"Humans is soooo stooopid! Go away and wake me up when it's over..."
What the blue blazes (as my mom used to say) are they thinking???? A federal election campaign, smack in the middle of the holidays (ALL of 'em! Christmas, Channukah, Chinese New Year, you name it!) I'm sorry, my milk of human kindness has just turned into curdled eggnog, and if you ring my doorbell looking for my vote, you are going to wear that eggnog! In fact, I may not vote. Screw em. The redneck vote is going to carry the day anyway. That idiot Layton of the Left who has caused this mess has less chance here than that ice lump lodged up the ass of the Christmas turkey.
I've ALWAYS voted, even in the stupid muncipal stuff where I get to choose either Stubby or Stumpy for councillor... not this time!
or as close to honest as I can be...
I just came from my doctor. Had a long talk about my mood which has been having some regression lately. I had an episode last week where I spent 2 days in bed feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. I don't like talking about it because it makes me feel so.. so...unworthy. Which was the problem in the first place. I feel sick and like this is going to go on in this way forever. I haven't done any meaningful work for a year. Something that really seemed to shock the gp.
But my therapists (yes, therapists, I've got 2) don't seem to think this is a problem. One suggests I don't try to force going into the studio (artist) and the other goes as far as to say that recovery should be my job right now. Oh great. Lousy paying job I've got. Of course the perfectionist gremlin pipes up and says, "Well, you're doing a lousy job at that if that's what you're working at!"
I'm so sick of recovery and all that shit. I know I've come a distance. Yadda yadda yaddda...3 years ago I was depressed and unable to work and 300 pounds and hypertensive and diabetic. Now I'm in good health but still depressed and not working. I have been having the odd impulse to paint, but I'm told it's ok if it's not time... No it's not, no it is NOT ok!
How pitiful is this for a life: I go to 2 or 3 OA meetings a week, gym 3 times a week, running group another 2, 2 therapist appointments and try to keep the mess in the house to not too horrible and the most enjoyable part (food, go figger) is cooking good meals so we're at least eating well.
But it's not enough. I'm not enough.
Upshot of all this: my antidepressants got increased.
Me, 1995.
Don't let the Dame Edna shades and smirk fool you. Newly graduated and terrified.
So it's nearly noon, sitting in a wingback chair in front of the woodstove... Fuzzboy isn't feeling well, he's exhausted due to overwork, and yet he putters around --- putting out the compost, bringing in firewood. Then he plans on doing some drywall repair. Meanwhile I've been sitting here so long my butt hurts. Shame, I feel shame. Well, I ain't the boss of him and vice versa. He does his thing, and I can do mine, but I feel full of this poisoning shame... the doc says this is why I want to eat.
But changing this is so hard... surrender, he says, become willing to change... Geez Louise, I do want to change, don't I? But I've been beating myself over the head with this for over 40 years, changing this is like stopping a cruise liner, it ain't gonna stop on a dime.
Then I feel shame about both being unable to change immediately and about not being able to accept that... I can't win.
Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. Hope you are surviving the weekend. I've been going to 12 step meetings, mostly Overeaters Anonymous but also the odd AA meeting for about 3 years now. I am definitely a food addict, I have used food to drug myself into a stupor for many years. I need the support group to get me back on to a somewhat normal footing with food as sustenance, not lover. I go to the AA meetings because my father was a drunk and I've done some lunkhead things while drinking. So I don't drink anymore (piece of cake next to the pull toward binge eating) and go to the occasional AA meeting. OA (Overeaters Anonymous) is directly modelled upon AA so the meetings can be fairly similar.
Anyway, this time of year can be hard for anyone dealing with addictions, it seems. I'm dreading Christmas with Fuzzboy's family. Most of my side of the family is dead or estranged, so at least I don't have to deal with the craziness I had to deal with at past family "celebrations"... Like the big fight over whose mother made the best pie at the 1987 dinner... that was a real winner. Ugh.
So, you notice the big "stress-spike" in the meetings this time of year. The theme seems to be "God, grant me the serenity to survive my own and my family's insanity, not to mention my friends..." We get so locked into the family traditions that we forget our own duty to ourselves to be healthy. Suddenly candied yams takes priority over our own heartache. (Thankfully that's a dish, like the green bean casserole, that never quite made it over the border to the south.)
The trick seems to be how to get out of your own misery but still in touch with it so you don't need a (what's that term?) a "Hail Mary" to get through the day...
Ever had one of those days when you wake up suddenly with a sense of dread and you look at the clock and confirm that it is the exact time you are supposed to be somewhere else, an hour's drive away, not in bed?
This was one of those mornings. What to do but swear, yell at the clock, yell at the husband (default setting), but can't really blame Fuzzboy, because indeed he is not there, he is in the city having arisen at his proper time many hours previous, in the dark, to be at his conference at this exact moment, on time. Did he not reset the alarm or did I just sleep through it? Either is equally possible, since going on sick leave, I am quite capable of sleeping through the alarm...
This wasn't an earthshaking tragedy, but I really wanted to be at a jam session to work on the arrangement of a new song for our choir. What to do? Run around like a fool and get there, or just go back to bed and sulk, and sleep really late as someone prone to depression (me) tends to do when upset? Oh, and yes, it's snowing. Looks like 3 inches and more. Lovely to look at, murder on the road.
I decided to not be a perfectionist and go anyway. If I decided the workshop was out, there was always an OA meeting a couple of blocks away that I could actually So what to cut out of the morning routine? Teeth? No. Face wash, yes. Sniff yesterday's shirt. Good for another day. Stopped to warm up some steel cut oats. I can be late, but late and starving produces a real bitch on wheels, not a good thing to add to the circus on the highway. Threw together a chickpea sandwich and some ratatouille to take for lunch while the oatmeal was heating in the nuker. I've had dinner out nearly every night this week, my waist and my wallet can't take any more! Thank God Fuzzboy left me some coffee in the carafe. Even lukewarm is better than none.
The highway was greasy, but I slowed down and still I made it to the workshop for a couple of hours and it was fine. Just relaxed and contributed what I could, didn't get upset if my suggestions weren't taken. There's something to be said for not being such a damn diva all the time and just saying "Ok, this is the best I can do, I'm going to live with it." and getting on with it.
I was talking on the phone with one of my Overeaters Anonymous buds this afternoon and grousing about how sore my legs and butt were from running outside in the cold last night. (Me! Running outside! In -7 C weather, on ice yet! I never thought that would actually happen in a million years...) She suggested a bath with epsom salts (epsom salts, didn't my parents use those?, and then said, "At least you can fit in a tub now!" and immediately apologised for being insensitive.
"No, you're right, tubs are much more comfortable now, except I have such a lousy one right now." I replied, and I had a sudden memory of about 15 years ago to one of my favorite tubs in a small hotel in Paris. It was lovely, very deep and long so that the water would be above my chin... then I tried to get out of the tub, and I was wedged in so tight my hips squeaked, and I briefly panicked because it was difficult to get out by raising my bulk straight up... I wonder if that was what really happened to Marat??
I can't go back to that tub for a soak, although half the woman I once was, I've got debts including an overdue therapy bill and another pending the end of the month... hey, maybe I'll be well enough in the head soon to actually earn some money so I can do that some day. I had Fuzzboy take a picture of me in that tub, with bubbles and wine and all that stuff, but when I saw the photo I destroyed it --- fat people do that whenever possible, it's always such a shock --- and as I result I have very few photos of myself from when I was twice my present size. Of course now, I WANT to see them. I'm sure there are negatives and undestroyed ones lurking in shoeboxes. We'll be moving soon, so I'll get an opportunity to find some.
Could there be any more baggage in my closet than is in my head? Honey, I'd have to be Oprah for that to happen!
Ok, any blog that comes with a pink template is ok with me. Suddenly I am struck with blogfright... what to say what to say... and why should this be any different from the rest of my life??? God, I am tired of being frightened of what someone else thinks, but then, who the hell is actually going to read this drivel?
