck with this heath insurance. The only option that keeps popping up on the therapist front is to go to the county mental health clinic.

Those were the fuckers that were the reason I almost lost my kids because of a mental health crisis that they created with their negligence. I will slog through this on my own before I go back there. So, to say the least, today is not a good day. I am afraid. I am anxious. And I feel horrible. Fuck diabetes.

untitled no. ?

 As I am sitting here, I am unable to shake this feeling that I am going to start openly sobbing for no apparent reason. I am struggling to process trauma memories that have bubbled up along with random 'ok' memories from my childhood. It's like there is no bottom to this well of sorrow. Because remembering trauma that is 'new' brings up the memories of other trauma that are more familiar (but no less harrowing). I am so tired of trauma work. I have been doing trauma work since I was eighteen.

I've been dealing with some form of trauma all my life. First there was the part where I lived through it. That sucked. I compartmentalized and pushed that into a closet to be able to pass as a 'normal' kid. It didn't work. So, on top of the business of being traumatized at home, I got traumatized at school by bullies. There were few safe havens and those places I could go, I couldn't stay there for too long before my parents were looking for me.

When I finally went off to college, I was in the weird state of limbo. I lived a double life. At college, I could freely express myself. At my parents' house, I had to do my best to live the role they expected of me as the dutiful daughter and emotional punching bag for just about everybody in the house. It was exhausting. As I was at college, I started therapy because my room mate insisted on it. Theresa, if you're reading this, thank you. 

It was still a weird limbo on the psychological front because I was working on healing the trauma of the abusive relationship I was in during high school as I was living in the traumatic environment of my parents' house. When I was out with Beloved, I had some flashbacks and panic attacks. Fortunately, we were off on our own at a park when I had the screaming fit and I started clawing/hitting myself. I had these sort of incidents a few times. It almost broke our relationship. My parents had no idea because I never had that happen in front of them.

Flash-forward about a decade and my mother makes a comment that rips through my mental barriers. I didn't have a screaming fit, but I devolved into incoherent babbling and sobbing as I curled into a fetal position and sat rocking on a step. Mom called Beloved. When he showed up, I was still a wreck. In less than five minutes, he had me calm. The next day, we got married. I dissociated through most of that day. Memories of my wedding day come back to me in flashes. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that it was my wedding and it was a comment from my wonderful mother that set me off.

I don't know why but I find myself feeling like I'm on the edge of a cliff and someone's about to push me off. It's not a 'jump from the fiery airplane as it is crashing' or a 'you're going to fly now' kind of feeling. It's more like I'm standing at the edge of the abyss and I have some malevolent force at my back trying to force me over the edge. It is something I've had nightmares of. Many nightmares of being forced over the edge of a precipitous drop to fall to my death. Those started after my mother dangled me over a three story drop with the threat to let go if I didn't obey her whims. I was four. I had stopped my brother (who was old enough to crawl but not yet pull up and walk) from going over the edge. 

I pulled him back when Mom stormed into the room and started screaming at me for being in my parents' room (which had a smaller room off to the side and a drop down to the basement where a flight of stairs was supposed to be, those steps did eventually get built about a decade later). She just about kicked my brother aside and gripped me by my shirt. She held me in such a manner that the majority of my body weight was upheld by her grasp on my shirt despite the fact my feet were on the floor as I was levered out over the drop to the basement. She held me there for probably a few minutes but it felt like forever. She shook me like a rag doll and I was convinced I was going to die. Then I was half thrown into the main portion of her room towards the direction of the room that was eventually to be my bedroom. I don't clearly remember what she said. I just remember the sensations and the murderous look in her eye.

It is memories like that which have been coming up. It wasn't the only time she did that, by the way. It happened again when my other brother was approximately the same age and about to do the same thing as his older brother (tip a laundry basket over the drop and fall with it). In both cases, I grabbed my brother (who was holding on to the laundry basket like it was for his life) and I dragged him back into the room. The second time, Mom first shoved my face into the bookshelf next to the doorway into that room. The only reason why I didn't get a face full of books and a black eye was because I dodged and caught the door frame with the side of my head. No black eye but a bit of a bump on the head. But she dragged me over to the same spot that she did the first time. This time she held me by the back of my shirt. But the process was the same, hold me at a 45 degree angle over that drop down to the basement and scream at me about how I was bad and attempting to harm my brother.

It is oddly ironic that the time Mom nearly kicked my youngest brother out a window, I was the one who grabbed him and pulled him back as the screen got knocked out the window. That time, Mom didn't scream at me. She was confused and partially awake, wondering why my toddler brother was shrieking and where the screen had went. It is bitterly ironic that the same brothers that I had saved from death multiple times turned out to hate me because of the mind-fuckery of my mother.

I don't regret saving my brothers from our mother's insanity. I know I did the right thing. Even if they are of the opinion that the wouldn't piss on me to put me out if I had caught fire. (Yep, one of them actually said that to me as the other laughed and agreed.) I feel like I'm going crazy. Loki says that I'm going sane and that the two feel about the same. It is awful. I feel like I'm falling apart. Beloved tells me that this is happening because I finally feel safe enough to remember these things. I know he's right, but it is awful.

I am annoyed.

 Way back in 1998, when the site Mysticwicks was still around, I shared a chant that I had written the year before. Flash forward twenty some years, I find that an artist took my chant and set it to the exact music I had planned for it, and adapted it by adding 'baby talk' gibberish as a chorus between the lyrics. I am not amused. I am highly annoyed. This album came out sometime in early 2000s, so they sat on it for a little bit while MW was still up and running.

I have a note book with the dated entry of when I wrote the original chant in September of 1997. A part of me says that I could go after them but I'm broke and the effort of getting into a fight about this isn't going to do me any favors. I am just really annoyed and disgusted. It makes me disinclined to share original material for free anywhere. I'm posting stuff up on Tumblr because if you repost it, it automatically pings back to the original source. 

I think my annoyance with this is just heightened because of someone attempting to rip off my witchy blog in an effort to pad their blog post count and to steal my readership base. That's why I turned off the repost feature on that particular blog. Because that is one of the blogs that I'm using to try to make some money and build a career with, I tend to take a hard line against the theft of intellectual property. It's one thing to quote a blog post. It's one thing to quote it and add commentary. But to just copy it wholesale and then post a link to your blog in the comments is bullshit.

Scumbag brain is doing scumbag brain things again.

 I have been working to build my online presence as an author of esoteric and non-Christian religious texts. I'm actually making some headway in this process. Facebook has been a bit wonky about the author page that I'm working on. At the same time, however, I am having anxiety over finishing this page and such.  Why?

Well, I'm afraid that my parents are going to use this public access point to harass me. I'm afraid that the horrible things that my mother predicted about my writing on these topics are going to happen (including but not limited to people coming to burn my house down and kill my family). Mostly, I'm afraid that my parents are going to get back into the psychological abuse game in public and destroy my budding career. I have them blocked from my personal page. I don't have them blocked from my professional pages. But I don't think they're even following them.

I am just afraid to move forward, to be more aggressive in my pursuit of my career in writing because I'm afraid that they're going to come slithering up to me and make my life hell. It doesn't matter that I've been married and functionally out of their lives for the last fifteen years. My brain says that they're going to show up and drag me back to the farm at any given point in time because they have some kind of claim of ownership on me due to the fact that I am their child. I panic that my life today is just some kind of elaborate fantasy that I invented to cope with the hostility that I was living under in that household.

It's been rough. Last week, I had a traumatic memory bubble pop and I've been reeling with emotional flashbacks and anxiety for the last several days. There's no way for me to get justice for what happened to me. There's no point to trying to confront the people who traumatized me because they'll act like nothing happened (at best) or damn me for trying to make problems in the family (at worst). I don't have a therapist to talk to about this crap. I feel like it would be helpful but I can't find anybody who takes my insurance.

I'm just not doing fantastic right now and it's making everything hard. I'm not sleeping well because of it, and that's despite the cocktail of meds that knock me out every night. I am just afraid to do anything. I'm afraid that everything I do is going to go wrong and I'll be subjected to corporal punishment and psychological torture for it. I keep reliving my late middle childhood and my early teen years. I don't know why but it's exhausting and I want it to stop.

I'm writing poetry again.

 After about five years of not writing poems on a regular basis, I've been writing poems again. I feel like most of them suck, but I am going to keep writing poems until I get back into shape again. I used to write a lot of poetry back in the day. I am going to attempt to do it on a daily basis. I'm trying to catch up on lost time because I am working towards a goal.

What might that goal be? Well, I'm attempting to have a small book of poetry done by the end of the year. The goal is to write love poems. I'm not there yet because I'm still relearning stuff aside from blank verse. I figure if I can manage to write a book of love poems and get it done by the end of the year, maybe I can hit some holiday sales with it. Long term planning is what's happening here.

The other reason why I'm writing poetry again is to get back to writing heroic style poetry so that I can add it into my novels. That is going to take a bit longer. Here's one I slapped up on Tumblr today that I feel is relatively decent.

https://ladybrythwensinclair.tumblr.com/post/642949497231638528/another-poem

Fiber Fluff: Nothing's happening.

 I'm still working on the monstrosity. I'm up to the halfway point of finishing the final triangle. I don't know how I am going to keep this thing from curling up. It's so big that the weight of it might work when I try to block it out (by hanging on a laundry line) but I honestly don't know. I am a bit vexed with the fact that this project is taking forever. At the same time, I am half finished with the final section so I am going to work on it and complete it before I pick up that sweater I started for myself or start making things for other people.

Next weekend, when we see the in-laws again, I am going to bring the red fiber to run it through my mother-in-law's drum carder. I just don't have the spoons to sit down and card it by hand. And I am still trying to decide how I want to approach spinning up the alpaca fiber. I wish the weather would warm up because I could go out walking with my distaff and spindle. I don't have enough room in the apartment to do that and my attempted distaff stand isn't working with my kick wheel.  

Thanks to the monstrosity, however, I have nowhere I can put the kick wheel and get spinning right now anyways. This project is going to eat my living room, I'm sure of it.

Monday Menu

 The kids are planning on eating breakfast at school most of the week. That cuts down on the amount of planning I need to do. Due to my blood sugar being stupid, I am eating really small breakfasts in the morning (a cup of diet yogurt and a tablespoon of granola plus my morning coffee, it's depressing). They've requested their favorite  foods for lunches. So, Cuddle Bear will be getting his bbq bologna sandwiches and chips for lunches all week. And Snuggle Bug will be getting his peanut butter and blueberry jam sandwiches with chips for his lunches all week. Beloved has taken to packing his lunches the night before and  I don't know what he is putting in them aside from ramen noodles and some kind of sandwich. My lunches are going to be salads with some form of meat along side it (likely something lunch meat or tuna). So the real menu of any interest is going to be dinners.

Monday: Hamburgers

Tuesday: Tacos (with homemade seasoning mix)

Wednesday: Chicken stew with biscuits

Thursday: Take out (because the schedule has me running everywhere that day and no time to cook)

Friday: Fish sticks with peas

Saturday: Peanut butter stew (I'll slap the recipe for this up later in the week, if I remember.)

Thinking about finding a therapist.

Image from Kat Jayne at Pexels.com

 My psychologist has declared me to be one of his most stable patients. That's a big deal because a few years back my mood cycling was really bad. This Vrylar stuff had done wonders for sorting out my mood. I spend most of my time in a low level depressed state but the lows are not as bleak as they were before and the highs are not as unhinged. He's really proud of the effort that I have put in and how well I am doing.

So, some good news there.

At the same time, he has noted that I'm coming up on about five years with out a therapist. He knows about my medical conditions. He's aware of the struggles that I've been having over the last year with trying to get my blood sugar under control. Between the stress and anxiety that comes with having diabetes and the fact that Covid-19 has a rather high death rate for people with diabetes, my psychologist has strongly encouraged me to find a therapist to talk through the anxiety that I've been dealing with.

This year, the trauma anniversaries have been a bit more intense. I think it's because of how much I have been isolated. It makes for a weird parallel to my youth when I spent a good amount of time isolated to avoid people who were harmful towards me. The doctor is of the opinion that a therapist would be helpful in getting me through all of the emotional flashbacks I have been having over the last few months.

The problem is my health insurance. There are therapists in the city who take my insurance. But my insurance dicks around on paying them. So, I have been turned away from people who could have helped me. I will never darken the doorstep of the county mental health facility after the hell they put me through. I have been attempting to do what I can with journal writing and using prompts that I find on the internet. It's been rough and I often forget to write in my mental health journal. Last year, I had three entries in there for the whole year.

My goal is to have three entries in there per week. I'm going to treat it like I'm back at college and I have writing homework. I am doing a lot of writing across various platforms. I have scheduled time for this type of work. I just have to stay on top of my schedule to get it in. I don't have a therapist but I have over a decade of experience being in therapy so I have a pretty good grasp on how it works. So, I sit down and write like I'm talking to a therapist. I'm going to call my health insurance company to see if I can make arrangements to have a list of approved providers sent to me. I fear that most of them are off in Buffalo, which is a 2 hour drive away from me and that they're not going to take me because of Covid and/or the games that the insurance company keeps playing in trying not to pay people for the services provided.

I'm angry because I want to be on the better health insurance that is accepted pretty much everywhere. But, I can't change providers due to my preexisting conditions. So, I'm stuck with this second tier insurance that isn't going to get me much help with my mental health stuff. I am sick and tired of mental health (as well as dental and eye care) being treated as a luxury. It's necessary for us to be well and get the help we need to function as best we can. Especially during a pandemic. But, what difference is that going to make to the people who are counting numbers and don't see the members as people but as income sources.

Adding to my arsenal.

So, it took me literally four months to find these things. I had a set about ten years ago that I gave away. I forgot about them and then I realized that I kinda suck at knitting in the round on double pointed needles (DPNs). I picked up a sock loom thinking that I could use that on my back log of sock projects. I promptly discovered that I had no clue how to do the purl stitch on a knitting loom which I had to know in order to use the sock loom.

I sent Beloved off in search of a set of round looms. I had seen them at Wallyworld back before the pandemic began. I figured that it would be something that would be in stock. I was wrong. Everybody, their sister, and their brother went out and bought up all of them as fast as they came into stock. Same was true with some other craft supplies that I was needing to make Yule gifts. Fortunately, I am crafty and I had enough resources to come up with alternate things to make.

Last month, Beloved found me a long knitting loom. I opened up the package and read the directions. The book was ok, but it didn't cover everything I needed. I also needed a larger loom than what that long knitting loom was going to provide me for the project I had planned. So, I took a trip up to the city. I checked at the two different craft stores but it wasn't in stock. There were slots for it but not a single loom knitting kit was to be found.

Last week I had the car to run some errands while the kids were at school. I stopped at Wallyworld with the hope to find one. I got lucky and there was a single kit left on the shelf. To say the least, I snapped that up and some yarn to go with it. Now I am going to have to reteach myself how to use this thing. Next, I will take over the world with yarn. ... Ok, maybe not take over the world, but I will make more hats faster.

I'm having a rough time right now.

 No pithy comments or snarky sarcasm. I'm just having a rough time. Yesterday was the anniversary date of my first miscarriage. All of the emotional flashbacks that lead up to it suddenly made sense. I suppose I have to explain a few things about this first miscarriage.

First, I was barely fifteen living with my parents. My boyfriend at the time was 19 and serving in the military. We had gotten together as a couple in the autumn of the year before at the high school home coming dance. He walked up to me and declared that I was going to be his dance partner. I refused and went to go back to my conversation with the guy with the sound system playing for the dance when N- said, "I don't take no for an answer." and proceeded to pick me up and drag me out onto the dance floor. 

I struggled, I tried to break out of his grip, I yelled. I was ignored until I was put on my feet in the middle of the crowd and then people stared at me like there was something wrong with me. I tried to stomp on his foot but he just laughed and refused to let me go. This set an early precedent. He introduced himself to my parents when they came to pick me up as my new boyfriend. Then he blew me a kiss and promised to see me at school on Monday.

My parents read me the riot act. My plan was to give it a week and then drop him like a hot rock. That didn't work. Social pressure and love bombing at the same time is a hell of a thing. About a month later, the sexual assaults began. At the same time, I was pressured not to say or do anything because he made threats against me and physically hurt me to "keep me in line". I got good at concealing marks with makeup. I learned to ignore sharp pain in intimate areas. And I got really good at spacing out and just letting my body do whatever it was going to in response to what he did because I wasn't there.

Cue a year and a half later. He's on leave from his first real tour of duty. N- spent most of his time that he was on leave with me. He did his best to impress my parents on his sincerity. At one point, he and my father had the Talk. N- stated that he planned to be a career military man and keep me happy as a stay at home wife. (This was after in the summer, N- promised me that we were going to some day get married. This promise was made after he had grossly assailed me and I was completely spaced out. I remember staring at him in shock as he took the emerald ring that my Grandmother had given me as a gift and slipped it from my right to my left hand. All I was able to think in that moment was, why wasn't he giving me a promise ring that he got if this was what he was going to do. To this day, I have complicated feelings about that emerald ring.)

My parents had begrudgingly come to give their approval of this relationship with no concept of what was going on behind closed doors. (This note comes back to haunt me a solid decade later.) So, N- brings me out to dinner and then to where he is staying while on leave (his grandparents house). He tells me that he has some interesting family heirlooms to show me because he knows I have an interest in such artifacts. At which point I find myself in an old bedroom underneath the stairs and he forces himself on me.

I tried to resist. I told him to stop. I told him no, but N- didn't take no for an answer. That was New Year's eve. I went from being with him all day New Year's eve to going with his father to drop him off for his flight back to Norfolk. Then I was dropped off at my grandparents house for dinner. I was nearly sick at the sight of meat because it reminded me of what happened. I cried off eating, claiming that I had a stomach ache and had already eaten something on the way there from the airport. N-'s father, during the drive, was talking about how I was a proper match for his son because I was so quiet and 'docile'. (The man was divorced, I suspect with good reason.)

About a week later, N- called me and proposed to me over the phone. He told me not to tell my parents. He said that when he was back on leave again, he'd have a ring for me. (Fun fact, N- stole the last gift that my younger brother had given me in good will to get the ring sized, a silver turquoise ring. I am still angry about the theft. N- never gave it back to me. I suppose he kept it as a trophy, I don't know.) A few weeks later, the band trip happened and we marched in a big parade in Florida. All the time, I was keeping a secret from everyone. Not just about the rape but the fact that my period never came.

It was the beginning of February when I had the miscarriage. I remember it clearly. My mother was screaming at me for using too many menstrual pads and wasting so much time in the bathroom. I passed blood, clots, and a small pink curly thing that was the size of a pencil eraser. What I had suspected turned out to be true. I grieved this and yet was relieved. Because I knew that if I stayed with N-, I was going to eventually die. Because I knew, if I had remained pregnant my parents would have named me a slattern and thrown me out of the house at fifteen. So, I kept the miscarriage a secret.

About a week later, I experienced my first suicidal episode. I mentioned this to the school counselor. The school counselor called my parents. My mom picked me up and brought me home, berating me for wanting attention and calling me a liar. Then when we got home, she slapped a butcher's knife down on the table in front of me telling me if I was suicidal then I should do it right in front of her and prove it. My father came home from work. I got read the riot act again for being a 'hypochondriac' and brought up to the hospital in the city for a 24 hour observation with my parents sitting there glaring at me.

I was terrified. I didn't say or do anything. I just slept for the time I was there. I was released with people saying it was all a cry for attention. And that, my friends, is why February is an awful month for me.

Ramblings

 My new headset came in the mail yesterday. So, I am going to be exercising it doing readings this week via the phone and on chat through Keen. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. My kids have declared it to be the coolest thing they've seen this week. The week is early yet, there may be something else interesting that pops up.

Going back to doing readings on Keen was a tough decision. But, I was strongly encouraged to do so because I apparently was getting squirrely with the lack of regular adult communication. So, Loki and Freyr pushed me pretty hard on that front. They were also concerned by the fact that I was giving up a hobby that I love because of politics (basically). So, at their urging, I went back to Keen. I boosted my rates and informed my previous clients why. It was a pleasant surprise when they came back for readings despite the price increase.

I'm not doing readings today because my schedule has been thrown into complete disarray by the fact that I had errands to run and a child to take to the dentist. Snuggle Bug lost a tooth last week and the new one is coming in well. He was a big wiggly and giggly for his appointment today but apparently the electric toothbrush tickles, so it kinda makes sense. I never thought of it as a ticklish sensation, but he was emphatic that it was. To the point of he was trying not to start laughing, so he decided to make duck noises not to laugh. This made the hygienist laugh and confused almost everyone. Of course, Snuggle Bug did it even more because he had an audience that was laughing. I swear that kid is going to grow up to be a comedian.

I picked up a new journal with a llama on the cover. I needed a new journal like I needed another hole in my head but it was my excuse to solve a mystery. I know now what the deal with the gift card that's been living at the bottom of my purse is. (I had forgotten if I had even used it or not.) And in the course of my travels today, I realized that the craft store is no longer my supplier of cheap ink cartridges for my favorite pens. I'll have to be going to the office supply store now for that. I think that those pens are going to be off the market soon with my luck.

I am planning on buying a new pair of tarot decks. I also have supplies to make my own oracle deck. This is something that I have been considering for years. I think that I'm finally going to do it. I don't know how fancy I want to make it or not. But I like the idea of making my own oracle deck and using it for readings. Putting that together with a tarot deck may get interesting results. I'll post pictures of the cards as I get them done and of the other artwork that I've been working on (or will resume working on).

I want this blog to be more active. I want to write more and communicate with people that are dear to me but far away. This blog lets me do that in a more freeform method than the other blogs I have. And I don't have to worry about some censor taking offense to what I've posted and booting me off the platform.

Exhausted for no reason.

 I just feel tired. Like I could curl up and sleep until tomorrow kind of tired. I don't know why. I slept well last night. I took a short nap earlier today, which should have helped with this. But I've felt this way all day. I am struggling to summon up the will to do the things that I need to in order to get ready for next week. I just feel like there's no point. It's like everyday is exactly the same. Except today I am exhausted.

I don't know what it is. Maybe I should be using that light box more. I thought that since we were past the end of December, I was going to do ok with natural light. Perhaps I was wrong.

Fiber Fluff: Indecision time.

 I am currently struggling with deciding what to spin out of my stash right now and what to use for it. I have some random blue-purple dyed Merino in a neatly rolled up batt. I have two balls of grey baby Apaca in pencil roving. At the same time, I still have some fiber that I washed that I need to pick and card from last summer. And I have a box of fluffy random Blue Face Leicester wool dyed a delightful shade of red to card. I want to do spinning but I just can't settle on what I'm going to work on. It doesn't help that I can't decide if I want to get out my kick wheel or use one of my spindles. I've been stuck in this state of indecision for about a month now. So I have gotten no spinning done at all.

I have a bag that I am making as a gift for someone almost done. I need to put handles on it. I'm trying to decide what manner of handles it is going to get. I didn't enjoy that ball of yarn and I wasn't impressed with the color pooling as it worked up. It is commercially spun acrylic yarn that is very loosely plied. While that gives it some softness in its hand feel, it makes the yarn very splitty and frustrating to work with. I got through most of the ball of yarn with the bag pattern. I still have about a third of it left and another whole matching ball that I need to figure out what I'm going to do with it.

I have started making a yellow sweater for myself. It's going to be a pair of granny-hexagons sewn together. It's just like the baby sweater pattern, just made bigger. I figure it'll be fun to make and wear. I don't really have any yellow in my wardrobe, so this could be a thing. It is left over acrylic yarn from the monstrosity. I only needed two balls of yellow for that section, not four as I had thought.

Speaking of the monstrosity, I am almost half through that final triangle. It's basically a big blanket now. A big, weirdly shaped blanket. The first triangle was half of a ball of yarn. Silly me, I didn't realize that each triangle was a double of the one before it. So, I went from 1/2 a ball of yarn to 1 ball of yarn, to 2 balls of yarn, to 4 balls of yarn. It wouldn't be quite so bad except I'm working from a 1lb ball of yarn per each ball. The final four balls of yarn are green. I'm not doing eight balls of blue and sixteen balls of purple to do the full color spectrum as I had initially planned with this project. If I had started this thing with the correct (smaller) sized hook, it wouldn't be this huge. I, however, made a tactical error and used a big hook.

Coming in for a landing?

 I think I'm coming down out of the hypomania, but I'm not entirely sure. I didn't sleep that great last night. Partly because my blood sugar was running high and partly because the shelf I had up over the bed literally fell on me at 4 am. I recall ninja dodging it and then cleaning up the mess, being wide awake. I then debated if I should go back to sleep or not. I laid down and eventually fell back asleep but had some difficulty waking in the morning. I wake up on weekdays at 5:45am so that I can get the kids up at 6:00am this way they can get to the bus on time at 7:05am. On weekends, I let myself sleep in to 6:30am. 

I've been awake and very alert today. I completed just about everything on my To Do List by 5:00pm. That hasn't happened in quite a while. I was left befuddled and kinda wandered around not sure what to do with myself. I am having some difficulty focusing but my brain isn't spinning quite as quickly and I'm not as grumpy as I was yesterday.

Today was my first day back on Keen. I had four clients contact me. I'm hoping that tomorrow that I'll do the same. If I'm lucky, maybe it'll be five. I am being cautiously optimistic about this. It looks like the price increase hasn't necessarily scared people off from coming to me for a reading. I'm going to continue to be aggressive about blogging and posting links to my Keen stuff. I haven't set up a Facebook page for my Keen stuff yet, but I will eventually do that. It is going to go along with the witchy writing stuff that I have been doing and I'm going to work on maintaining a presence on Facebook with my two pages. 

I forgot to type up the menu today because I was busy with housework during the time I had scheduled for blogging. Well, not completely busy at that time, but it ate about half of my blogging block of time so I only got one entry on one blog done. I'm approaching my life with the attitude that I am an independent businesswoman who deals with three different things. My first concern is the running of my household and the care of my children. After that comes my writing work and then my Keen work. It's taken a lot of scheduling.

I've managed for the last two weeks to stick to this schedule that I set up for myself. I'm about 10k words away from finished with the third book I had started back in NaNoWriMo2020. Considering that I'm devoting about an hour a day to working on it, I'm not doing too bad on daily word count. My goal is to keep this schedule for good. I'm going to do my best to stick with it for the next two months. I am not good at keeping a schedule but if I can make it stick over the course of two months, it will stick for good I think by way of the force of habit.

And if I can get force of habit strong enough here on this front, it will carry me through the depressive episodes. That, at least, is my plan.

Oh, hi there Hypomania.

 The magical merry-go-round of moods has landed on hypomania after spending a few days spinning through the mixed part of the cycle. I'm not having the happy, giddy filled with tons of ideas and feeling like I could burst out singing form of hypomania. I'm having the anxious, grumpy, irritable one. You know that feeling when you wake up on the 'wrong side of the bed' and the whole day is viewed through a filter of just sour mood and anxiety? It's like that but I can't sit still or focus for very long. 

I'm doing my best to listen to music to try to ignore the sound of my kids talking. It's driving me batty. They're not loud. They're actually behaving pretty well. But they keep being repetitive and interrupting themselves and each other. It's aggravating. Most days, I'm just mildly annoyed and I can ignore it. Right now it's like nails on a chalkboard. I am restraining the urge to start cleaning the entire kitchen. 

I've been restraining that urge since I woke up at 4:30 this morning. I spent some time writing in my journal. It is surprisingly legible considering my brain state right now. I am torn between three different writing projects that are waiting for attention. I have an almost finished gift for someone that I just have to make handles for (or buy them).

I want to get out of the house. A part of me says I should go for a run. I haven't gone running since high school. I sucked at it then, I would suck at it even more. And the temperature outside right now is fuck you degrees. (A highly technical term used by familial meteorologists for a while now. That's worse than cold as balls.) Because I can't run, I've been pacing. But I am getting bored pacing. So I wander around the house feeling twitchy because of all the cleaning that needs to be done.

My house isn't  disaster. I have kids and they leave toys in their wake. It's frustrating. Again, typically a minor annoyance but right now it is making my brain itch. The thing is, I can hyperfocus on stuff when I am like this. It's hard to figure out what that will be. Sometimes it is something craft related. Sometimes it is something writing related. Or it's cleaning and reorganizing everything in the whole place.

But, this is the first hypomanic episode in the last year. It is an improvement, sort of, over being in the grey fog of mild depression since last April. I'm trying to avoid social media so that I don't say or do something stupid. But I am updating friends on how my brain is behaving. I just am trying to break the stigma of silence and get myself back to being social again. Still, when my brain's going a million miles a minute with the attention span of a butterfly and my word filter off line, that's not the time to go online and chat with people.

Fuck my bipolar with a chainsaw.

Flash Fiction coming next week.

 Hi Folks,

My brain is still mixed up right now. I'm having some trouble focusing on tasks. As such, I am pretty sure that I'm not going to manage to get some manner of flash fiction up for you this week. Check again next Friday. Hopefully, I will have something amusing for you.

♥

To Hel with Mixed Episodes.

 Mixed Episodes suck. They make my brain even more screwy and unpredictable than when I am manic. I have the restlessness of my hypomanic episodes and the down mood state of my depressive episodes. I feel like I'm ready to crawl out of my skin. At the same time, I feel like I must DO SOMETHING and I can't focus enough to do anything. Except for the one thing I find I can hyperfocus on and then if I get interrupted I get super angry/irritated.

I'm generally grouchy and sullen. Except for when I start to rant. I mentally rehearse arguments and perseverate on things that bother me. I just feel awful. I sleep poorly and find myself more prone to nightmares. I'm dissatisfied with everything. I can't stop moving but I am not motivated to do something, unless it is that thing I hyperfocused on to.

Music helps. White noise helps. But I don't know what to do about the rest of it. I feel my brain winding up, my thoughts getting faster at the same time my response to the world becomes muted. I feel it happening now. So, I am taking a few steps back away from the internet so I don't say or do something stupid. I've learned that mixed episodes are almost as bad as manic episodes for my putting my foot in my mouth.

I hate bipolar.

Incoming Rant, take cover.

 I am so angry and frustrated with diabetes right now. My A1C is 6.5, that's a good number. My fasting numbers should be in the range of 80 to 100. They're in the range of 160 to 200. My diabetes educator was confused by this and we discussed the matter. I explained that I had taken her advice from last year quite seriously. My meals got reduced and I've been avoiding snacks that are carb laden.

After a bit of discussion, she explained that fats will raise your blood sugar. What does that mean? Well, I can't snack on cheese when I am hungry between meals (which happens a lot). I have to cut down on how much half-n-half I put into my coffee, if not get rid of it. And I basically have to give up bread and grain related foods. Also, I need to keep my portion sizes small.

I mentioned my concern that I was on a fast track back to having an eating disorder again. In high school, I was undiagnosed anorexic and my weight fluctuated between 90 and 110 lbs for a young woman who stood 5ft 6in. I was a size 3 when I went to my senior prom. I didn't eat a proper diet. Oh, the food I chose to eat were healthy but I didn't eat enough. It literally took me about five to six years to learn how to eat like a normal person. I know several women my age who mourn their figure from when they were in high school, but I never want to look like that again. 

I was cold all the time. I took to wearing sweaters in all weather, including summer. I was hungry all the time but I learned to be indifferent to it. I padded my stomach with liquids so that I didn't feel hunger pains quite so strongly. (Part of the reason why I drank copious amounts of tea was so that I didn't feel hungry.) I also took to sneaking food out of the fridge when my tyrannical parents weren't looking and eating little snacks on the sly.

Judging what I ate then based on what I know now about portion sizes, I was skating the line of the keto diet. In my efforts now to reduce my blood sugar, I eat increasingly smaller portions. I am now eating on average somewhere between 20 and 25 carbs for breakfast and dinner, 30 carbs at lunch, and at most 6 carbs for a snack in the afternoon. It isn't enough, though, because my blood sugar still spikes after I eat.

The diabetes educator told me to keep doing what I have been. I don't think I made it clear to her that I am getting back to where I have to force myself to eat at times or I am binging on low carb foods (cheese, meat) in an effort not to eat what my brain is telling me is forbidden. It has been a very long year. She was more impressed with the fact that my A1C was a 'good' number than she was concerned with the resurgence of old habits. I fear the prospect of going out to eat dinner because I'm afraid that I'm going to eat too many carbs and my blood sugar is going to spike way too high. I fret about meals because I don't know how few carbs I can safely eat with out going into ketosis.

On top of all of that, I've been having emotional flashbacks to being in my teens. My home doesn't feel safe. My home doesn't feel like my home. It feels like I'm at somebody else's house waiting for my parents to come drag me back to the farm. I'm afraid to engage in personal care because I'm afraid I'm going to be assaulted whilst doing so (because that happened on the regular during that period of time).

My psychiatrist strongly suggested that I find a therapist. I can't, however, because nobody takes my health insurance. And I'll be damned if I go to the county mental health clinic again for care. They screwed me over in a big way before. I'll figure it out on my own before I go back there. I'm still traumatized from that year of hell.

Fiber Fluff Update

 I'm still catching up on embroidery projects from Yule. The kids love their unique bookmarks. I have bookmarks that I am making for others. When I get so far as having them done, I'll post pictures of them. I am almost finished with the Dune Fear Litany tapestry. I've taken it off of the scroll frame (which met its demise in the process of finishing the embroidery for the main part of the tapestry) and now I need to hem the edges and block it. After I get it cleaned up, I plan on getting it framed and hung. The question is where to hang it.

The monstrosity continues to lurk waiting for me to finish it. I have approximately two and a third balls of yarn left until it is done. This thing is huge. I can't work on it with out taking up the entire couch. When I am next dealing with it, I'm going to have Beloved snap a picture of me working so that you can get an idea of the scale.

I have been making baby clothes because Rocker Chick is expecting a baby girl in May. I have a full layette set done in bright rainbow colors. I'm seriously considering making a dress as well. I'm undecided. Most of the clothes that she has right now for the baby is 0-6 months. I'm considering the options of making things that will fit a larger baby into a young toddler. At the same time, I have to start thinking about what to make for Yule this year.

I haven't done any spinning in a while. I've just been busy with so many other things that I haven't had the time. Also the chilly weather prevents me from going outside with distaff and spindle and taking a walk. I suppose I could do some work with my support spindles. I'm undecided. I'm also dreading the amount of work that is going to go into cleaning up the pile of wool that I have waiting to be touched from the sheep study that the spinner's guild got going.

It's been a while since I have heard from the spinner's guild. I'm beginning to suspect that the group is going to dissolve because of the impact of Covid-19 on our ability to meet and do business.

Monday Menu

 My days of been exhausting. I'm not working up super detailed menus right now with the kids being in school most days and I only having to worry about breakfast and lunch for myself. As such, here's what dinners look like this week.

Monday: Hamburger
Tuesday: Tacos
Wednesday: Kielbasa with veggies & noodles
Thursday: Meatloaf & mashed potatoes
Friday: Fishsticks
Saturday: Parsley tabbouleh with chicken
Sunday: Pizza

I'll try to write a bit more about life in my next post. Right now, I am behind on stuff because I passed out on the couch due to high blood sugar. Apparently half a banana for breakfast was a bad idea even though it was theoretically only 15 carbs.

Better the Devil you know.

 So, I have investigated different platforms. I looked into if I had the capacity to set up my own site and such. In the end, I've decided to raise my rates and go back to Keen. I'm still not happy with their business practices. Platform fees eat about 80 cents of each dollar that gets made each call. This is not how they were doing business before. I didn't want to pass the cost on to the customer, but I can't sit there making 20 cents on each dollar spent on the call. I raised my rates and informed my past clients of this fact. I'm keeping my fees for email readings flat this way they still have those options to go for.

I'm still of the opinion that this is a predatory business practice but Keen is the only site where I am allowed the flexibility to be a responsive parent and handle things like sudden schedule changes. I've set up a schedule where I do my writing work in the morning and my Keen stuff in the afternoon. Today, I attempted to keep that schedule. I had a hard time writing this morning but that was because I'm stuck on how to finish up a scene.

During the time that I would have been on Keen taking calls or chat messages, I was setting up my schedule and doing some planning for blog posts on there. I can't cross post Keen posts because Keen reserves all rights to what is produced there. Basically, if I write it on Keen, they own it. As such, I'm not doing serious fiction or similar work on there. I'm pretty sure that my serious fiction work would get me into trouble on Keen, to be honest, because of their strident policies about what can get posted.

So, I post things like random recipes that I have kicking around. I'm going to get back into daily posting across all of my blogging platforms. It is going to be a fair amount of work, but I look at this as training for the larger, long term writing that I have going on. Last NaNoWriMo, I wrote two and a half novels. I am trying to finish that third novel. Then, over the next month, I'm going to edit them and send them off to the friend that offered me a working arrangement based off of the fanfiction I wrote about their game system. (Yes, I am that nerd. I may not LARP anymore, but I still love the characters and will write about them. Now with the game creator's blessing and encouragement with the prospect of turning a profit off of it.)

I sat down and looked at it all real hard over the last few months. I realized that the income from Keen is good seed money to invest in my writing. Reading tarot cards is something that I am damn good at. If I have learned anything, it is if you're good at something don't do it for free (except in special cases). So, I am digging out my box of tarot decks and getting back into it. It is also a hobby that I enjoy and important socialization during the time of Covid-19 isolation. I'm going to start promoting my Keen stuff across different platforms.

Previously, I only advertised it on my Veiled Witch main blog. That is going to go back up along with a post similar to this one, explaining my logic and my reservations about this. Now, I am going to do things like note when I am on Keen when I go on Facebook and Twitter. I am going to link back to blog articles on Keen that pertain to psychic stuff on my witchy blogs and on Tumblr. It's going to be a fair amount of work, but this will help me learn the skill set I need to promote my books. Because just relying on Keen to advertise my service isn't enough. They've proven that over the last few years. So, I am going to learn how to market my work and advertise it across various platforms.

I am also going to make a point of reengaging some old blogs of mine as marketing platforms too. Those blogs are going to start getting content again. It isn't going to be the same as the others, but I am going to do my damndest to make this work. I can smell trouble in the wind and I have a feeling that I am going to need these skills in the near to immediate future.

The challenging part of all of this is going to be keeping myself motivated and working despite depressive episodes and working around schedule shifts that may come due to the school going to remote learning. 2020 was going to be the year that I made this happen and ... well, 2020 happened. Now that I have a little experience under my belt for how to handle the remote learning situation and such, I think I can make Keen happen under those conditions with minor changes to my schedule and approach.

Untitled.

 It's been a while since I've posted on here. I've been struggling to write. It's partly because I am depressed and partly because it seems like I lack the words to express what is going on with me. The holidays were brutal. I got through them more or less unscathed and with all of the gifts that I was making done in time. I was horrified by the insurrection attempt last week. At the same time, I was unsurprised. They have been making noises about this for literally the last year and a half. I anticipate more trouble coming from that front.

I have been doing my best to focus on my own hearth and home. It's my place of sanctuary. It is, however, difficult to do that when you are almost daily having emotional flashbacks to past trauma. It's been a hard year. 2020 was awful on so many fronts. On one hand, I am thankful that it is over. On the other hand, I dread what 2021 is going to bring us.

I have no idea when I'll be eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine or if it'll be effective against the strain running around in my neck of the woods. There's a lot of big 'what will this do?" kind of questions out there. No solid idea how long the vaccine provides immunity. No clear idea if it is effective against all strains or just one. It's scary. Will we get vaccinated when it becomes available? You bet your ass that we're going to do it. And we're probably going to continue with the safety protocols that we follow right now for a good while after we get vaccinated.

I am still in the position where I am going very low carb in my diet right now because of stress making my blood sugar numbers high when I eat normal portions. I am due to get my A1C checked again soon. I can't remember when my next appointment is supposed to be to follow up with our family doctor regarding my diabetes. I'll probably be calling them tomorrow to ask when that got set up for. If I had forgotten to set it up, I'll be scheduling it.

According to my diabetes educator, meals should be 30 to 45 carbs and snacks can be 10 to 15 carbs. I have been eating meals of 18 to 25 carbs and snacks of 6 to 12 carbs. I'm just skating over going to the Keto diet. My doctor has firmly admonished me not to attempt the keto diet because ketosis is fatal for diabetics. I honestly don't know what to do. My last A1C check had it down to 6.5, still within the diabetic arena but not as high as it was at my highest. I'm still on my medications, if my A1C comes down farther, I don't anticipate the doctor taking me off of my medications because I know with out them my blood sugar number would be much higher.

I worry about my diabetes eventually killing me. It is a recurring nightmare of mine since I got the diagnosis. I worry about falling back into my old anorexic eating patterns from when I was a kid because of this business of limiting carb intake to control my blood sugar. This is stuff I should likely bring up with my doctor. It is going to be difficult to have that conversation. That, however, seems to be the theme of my health stuff. I am somewhat resigned to this fate.