A Tangled Mess

I'm a mess. Much of my life is a mess. I'm spending so much energy distracting myself from my messes that I barely have enough energy left to breathe. I feel like I'm caught  in a mass of tangled yarn.

I'm reading obsessively, including books that I'm not normally interested in, as long as the books are light entertainment. And when I read, I skip over more and more of the text to just get to the main plot points. I'm not taking much enjoyment from the books. Books with greater emotional or mental content get set aside. I just purchased a new Tawna Fenske book and haven't been able to enjoy it. I love Tawna's work, but I'm anticipating the emotional and romantic complications and getting anxious about them. Anxious about fictional characters, people!

I'm not watching any TV series with my housemates anymore. Everything they watch has character arcs: I become invested in the characters and get stressed out when their lives are difficult. In general I've always had difficulty detaching from movies and TV, but it's a lot worse now.

There are people in my life I haven't contacted in months, some of them in over a year, and not because I don't like them. I don't read blogs much at all. I don't know why I've dropped contact with most people: I have no idea how doing so connects with how I'm feeling.

Right now, I'm in the middle of a two-week experiment proposed by my psych. For two weeks, I'm not going to try to go to bed earlier. I've been staying up until 3 am, but wanting to go to bed around 10 pm. I spend mental and emotional energy chastising myself for staying up so late. So for these two weeks, I'm just going to let myself stay up as late as I want to and sleep as late as I want to. No judgements.

As a corollary of this experiment, I'm setting aside all shoulds and should-nots. No judgement. No restrictions. Want to eat ice cream? Sure. As much as I want. Be a slug on the couch? Sure, as usual, but this time no judgements. Do it because I want to.

When I manage to quiet the shoulds and should-nots, I feel less stressed, more peaceful. It does take effort to quiet them. In addition, my housemates do NOT like this experiment. They think it's a bad idea. They disapprove. They disagree with my psych. Even though it's only for two weeks and I wasn't making any progress doing things the other way!

Damn, Damn, Damn Depression!

I'm sunk in the stupid pit again. Why? Hell if I know. And it's not just depression, although that is an overriding emotion. I'm crabby and antisocial. I'm terrifically stressed and anxious, to the tune of taking an extra 1 mg of Xanax each of the last two days. (So far today I haven't taken any extra.) I took a four-hour nap yesterday and still slept for 9.5 hours last night … and still didn't want to get up this morning.

I'm really tired of being "the sick one", the one people have to ask "how are you doing today?" I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or what I'm not doing right that keeps dumping me back into this debilitating space. "Functional" might as well be at the top of the highest glacier on Mt. Rainier, it seems to impossible to reach.

You can't get there from here.

I'm trying. But I've been sleeping so late (thanks to this great melatonin-based supplement my psych recommended) that I feel if I don't get up NOW then the day is fucking OVER, so I haven't been journaling or trying to meditate or visualize. And when I do try to meditate or visualize, I haven't been able to achieve the levels I was at back before I tried the Abilify (which I've been off of all this month).

In therapy yesterday, Michele asked why I feel I have to get up and start my day as soon as I wake up. What will happen if I put it off for another half an hour while I journal or meditate or something? If I stay in bed even later, I feel as if the entire day is over, wasted. I feel like a complete failure for the day. I feel judged and judging.

We also talked about writing. And drawing. About how I used to do them all the time virtually every day, from the time I was quite young. How somewhere in my 20s, I stopped doing them much and they became fraught with difficulties and issues. And yet, I need to do them. Writing and drawing are parts of me that need attention. When I do them I feel better. I feel like myself.

So What's Been Goin' On?

Well, I've been thinking. I've been zoning out. I've been getting very few  hours of sleep a night — still — and wondering why. And the past couple of days I've been playing with the cool new toy Sabine bought me: an iPad mini. She said we all needed tablets, so she bought Griffin an android tablet of his choice and now she's seeing what about each of ours she likes so she can decide among all the choices for herself.

I also applied for six jobs yesterday. They say you need to apply for 100 jobs to find one. If I do, say, 5 a day for the rest of the month, I'll be set! Of course, I missed today. And I get very distracted by my housemates sometimes, especially since Sabine has retired.

I made a schedule of my daily routine needs. It will work, if I can get to sleep by 11, stay asleep all night, and get up at 7. Big 'ifs'.

My creativity seems to be in the bottom of the sink right now. I've been crocheting my brains out and showing some creativity there, but then I look at stuff people have made up that's on Pinterest or Ravelry and think "why don't I do that? I'm so dull!" The crocheting has left no time for other creative work (writing, drawing) or reading. But it is satisfying because I am creating tangible, useful, beautiful things for other people and that is one of my languages of love. Actually, two I guess: gifts and service.

I talked with my therapist about the rebound effect I experienced for the couple of days following my last post. We talked a bit about it being one of my patterns and how it seems related to how I withdraw after feeling a strong emotion — for example, after I have a cry or even a big emotional event, I then pull back and am distant and detached for a while, hours to days. I think maybe that's what I've supposed to have been thinking about and working on since Wednesday, but I forgot and it's upstairs in my journal and I don't feel like going up and checking it out. Right now I'm not feeling amazing and I don't feel like I'm doing Great Things, but I at least still believe I am and I can, even if not right now.

Validation

Follow me!

Sometimes I forget what this blog is. Sure, it started out as a way to share info with friends and family as I made my way to where I ended up. But I ended up somewhere, then this was a blog about my new home. And, when my life fell completely apart, it became a journal, a place to process what I worked on and discovered within therapy and without, and a place to vent my raw feelings and thoughts, without need to censor or be tactful.

It remains a journal, and I am very grateful to those of you who visit and comment because I enjoy what you have to say and I feel uplifted by your support. However, I began to crave comments. As someone who has long sought for validation externally, it took me long enough to figure that out. I realized this week, maybe Wednesday, that I feel bad if only one person comments. In fact, I feel inadequate if fewer than four people comment. (Weird, to have a number, but I do.)

At such times, I worry that my posts are too long, too boring, too negative, too sad, too much about myself. I wonder if I should change my posts to please my "audience". I forget, in other words, what this blog is.

**Allowing the laughter to subside**

I guess this is a good Learning Moment. It's pretty sorry that I need external validation so badly I consider changing what I write in my personal journal to try to get more comments.

**Quiet moment for obligatory shame**

I hope to remember this moment and this realization. I forgot it about five times over the past couple of days, luckily remembering it again each time. I'm staying up late to write this before I forget again. It's worth remembering.

Will writing this post help me learn to find my validation from within rather than without? On first consideration, it wouldn't seem so. It's just a blog post, right? But given what I, and all of you, have seen on this blog in the past almost three years (I know!), writing these posts has become part of my processing new information and making it possible to internalize changes. So, yeah, I think that's what writing this post will lead to: greater movement toward my finding my validation within myself. (That's a lot of "my's".)

It's hardly fair of me to put all of that on all of you.

Flake

I have a confession: I am a flake. Iffy. Dodgy. A really good liar and undependable in work and play. Torpid. Stubborn. Lacking integrity, untrustworthy, and afraid of commitment. Basically, I kinda suck. I don't much like myself and I'm still working on loving myself.

I didn't used to be this way. Before I fell apart in my mid-30s, when an overwhelming depression washed over me and pulled me into deep, dark water. Before my ex-boyfriend — the one who'd changed his mind and decided he didn't want to get married, have children, or buy a house with me — got married and asked me how I used my 401K to buy my house. Before my insecure boss made me so diminished, anxious, and crazy-feeling that my psychiatrist prescribed not one but TWO mental health leaves within a six-month period. Before all that I was not perfect, but anyone could count on me to do what I said. Friends, family, and employers could trust me. I was active, flexible, creative, and committed.

I hate the way I am. I hate that I'm not the way I used to be. I hate that I can't seem to find my way back, after nearly 20 years. Twenty years is a long time to be disgusted by the person you've become.

"Ah, the sun is blindin'
I stayed up again
Oh, I am findin'
That that's not the way I want my story to end"

Therapy Hangover

Sometimes, when going through therapy, a person can experience what some call a "therapy hangover." This feeling can occur from extreme emotions experienced during therapy, from reaching a deep place during therapy, and from intense realizations or epiphanies reached during therapy. Usually this feeling doesn't come during or right after the therapy session, but a little while later.

I think that today I experienced a therapy hangover.

Today's therapy was good. I was feeling disappointed with myself for not achieving the goals I set at last week's session. I've been feeling disappointed in myself for not putting more time toward my freelance job and being behind in reaching my deadline. Those were the feelings we started off the session discussing. Fairly simple and normal stuff.

I tend to approach my sessions in a freestyle, stream-of-conscious style. I lose track of original points as some new thought or memory comes to mind and I chase after that. I've told my previous therapist and my current therapist about this tendency and given them permission to control the session more, but both of them have basically let me follow my paths and tangents.

Today, in particular, I think this tactic was useful. I went from being disappointed in my not reaching my goal for the week to disappointment in myself regarding work to having developed the feeling over years that I'm going to disappoint my employer eventually, so I might as well get it over with right away. (I tend to feel this with friends, too, but forgot to bring this up during therapy.) So I tend to do something that will disappoint: I take a sick day early in my employment, I change plans suddenly (such as not coming in on a day I was scheduled to be in the office, saying I'll work at home instead), and I don't always work as hard as I feel I should and can. I'm not just in the process of disappointing others — I'm disappointing myself.

Ideas and memories and feelings kept coming to mind as I spoke, such as my parents' insistence on straight A's, even though they couldn't do the work I was doing in school and they had no understanding for how hard math was for me, for example. I told my therapist that I'd tried not to internalize that mindset, but that I had anyway. Perfection is hard to live up to.

Stuck to Unstuck? My New Journey

Oh, how badly I've been stuck. I've been exhausted. My brain has felt clogged and slow. I've taken naps for hours almost every day. I have done virtually nothing to further my plans or contribute to the household. I have been a lump since arriving in Seattle.

Luckily for me, my hosts have been very understanding of my exhaustion and have asked little of me so far. Friends have supported my need for sleep and rest. It's just been me who has had higher expectations.

I have a comprehensive list of things I need to do: catch up with people online and over the phone; contact professional connections; get in touch with local contracting agencies; join professional organizations and meetups and attend meetings and events; unpack what I brought to the house; and begin revising my novel.

I don't expect myself to do everything every day or all at once. I have date ranges for everything in my list. Of course, I'm behind on probably half the list so far. But maybe that's due to my unreasonable expectations in the face of unexpected setbacks. Like needing to sleep all the time.

I have a long history of overindulging myself. In response to what seemed to me a lifetime of excessive and unreasonable expectations and a lack of understanding of my needs, I began to allow myself to slack off on things, which started small and gradually grew to encompass everything in my life.

Well, I've completely changed my life again and this, too, must change. There are things I want to do and things I need to do and blowing them off is not acceptable to me any longer. Blowing off these things does not lead to the life I want to live. And that's the important point: there is a life I want to live and I have to put in the time and effort to create it. Always before, I've waited for it to happen. No more.

When I was younger, I pursued my life more actively, so I know I can do it. There are many things I did and was when I was younger: I cleaned frequently and regularly; I wrote and drew and painted on virtually a daily basis; I did physical activities that I enjoyed; and I didn't dwell on my mostly solitary state. And I daydreamed. I played. I imagined. Those are important things in anybody's life, but particularly in the life of a creative person.

So I'm going to relearn old good habits and discard current bad ones. I'm going to be healthier in ways that I can enjoy. I'm going to rediscover my true self and let her out of the various boxes and closets where I've hidden her and all her wonderful, brilliant aspects. I'm going to love for love's sake, I'm going to love and value myself, and I'm going to live a full and rich life for as long as I possibly can.

Slow Maelstrom

That silence you've heard for the past week and a half was me resting, sleeping, and surfing on the interwebz. You might have heard some snoring, too, from the sleeping. My mind has kind of been like that empty, static-filled screen you see in the middle of the night on some TV channels.

So I'm here, in the Seattle area, and it's kind of weird. I still feel like I'm visiting, even though I oversaw the movers when they put all my stuff in a storage unit. Part of that is because I'm staying in someone's guest room, I'm sure, and some of it is because those times when I have been here over the last dozen years I have been visiting. I need to change my mental framework.

I'm very glad I'm here. I'm also kind of weirded out by it. Many thoughts and feelings have been swirling around inside of me: happiness, exhaustion, stress, anxiety, surrealism, expectations, trying to not have expectations, positivity, fear, and today I'm having some fibromyalgia pain, which I think is partly a delayed reaction from all the stress I was experiencing just getting ready to move. Everything has been swirling slowly, probably due to the exhaustion, for which I am grateful. I couldn't handle vertigo too right now!

The weather has been quite a bit cooler than I am used to. Colder, really — in the 50s during the day. We had a lot of rain and gray days my first week, but we've been having some simply glorious days recently, with brilliant blue skies, puffy white clouds, spring greens, flowers and flowering trees in all colors. These are the days that almost make you forget about the rain and the gray.

I remember when I first moved to Houston: one of the habits I had to wean myself off from was always taking or wearing a jacket or at least an overshirt with me when I left the apartment. Well, I changed that habit and got very comfortable going outside in just a tank, shorts, and sandals. Now I'm in the position of having to reverse the process! I'm underestimating how much I need to wear to be warm enough, usually by a thin layer (think an undershirt or camisole). And I don't always bring a rain jacket when it looks like rain (which is often). I need more weather-appropriate shoes and probably another jacket or vest or two. My BFF says I can borrow his sweaters until I can buy more of my own, which is nice. I really need an income so I can buy these weather-appropriate clothing items. I'm just hoping that I can make enough of my Houston wardrobe work here in Seattle enough of the time so I don't have to buy an entirely new wardrobe, which is more or less what I did in Houston.

Trapeze

Therapy was good today. Why was it so good? We went surprising places. And going to surprising places is what brings me further along on my journey.

At first we talked about my last blog post, about feeling that I'm home now. She said she thought it sounded like someone who was content with herself and where she was. Content. That is a place where a person could experience the highs and lows of life, all the happys and the sads, and still know that she is fine. Content is where a person could know she will get through the bad times and appreciate the good times for as long as they last.

Then I told her what I was thinking of writing about today: how I feel weird feeling so good, how I don't trust it, how I'm more than a little bit afraid of it. That's what connected content with surprising places. Because how and why would any person be afraid of feeling good, of feeling happy?

Well, it comes from learning experiences. Several times in my life, just when things were getting better after having been difficult, or when things were going very, very well, I have been hit by a major trauma: my father died, my brother died, my mother was diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer. There have been others, but these were, of course, the worst. My therapist said that post-trauma personalities are always prepared for the worst to happen because they know not only that it could happen but that it will happen. So how can I trust the good feelings won't just blow up into something horrible again?

In addition, there's the fact that I have struggled with anxiety and/or depression for most of my life. As I discussed in an earlier post, I have been having to work on not identifying myself with the depression or with the anxiety. But for a long time, they did become part of my identity, so this feeling good, this happiness, is something new and different (especially from the past couple of years) and it is unfamiliar.

Early Warning System

In just over a week, it will be my mom's birthday. I don't know yet how I feel; last year was really rough, as most of you know. I figured I'd tell people about it now, just in case, rather than waiting until the last minute.

I haven't been thinking about her any more than usual, but most of my thoughts revolve around her final couple of weeks. I still get very angry toward her doctors for not paying more attention to what we were telling them and for not asking more questions. I get angry that there was no one watching out for her on the medical end — I didn't know what questions to ask or what to say other than what I did ask and say. And yet no one paid enough attention to say, "Gee, that sounds like a lot more than just weakness from the radiation." And I feel resentful because I feel maybe she would have lasted longer if any of that had happened.

I have a few happier memories that pass by from time to time. Like how she spent her last Christmas and New Years with me here in Texas. How we stopped and shopped at Chico's one day and she bought me a bunch of new clothes for work (the pants don't fit because I put on weight while I was taking care of her and it's only now slowly starting to drop off). How we went out for a brunch buffet on Christmas morning at the Hilton on San Antonio's Riverwalk and it was amazing. How we went out to dinner close to home for New Years and had the most lovely meal.

But I have been cycling more through the bad memories, the sad memories, and the ones that make me feel guilty. I guess my feelings are on the down side — I'm just not staying very aware of the down-ness. It would explain why I've been feeling a little more negative about my long-term financial and job situation and why I've walked out of a perfectly wonderful therapy session the past couple of weeks, only to feel quite down soon after.

So I may need some help in the coming couple of weeks. Thanksgiving is and isn't a big deal; I'm not sure how I'll be affected by it this year. I've spent most of my adult Thanksgivings alone, but when I lived in Oregon I spent all of them with my family. So it's a mixed bag.

But I might need help with my perspective and my attitude and my feelings in general. I might need to reach out and hold a metaphorical hand.

The most positive things about this post are that I'm actually looking forward and planning for if things go badly for me, and I'm actually asking for help rather than just planning to push through it on my own. Progress has been made! Or, I guess I should say, I have made progress. It's more powerful. And I can use all the positive power I can get in the near future.

Thank you for whatever you can and will provide. Do you ask for help when you need it?

Semi-Random

I'm finally coming out of the fog of that shock and initial grief. I don't remember much from the first few days after Mom died, and I've spent most of the past three weeks kind of floating, unable to accomplish anything.

But on Thursday, I feel like I woke from a sound sleep. The sun was shining. I accomplished tasks. I went outside. Since then I have felt aware.

I feel desperate for a recent picture of my mom, and for the sound of her voice. I've dialed her phone number just to hear her message. Kind of pathetic, but who cares. I want to find a way to record it so I can listen when I need to.

Cancer-related

My mom has cancer. It came as such a surprise. I'm sure everyone who develops cancer or who is close to someone who does feels the same surprise, the same shock.

We had made the mistake of thinking life is fair --- we have lost so much. We had succumbed to the belief that all of life's hardships and good fortune balance out, but they don't. I knew that, but I had forgotten. Life is reminding me.

I've heard and read that hardship teaches you something you need to learn; I've heard the same about cancer.

People say that hardship teaches you to value each minute of the day. However, "teaching" implies directed volition and a teacher. I don't believe in such a teacher. In my belief system, life has a great deal of randomness and chance. Entropy, if you like. Serendipity, too. And what is cancer except entropy experienced in the most personal way?

Grief becomes easier to endure when you have practice at it. You no longer feel as if you will die from it. All of the losses I've experienced have been horribly painful and have left holes in my life and in me. But I've known Mom the longest, and we are not only mother and daughter but great friends. And when she dies, I lose the last of my family. Thinking of being so alone wrenches me --- I'm tearing up and hurting just writing this.

In the end, Mom and I will do what we always have done: we will get through it. Well, for Mom it will be over. For her, I guess, there is no "through" but simply an end. After the final moment of her life, I will get through it alone.

I just hadn't expected to do so this soon.

The Texas Skye in Summer

I'm living in the land of summer. The land of sunshine and heat. The land of warmth in temperature and warmth in people.

The land of tropical storms and hurricanes and killing levels of heat and humidity.

I worry about summer here. I worry about August and September, which are supposed to be the killer months, the months that could send me running for the PNW without so much as packing my bags.

I mean, it's not like the temps will faze me. I've been happily roasting (in limited amounts) in 97-degree weather (heat index 101-103). I walk outside from the extremely cold newspaper office, where I have to wear a sweater, and toast myself until I feel warm. Then I walk back into the ice cube of work. And about half the time, I don't turn on my AC in the car, preferring to warm myself as I drive (once the 140-degree heat leaks out thru the open windows, of course).

People are amazed by my tolerance and joy in the heat. They know where I've been. And I've dealt with 100+ degree weather in Eastern Washington (a LONG time ago) and occasionally in Seattle or in the Willamette Valley. Last year May, it hit 103 for a freak weather day in Lincoln City.

But the humidity: I worry about tolerating 110 degrees with 98% humidity for 2 months. I worry about the fact that I have things in my apartment that I want to keep. I worry about the fact that I bought a really nice couch last weekend (to be delivered next week) and would need to move that sucker if I fled.

Then there are the storms; it is now officially storm season.

I worry that maybe I can tolerate neither the NW nor the South, but I cannot afford the northern California coastal or near-coastal areas. (Because that would be the ideal climate for me.) I've made a couple of friends here. I might be on the way to making one or two more: this is so quick for me! :) What if I feel the need to leave?

I worry about money: unemployment ran out and I'm now living on my savings, which represents all the money I have in the world. Well, that and the bit of money I make at The Tribune, which pays for my health insurance, plus a little more. Maybe dinners out.

I don't mind being alone so much anymore. A friend from back "home" asked me how I was when I was a child, what did I do when I was alone. And I remembered that I was mostly solitary as a child, too.

So what did I do? Solitary things, things that occupied me; I rarely felt lonely. I read books. I wrote, I drew, I painted. I rode my bike around and around the cul de sac when my mom wouldn't let me ride out of it. I skated around and around, too. I played with my "dangerous" things: Fun Flowers when I was a child, a toy that could burn you pretty good and that I never had adult supervision when using, never hurt myself with; and my chemistry set when I was a little older, ditto for supervision and never hurting myself (even when I broke a test tube). I climbed a tree and I made my own detective kit to pretend with.

I guess it's time to let myself free of expectations. And just enjoy me, enjoy my life and the sunshine and the heat.

And to create: I've started a creative crochet project (picked up a couple of books); I have a painting sketched out and the supplies ready; I am working on not one, not two, but THREE novel ideas; I have a blog (obviously), and I have a website that desperately needs Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that potential clients can find me---my site doesn't come up in the first two or three DOZEN pages when you search on "Houston writer/editor" or "Houston freelance writer" or "Houston technical writer." That has to change. And I need to add some other things to my site.

All and all, there is no reason for my solitude to be difficult.

Only the summer heat, and the summer humidity.

Only the expectations and fears floating around in the Texas Skye.