Fuck Bipolar

I haven't been well. My silence over the last little while may have lead some of you who know me intimately to suspect this. I am ... angry. This is on top of the lingering depression problem. It has not been too the extent that I believe it is necessary for me to go into the hospital. It has, however, been enough that it makes getting my household duties done difficult. It has made getting out of the apartment and being in the community difficult. All the little things that my therapist says I should be going out and doing right now, I am really struggling to do it.

I have had this happen before. I mentioned it to my psych nurse way back in Spring. I think I posted something about how well that went. My kids were on spring break. She thought that putting me on another SSRI was a great idea. I went from depressed to suicidal in the span of about 3 days and then I was in the hospital for about a week while they fixed my medications. At that time, one of the psychiatrists that was treating me asked me how long I had been on the combination of Seroquel and Geodon. I explained I had been taking it for about 7 years. Cue him being offended and all around not happy. He was particularly not happy with the fact that my dosage was so high.

Next thing I know, I was taken off of a LOT of medication. I felt a bit better. A little time goes by and the mild sense of dysphoria grew more intense. I say something to my psych nurse. She tells me that my moods are not really fluctuating, it was just life happening. She tells me that my problem is the stress that comes from being with the kids when they are on break is causing my depressive symptoms. After a few months of this nonsense, she says 'well, let's increase your seroquel.' I voiced my concerns about this because upping my dosage of antipsychotics really didn't do anything to stabilize my mood, unless you counted mild zombification as stabilized.

At which point, she says that I'm being overly anxious and triples my prescription for Ativan. This all happens Monday this week. I start taking the 300mg Seroquel and problems become apparent. My coordination is off hard core. I was stumbling like I was intoxicated. When I got out of bed, I nearly brained myself on the door jamb which is a few feet away from the foot of the bed. It was awful. I couldn't walk across the room with out tripping (and this was with out kids toys in the way). I was exhausted and I had a massive headache. But, the part that really disturbed me is my vision changed. My close range vision is blurry now. My moderate distant range vision is what my close range vision was before (I have a mild astigmatism in my left eye so things are a bit fuzzy). And, things have a bit of a halo about them.

Cue a panicked call to my pharmacist who says that is all an indication that I am on too much and I should call my dr stat. Call the psych nurse and I don't get an answer back until the end of the day, despite the fact that all three of the messages I left clearly conveyed my distress over the situation. She says that we're going to press on with the increase in the antipsychotic, stating it will be a 50mg increase before a 100mg increase. (Originally, I was on 200 mg of Seroquel. Which I got put on when it became apparent that the Geodon was losing effectiveness as a mood stabilizer. And I was put on that when the Seroquel in the past was losing effectiveness as a mood stabilizer. And before that, I was on both meds ... and the drama and bullshit just goes back to when I began dealing with these people.)

So, Beloved and I discussed it. I was upset and afraid. We decided that I was going to go back to the 200mg dosage. The mind fog lifted to a significant extent, the coordination issues cleared up, but the vision issues remained. I tried again today to get ahold of my psych nurse. No one called me back from her office. So, I called my general practitioner. I gave the nurse I spoke to a quick rundown of the situation so I will be going in on Monday to figure out what the fuck we're going to do.

In the mean time, I'm going to feel like shit, be frustrated because I can't see properly, and want to crawl into a hole and hide from everything.

Fuck this bipolar business with a rusty chainsaw.

August. Woo.

The dry weather has been pretty hard on my plants. but, you can see that I did get a little bit out of my garden. On the left is a chocolate mint, in the center is an orange mint, and on the right is a sweet mint. And at the extreme right is Billy (aka Snuggle Bug) showing off his new trucks.

We have begun the process of acquiring school supplies. I am graciously sharing two of the super cute pencil erasers that I found out at the store. Going by the school's lists, we're all set for the first day. The boys each have new backpacks. because the bottom seams were looking worn. I discovered that I had a stock pile of supplies left over from last year when I was cleaning. So, I brought them over for Gin's girls to have.

I'm WAAAAY behind on my knitting stuff for the holidays. I am, however, pretty much set on what we're doing for the wedding present to Katie and Roger. I'm partially finished with the gift I am making for J&J's wedding anniversary. And, in the midst of all of this, I'm left struggling to think of something that would be a good present for Beloved.

Why emotionally blackmail someone over stuff?

I confess, I have a few guilty pleasures in my blog reading. There is a mommy blogger who tends to have recipes that are usually pretty awesome and I find some humor in her chattering about life at large. While I do my best to avoid the mommy brigade, there are a few that I read because their writing style entertains me and I usually find them a point of light on a dark day. So, I was disappointed when I saw her triumphant post about how she finally managed to get her spouse to throw away his childhood baseball card collection after harassing him over it for 19 years.

I get that she wants her house to have as little waste as possible. I get that she wants to have as few nicknacks to clean up as possible. I even can appreciate the frustration of someone in your family collecting things that you don't understand the appeal for and get irritated upon the sight of them. All of these sentiments I can empathize with and appreciate. At some point in time, I have had them myself or been the object of this sort of feeling.

Those feelings don't give me free reign to pick at my spouse over the hobbies he has. They don't give me the right to tell him 'you're a grown up now, get rid of this childish stuff.' That is simply beyond the pale. I don't dictate who my husband is (aka how 'childish' or 'adult' he is) and I don't get to tell him that his hobbies are bad if they're not harming anyone or causing us problems in our ability to take care of our children, home, responsibilities, or marriage. A few binders full of cards is not a problem.

I'm sorry, but if you are going to take the position that the equivalent of a photo album is enough of a problem in your household that you have to harass your spouse about getting rid of them for an extended length of time, you've got a big problem and it isn't that photo album. Telling someone that they're immature or that they're childish because of what they enjoy is harmful to them. You are telling them that there is something WRONG with them because they're doing something that makes them happy and YOU are uncomfortable with it because it doesn't meet YOUR expectations of what and adult is supposed to be like. You are the problem here.

Because you don't get to tell your spouse WHO THEY ARE. Full stop. You are attempting to dictate elements of their personality and psyche on the basis of arbitrary bullshit and your level of discomfort with the way they fit into your arbitrary bullshit generator. If your uncomfortable with your spouse's hobby but it isn't doing you any harm beyond making you mildly uncomfortable with how you perceive their maturity level, you need to fix your issue. A pack of cards does not dictate the maturity level of the person possessing them. Additionally, a pack of cards does not dictate a damn thing about the state of your home other than the fact that you or someone in your home owns a pack of fucking cards.

The world is full of ugly, horrific things. If your spouse finds joy in little things and it is not causing problems in their ability to meet their responsibilities, provide emotional support, or otherwise be a partner in your relationship, then you need to suck it up and deal with the fact that they are going to find joy in things that are not going to appeal to you. You don't get to dictate what is 'grown up' and attempting to do so is going to cause emotional damage to your spouse and undermine their sense of self esteem.

I'll rephrase that into something a little more concise.

Your bullshit behavior over a pack of cards is emotional abuse. You are telling them that they're not good enough as who they are. You don't get to do that. You are not the gatekeeper of what is an acceptable adult. You are not the gatekeeper of who is an acceptable person.

The only person you get to make those kinds of decisions for are yourself.

And if you can't handle someone getting some happiness out of a pack of cards that has some warm, fuzzy emotional memories attached to them, then you need to acquire some emotional and psychological fortitude because this kind of crap is what dooms long term relationships.

So, yeah, after 19 years you managed to brow beat your husband into getting rid of his momentos from his happier childhood days. Good job. Next, are you going to start telling your kids to throw away their favorite belongings because you've decided they're too old to do what makes THEM happy too?

Long day is Long.

This heat and humidity is making me miserable. I am tired because it is hard to sleep from it. I did a ton of laundry but I feel like I accomplished nothing. Which is perverse because I managed to keep the kids out of the really high heat, entertained, and engaged in educational activity with out spending a whole lot of money. (That's a hard thing to do it seems judging from what I see lots of other folks posting about their summer.)

I narrowly dodged the migraine that was threatening this afternoon. Beloved was awesome and he watched the kids while I took a cool shower. Between that, a dose of aleve, and a hefty amount of coffee, I just had a bad headache for a few hours. I wish it was that easy to avoid migraines other times. I didn't do any walking outside today really because it was so horribly hot. (My friends from the tropics, the desert, and pretty much anywhere else that has temperatures of 90+, I recognize I am a lightweight compared to y'all.)

My mood has been going back and forth between cranky and upset. I think part of the problem is just the physical discomfort of all this heat. I am pretty sure that I would also be a bit less upset with things if I wasn't premenstrual. I am still having some difficulty sleeping and not having intrusive thoughts pertaining to the murders that happened last week. It has brought up a mess of unresolved stuff pertaining to things like when my uncle was murdered as well.

It's just been rough.

Did some crafting.

Today was tiring. I went out to my sister in law's bridal shower. It was ok. I had a nice time cuddling a little baby and chatting with two other young mothers. I was pleased to see that my present was well received. It was a bride's emergency kit with pretty much everything needed in case of a wardrobe malfunction. I also gave her a fancy white lace parasol. And a sampler.

I have spent my evening looking at mindless things on the internet. I did a little playing around with jewelry supplies and made the necklace I'm holding above. It is a gold filigree cage holding two pearls and a raw bit of garnet on a gold chain. I'm hoping that I won't have problems with having a bad reaction to the necklace or the pendant. It is gold plated onto copper. I have some issues with plated metals.

The sampler above was the highlight, in my opinion. For some reason, everyone was surprised by the lace parasol that I found for her. (The pic was from when I finished the thing.) It was really quick to work up. I am presently working on another embroidered item. I have a little surprise that I'm making for my mother-in-law. Because the mother of the bride should have something special as well.

As Seen on Facebook

ok i am going to make some people angry. i will be honest, i don't give a damn if it does right now either.

people should not be gunned down by law enforcement if they are not actively shooting or putting people in a state where their life and limb are in danger. stuff can be replaced, so property damage is something i give functionally no fucks about in this case. why? because you can not replace a person. when someone is dead, they're a corpse.

i know there are people who are pro-law enforcement. that's cool. law enforcement serves an important role in our society and, when functioning properly helps everyone. there are a lot of good cops out there who, i suspect, are mad as hell about the stuff that the bad cops do. i'm pretty sure that there are people who would be happy to take the ones who make the rest of them look bad out behind the woodshed for a long conversation via morse code and a bit of applied force.

my problem is not with the good cops. my problem is with the society that says that this crap of people dying in police custody is acceptable. my problem is with the society that says if you have any sort of arrest record, you deserve brutality because you must clearly be guilty and deserve all forms of systemic oppression because you were arrested at one point for something. my problem is with the society that says that if you were, gods forbid, ever imprisoned for something that you are worth less than everyone else because you must continue to pay for your crimes long after the courts say you're done. my problem is with the society that turns a blind eye to systemic oppression for minorities and are quick to label the people who are not of the 'chosen' socioeconomic and cultural markers as deserving of essentially all forms of abuse that can be heaped on them by people who are from that chosen group and their agents (including but not limited to governmental agencies that are treated as serving said chosen group).

i have an enormous problem with the fact that people in this country have forgotten about habeus corpus. i have an enormous problem with the fact that people in this country have forgotten about the presumption of innocent until proven guilty. just because you have a gun, you are not judge and jury. and you are sure as hell not executioner. the sheer number of times that these rogue elements within the agencies that are charged with keeping law and order get away with gross violations of the rights of the people they are supposed to be serving is repulsive.

the people who are saying 'stop killing us' and 'our lives matter' are not doing it to make your life inconvenient. they're not doing it to be dramatic. and they're sure as hell not doing it for funsies. they're doing it because their blood is in the streets and it has been shed by the people who are supposed to be protecting them. when law enforcement edges towards failing to not only obey the laws set upon them by their own nation but the rules of war, there is a big fucking problem.

last i checked, the rules of war said you don't get to murder people you have taken into custody. (take a second and review article 3. then ask yourself, just how well have people been doing on following that bit of late?http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/y3gctpw.htm ) maybe i am a wild person with mad ideas. i know there are people who manage NOT to act in this sort of horrific fashion. maybe we should do something about these motherfuckers who are failing to recognize the most basic of human rights as covered here.

anyone who seems to think that the arrest history of the dead justifies their killing, drop me off your friends list. anyone who seems to think that the color or socioeconomic status of the dead justifies their killing, drop me off your friends list. anyone who seems to think that we should accept these people in positions of power failing to uphold the FUCKING GENEVA CONVENTION with respect to MOTHERFUCKING CIVILIANS, drop me off your friends list and go fuck yourself with a sideways cactus.

Flies?

I don't know why, but there has been an increase in the number of flies around today. I'm not sure what is going on with that. I am a bit annoyed with them, but what can you do?

I feel badly that I have done no writing today. I am feeling upset with myself on several levels. I think that the predominant problem today was the fact that I forgot my morning medications in the rush to get Beloved off to work and then get to my appointment. I then spent the rest of the day toodling around town getting things done with the boys in tow. It was a very warm day today and the heat had me a bit crabby as well.

Moodwise, I am on the lower end of normal-ish. My psych provider commented on how I am doing so much better than I was a few months ago. I suppose that is a good thing. I have been out and about. I have been doing things and being somewhat social. I presume this would indicate that I am making progress in a healthier direction. If nothing else, all the walks to the park (which averages 2 per day and a total distance of a mile) must be doing me some good. This heat has had me less than thrilled about eating much, thus my appetite has been a bit lower. Not dangerously so, though.

I'd post a picture but I feel unpresentable. My hair is somewhat mussed from driving around with car windows down. I look as overheated as I feel. It just is not something I feel looks any good. I have been having low body confidence for a few days now. Realizing that there is a fair amount of grey in my locks has me feeling upset (which is funny because as a child I desperately wanted to have grey hair like my great grandmother). I feel like I look old and shabby.

I'm trying hard to remember that many feel that my grey hair makes me look dignified. I honestly can't say I feel that way today. And I can't manage to shake the bodyshaming nonsense about how I should magically reacquire my pre-pregnancy body after I have birthed my children. It is a little thing that keeps worrying at the back of my mind. I am not having much progress in getting that out of my head. Which has me saddened and frustrated.

It's the 4th of July. Meh.

The last several days have been busy. I am honestly looking forward to when summer school starts. I have been just worn out by the business of keeping up with the kids and all the stuff that goes into keeping them out of mischief over the last week and a half. I haven't a photo to share today. I honestly don't feel particularly photogenic right now.

I am behind on my writing work. I don't want to place unreasonable demands on myself but I want to have this manuscript off to the publishers in short order. I feel a great deal of pressure to do a ton of things right now and like I haven't the means to accomplish pretty much anything. I am also feeling somewhat burned out. This is not much fun. I will, however, persevere and do my best.

Aside from that, I'm so tired of the jingoism that is running rampant right now. I once felt that sort of thing. And then I realized just how much people are getting screwed over in this nation. Now I am jaded and tend to view that sort of thing as a level of immaturity. I am also sick of the bubbly 'happy 4th of July!' that I have encountered everywhere.

How can it be a happy day when we have people dying for bullshit reasons in and in the name of this country? How can it be a happy day when people are disenfranchised at functionally all levels of government and social strata? It is hard for me to have warm fuzzies about it all when there is so much that is wrong.


Also, unrelated to anything, I'm fed up with these wee tiny bugs flitting about the apartment after the sun goes down. And I feel mildly depressed with how grey my hair looks and the fact that I look all of my 37 years. I think that I have over exerted myself a bit on several levels and it is catching up with me.

And I feel like I can't go and sleep because there is so much that must be done.

Long day but progress, maybe?

I don't feel up to a pic right now. Today was a long day. I spent a significant portion of my day trying to keep the kids entertained as I struggled to gather my wits. I did not sleep well last night. I kept having dreams of my computer crashing, my back up copies of my books being corrupted, and all of my notes getting destroyed. I think watching that video about how long storage stuff is supposed to last got to me. Add to this how I have been struggling to do much writing at all and it made for a bad night.

I have piles of papers everywhere. I have no less than three knitting projects going on right now. I have two spinning projects that are frustrating me to the point where I am contemplating burning the fiber so I don't have to look at it. My home is a bit of a mess at the moment. I know some of this is a natural function of the kids being on break. Some of this is also due to the fact that I spend more time trying to keep the kids out of fights and engaged in activities than I do on cleaning right now. I feel guilty about it. I have this little voice at the back of my head telling me that I should have a clean house right now, dinner on the table every night, and all of the clean laundry put away. (We're living out of laundry bags right now.)

I think I may be heading towards a downward shift in mood. I'm not sure. I feel over extended and like there is no hope of relief ahead of me. I don't know what my problem is right now. Once, I handled this stuff better. Why am I such a ball of anxiety now? Is this really the bipolar?

Yay, it's the Solstice!

I'm a bit overheated right now. It is 80+ in the apartment right now. It has been a good day. Beloved took the day off to spend some time with me while the kids were at school. I am a bit tired, as can probably be seen in the pic. I hope that I will sleep better than I did last night. The heat and humidity made it difficult to fall asleep last night. Still, I can say with full confidence that I had a great day today. There were some minor irritations but it didn't detract from the joy that I had in some alone time with Beloved or my amusement with the kids trying to direct traffic for the tow truck that was helping the folks across the way with their car. (It looked like the tie-rod went and the entire passenger side front steering assembly just fell off of their vehicle as they were attempting to turn into their drive way. Fortunately, no one was harmed and there was no other damage.) I also got a chuckle out of Beloved talking at a squirrel that just played creeper in the tree and stared at us for about a half hour.

All in all, today was a good day. And I have made good progress on yule gifts as well.

Father's Day = typical Sunday

Beloved does not like it when people make a big fuss over him. He utterly loathes it. Thus, his day today was like pretty much any other Sunday. The exception was that the boys had art for him from school and he got stuff for his birding hobby. (So far, it seems that the acrylic baffle is working really well to keep the squirrels out of the big feeder.) My day today was like most other Sundays as well.

I didn't do laundry today. Beloved and I agreed that the laundromat was most likely going to be insanely hot and probably would trigger a migraine. Mood wise, I am in my 'normal' range. I am a bit grumpy but that is because between my hormones not deciding how they were going to effect my mood today and generally being overly warm, I am not feeling comfortable right now. It didn't help matters much that I somehow managed to skin my right elbow on something. I have no idea what.

I'm just that much of a klutz. Tomorrow is going to be a fairly busy day. The boys have school until Wednesday. In between now and then, I want to get the edits that I finally finished writing down in the text of book 2 (which I am beginning to suspect didn't upload the correct version of the document when I sent it to the printer a few weeks ago) done on the manuscript. I also have a long list of files that I really need to copy and back up for safe keeping.

Beloved has tomorrow off from work. We may go out and have lunch, I don't know. I know, however, that tomorrow morning after I put the kids on the bus to school, I will need to run over to the laundromat to wash a few things. I'm trying to decide if I can afford it and what color I am going to go with, but over the last two weeks, I have gone from 'nope, not going to dye my hair some funky color' to 'you know, I'm 37. I should live a little.' Beloved has been amused with this gradual transition in attitude on the matter.

Meh.

Feeling less anxious and depressed today. I spent my day pretty much doing household stuff. I have the kitchen mostly clean now. I will most likely finish up that bit of work tomorrow. I was going to go out to spinning guild tomorrow but plans changed. I don't remember how to get to where the guild is meeting (somewhere aside from the usual location in Victor) so I will be home. If the weather is nice, I will take the kids to the park. I have finished the first of many Yule gifts. I have now started work on a scarf. I'm actually knitting two at the same time. One is in varigated yarn, so it is just plain, basic knitting that I don't have to think about. The other is an illusion scarf with two colors. So, that one will require some attention and thought.

Tired.

End of a long day. Went to the dentist and had two fillings done. Had lunch with Beloved, which I honestly thought he was going to be too busy for. It was a really nice time. Then spent the rest of my day running around after the kids. I feel worn out. My eldest is still awake, staring at me as I sit on the couch and wait for him to go to sleep. My mood is tending towards just worn out and cranky right now. And I started my menses, sort of. Last month, I just spotted some and then there was nothing more. I don't know if this month is going to be the same. I would really appreciate it if my body made up its mind as to what the hell it was doing right now.

Long day is Long.

I suppose my big accomplishments today were folding laundry, watering plants, and keeping the kids from burninating the world. I'm tired and uncomfortable. My stomach hasn't been feeling too great today. I'm not entirely sure why.

A part of me says that this business of daily pics and a note of what the day was like is foolishness. But, the various blogs and sites out there say that if I keep a mood diary, it will make it easier to track my bipolar. Right now, I'm not a ball of anxiety. I am just... numb and cranky.

My thoughts on Orlando.

It is a very ... meaty post. I tried to give a little bit of a crash course in philosophy in my post. It is at best, the beginning of a discussion on what is happening and how to handle it. At worst, I will have managed to single handedly offend a laundry list of people through the use of my philosophy and religion minor's being applied in my writing.

Here's the link: Atrocity, Evil, and the Gods.

So tired, so worn out.

Today has been a typical, quiet Monday. I have been doing what I can to avoid the news about the atrocities that happened over the weekend. As a result, I have been pretty much off of the computer. I repotted my root bound miniature roses. I repotted my mint plants in the hopes of salvaging them after them being forgotten for about a week or so (as best I can tell). I also put the geranium cuttings in the ground. They have roots now and one is budding out blossoms. I put up the plastic fencing along the second flower bed out front.

I spent my afternoon editing. It was difficult because I am having a hard time focusing. I went to start work on dinner and discovered that I had veggies that had gone bad. So I threw them out. I think I am going to have to just clean out the whole fridge. I walked a bit today. I suppose it was about a quarter of a mile or so that I have gone.

Did stuff, now beer.

Just got home. Spent all day out helping out with some family stuff. I'm exhausted. My nerves are fried. Somewhere around 2:30, my last fuck flew away. I was polite and pleasant. I did this by being quiet and focusing on entertaining small children with my crochet. I have demonstrated that I am competent with a knife and good at making food look appealing on a plate. With a chef's knife and an ice cream scoop to work with, I managed to make an attractive centerpiece for the fruit plate and hollow out the honeydew melon to hold the melon pieces I had.

If I am in this position again, I will be bringing my melon baller. It would have been a lot easier than what I did this morning. Now, I have a lukewarm bottle of Not Your Father's Root Beer sitting nearby and I'm enjoying peace and quiet for the first time all day.

I am tired of adulting. Screw this shit. I'm drinking my beer and looking at stupid cat memes or something. My mood is low, my anxiety is high, and I want a distraction from feeling rotten and used. Scumbag brain can shut the fuck up anytime now.

Fuck Anxiety.

Me, right now. Super anxious, but medicated. (All hail the gods of pharmacology and praise their blessings. I have taken the sacrament of Ativan and it is good.)

Beloved says this is pretty clearly a mixed episode day. I've been somewhere between wanting to curl up in a ball somewhere and cry and wanting to punch a wall, throw things, and scream in rage. I hate my brain right now.

Coffee is love. Coffee is life!

It has been ludicrously hot of late in WNY. As a result, I've been drag-ass tired. (It is a technical term, I assure you.) So, I have been on a cold coffee kick. The various sites that give you instructions on how to cold brew coffee are pretty awesome. I am also happy to say that I can buy cold brewed coffee at the store now too. When I was grocery shopping on Saturday, I picked up this stuff called Stok at Walmart. (They're more economical than Wegmans for my budget and the veggies are fresher than Aldi's right now. Don't judge me.)

It is a cold brewed coffee that is actually pretty good. I had been making cold brewed Folger's Chocolate Silk coffee in quart sized glass jars. When I saw that there was a big jug of cold brewed coffee, I decided that I had to get it. If it was good, then it was a delightful addition to the choice of cold beverages in the fridge. If it was just meh, I had the large bottle to recycle for use holding iced tea. I think this was a good decision.

Honestly, it was a better decision than getting the Starbucks instant cold coffee. Stok is a lot better with out the bitterness. It is not quite as good as the homemade cold brewed coffee, but I think I like it.

It's HAPPENING!!!

So, I have had a real eventful couple of days on the being a 'real' author front. Yesterday, I made my first sale of the first volume of the fantasy series I'm writing. I was all kinds of excited and happy with that. The gal that I sold it to has been chatting with me about writing stuff and books for a few months now. She kept asking me every few times I saw her when she could buy my book. When I walked into the bbq place with that book in hand, I didn't exactly know what to expect. She lit up with excitement when I held up the book, which in turn had some of the customers looking to see what was up. I tried to give it to her at a discount but she insisted on paying me more.

Today, I went to spinning guild. I really thought that there wasn't going to be a whole lot of interest because it isn't a book about spinning. (Though spinning and fiber arts do get a solid mention in it, because reasons.) When the time came for people to stand up in front of the group and show the things that they had been working on, I held up my book and gave my elevator pitch. Next thing I know, I have sold all of my copies (at a profit), directed people to where they can order it online, and had a few inquiries if I was going to be bringing more copies to next month's guild meeting.

I am sitting here somewhat amazed and delighted. I suppose I really should learn to have a bit more faith in myself. I knew that I was going to make a couple sales but I didn't think that there was going to be so much interest after just giving a quick rundown over what it was all about. I honestly never thought that I was going to use the expression 'I have sold out of my available copies.' and I wound up using it several times this afternoon. I am directing people to Amazon and I find myself wondering if my blog is going to have an uptick in readership now. (It doesn't have the heavily laden sarcasm posts like I do here once in a while, but I might just throw that out there for fun in the future. I try to keep my snark about the world here and that one for my writing.)

But, holy gods, this is actually happening. I am amazed.

Dreading the dentist.

I have some dental issues. They're a result of poor dental hygiene that arose from depression brain fog. I tend to forget things when I am depressed. I wish it was something that had me forgetting inconsequential things. I think it would be easier that way. But, life is not easy. Thus, my self-care skills take a complete nosedive when I am depressed. This leads to my developing problems with my teeth.

I have several visits lined up with the Eastman Dental Clinic over the next few weeks. I am torn between irritation that I have to do this, again, and anger at myself over the fact that I am in this situation. On top of all that, I find myself getting anxious over the idea that the dentist or the staff are going to shame me for the state of my teeth. That last point is really bothering me because these people are absolute professionals and have excellent bedside manner. Seriously, they are the least judgmental people I have encountered and have been nothing but professional and helpful.

My therapist says that my anxiety is most likely due to my social phobia. It is funny to think that. Most people, when they dread the dentist, they dread the dental work. I don't like getting work done on my teeth. It is uncomfortable, awkward, and expensive. But I don't get in a tizzy over it. It's all this fear over what they might be thinking about me or how they're going to treat me. I wish that I didn't get all twisted up over this.

My therapist says that this anxiety will improve over time. I hope so, because this is really crappy.

Getting by.

I am slowly working away at all the things I need to be doing right now. I suppose I am making progress. Earlier this week, I went to the Committee on Special Education meetings to plan for next year's Individual Education Plan for each of the boys. I was anxious about going to the meetings but they went as I had hoped they would. The boys are about where I estimated they would be with respect to the progress they had made on their present IEP goals. I am pleased that Cuddle Bear has tested out of needing occupational therapy. It is a big gain and I'm proud of him.

The committee all were impressed with the vast amount of progress that Snuggle Bug has made with his writing. He still has some work to go before he is at grade level. At the same time, however, he has gone from writing only a single word (which was barely legible) to writing a full sentence. This is a first grade skill and I am really pleased that he's developed it. Both Cuddle Bear and Snuggle Bug need to build their writing skill set. The therapists have recommended giving them coloring pages to do and working on some writing at home. As the boys have expressed some passing interest in writing like I do, I am going to get them each a notebook and we're going to do weekly pages in it.

I know that they struggle with being motivated to write for school. I'm going to attempt to tailor writing stuff at home towards their interests. It appears that when work is geared towards their strong interests, they are motivated to do more and pay better attention. So, I'm going to try out writing stories with them about the things they enjoy. I envision we're going to be writing a great deal about garbage trucks and trains. At the same time, however, I am also going to work on getting them those special notebooks that leave a blank space at the head of the page for illustration. This way they can illustrate their stories.

Who knows, maybe by the end of the summer they'll have their own storybooks to read to each other and their father. The school has noticed that when the boys get a moment of free time, they have gravitated towards books. I laughed when Cuddle Bear's teacher mentioned that there has been more than a few times where she caught him attempting to read a book instead of doing his math work. (This was something that I did at his age, as did his father.) Because they love books, I think I may have some success here with this. Who knows, maybe it will become a habit for them. It would be kinda awesome if they took up the practice of journaling at this age.

I wanted to but life circumstances encouraged me not to do it until I was much older. Now, I am struggling to tell myself that it is ok to write in my journals again. I know that my anxiety is the culprit here. Perhaps working with the boys on this journal writing stuff, I will get back into the habit of writing daily in my journal and not be so critical of it all.

Scrambled Brainz.

Behold, I sit before the computer with all my faculties ready to do something. If I could muster enough fucks up to do it. I'm probably going to try to do some writing a bit later. But, it's a fairly accurate shot of the expression I've had most of the day.

I'm not depressed per se. I feel cranky. Minor irritations frustrate me to the point where I start to stammer. (And that is something that only happens when I am really upset.) I almost titled this post 'scream, break shit, and sleep.' That's because that is a partial list of what is going through my brain right now.

Beloved postulated that my problem is I am in a mixed episode right now. I kinda see his point and I am not pleased with this. I feel stressed out and anxious. I am struggling not to start being a shrieking harpy to the kids as they run around the apartment. It has been a difficult struggle. I am trying to look at it all and see 'positives' here. And that is just making me angrier. There is no reason for me to be so angry with everything. No one has shat in my proverbial corn flakes. But, I kinda want to scream and break shit right now.

I was feeling run down over the last week. I think a big part of the problem was my allergies, which have been particularly difficult between the pollen and the down stairs neighbor's smoking. I also have had a slow, but steady increase in my feelings of anxiety (and correlating internal hyper critical commentary). I took some Ativan earlier this evening. It makes me feel less like I'm going to explode and less like the solution to my frustration is doing something like throwing heavy objects out windows or something. I did not have a good time when I was grocery shopping. All the noise and all the people just made me really want to verbally shred the people who were moving too slowly for me and throw stuff at the heads of the people who annoyed me. Namely that one stock person who wouldn't LEAVE ME ALONE to do my shopping. They just kept turning up in every aisle I went in to get things and stopping in the middle of the aisle in my way. I was good, I didn't say anything sharp. I didn't say a word to them. But I was not a happy camper.

Just to take a brief aside, for a moment, I have to say that who ever it was at corporate that decided that having a stock person roaming the aisles with a cart full of random crap and signs taped all over it for 'free' goods that would come with signing up for a credit card, that person who came up with this idea needs to sit on a rusty rail road spike. They have advertisements about the promotion at every register (even the self-check out) and the cashiers are all told to pitch this thing. They've put some pressure on the people in customer service to promote the credit card. And we've got the greeters who promote it even as they are welcoming you to the store. Now, that was all irritating as fuck but I kinda understand that is how the business does things. I am sincerely hoping that no one's paycheck is tied in any fashion to how successful they are in getting people to sign up for the damn credit card. But, to have someone wander through out the store with a cart full of crap you could 'get for free' and harry customers is just crossing a line.

I would have objected to this if I wasn't the person that was getting followed through the store by this person. I especially object to it now because of the fact that I had someone follow me through 95% of my shopping time trying to convince me to get a damn Walmart credit card and looking pathetic when I said no. I am trying to cut the employee some slack and assume that they were following me around because I looked less intimidating than the 458 other people in the store. But this shit has me seriously questioning if I want to go back and deal with it again. Even if I didn't have social phobia and I was in a better headspace, I would not have been comfortable with this. It is harassment. And it has to fucking stop. You don't sell product harassing your clientele. You lose customers doing that shit.

Also, if you really wanted me to sign up for a credit card you'd make the 'free' products worth my time. Saving five dollars on average on a purchase that I'm generally not going to need (because I honestly don't need a goddamn frisbee and the stupid things cost less than $5, for example) is not going to persuade me. Make it something more useful like a case of motor oil, a large roast, a set of cleaning goods for the kitchen, or something, and you may have my attention. Because who the fuck is going to get a credit card to get a free frisbee on the spur of a moment? Are they going to stand there at the check out look at that 'free' 12 pack of generic soda and say 'oh, hot damn, I could really use that.' and subject themselves to a credit check to see if they could get it? Because that's kinda part of the whole 'sign up for a credit card' thing.

TL:DR - Argh. Mixed episodes suck. Shady business practices piss me off. I want to burn it all down right now. Fire cures everything.

Houston, we have a problem.

Star chart from an Apollo mission, courtesy of NASA!

Scene: Bridge of a space ship. Crew engaged in tasks. Captain looks on with concerned expression. His second in command reviewing report from instruments.

2nd in Command: I'm sorry, Sir, but I can not locate one in this sector.

Captain: Try again. We must find at least one. We need it!

2nd: Sir, we've run the scan multiple times. We've scanned all sectors with a null result. It is not out there.

Captain sweats and looks increasingly distraught. 

Captain: The equipment, it must be malfunctioning. (Said with increasingly hysterical tone.)

2nd: No, I personally inspected the equipment. It is all running at optimum efficiency. They are not there.

Captain slaps the console before him, narrowly missing buttons and levers. He turns to a Crewman.

Captain: Are you sure there is not at least one in reserve? Even in the emergency capsule?

Crewman looks from Captain to 2nd in Command, clearly uncomfortable. 

Crewman: No, Sir. The supply is exhausted. We have no reserves.

Captain exits his seat, grapples Crewman, and pulls the man so that they're face to face.

Captain: FIND ONE! (Screamed like a madman.)

2nd in Command: Sir! SIR! (Called out with an authoritative tone as he pulls Captain and Crewman apart.)

Captain turns on 2nd in Command, seems ready to fight. Two crewmen come to restrain the Captain.

2nd in Command: I am relieving you of duty, Captain. Report to your quarters.

Crewmen strong arm Captain off the bridge. Captain struggles.

Captain: You can't do this! It's mutiny! (Hysterical screaming)

2nd in Command assumes Captain's position on bridge. He looks grimly ahead.

2nd in Command: And that is it.

2nd in Command sighs and looks down in a brief expression of defeat, looking almost harrowed by it all.

2nd in Command: No more fucks. We're doomed. (Said in a whisper.)

~ END ~

Sigmund Freud's Doodle.

I don't know how to do a screen capture. I kinda fail at technology, to be honest. But, as I was going to say, Google has a doodle for Sigmund Freud's birthday. His face is represented as part of an iceberg in the image with a little steamer ship to the right heading towards another iceberg.

All day, when I saw that little image, all I could think was that the ship was the Titanic.

Take from this idea what you will.

Functioning Adult? Maaybe.

I have been struggling to get stuff I need to do done. I have piles of laundry waiting to be folded up and put away. I have piles of laundry that are waiting to be washed (but that is not as big of a deal because it is more or less par for the course). My kitchen has dishes waiting to be put away, dishes waiting to be washed, and a coffee maker that desperately need to be scrubbed. There are piles of papers everywhere. And I know that each one has several things that are important buried in them.

I am just overwhelmed by it all. It's made me a bit snappish. I have been trying not to be cranky and bitchy but it has been pretty hard. I am a bit better than I was earlier this evening. The kids picking up their toys and the books that were scattered around the house helped with that. (A chaotic and cluttered space contributes to sensory overload and anxiety for me.) I still am not at a very good place mentally right now.

I feel like I am an enormous fraud. I look at the writing stuff that I have been wanting to do and I feel badly that I'm not doing it. I look at the handcraft stuff that I was planning on doing. I feel guilty that I don't have pretty much any of it done yet. I feel like there are a thousand things that I should do and that I'm not getting done. I feel like I am not at *baseline* for competence, despite the fact that I have managed to keep the kids fed, prevented the household from collapsing into a black hole, and got the kids to do their homework.

My therapist tells me not to think so much about stuff. It is really hard to not do that. I look at everything and I find myself compulsively turning stuff over in my head trying to figure things out, assess if I am doing enough, and generally gauge my progress towards my goals. Fuck anxiety with a rusty chainsaw.

I have no idea what I am doing.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on? What do you mean I am a responsible adult? I'm not qualified for that shit!

*runs off into the night*

[Long day doing mom stuff. Adulting is hard. I have ice cream and booze. I'm done for the day.]

Flipping out.

There's been an accidental theme over the last two days. As I have been handling stuff, things have fallen over or flipped off of the table. It has been very vexing and resulted in much cursing, despite my efforts not to. I don't know if it is a case of my being extra clumsy or what. All I know is that last night, I had my dinner flip off the table twice as I was dishing myself more food. And today, I had a drink fall over when I wasn't even touching it.

I am glad that my cake this evening didn't go flying. I was concerned for a second that it was going to happen. In other news, I have started feeling motivation on the writing front. It hits me at the end of the day, but it is starting to happen again. I have begun the process of building up another writing playlist. Fortunately, Spotify has been turning up all kinds of really nifty cinematic like music. I think between that and my Youtube videos, I may have a good collection of tracks to motivate me. And by the time I get tired of that, I will be ready to cycle back to the playlist I have out of the music library we have at home.

Dread and damnation.

This has been a long week. I just want it to be the weekend. I am tired of the work of running around after a sick child and trying to keep on top of the household chores. I feel guilty that we're living out of laundry bags. It took me a while to get up the energy to get the kitchen mostly clean. Here it is, Thursday, and I am filled with a measure of dread over the coming weekend and next week.

Snuggle Bug has strep. He has been home from school for most of the week. We didn't realize it was strep until yesterday. As such, he had been extra cranky with out relief for several days, much to the vexation of Beloved and I. It started out where the school nurse and ourselves thought the problem was ear wax. Because his right ear was well and truly plugged up with wax. We did the ear drops and then got him in to see our family doctor. (If you're looking for a general practitioner and you're in my neck of the woods, look up Genesee Valley Family Medicine. They're good people and I, personally, have been working with them since I was a small child. They know what they're doing and have an excellent track record.) Snuggle Bug acted all excited and happy as soon as his ear wax problem was resolved, so he went back to school after his visit.

A few hours later, he was in full meltdown mode. So, I picked him up from school (and his brother because it was about an hour before the end of the school day and doing so just made things easier for everyone). Then we got in to see the doctor at the tail end of the day. Between his meltdown in the nurse's office and when we got into the doctor's office, Snuggle Bug had a dose of ibuprofen and it seemed to help a lot with his discomfort. After the strep test came back positive, we rushed to get dinner taken care of and pick up his antibiotic before the pharmacy closed. To say the least, Wednesday was a very rushed and stressful day for me. I tried to take it all in stride, but it was very hard.

Today, I have just felt exhausted all day. I don't know how much of this is due to the fact that I slept poorly last night and how much of it is a general sense of malaise that seems to be rising as the week has gone on. Snuggle Bug was home from school so that the antibiotic had time to start working before he went back to school. I spent my day attempting to keep him out of trouble and trying to build up the stamina to take care of household tasks, like cleaning up the kitchen. I found myself spending a good amount of time just standing in the kitchen staring at my cupboards trying to figure out what in Hel's name I was doing in there. It was pretty awful, to be honest.

Now, I'm looking forward to tomorrow and I feel a measure of dread. I worry that Snuggle Bug will not be well enough to go to school tomorrow. I worry that I am going to get a phone call while I am at my therapy session in the early afternoon. And I find myself worrying that if I have to reschedule the therapy session I am going to get into some kind of trouble. A part of me says that I shouldn't even go to therapy tomorrow.

I find myself feeling like my work to keep things running smoothly is ultimately a futile endeavor. I find myself feeling like I am a bad parent for not realizing that he was actually sick before Wednesday afternoon. I also find myself feeling like I am a bad person because I am not producing any sort of written work or getting anything done on any of my projects. A part of me says I should just give up on it all, go sleep, and wait until my brain magically decides it is well again. I am angry that I am feeling this way. I am angry with myself for being angry over it too. It's kinda ridiculous.

I don't know how to discuss this with my therapist or anyone at the clinic. I worry that if we try to tweak my medications again that I am going to wind up back in the hospital. I am afraid of there being horrible consequences if I try to do something about this and, at the same time, I recognize that doing nothing will result in my feeling worse and ultimately being sicker.

Beloved is confident that when the weather warms up and it feels more spring like I will see an improvement in my mental state. He also is telling me not to let my anxiety run the show here. It is, however, very hard. I find myself afraid of nebulous terrible consequences of all possible actions and all possible inaction. It is exhausting and depressing. I thought that I was starting to feel better. And now I'm like this. I don't know what the next phase of this is going to be.

Treading Water.

Today marks the fourth day that I've been home from the hospital. While I feel light years better than I did when I initially went to the emergency room two weeks ago, I am not completely well. I have been in the process of adjusting to the major changes that were made to my medications when I was in the hospital. I, think, however, I am getting ahead of myself a bit here.

I have been struggling with depression since November 2015. While the holiday season is typically not a very good time for me due to a confluence of stress, anniversary dates of past trauma, and a touch of seasonal affective disorder, it was especially bad this time around. I tried working with the people at the clinic where I receive services for my mental health stuff. The general reception to my statements of 'there is something wrong here' was for them to argue that I needed to better manage my stress and to say that I was being too anxious over it all. The argument that improved stress management was necessary came from the therapist I see and the one that I was being too anxious about everything came from the psychiatric nurse who oversees my medications.

We tried waiting to see if things were going to improve through December and January. This did not happen. Thus, my medications got a few minor changes that had a net zero effect on the situation. In March, I was taken off of Welbutrin and put on Effexor. At the time this change was made, I clearly stated I was concerned about this. This was when I learned that my diagnosis apparently was not for bipolar disorder but unipolar depression. My concerns about the changes with respect to the antidepressant were brushed off. So too were my concerns about the fact that my diagnosis had been changed with out my having been informed of this. The statement given was 'Diagnosis is a formality. We treat the symptoms.' I heard this from the nurse who is working with me and from my therapist. Keep this little bit in mind as I move to my next part.

The change in medication was not made by weaning me off of the Welbutrin and then gradually introducing Effexor. It was done via the method known as simultaneous switching. I stopped taking the Welbutrin and started taking the Effexor. In theory, this meant that as the Welbutrin processed out of my system, the Effexor would be building up in my system and the problems that had arisen due to my acclimating to the Welbutrin would be resolved. This, however, did not happen. After two and a half weeks on the Effexor, my depression got worse and two weeks go, I went into the hospital struggling with suicidal depression.

The hospital staff were very receptive to my needs. They carefully monitored the effects of medications as they adjusted them. They also looked at the sheer volume of medications I was on and openly said (politely) 'what the fuck is going on here?' As they reviewed the information in my file from the clinic, a few things came to light that I'm honestly not sure how to approach. In the span of the time it took from my meeting with my therapist (which was a few days before I went into the hospital) to when the hospital had a copy of my file, information in the papers got changed. My diagnosis was changed from unipolar depression to bipolar. The antidepressant that was my 'primary' antidepressant was changed from being listed as the Effexor to the Remeron. (When I went into the hospital, the medications I was taking were Remeron, Geodon, Effexor, Ativan, and Minipress. I was told the Remeron was to control my chronic nightmares. The Geodon was to control the psychotic features that come with severe depression. The Effexor was to resolve the depressive symptoms. And the Ativan and Minipress were to help me control my anxiety problems due to c-ptsd.)

I spent a good amount of my stay not feeling well physically. The exhaustion I felt due to the high dosage of Geodon I was on was only exacerbated by the fact that I had problems sleeping at the hospital because I didn't feel safe and my bed was a layer of rubber foam padding on a steel platform. (My bed here at home felt like a brand new feather bed when I got home after that. It was really nice to wake up in the morning and not have my hips feel slightly bruised because I slept all night on my side.) As the medications were tweaked and things were eliminated, I found myself progressively moving out of the suicidal mindset. I also found the psychotic symptoms were going away. It was hard, though, because much of the chaos going on in the ward was triggering flashbacks on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

When they took me off of the Geodon and put me on Seroquel, I found the psychotic symptoms lifted. It was like someone flipped a switch in my head and I no longer heard the voice of my mother saying horrible things to me. The moment that happened, I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I still felt horribly depressed, but I no longer had the experience of a voice telling me that I was worthless and a coward for not killing myself (along with a lot of other hurtful garbage). When they took the Effexor out of the picture and increased the Remeron dosage, the depression lifted to a point where I could be functional. That was where things stood when last Friday rolled around. Thus, I came home.

Yesterday, I saw the psych nurse at the clinic. She talked about how she was pleased that the hospital took me off of so much. (Previously, I was taking 7 pills before bed, not counting my vitamins. Now it's 3.) I was told how she couldn't make such big changes to my medication and I found myself questioning why she was in charge of handling medications if she couldn't do so. And then there was the argument that my suicidal depression was triggered by the stress of my children being on break from school. I was told that I needed to plan for what I was going to do when the boys were on break from school over the summer because that was when she said it appeared I had the most problems.

For my part, I bit my tongue. I said something blandly to the effect of I was planning on us spending more time with the extended family over the summer to help me cope with the stress of managing the kids when they were on break. I realized as the nurse was talking to me that in many ways, I was going to just have to smile and nod as I went forward. There is a narrative that they have decided is the correct one. In that narrative, they have done no wrongs and when I have periods of time where I am severely depressed it is because I am 'reacting' to the situation around me.

Never mind that functionally every single hospitalization that has happened over the last five years was due to medication screw ups exacerbating problems that were already present. I acclimate to antidepressants after taking them for a while. Then I get very depressed. When I try to get the clinic to help me, they conveniently are unable to do so. Thus, I go to the hospital. I am at a point now where if the Remeron stops working, I honestly don't know what we're going to do.

I've tried discussing the problems that come from when I am hypomanic. The general response to this has been that I am being too anxious over something that really isn't a problem. I know that my mood cycles. I have a hard time remembering the differences that come with my mood cycling. When my mood is up, everything is clipping along so quickly in my head that my attention span is that of a butterfly, it seems. When I'm depressed, I struggle to remember the simplest of things. I try to track my mood but it is very difficult for me to do so because of these memory issues.

The people at the clinic basically tell me that I am worrying about things for no reason. It makes me angry. I have dental problems because when I get majorly depressed (which happens for about 3 months a year, if not a little longer), I forget the most basic of things to care for my health. I have problems with my anxiety and social phobia being worse when I am in a mixed episode, though the clinic doesn't believe these are really an issue.

I've been told that I'm working with the person who is the best for handling trauma. This does not give me warm fuzzies. My therapist is a very sweet woman. I know she is trying to provide care for me. At the same time, I question her methods. When I come in for a session and she is talking about how she is doing research for how to handle my case, I get uneasy. When she is giving me self-help books and talking about youtube videos I should watch, I get uneasy. I recognize that I am a particularly tough case.

I have trauma from multiple incidents in my past. It makes for a clusterfuck and disentangling it all is kinda ridiculous. At one point, I was told that my case with respect to the ptsd was such that it had a lot in common with what would be seen for people who have come out of combat zones. I've been told by a few different psychiatrists that they're surprised I'm as well adjusted as I am because of the variety and extensiveness of what I have gone through. So, I understand I am a difficult patient because of how complicated my case is.

At the same time, I look at how the clinic is handling all of this and I can't help but feel angry. Every time I have had a crisis, they've functionally thrown their hands up in the air and done nothing to help me. When I try to be an active participant in managing my care and advocating for my wellness, I am either told that I am blowing things out of proportion or patronized. I would go up to the city for care but my health insurance won't cover it. I'm suck with these people and I don't know what to do. Their bullshit handling of my case has resulted in severe problems for me and I anticipate more of this garbage happening in the future.

How much do I have to endure until I can reach a point where things are at least tolerable? I'm getting tired of this constant fight. It's hard enough to have to fight my illness to get through the day. Fighting the people who are supposed to be helping me just makes it harder.

Do I get some wine?

It has been a long couple of days. My eldest is home from school. He's got some kind of virus. Probably a cold. He had a fever but it broke. We sent him in to school thinking he'd be fine. About 20 minutes later, the school called us to pick him up. The nurse declared he looked miserable and mentioned that he shouldn't be in school until after 24 hrs free from fever. Thus, he came home.

And has pretty much been acting like his usual self with a bit of a cold. I don't know if I should send him in tomorrow or if the school nurse will declare he must come home again. My anxiety says that they'll get upset with me if I send him. The rest of me says that aside from a bit of a cough, Cuddle Bear is pretty much fine. I'm probably going to discuss it with Beloved. Because I'm not thinking quite clearly right now.

This adjustment to medication business is ... not fun. I'm no longer so depressed that I feel like I'm going to cry at the drop of a hat or feeling utterly numb, but I'm not at 'normal' yet either. I still am struggling with this eerie sense of depersonalization that comes with this stuff. I feel like I'm half dissociated and I am really not enjoying it. I can't manage to feel warm at all. I'm presently wearing a thermal undershirt and a hoodie. I'm about to grab a shawl. I feel like I'm freezing and it is about 70 in the apartment right now. I know this is not normal.

I'm still anxious. I have been trying to keep myself busy so that I am not sitting here perseverating over all the possible things that could go wrong right now. I have not been very successful, though I do have two very lovely washcloths now, a new wooden beaded mala, and Beloved's sweater is just about on point. I don't have much energy. I don't have much appetite either. I'm beginning to think that perhaps I am still feeling depressed, it is just not quite as severe.

I've been drinking tea like it is going out of style. I made a pitcher of iced tea this afternoon that I will be having at dinner time. I don't know if the kids are going to want any. It is peach iced tea, so if they don't like it I'll have no qualms about finishing it off. My head hurts. I don't know if it is because I've been grinding my teeth, aura symptoms of a migraine, or if it is my medication. For all I know, it could be low blood sugar too.

I've only been eating about a cup of food at mealtimes, at best. Tonight, I anticipate eating about half of a pork chop and some veggies for dinner. I know this isn't good for me. I'm pretty sure that I've lost some weight over the last week of this nonsense. A part of me is worried about this becoming a thing and my almost-eating disorder coming back into the picture. When I brought up my worries about this, it was like when I brought up my worries about the hypomanic symptoms, I got brushed off and told not to be so anxious about it.

A part of me says I should just let it go. It says that I should just stop trying to manage all of this shit and 'trust the doctors.' Regardless of the fact that trusting these people to have my best interests at the forefront of their minds resulted in major problems in the past. Another part of me says I should just stop caring so much about this because I'm not going to be taken seriously by anyone anyhow. I've got the dual strikes against me of being female and having mental illness.

Then there is that part of me that just doesn't stop. It says that I am going to go forward and make shit happen, even if I have to march through Helheim to do it. It says that I should continue to press to get proper treatment of my condition. It says that I should get up everyday to take care of the things I need to do and meet my responsibilities. It says that I should force the world to my will. Because there is no other option.

Fortunately, that is the part that usually wins out.

Me vs Health Establishment: Round n+1

I posted about this on FB yesterday. I've had a little time to calm down from incandescent rage that I was literally shaking with when it hit. I don't know what to do right now. I really don't know what to say or do. I know that my monthly meeting with my psychiatric provider didn't start well when I was basically kink shamed for wearing my collar. (Because obviously I'd wear it only for attention or to shock people, right?) I wore it because I had been super anxious for about a week now. Wearing the collar makes me feel safe, secure, and loved.

I started out wearing a necklace that was collar like. It was very light weight and after a while, I could't feel it. I gradually switched to heavier necklaces before I got to the two necklaces that are public friendly collars and the leather one. The one that I had made (pink band of tunisian crochet superwash wool with an o ring in the center and button closure at the back) soon became hard for me to focus on because the anxiety was encouraging me to dissociate. So, I put on the chain collar necklace. It worked a little better but I kept having lots of ... discomfort and upset. So, I finally put on the leather one.

A huge amount of the anxiety that had been troubling me was... not lifted so much as diminished because it was easier for me to feel the collar's presence on my neck. It also helped that the rings on it jangled a little bit as I was moving, which helped provide something of an auditory cue that it was there. The two things worked together to help me stay 'embodied' and focused on the present, in addition to all the warm fuzzies that are associated with the collar.

So, I was somewhat disappointed when my psychiatric provider took one look at the collar and said 'That's not you.' I revealed that it is indeed a facet of myself, simply one that I keep quiet. She scoffed and gave a somewhat sarcastic 'Ok.' Looking back, that really set the tone for the rest of the session. We had our discussion about my symptoms. She focused on trying to figure out what I was 'reacting to' in being depressed right now. I got very ... frustrated with that line of discussion.

I said very bluntly "I have been depressed since November. Something needs to change." She started to try to talk me into sticking with the medications I was on at the time when I reiterated that it wasn't working and something needed changed. This was when it became apparent that I have been on pretty much every SSRI on the market and acclimated to them all as she reviewed my history. That was because the one she suggested at first, I flatly declined with the statement that the last time I was on it, I wound up in the hospital for suicidal thoughts.

So, she has me now on an SSNRI. I voiced my concern about how I am bipolar and I was worried that my medication may cause me to have a full blown manic episode or suicidal depression. She pooh-poohed my concerns and then told me that in the records, I had a diagnosis of unipolar depression with pyschotic features. I... I got angry. She presented it as though she did not change the diagnosis. And I am inclined to believe her. I don't think psychiatric nurses have the credentials to diagnosis.

I tried explaining that I have the symptoms of bipolar and I essentially got brushed off. The appointment ended with my basically shutting down emotionally and her not noticing. I find myself wondering if the collar is going to come up in my therapy session in two weeks. I don't know what to do right now. A part of me is furious because I am again in a position where I need to defend my diagnosis and justify my needs to the psychiatric professional I am working with. I have never had this problem at any of the hospitals I have gone into. Just with this damn clinic.

And the anxiety is crippling when I am not dissociating due to it. I have problems with being in the position where I have to justify my need for medical care. I think it is tied to the fact that I had health problems as a kid that my parents decided not to address because they decided that I had to by lying to them. Only to discover between 25 to 30 years later that all the things I was complaining about were legit problems. But, when I get sick and I need help, I get terrified that the people around me are not going to believe me and decide that I am a hypochondriac. I get fucking twisted up into knots over the idea that they're going to deem me an attention whore and dismiss me.

So, this has jumped onto the pile of general anxiety that I was struggling with over the last week. I started the new medication today. I've started seeing some side effects. I have a lower appetite than usual. My mood is not up much but my energy levels keep going up as the day goes on. If I go into one of my hypomanic states, I am going to call my psychiatric care provider and say something to the effect of 'see, this is a legit thing.' If it turns into something beyond that, I will take what measures I need to.

But, knowing that I haven't been getting treated for what I have makes me angry. I feel like there would be less chaos in my life if I was on the right medication. I worry that I am not going to get it because I have a hard time remember what happens in these different mental states. When I'm depressed, I literally can't remember shit. When I am hypomanic, I don't have the attention span to recall stuff and think I'm normal. It only becomes apparent to me if I am having difficulty because of my temper being screwed up. The wonky sleep doesn't get noticed until afterwards.

But, when I go into my psych appointments, I have problems remembering stuff outside of the mood I a m in at the time. And most of the time, I am depressed.

Such a long week.

The boys have been off from school this week. It has been exhausting. They have been full of energy and up to mischief. This is not a surprise or a change from their present patterns of behavior. I, however, have been really struggling to keep up with them. I am thankful that they go back to school on Monday because I am worn out. It makes me concerned that their next break is going to be just as difficult for me to navigate.

Last weekend, I had a bad flashback. I think it has been contributing to the fact that I don't feel well right now. Usually, I bounce back from a flashback fairly quickly. A day or two later and I am functioning more or less like I usually do. This week, however, I have had so much difficulty concentrating and I have been more anxious than usual. It didn't help that Tuesday was a really hard day for me. I had an episode where I got very anxious and angry for a while. Thankfully, Beloved was home and he was managing the kids. I was having a bad day Tuesday because I was feeling very depressed to begin with. The anxiety and anger just hit me out of nowhere.

A friend of mine said it sounded like how her anxiety attacks manifest. It makes me think that I should do a little research and see if part of my problems with anger are actually problems with anxiety. I am so tired of dealing with depression, anxiety, and all the rest of the mess that is my psyche right now. I said the other night that I hated my brain. Beloved replied that it was a shame that I felt that way because he thinks it is my most attractive feature. It was a very gentle reproach. But, it is a reminder none the less that I need to stop hating facets of myself because they're not perfect. It is more of that all or nothing thinking that I struggle with.

I haven't done any spinning in the last two months. I just haven't had the motivation to do so. I look at the beautiful fiber and my delightful spindles. I just felt numb despair that nothing I did would be good enough and I walked away. I have been feeling that way about many things right now. I know it is depression talking. It is exhausting and disheartening. I don't know if how I am feeling right now is an indication that I am improving. My writing on here is not inspired by anything or the fruit of some feeling that I need to write. It is more motivated out of guilt for my silence than anything else.

I don't know if that is a good thing or not. It has been hard for me to get into an appointment to see my therapist. Over the last month, almost month and a half now, we have been playing phone tag. Either I am sick or she has been sick. A part of me says that scheduling a session is a futile effort because something is going to come up. It is the same part of me that says everything is useless.

Powder keg.

I am not entirely in my right mind right now. I am on edge. I am hiding from the rest of the family and listening to super calming music because the stimuli of the living room is too much for me right now. I am no longer shaking or feeling so anxious, agitated, and angry that I'm ready to have a screaming meltdown in the middle of the kitchen. I can't concentrate. The ativan helped some. I can feel this all is still there but the volume is turned down some. It is probably the only reason why I am collected enough to post right now or listen to music here.

I don't know how I'm going to sleep. My brain is telling me that I have wasted food that we needed and that it will make the kids go hungry because of my screw up. I have this sense of guilt over the fact that I made more dishes to wash. I also have it going on because I just didn't manage to get a cooked dinner done for Beloved and the kids. (Sandwiches were for the boys and Beloved said he'll figure something out for himself. Making the sandwiches was hard for me. I was ready to throw the butter knife across the room because the peanut butter wasn't spreading as evenly as I wanted it to.)

A part of me says I should start folding laundry right now. Another part of me says that it will be a huge pile on the bed when it is time for me to go to sleep and just make things worse. I feel like my head is winding up and going faster with each moment. There is no giddy euphoria with this. Just tension, suppressed screaming at the children for being a little loud, and shaking. I am making a point of staying away from anything that I could possibly use to hurt myself right now.

Earlier, before the Ativan kicked in, I found myself ready to start hitting myself because of my fuck up with dinner. I don't know why this is happening. I'm worried about it. I just want to be calm. I just want to get to sleep and wake up normal. I don't want this happening. I feel helpless and scared right now even as I am angry and anxious. I just don't know what to do. I don't know if this is continued fallout from the bad flashback I had last weekend. I don't know if it is something else going on with me.

I am trying to calm myself down. I am failing. I'd be knitting right now but I'm so torqued up I can't see myself handling dropped stitches well at all. What am I going to do when the Ativan wears off? Is this going to be the rest of the night? I don't know. I'm scared.

Rebel brain, submit to my will.

Still stuck in a mixed episode. It now makes day four of it. I'm not as short tempered as I was yesterday but I still have the combination of having energy and being depressed. I saw my psych provider yesterday. She was surprised how long I have been struggling. Now, this makes the first full year that she's been working with me. Starting out, last March, I did my best to make clear to her that the time from late November to about mid-March is the worst of the year for me. Due to a combination of factors, I pretty much spend my entire time depressed.

I am hoping that the fact that I'm not as ready to scream, break things, and generally light the world on fire is a sign that I am moving out of this mental state. I really hate depressive episodes. But I think I hate mixed episodes even more. At least with the depressive episodes I have some numbness insulating me from the worst of the feelings. With this, I feel every knot and twist of my pained mind through the entire episode. I have noticed that I did not get my full nine hours of sleep last night. I'm keeping an eye on that.

It is sad to admit, but I no longer trust a cranky day or a string of good days. I watch everything about what is going on with me. I am wary of what is simply a good day turning into mania. I am concerned that a bad day is going to stretch out into a longer interval with my anger turning nearly uncontrolled. I just don't trust myself anymore on that front. And for some one who has difficulty trusting herself in other areas, this makes me exasperated and sad. It also makes me angry.

My therapist tells me that I just should let the moods happen as they will and adjust to them as they happen. I feel like I can't do that. I feel like there is too much at stake. Multiple rounds of depression leads to my not taking proper care of myself. This ends in my needing dental work, increased problems with exercise, and (apparently) high triglyceride levels. She tells me that I am looking at it from a too complicated approach. I feel like I need to plan for each mood state like I would for the invasion of Normandy.

I haven't hit the point of having crisis plans written up in my binder, yet. I do, however, now have a list of all my medications and my diagnoses in my wallet now. In my times of hypomania, I start organizing everything and trying to make all in my life efficient. This is also when I start thinking about how to possibly manage the household, raise the children, do my writing, and run multiple businesses at the same time. I also get a little bit freer with my spending. But I spend it on practical things, like more canned goods to keep in the pantry in the event of a bad winter storm. Or, if I've gone really wild, clothes for myself. And when I am doing this extra spending, my anxiety of money is such that it stops me from going over about sixty dollars on my purchases.

Anyways, I feel like I need to have a plan in place for when I am well, when I am depressed, when I am hypomanic, and when I have a mixed episode. I don't and that makes me uneasy. My plans for when I am well are simple and I don't really need to check in with other people to make sure that I am well connected with reality. But for the other three states, I don't have anything written down and I worry that as time goes on I am getting worse. And I want to make sure that if something goes majorly wrong, there is a plan for how to take care of it. Because it makes me feel more secure about it all and it makes it possible for there to be some kind of solution to the problems that would arise from my being severely unwell.

Hamster Wheel Progress.

I am doing everything I possibly can to move forward. I am making sure I get enough sleep at night. I am eating three proper meals a day. I take my medications. I have even been getting a little bit of exercise into my day. Looking at this, one would think that I am on track to be in good health and spirits.

Life right now is a hamster wheel. And all of my efforts for forward progress are getting me nowhere. I still have this lingering cough that makes my chest ache. I am still dealing with being depressed. And I am still having a hard time writing or doing anything else creative. I am struggling to be patient with my kids even more than usual because my mental capacity is hindered by the depression.

I look around and there is nothing in the present that should be causing this aside from brain chemistry issues. It frustrates me. A part of me still kinda is stuck in the socially approved story that depression is sadness over an event in the present. I get frustrated and angry with myself when I don't have something to point at and say 'This caused it.' I get so upset when I realize that it is a combination of neural chemistry issues and past events. I get so angry about the past events still bothering me.

Something in me says that I should be over it. Stuff that happened thirty years ago still comes to mind and makes it hard for me to sleep at night. Stuff that happened twenty years ago comes to mind and makes me want to scream in terror at times. I look around me and I see the world carrying on as it does usually and I feel cut off from it. I feel like my PTSD has ripped me out of my life and left me to watch as everyone else is progressing through the 'normal' events of their 30s.

My therapist tells me that I am perfectly normal. That I am a text book case of complex post-traumatic stress disorder and of bipolar II. It doesn't reassure me on days like today. Days where I had planned on doing simple things like cooking dinner and putting laundry away get interfered by my sudden lack of energy and overwhelming sense of despair due to my depression are arduous. Add in the peppering of flashbacks to the various traumatic events I have lived through and my day feels like I am just a walking mass of anxiety and exhaustion.

I sit here and I question why I should keep going. Then I get angry with myself for those questions. I have responsibilities that I can not just drop. I have things that I want to get done before I die. I have a book series to finish writing. But I am so tired. And I am so full of despair.

I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if writing this post was a good idea or not. All six of you probably have me friended on Facebook. So, you have seen this struggle as it has been unfurling. I vainly thought there would be some form of catharsis in writing this.  But it feels much the same as writing in my journal. Sans the pleasure that comes from looking at my handwriting when it is neat and tidy.

Down with the Sickness.

Yes, I ripped the title of this post off from Disturbed. I am not ashamed in the least bit. It amuses me and that is all that matters. I spent the weekend sick in bed. This nasty cold (which I was worried for a bit that it was turning into bronchitis) had me exhausted and miserable. I am at the point where I'm not feeling breathless walking around the apartment and doing some chores. I think that I might actually be well enough to go do laundry tomorrow.

In the midst of my intermittent fever and woozy exhaustion, I did something uncharacteristic of myself. I actually gave myself permission to rest and be sick. I was cranky with the fact that I didn't like being stuck in bed all weekend. At the same time, however, I was not trying to force myself to do everything because I was sick. Beloved was wonderful. He took care of the grocery shopping and kept the boys in line so that I could just sleep. Between drinking copious amounts of orange juice and tea, I spent a good amount of this weekend, when I was up, just sitting and staring at stuff. I guess that is what Facebook is good for.

I'm feeling a bit better and I have much more energy right now. I am optimistic that I can get laundry done tomorrow, provided I don't push myself too far today.

Getting sick, again.

My throat feels like it is made out of sandpaper. My sinuses are achey. I think it is safe to say that I have come down with the kids' head cold. At the same time, my mental state is a bit off. I only slept about four hours last night. Oddly enough, I am wide awake and full of energy, have been all day. (I was that way for about half of last night too.) I suspect this is to do with the fact that my medications have been altered. I will know for sure if this is how I am tonight and tomorrow. I feel restless but I have a hard time focusing right now.

I feel like I should be doing a thousand things but I just can't make myself sit still long enough to do one of them. I have a sink full of dishes to wash but I keep getting distracted by other things. Which I then get distracted from as well. It is just a chain of distractions all along the way. I don't rightly know what I should do with myself. As the day has gone on, I have felt my ability to concentrate slowly diminish. My thoughts are unfocused and going faster with each passing hour. It has me concerned what I am going to be like this evening. Because I really need sleep, it is important to keeping my mental function healthy.

It is snowing right now. I am sure the kids will be excited about that. I don't know how much we're going to get today. I don't know if I am going to have to shovel the walk later or if it will be something I need to do in the morning. I am presently trying to get myself focused enough to do a bit of writing on my other blogs. It is, however, difficult to concentrate.

Running in circles.

I have been trying to tread water but it feels like I'm not doing so hot. My brain has been not cooperative towards the goal of getting all the things done. At least today I have gotten something done. Perhaps I will get a bit more done with luck.

Fiber arts wise, I have now loaded my distaff with the remainder of that raspberry colored fiber. I have a handful of wine colored fiber that I am going to spin with one of my supported spindles. I am trying to figure out how to do this whole business of spinning with the spindle held in hand. It is not going easily. It has lead to a fair amount of hand discomfort. It isn't as bad as it is with the other french spindle. I am seriously considering picking up a set of spindle sticks and seeing how it improves things.

I knit a few rows on my anxiety shawl. I accidentally messed up my knitting and have one row that is reverse stockinette. It is, however, a mistake that I'm going to leave and not worry about. Because I'm working on being forgiving with myself like that. I also am getting ready to take Beloved's sweater apart and add more to it. (It came out half the length it really should have been. Width wise, however, it is good.)

And I think I have figured out how to flick card stuff. I think.

It just rolls on.

I keep telling myself that today will be the day that I will get everything I wanted to do done. Then little things like a migraine or medication brain fog get in the way. I am trying to not be discouraged but it is kinda hard. I thought I'd be jumping back to my previously aggressive posting schedule and it just hasn't happened. I feel tired and discouraged.

I don't know if it is just because I'm having a hard time recovering after the break or what exactly it is. I want a vacation. I want to go somewhere warm, where I have no responsibilities. That, however, is not going to happen anytime soon. I feel burned out and that is disheartening. I am looking around trying to find some way to not feel so burned out but I am coming up with nothing. I can't just let all the housework sit and ignore the work of managing the kids for a day.

The weekends are chaotic and exhausting for me. I can't relax because there is so much going on. I try to get some time to relax and rest during the week but by the time I feel like I'm ready to start getting things done, the kids are coming home from school and I have to mind them. I wish there was a way to get some alone time with my husband. I wish there was a way to get some time where we don't have to worry about when we woke up in the morning (and now what to do if the kids get up before us).

I'm so tired and so ... sad. I am sad that I feel like this. A part of me says that I should be up and on the go right now. But I am literally resisting the urge to take a nap because the kids' bus will be here in a few minutes.