Falling In and Out of Love

My love affair with Houston has been waning, as many of you reading my blog have already surmised. I don't have many friends here and none of them are close friends. I don't have work. And it gets too hot and humid for too long for my taste in the summer. And it has giant roaches.

That being said, I have a terrific therapist and psychiatrist. I am involved with an interesting non-profit for which I do both volunteer and paid work. Rarely is there snow and ice in the winter.

I know that the friends part is due largely because I haven't gotten involved in a lot of things. I have gone to professional meetings and networking lunches and met a couple of women there, but they have drifted away. I'm involved with the non-profit and enjoy the people I know through there, but only a couple of them socialize with me and that is rarely. So I guess I have tried.

I think I'm noticing this more since my trip to Oregon. I got to see several friends (and was perhaps busier than was necessary for a vacation). I got to see the ocean again, which I love. I even imagined the sound of gulls my first morning back in Houston. 

Home, Buggy Home

Well, I've arrived home from my trip, to be greeted by a beeping smoke alarm, a big cricket, and a big tree roach. The smoke alarm currently has no battery, so at least I the noise won't keep me awake. The cricket managed to escape outside rather than be squished, so at least the thought of a bouncy cricket in the house won't keep me awake. And the roach scuttled back behind the couch. I'm on top of my bed, after sweeping it for bugs.  :)   I may not be able to sleep due to the lights and the thought of the roach and not knowing where it is.

The weather's hot outside and humid and I didn't leave the AC on, just the ceiling fans, so the bugs  inside the apartment are partly my fault. (The poor weather stripping around the doors is the fault of the maintenance staff who can't seem to handle weather stripping correctly.) I've been running the AC since I got home, a little over an hour ago to make the apartment more comfortable for me; I hope it make it less comfortable for the roach. I'm also leaving the lights on in my bedroom and connecting bathroom so that the roach won't come in here. At least, that's the theory. I can wear my sleep mask to deal with the lights, but do I want to do that?

I hope the roach didn't invite any friends.

What's In My Toolkit?

A few days ago, my friend Mary wrote a post about the "toolkit" she uses for controlling her weight, now that she's had bariatric surgery. I commented on how the toolkit needed depends on the person and the issue and wondered what was in her toolkit. So she wrote a post answering that question and asked what is in other people's toolkits. I'm finally answering that question.

I have two basic issues I'm working on: my mental health and my physical health. The toolkits overlap, but the issues each have their own specific needs as well.

Something that is crucial to both my mental and physical health is self-awareness. Without it, I wouldn't be aware of what my triggers are (I am learning), when and how I need to apply the other tools, and how I am doing in general. Without self-awareness, I wouldn't be able to even successfully carry out my various exercises and changes.

I also need the strong desire to be healthy. Without it, I wouldn't have the will or the interest in doing the hard work needed to become healthy, mentally or physically.

My Mental Health Toolkit

• Medications: I need meds to be functional at all right now, and I'm on pretty high doses because of how non-functional I was without them. My goal is to end up taking the lowest therapeutic dosages for at least one and to drop the other two.
• Therapy: I see my therapist once a week and she's good. She works with cognitive-behavioral therapy, which I guess a lot of therapists don't do. This is the therapy I need most right now, although she has some other kinds in her bag of help as well that we may use later. But my thinking is so broken that cognitive therapy is what is called for.
• Some specific self-help books: I have books on cognitive-behavioral therapy, shame therapy, and self-compassion. All of them are basically cognitive — working on broken thinking — so they work together from different angles. I get very thrilled when I do something suggested in one of these books and it works.
• Exercises from these books: The exercises are terrific and they push me into exploring my issues more and putting into practice what I'm learning in the books. I share my exercises with my therapist and am always pleased when she says I got something just right, or how pleased she is with my work. I need exercises; I need the tangible work to pound that understanding and the practice into my head.
• Hope: I have to believe that "well" is possible and that I can get there. I have to have hope that what I'm doing will help me become well, or as close to it as I can possibly get.

My Toolkit for Physical Health

• Baby steps: Doing everything in small steps so I don't overdo and then fall on my face thereafter. If I overdo the exercise, it won't become a habit, it will become something I avoid and I won't get any pleasure out of it. If I don't allow myself to occasionally have a treat of some kind, I will feel deprived and I won't be able to stay on eating well.
• Ability to eat the same thing over and over again: What? you may be saying. What does this have to do with anything? Well, I don't cook. I know I need to learn. But as I'm taking my baby steps, I need to be able to eat healthy food that's easy to prepare. Thus, being able to eat the same thing for breakfast every day, the same thing for lunch every day, the same thing for dinner every day, is necessary. At least that way I can eat healthy.
• A love for fresh berries, granola, oatmeal, dried fruit, nuts: These are foods I can eat daily, even more than once a day if I want. They are healthy,  they make great breakfasts and snacks, and they don't require much preparation, a big plus for me. Of course, the best fresh berries are only in the summer, so I'm glad I like dried fruit, too.
• Knowing that I've done better before: I used to cook, quite easily. I used to make healthy foods and I didn't binge on sweets. I know that I can live that way again because I have in the past. It's the mental health that took away my healthy habits, so it's developing better mental health that will help me re-develop those habits again.
• Exercise: This is basic, but difficult for me. I used to walk a lot, but I haven't been doing any exercise for a couple of years. I finally started doing some basic exercises around the house on a schedule developed for me by a friend. I increase my exercises very slowly — baby steps! — and it doesn't feel onerous.

As you can see, there is definitely overlap between the two toolkits. I have to maintain self-awareness in several areas. Then, there are the less obvious overlaps: how I eat probably affects my mood and my meds probably affect my body. Exercise can affect my mood. A strong desire for a whole healthiness can keep me working on both sets of issues, even when it's difficult or uncomfortable.

I admit, I find it easier to do the mental health work than the physical health work. I've always been more intellectual than physical. So in addition to the tools I have, I need to acquire one more tool: a stronger will to do the work even when I don't feel like it, to leave the sugary treats alone, and to take the time to do the work, such as the therapy exercises or making something to eat rather than just nibbling on stuff. I've grown very self-indulgent and have to remind myself that if I indulged a child the way I indulge myself, I would consider it at the very least child neglect. I guess I need to be a good parent to myself and kick my butt when I'm not doing what I need to do.

So there you have my toolkits. Do you have any toolkits to help you as you go along in your life? What is in them? I'd love to know!

In Hiding

Something happens to me when my anxiety hits a certain level: I stop going out unless I have to. I don't leave for a walk or just to be outside of my apartment. I leave for work — when I have some — and for medical appointments. Even leaving to go get a haircut, pick up prescriptions, or get groceries require herculean effort. If I couldn't pace around in my apartment, dance, and do minor exercises, I'd get no exercise at all.

This began last year but I think it's worse this year. The last time it happened was when I was in my early 30s. I'd bought my house, which was my haven, and both work and my ex-boyfriend had become serious stressors in my life, to the extent that I took a couple of months off of work due to mental health issues (this was the boss from hell, an exceptional person at making my life miserable). Even when I was going to work, I was going out in other ways less and less until I'd cancelled on my girlfriends once too many times. They came to the house and used the house key that I had given each of them to come in, make sure I was okay, and forcibly socialize me.

There is currently no one to come do that to me here and now. I don't think I'm that bad, either: I would gladly leave for a job interview and, if necessary, commute to work. I'm trying to get one friend to get together. I do leave here for lunches out with friends (I forgot that in the first paragraph).

Why do I hide inside? Fear. Anxiety. If I stay in the apartment, it's less likely that something bad will happen, so my mind whispers to me. I know that's crap ... staying home would not have kept my mom from dying ... but my mind is persuasive and I want to believe that there is something I can do to stay safe.

Wasting Away in Anxiety-ville

In the 90s there was a movie called Tremors about gigantic worm-like monsters living under the ground. You knew they were around when you felt earthquake-like tremors and they knew you were around because the could feel the tremors of your walking or of the sound of your voice. They ate anything animal, as far as could be discerned. When one of these monsters (christened "graboids") came around, everyone froze and became silent. 

My anxiety, which is mostly generalized anxiety disorder probably, is a lot like the graboids. As it grows, I feel interior tremors as well as exterior ones: I feel fear and I freeze first; then I fidget, my feet move, it seems as if there are little bugs crawling on my skin.

My anxiety even reaches out to my media consumption. If something is more suspenseful than some internal threshold indicates, I can't watch it or read it without lots of breaks. If then. This aspect makes watching Leverage very difficult. I think I got 20 minutes in, maybe 15, to the first episode of the 4th season. I had to read the end of Sue Grafton's V is for Vengeance before I could finish the final third of the book.

I can't take any more anti-anxiety meds: I'm maxed out. And therapy is slow. Doing my little cognitive exercises work on some things but not everything and they are time consuming as well. Just one more pill, I think to myself. Or maybe a nap (my naps are 2-4 hours long, more escapes than naps).

I got anxious watching the Olympics!