Yesterday I backed into a car while attempting to get into a parking space. I got out of my car and we looked at the damage. I had dented and cracked his bike rack. No… More
The Answer to Everything
No matter what I’ve had wrong with me: depression, Bipolar 2, Reynaud’s disease, hypothyroidism, double vision, wanting to lose a few pounds, etc. It’s always comes back to the cure of a healthy diet, healthy weight, no alcohol, mindfulness, meditation, sleep, stay hydrated and the dreaded exercise. All of these things I hear over and over again. I read it, am told it, discuss it and never have been able to live it.
Let’s break it down.
Healthy diet.
I have a strange relationship with food. My mother had an eating disorder, maybe because she grew up in England during WWII rations. I have tons of food stories, but basically my sister and I were often even hungry or couldn’t eat what she had cooked.
I tried the glorified Mediterranean diet, Atkins, Keto, Paleo and intermittent fasting (turns out this is the only one I can stick to).
Staying Hydrated
I’ve often wondered what our ancestors did when wandering out on the plains looking for food without a liter of purified water in their steel water bottle to stay hydrated with the calculation of a liter per day per pound or whatever the calculation is. They say when you are thirsty you are actually dehydrated, what? I’m not a doctor, but I am a human being having lived a lot of years, and none of this has ever rung true for me.
Healthy Weight/Exercise
This one is the trickiest because it involves all three. Exercise to achieve a healthy weight and mind.
For me personally these have seemed to be insurmountable, actually not seemed, I’ve never been able to combine them for a healthier me, physically and mentally. I get the advice from doctors about the exercise. I have even put the exercise equipment and even the workout clothes right there in front of the TV and I either forget because I don’t notice (ADD), get home to late or up too late or the other third I just don’t want to.
I would love to walk. I have a nice neighborhood, no kids at home so I should be able to put on my tennis shoes and take off anytime. According to the experts walking is the best exercise. That sounds great in theory for other people, but for me I have anxiety that I haven’t’ been able to overcome. Several things have happened to me walking alone and I have finally stopped beating myself up about not walking. My god, I have enough things I am doing successfully, walking is really on the bottom of my list of overcoming another PTSD moment.
Meditation
I don’t know about you, but this one is just too hard for me to stop and relax. I’ve meditated before and I liked it. I liked the man guiding me through the session. But after a while I realized it wasn’t helping me with the pile of things it was supposed to help. Plus it is almost impossible for me to stop and not do anything for 30 minutes
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is too much work. In my mind it’s a racket and just another form of “self care” which takes more time and effort that actually taking care of myself. I take of myself in my own way thank you and it does not include candles and turning off my electronics.
Sleep and Alcohol
I do agree with these on a personal basis. Sleep is paramount. I only suffer from a few sleepless nights every once and a while, there is usually a reason. Stress, forgetting to take meds rolling eye emoji again or ruminating. Sleep is something that I depend on for my physical and mental health and I am lucky to not have a problem. I’m sure I would be in a different place if I did have trouble.
Alcohol only in moderation most of the time. I was dependent on alcohol for many reasons. I’ve endured a lot in my life, but being able to actually conquer drinking was hard. Actually I think quitting smoking might have been harder.
The things I’ve listed above are all things that we’ve all been led to believe are the miracle cure for everything we are suffering with. It sounds so simple and reliable but it’s not. I have managed to see results with sleep and cutting out the bottle of wine a night. They were hard, but the results were practically immediate. Not having immediate satisfaction is really the problem.
My Dirty Kitchen
This morning while coming downstairs I tripped on the carpet and almost fell. I looked down at the bottom of the stairs and first I thought of many things that I could’ve happened to my body. Second, I thought what are the people that find me going to think of my dirty kitchen?
Last Friday I had bought all the ingredients I needed for three meals to put in the freezer. I had worked on Friday in 98 degrees for two hours. I think I suffered a little bit of heat exhaustion and so when I worked again on Saturday, I was too wiped out to cook.
So yesterday it had to be done before the veg began to wilt and the meat started to get that weird brown tinge to it. I had three recipes, meatloaf, taco salad and beef and broccoli stir fry. Accepting I am not a great cook, I follow recipes very slowly.
I have a small kitchen so I really have to be careful about knocking things over, etc. I pulled out the corn and the tray broke spilling ears of corn all over the floor. I caught something on a bowl with two eggs waiting to be whipped and it ended up in the sink. I burned my arm a little bit from pulling out the meatloaf even though I had spent money on a very big silicone oven mitt. Which now that I think of it, doesn’t help that much if I only have one.
The taco salad meat I realized after I put one together to eat hadn’t called for taco seasoning so it was just a salad with hamburger meat (that sounds really gross). The “Best Meatloaf Ever” according to a cooking website ended up also bland and dry, the best COMBINA nation for a 1 pound lump of hamburger meat. Oh, that’s right I forgot. I bought the wrong diced toms for the recipe because there were only about 10 different combinations. Diced petite, no salt, garlic, fire roasted, on and on and Italian. The last one is the one I bought in error. I had to rinse over and over again to get all the spices out, I think it was oregano and something else.
I didn’t have the mental stamina to try the broccoli and beef. Probably never will.
I was frustrated and disappointed so I left the kitchen in a disastrous state and went to bed.
The first thing I did when I got home from work today was clean the kitchen, of course. It’s a good feeling to know I am now free and clear to fall down the stairs with no embarrassment.
Dating?
I haven’t seriously considered dating since my divorce, 7 years ago.
Being single to me means I am not with a man on purpose.
Some of my main reasons to remain single are:
Being unable to identify early warning red flags that he may be a narcistic evil villain until it is too late.
I was 23 the last time I was single. I had a 23-year-old body and 23 -year- old skin.
And I have a lot of baggage. God, do I carry a lot of baggage. I am proud to be handling it so well now days, but for some reason I don’t think I should be writing it all in my dating profile.
I’m probably out of touch with online dating. One of my coworkers mentioned to me today that she had met someone, and I asked how. She met him on Tinger or Tinter or something that sounded like that.
I can take a dirty fork out of the dishwasher because I’m guaranteed I was the only one who had used it.
Small things can be big things now.
My Cats Have Driven Me Crazier!
About a year after my divorce, I had another revelation. It was ” I can get a cat! ” My entire marriage my ex-husband mentioned, at every turn, that he hated cats. So when I had the idea of owning a cat it was another scale of shame and unhappiness falling away from my battered self esteem.
So off I went to Petsmart to pick out a shelter kitten. The first cage I went by I saw a lovely gray and white one. The lady pointed out she had a heart shaped marking on her leg. She then pointed out that her brother was with her too. Looking back I believe she deployed used sales person techniques to pull on my heartstrings. My children were grown and I didn’t have anyone to nurture anymore. I took both of them.
On the way home the female was lovely, sleeping in the container and the male escaped, went under my seat and had diarrhea. They both were being treated for worms because they had been rescued from a Motel 8 or 6 or something like that, but the male also had parasites.
I thought I would be safe not having a crazy cat, but I wasn’t, damn, he was here, Zemi. I hate “cutesy” names like when people name all of there 6 children beginning with J’s (psychotic) Jennifer, Justin, Julie, you get the picture. I tried really hard to not do that with these two kittens, but couldn’t. They are Zemi and Zoe (insert rolling eyes emoji” again.
I remember one morning leaving my house and it struck me. I’m going to have these cats for 15 years!
Oh, it’s not over…more to come about these two felines in following posts.
Has anyone asked exactly what “Crazy Cat Lady” can often mean? Ask no more…they are the crazy ones!
Making Sound Mistakes
I made a decision about 3 years ago that my delicate brain and all it had to do every day to merely stay alive, work, manage a business, go outside and talk to people would not be helped by watching the news.
One day came along recently where I decided it was my duty as a human in this world to find out what was going on. I don’t know why I feel the need to cause myself more stress and upset to do things that have a detrimental affect on my delicate emotional state.
As an example, a few months ago I decided that I was going to force myself to eat in the lounge with the other staff at work. I didn’t feel confused at all as to my motivation at the time. With my past history of making “sound mistakes” why would I question it now? This is where the eye rolling emoji would come in handy, it is my go to. My reasoning was, as an introvert, maybe it would be good for me to mingle and talk. I know all of the people after all. I steeled myself, went in and sat at the last chair of the long table. I observed and listened to the people talking. I tried to put my two cents in a couple of times, because I thought I had to. What ended up happening was me feeling even worse about myself than before I made that decision in the first place.
I told my therapist how proud I was that I tried and how terrible I felt when it had failed. She said “Why did you do it? You know you don’t like that sort of thing .” I wish I could have her in my pocket ready to tell me how to react to everything I do or say or anybody that says anything to me. I don’t have to “conquer” situations I’ve arbitrarily decided to conquer. It’s been awhile since I tried that experiment, for lack of a better word, and I actually feel more confident in myself and who I am. So even though the reason for it was confusing and convoluted (which is on brand for me) it did teach me something. I don’t like those sorts of things and there is nothing wrong with that.
Before that “teaching moment”, I need my favorite emoji again, I did look at the news for the first time in 3 years. The first story was the fire that demolished entire neighborhoods in Boulder, CO. Quite recently I thought it was my duty to look again. The story that time was a female mayor of a town in Mexico was gunned down by the cartel after the election. Today, this was actually by accident, but I could have changed the channel. Donald Trump is running for President. Okay, I did hear some things about him being on trial. I felt I probably really did need to know more about that situation, but I did not expect his running for president. I’ll ask my sister to tell me all about that so I don’t have to fall into some other news that I shouldn’t be aware of.
So in closing, I’m going back to only knowing the news if I overhear it by accident. I thought it was smart to do it, but ended up feeling ashamed. That is wrong thinking. I need to protect myself in everyway I can. There is a lot riding on me.
Resting Bitch Face
I have the (oh so popular) “resting bitch face”, but I am really not one. I describe my cat as a lovable Labrador (he’s a cat that’s why it’s funny). This is his version, resting serial killer face.
Deconstructed Birthday Cake
So here’s the deal. I have a lot of talents, cooking and baking is not one of them. Every time I try anything different, 50% of the time it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to.
The reason for this particular post and the reason I’m actually including my first video ever is because not only was it a total catastrophic fail, but extremely funny, at least I thought so!
I made a cake for my son, a delicious looking lemon one I found online. I read the recipe and I decided I could do it.
That afternoon, I came out with it, birthday candles lit, we sang and I put the cake in the middle of the table.
I explained the reasons it looked so good. I had buttered the pans. Used parchment paper. Froze both layers so I could frost them without getting crumbs in the frosting. I was so proud of myself!
My son cut the cake with some trouble, and handed out the slices.
I started to eat my slice commenting I didn’t realize it was so dense (I had trouble getting my fork through it) Then I saw it, parchment paper! I had forgotten to remove the parchment paper from the layers. Not only that, I had actually frosted over the paper in each layer!
There’s nothing more to say.
Complex PTSD
I have a story to tell about last Christmas. That’s the simple part.
What leads up to the reason of this story is complicated and to give all the details it might turn into a novel, so I’ll try to only give what’s necessary. I’ve been living this story up until now for the last four years and hiding from it. I’ve been too afraid to write about it in case it triggered an emotional collapse. I’ve already been having those in real life!
Basically, I’ve been ostracized by my oldest daughter, my youngest son and my sister since my divorce. I used to be the central person in our family and always planned great get togethers, especially Christmas. I’m going to write the stories when I can. You can read them if you like. You need to know this to understand what happened last Christmas and why it directly relates to it.
Here’s the current story:
A casual comment from a friend of “What are you doing for Christmas?” And my response of “I host Christmas Breakfast, that is the time I am allotted”, caused a tsunami of emotion. To name all of them is impossible. I lied saying I was sick and barely got to my car without anyone noticing. I was sobbed all the way home.
Where was it coming from? I did the usual things. Distraction, tv shows I’ve watched million times in the background, etc., took my meds and went to bed early.
In the morning, fine, but worried. Then it hit me again out of left field and once again sobbing for 15 minutes. So hard I had to hold myself up by the banister.
I was terrified the ketamine has stopped working. All I could think of was, “and then what?” there is nothing else.
Sunday was the same and Monday I got up enough courage to call my psychiatrist to get in before he went on vacation.
On Tuesday my psychiatrist listened to my desperation about the ketamine. He listened and asked his questions and said it wasn’t the ketamine, but a ptsd reaction to this time of year.
I said that couldn’t be right I was going to have the best Christmas since 2016! My daughter was coming that week with the kids. My two sons were coming on Christmas morning and maybe the youngest was going to stay until 5.
He said all those years are still there though, it’s impossible to keep the memories at bay when I am already so vulnerable. I believed him and after accepting this I got better every day.
I’ve always been ashamed of my PTSD reactions. I hadn’t seen anyone murdered, I haven’t been raped or been in a war. I felt trauma, but where had it come from? Since I was little, I would have an array of reactions. I had agoraphobia from age 9 until 12. Fog, uncontrollable crying, burning in my chest, unable to catch my breath, etc. Triggered by all sorts of things. Fear, getting in trouble, doing something wrong, etc. All my life and even now I feel like I’m constantly preparing for something to jump out at me.
I’m actually glad it happened because when it happened again five days later I recovered much quicker knowing what was happening. This time my whole family had got together at my dad’s house for boxing day and didn’t invite me. I found out by accident, thus another shock causing it. I did have a hard time just writing that to be honest.
Eventually my therapist diagnosed me with complex PTSD which is more complicated because it is caused over a long period of trauma. Mine would be my home life as a child, catholic school and my ex husband. It was also caused by the condition itself by having to deal with the reactions causing more trauma. People with mental health problems can feel trauma from events where others don’t.
It’s time to move on and write a happier story (and start a little EMDR again)!
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/complex/
Ruminating
Today, I began to read my blog posts from the beginning. I’ve been avoiding it because I’m not sure what I will find and how they will make me feel. Scrolling down (a long way down) I didn’t expect to arrive at 2012.
I feel I must read them because there is such a wide gap between when I stopped writing and now. It’s like I’m reading them for the first time (I have a terrible memory).
I started my blog to express myself after learning I had Bipolar 2. I stopped writing for a long time because of several reasons, mostly depression. All I could focus on was staying alive all while looking like nothing was wrong.
I’ve only read three or four early posts so far; they made me smile. The progression of my life from 2017 until now is sad and I’m not looking forward to reading those.
I still am not allowed to see my grandchildren and the four-year anniversary of when this nightmare began is this September 8th.
I realized recently that I didn’t even know the word ruminate existed until my daughter banished me from her life. It’s very hard for me to avoid ruminating, especially when I don’t understand, been given no information and I do not have any control. Sometimes it feels like a physical battle, and it has a mind of its own, a separate entity that keeps creeping in when I least expect it.
I am getting on my feet again though
My therapist says that while this has been and is still terrible and there is no explanation for the alienation of my grandchildren, being better with the ketamine helps me not fall off that cliff so regularly.
I was, and am, a good mother. I should ruminate on that.
Another Ketamine Update
Update on my last Ketamine fusion and how it has changed my life. I could really stop there; that says it all.
Let me step away for a minute and count the exact days on my calendar hanging on my fridge dedicated to my depression free days from infusion to infusion. 33 days.
I try to keep in mind that ketamine is a treatment, not a cure. I remind myself that I still have bipolar 2 and Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD). When I remind myself of that, I think of it for a minute and then push it away.
Occasionally, I have what I call a “dip” (my old name and feeling was “falling off a cliff”) thank God that hasn’t happened since the treatment started working. That sense of dread when a dip moment occurs, and I don’t know the reason for it. My poor old brain leaps right to “it’s back”.
I think I’ve found an explanation. I don’t know what emotions people with healthy brains feel. I give it some thought and come up with a few reasons.
Most likely it’s stress. Stress has always been a killer for me.
It could be from working too much and anxiety from that.
Worrying about money (definitely).
I’ll keep writing about the ketamine, but I really want to start writing about my day-to-day things again. My posts have been so heavy for a long time they need a little nonsense.
anincidentallife.com 
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