Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Ghost Rider and Fifth Wheels.

Restless today, and easily angered over trivial crap.

Also angered over not so trivial crap, as in mom informed me today that she hasn't been doing her PT and upper body exercises like she is supposed to be doing, and as a result is weaker now. Understand, she is bed bound, and so every bit of exercise counts! 

I'm just ticked off. Why am I doing this every day, if mom isn't going to do her part? All this is going to do is affect how long she is in PT after the replacement on Monday...the weaker she is, the longer it will take for her to get up on her feet and for me to get my life back.

It is what it is, but I'm tired of it being this way. I miss my mornings with Mike, having breakfast with him and hanging out before he goes to work. After the kids go off to school, we generally have the house to ourselves and we just hang, or do chores or run errands. I miss that. I miss it a lot.

I am reading Neil Peart's "Ghost Rider", which I bought yesterday at the Kindle store. I am 3/4 of the way through it, even stopping to make notes (Kindle is cool like that, you can make notes and highlight portions etc. Awesome) on passages that have meaning to me. There have been times where I've shed tears for him and the pain, the unimaginable pain, that he suffered. 

Even though my suffering and grief over certain parts of my past, like the break up of my and Adele's father's relationship, watching my grandfather suffer and then being the one he asked permission from to die, having to tell and hear my mother about the death of him, watching my ex-mother-in-law die and having to tell my then husband that his mother wasn't going to live past the weekend, and a myriad of other things; I understood and understand his pain. His need to get away and to just keep moving.

There are times when I wanted to chuck it all and just go away for a while. To just get into the car and drive, to put miles behind me and to think.  There is one passage, in particular, that spoke to me. Or, I should say, had me nodding in total understanding..." For some reason, as part of that grief work it also seemed necessary for me to replay every single incident of my own life....Every embarrassment, act of foolishness, wrong-headedness, error, idiocy etc. going back to childhood and all the way forward to now.  I physically flinch, say "ow" out loud, or "fuck" as the case may be, and can hardly bear it. "

I sill do that, although to a smaller extent, than I did in the darkest days of my breakdown. I caught myself doing this over the weekend, as I sat on Jason's sofa, head thrown back and listening to Moving Pictures, the remastered, awesome assed, super duper digital version.

He had been kind enough to squire me about in search of a summer weight riding jacket, and now, as I lolled about on a hot afternoon, he was helping Cherie unload the car of groceries. I heard both the music and their interaction, sensing the comfortable flow that they have together and I suddenly felt like a fifth wheel. Red Barchetta had me, for some reason, thinking about a stupid incident in Middle School that involved me getting a hickey from John Quigley and being stupid enough to try to hide it under make up. 

I hadn't thought about that in DECADES, yet the humiliation that I felt over the ensuing rumors that spread around our Peyton Place of a school, still burned after all of this time. Foolish? Yes, in the big picture, but still hurtful none the less to that insecure, awkward geek that still lives under my skin.

These memories distracted me from the music, and shattered the peace I was feeling in that lovely living room, with it's high ceiling and cool, villa-like vibe. So, I got up and said good-bye, still feeling like a fifth wheel and wanting to flee as fast as I could. They are both so busy (he's a cop, she's a nurse) so I know how valuable "alone time" is and I felt like I was cutting in on that. 

I had fun at Laser Tag with Kevin, Tedd, Mike and the gang, but I was more reserved than I normally am, or at least I felt that way at times. The later it got the quieter I got, yet still couldn't sleep once I got back to my hotel. I slept, eventually, but I can't shake this angry lassitude that followed me back from New Orleans.  I know that I've reached my tipping point, yet I cannot bring myself to tip over...duty and honor compel me to suck it up and carry on, but it's so fucking exhausting!

I am sitting on the patio as I write this, looking at the lawn and it needs to be cut. So does the front, actually. I guess Mike will do it tomorrow, or the next day. He works so hard, so I don't want to complain about it. I also don't want a bitchy tome from the homeowners association.  I'd cut it myself, but it's too damn hot, even at this late hour (it's 8:15pm here and the sun is just setting) also, I can't be arsed enough to do it. If only the mower were self propelled, then I could make Katie do it. A cut lawn isn't worth having to listen to her bitch and moan about it, though.

To hell with it. I have naan and hummus in the fridge, I have a nice pinot grigio chilling as well...dinner calls.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

An Ongoing Struggle...

A few years ago,December 2003 to be precise, a major even occured in my personal life. I had what I call a nervous breakdown, and I know it's not a "medical term" but it's the best way I know how to describe what happened to me.

Basically, I ended up being diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. I can honestly say that my breakdown was one of the best things that ever happened to me, because the many months of intense and concentrated therapy, brought to the surface things long buried and also in facing the demons that needed facing, and knowing that I wasn't the only person on the planet who felt and thought the way that I thought, was cleansing. My breakdown also, thanks to therapy, finally taught me to speak up for myself, to acknowledge that I'm not a super human and that my faults are not as earthshattering as I thought them to be.

I also learned that I have suffered from this disorder all of my life (most likely) which made sense as I looked back in hindsight at peroids of my life that were particularly hellish. It was so relieving to discover these things!

That said, for the last couple of weeks I've been feeling the symptoms of a depressive episode coming on, and like an idiot, decided to not so much ignore them, but to think that things wouldn't be as bad as they were in 2003. I had a few minor episodes since 2003, the most serious being when I took Chantix to quit smoking, one cannot do that with Depressive Disorder and I still thank God for my friend Jason staying on the phone with me till 3AM. For the most part, however, the few episodes of "depression" I've had after the breakdown, have been minor and treatable without having to go to therapy or take Prozac. However, the last few weeks have felt different, my moods swinging all Tarzan like, body aches, headaches and the extreme tiredness; all signs that something big is on the offing. I chose to ignore them and this morning the scale tipped into the blackness.

Which frightens the hell out of me, because I don't ever want to go through another 2003. Even though I can look back on it and be grateful that it happened, being in the thick of it was pure and painful Hell. Getting to the other side of it, all of those long months was the hardest thing I have ever done, the most painful thing I've ever done and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

I suppose that I really shouldn't be shocked that this happened, given all of the changes that have happened in my life this year. It's not that I'm complaining about the changes, I'm not. They have been wonderful changes, but the brain of someone who has my disorder is wired a little differently than others and changes, especially those coming in rapid succession and throw someone like me off kilter. You see, I need time to deal with any change, good or bad.

The biggest change has been to my marital status...a HUGE change. I love Mike, love him very, very much, it's not that I don't. It's all me, you see. It's a ginormous change, going from a single parent for 12 years, to a married woman in the course of 7 months, and becoming an at home mom at the same time. I know that this has been a huge change for Mike as well. I have loved the change, there have been a couple of rough patches, but nothing serious. Then I had a death in the family recently, something that I am still dealing with and the fact that my mother is going to have her knee replaced on the 20th has me afraid, more afraid than I normally would be. I know my aunt's death, the suddeness of it in surgery, is why I'm afraid for my mother. The fact that she has diabetes doesn't help either. Normally, I cope well, just not this time and it's all because of the way my brain is wired. Then there are the daily worries, things that I've had to be hypervigilant about for the last few years, that I can relax about now...as soon as I figure out how to do that...this for the most part is tied to my not having to go it alone anymore. And I'm so used to going it alone. It's stressful, learning to to share the responsibilities, toilet cleaning jokes aside.

So Mike took me to the doctor today, and I'm starting my Prozac again. I just have to hang on until the meds kick in, and I'm pretty sure I can. I know that I have to make sure I eat, that I get out of bed and dress, make sure I keep to my normal schedule and make sure that I take care of myself. This too shall pass, this episode in life.

It's just so frustrating.