Newly Diagnosed, Confused and Anxious

The next few posts are going to be ones that I wrote this past winter and never got around to publishing. This is a post I wrote in February and didn't publish.

I don’t know what I’m writing today. Perhaps just an update. I’m one day away from seeing my psychiatrist and possibly getting my meds changed. Hopefully for the better and for the cheaper.

I’ve been so anxious lately, though, I’ll definitely have to mention that. I got a little behind on my work so for the past few work days I’ve been anxious in the mornings to the point where my throat closes up a bit and it’s hard to breathe. I can usually take deep breathes and breathe through it, though. It takes a while to calm down and then I’m yawning the rest of the day. I’m getting plenty of sleep; I’ve been going to bed regularly at 10:30pm (then it takes about an hour to actually sleep) and then getting up around 7:30am. It’s all part of my effort to get to work on time.

So, I’ve been sleeping ok, waking up pretty well, and getting to work mostly on time. I’ve been taking my meds and even tracking my moods with moodtracker.com. I like that website because I can send myself reminders to track my mood, I can track multiple times a day, and even report mixed moods. I’m not sure if the anxiety has always been there so often or if I’m just noticing it more now that I’ve been tracking my moods.

Anyway, so I wrote down some stuff to tell the psychiatrist tomorrow to help him diagnose me correctly and I’m going to list them out here to help me organize my thoughts. Shit, I forgot my notebook. Maybe I can do it from memory?

Happening now

·         Anxiety most days; throat closing up, shallow breaths

·         Binge eating; out of control cravings when I feel like I just have to eat and eat NOW! Usually chocolate, cookies, donuts, etc. I will go out to the store and buy snacks if craving is strong enough. Definitely interfering with my weight loss efforts.

·         Peeling skin off the bottom of my feet. Sort of like the need to eat, sometimes I feel a need to peel skin. It’s really gross, my feet smell bad all the time and sometimes it’s difficult to walk because I’ll keep peeling them even after they are bleeding.

·         When I leave in the morning I check that the door is locked at least 10 times, sometimes more if I’m feeling more anxious.

·         I have very vivid dreams that can be violent and disturbing. I have been raped in my nightmares several times.

·         Sometimes my dreams are so real that I think they’re memories.

·         I’m often depressed; it doesn’t always last all day. Lately I have been anxious/happy/elevated in the mornings but then down in the afternoon and evening. It hasn’t been super bad lately (the past week).

·         I did feel ‘sped up’ when I first started Cymbalta, but I didn’t report the symptom because I thought it was just a really good antidepressant. Also, I liked the feeling and didn’t want it taken away.

·         Sometimes I have a lot of projects; I make huge lists of all the things I want to do, but then when I feel down again I don’t do any of those things.

·         Last year, about August or something I met this guy and slept with him on the third date, which is very unlike me. I wanted to sleep with him on the second date and I even told him we didn’t need a condom (but he said no because he wanted to be safe and he didn’t have any condoms).

Happened in the past

·         Extreme mood swings during college that happened very quickly. Feeling like I can do anything to despair within a minute. And then back again

·         Was a point when I couldn’t read anymore in college; my eyes would just slip off the page

·          Again, in college, outbursts of violent anger. I felt out-of-control; I hit things, threw things, kicked things, broke things, yelled and screamed.

·         Sometimes I could get suddenly ‘rage-level’ angry at someone just because they were near me or slightly in front of me. I yelled at my sister a lot sometimes because I felt like she was getting in my way on purpose to block me from a conversation or keep me excluded or away from whoever we were with, usually my mother.

·         Felt like people were purposefully excluding me a lot of the time. I felt like people were always talking about me behind my back or watching me.

·         Sometimes I thought there were cameras watching me (middle school and elementary school)

·         Once, I had a hallucination that spiders were crawling all over me when I was in bed, but I’ve always thought of that as a one-time thing. Just a weird thing that happened between waking and sleeping.

·         There was some time where I thought I had been in space (elementary school/middle school) but I had just dreamed it.

·         I used to think that if I didn’t worry, something bad would happen. I was very superstitious and I felt like if I had certain thoughts, they could make things happen.

·         Racing thoughts and ruminating thoughts so bad I would use TV to literally and purposefully ‘stop’ my brain.

·         At one of my friend’s parties when I was younger I was ‘the life of the party’ (elementary school)

·         Once, at a dance in high school I just went up to a guy I didn’t know and asked him to dance. But usually, I could barely talk to anyone.

Right now I’m thinking he’ll say ‘Bipolar with OCD, anxiety, and Binge eating disorder’. I’ve read that Bipolar + Binge eating is really complex and behaves differently than other Bipolar types and can even be more severe.

Shit, that’s a lot of stuff and I don’t think it’s even all of it. That list covers most of the things I remember that might be important for diagnosis. Except for some things that I’m not sure I can admit to anyone. I’m still not sure I’m going to tell him about wanting to sleep with a guy without a condom.

I’m also a bit nervous because my psychiatrist (pdoc) is a much older man and I’m not sure what his opinions are. I’ve had a lot of experience with older men and how they treat me like… well, like a little child who doesn’t know anything and doesn’t even deserve to be listened to. I’m not sure older men even HEAR young woman like me when we speak to them. But, my therapist is in partnership with my tdoc and he is also an older male (although not quite as ancient). Seriously, my pdoc looks like he’s mostly in the grave now, he’s just sitting up inside his coffin, pecking at his computer with his pointer fingers.

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Fit & Fab; My first Weight Watchers meeting

The next couple posts are going to be ones that I wrote this past winter and never got around to publishing. This is another post I wrote in January/February but never got around to publishing.

I went to my first weight watchers meeting in late January.  I stayed at work a little later than usual so that I could go straight to the meeting and not be at home in-between.  Once I get home after work I like to stay there and it’s supremely hard to motivate myself to go back out, especially into the nasty arctic cold.

I ended up walking into the little Weight Watchers store just on time (6pm) and was a bit confused at first because the set-up was odd. There were a few shelves with products and some motivational posters but it was mostly taken up by computer terminals and large blue screens in semi-circles around scales on the floor. I passed about four of these terminals and walked towards the sound of a woman’s voice, then I encountered another woman who greeted me cheerfully.

I gave her my pre-registration printout and looked around dazedly. Then she asked me if I had ever been in a computer before.

??? what? I stood there looking at her, trying to figure out if she was really so condescending to ask if I’d ever used a computer before, while she asked the question several more times as if repeating it would make it any easier to understand for me.

I told her I had been using the online tools for a few weeks but this was my first meeting.

‘oh, so you’ve never been in a weight watchers computer before?’

I’m still confused, are there special computers for weight watchers? Does she mean the online tools? Perhaps she’s wondering if I’m in their system, but I should be because I pre-registered and have been using WW online. So I’m still trying to think up a proper response when she hands me a clipboard and cheerfully tells me to go on in, and we’ll register after the meeting.

After this confusing experience, I shyly sneak into the back row of the meeting, excusing myself as I try to fit past people in between the chairs. I find a seat and put my stuff down, trying to get the crazy lady out of my mind and listen to the woman speaking.

The woman did most of the talking, but she also asked for others in the meeting to speak about what they’ve been going through. She changed her slide presentation with a little silver clicker in her hand.  They talked about portion sizes and tricks that people have been using, also how people’s lives have changed while using weight watchers. There were some interesting things said. There were many different people there, one woman smaller than me, most a little larger.  One husband and wife came together, saying it was not their first time restarting weight watchers. They have tried many times and had little successes and here they are trying again. The husband said it’s most important to keep trying. I heard the ‘it didn’t get put on in a day, it’s not going to come off in a day.’ One woman said she has started putting her salad on her dinner plates and the ‘main’ entrée in a smaller plate or bowl. ‘It takes a long time to eat salad,’ she said.

It was very interesting and a very relaxed atmosphere. After the meeting, I stayed back to fill out my form and talk to the leader. There were a few other newbies as well and the leader gave us a little orientation to weight watchers and told us about her personal story. She gave us little folders with WW tools and tracking books. She lost weight on WW as well, she said all the leaders have done this. She seemed very nice, although slim, she talked with us about her own struggles with eating too much. We newbies each said a little about ourselves. I said that I had trouble with binge eating and my doctor had told me I was gaining weight too fast, but still I had trouble not gaining. I finally started maintaining my weight in 2012 and then beginning to lose in 2013. But I had only lost 10lbs last year and was having trouble losing any more without gaining it back. We discussed simple start and I said I had tried it but had moved on to tracking for more flexibility. We also talked about weighing ourselves and I explained that I only weigh myself twice a month and not around my time of the month in order to keep myself sane. She said it was a good way to go about it but pointed out that as long as I weigh myself at the same time each day, I will still see my weight loss. So weighing in on Wednesday at 6pm is not a bad thing. It won’t be the same weight that I would get if I weigh myself in the morning, naked, before eating anything, which is what I normally do.

After the meeting, the leader scanned my pre-registration sheet and took my weight. They gave me a little sticker for the tracking book with my weight on it. It was 6lbs heavier than when I had weighed myself naked, in the morning before eating, but she said you have to take clothes and the time of day into account. But just judge that number by the number next week to see the change.

Anyway, it was a good experience and I look forward to going back this Wednesday. I expected it to be longer than half an hour, though.

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FF: A winter binge

The next couple posts are going to be ones that I wrote this past winter and never got around to publishing. This one is a post I wrote in January/February;

So; I believe I’ve mentioned how cold it’s been, every time the temperature dips back down, I have felt an uncontrollable need to rush to dunkin donuts and get half a dozen delicious, chocolate-covered or sugar-coated or crème-filled deliciousness. I didn’t see the pattern at first, but after the third time I realized it. When it gets cold, I crave baked, sugary goods. Filling, fatty stuff. And, since it’s been too cold to be in my living room or bedroom, I haven’t been cooking or doing my Yoga challenge like I had planned. I did my best so far on weight watchers when I was making every meal from their recipes. But, I got hibernatory and started ordering out a lot instead. Or just making a PBJ. Once, I did have a can of soup but it was disgusting…

Yup, so two weeks after I had lost 3llbs, I gained 2.8 of it back. From pizza, Chinese food, PBJ’s and oh so many donuts. I think part of the problem was that I had gotten a bit cocky. I had done well, and then I guess I thought I was good… well, it doesn’t work like that. Once it comes off, it can go right back on again.

That, and I was having a lot of ruminating thoughts (thanks, Depression!) about my father and how he had treated me as a child.

Honestly, I don’t want to go into it much for this post. Just know that he was hard on me, there was a lot of yelling, and it’s where I learned many of my irrational thinking patterns.

So having ruminating (repeated, hard to control thoughts?) thoughts about this was not good. Whenever I am upset I tend to turn to food. It’s always been that way. When I was younger, I had a kick-ass metabolism, and it was probably also curbed since other people ate that food too while I was living in my parent’s house. My sister seemed to notice every missing morsel and was vocal about it. (it’s not fair to me, waaa) So I probably ate a little less, I definitely tried to hide how much I ate from them. But, it didn’t show, I stayed skinny until the tail-end of college when I finally started gaining due to ‘cookie dinners’ and ‘vending machine breakfasts, lunches and dinners.” I will NEVER eat a frozen meal again. Not because I’m choosing to be healthy, blab la bla, but because I can’t even stomach looking at them anymore. They all look and taste like cat food to me now (how I assume cat food tastes, come on now, I’m not that crazy).

Anyway, one thing that made me successful on simple start was the fact that I was able to have dessert every day. I bought cookies and put fat free ice cream between them and stuck them in the freezer. Ice cream sandwiches with my favorite Kroger bakery cookies!! And cold, so that you know they’ll stay fresh after a few days and don’t feel pressure to eat them all at once before they go bad.

So I’ve decided to have dessert every day. The past two days it’s been donuts. Oh, I love donuts way too much. I can almost taste them now…

But knowing I WILL have dessert each day and being able to think about what I want so that I can have the thing I want most that day, and being able to look forward to it helps me to not snack throughout the day, and gives me a little bit of that feel-good, bingey feeling without going overboard. Because that’s the other rule: buy only single servings. So yes, I have to go out every day to buy dessert, but if I bought more than one, they’d both get eaten in one sitting. I just can’t control myself. It’ll sit there in my mind, I won’t even be able to push it to the back, I’ll think about it until I finally give in and eat and it will feel SO amazing!

But the new rule is; One single-serving dessert a day, eaten with full attention and pleasure after dinner and logged appropriately in weight watchers. I’ll try to keep my points low enough during the day that there will be some extra for this snack, but I won’t worry about it too much because of the weekly allowance. And even if I go over, oh well. With a single serving it’s not likely to be by much and it’s keeping me in control so it’s worth it.

I feel like I’m really treating myself well, giving myself this daily dessert. It’s a self-hug (don’t make this sexual, guys).

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Fit & Fabulous: I Lost 3lbs!

     Hooray!! I lost 3lbs already!! I’ve been on Weight Watchers for almost three weeks now, but at my last weigh-in (last Friday) I lost 3lbs!!

     So exciting!!!

     I’ve officially retired my largest belt since it does no good for me anymore and I’m on the second to last hole of my second-largest belt. 

     So what have I been doing? Well, I haven't been doing much exercise although I did get these two in (from my Yoga Challenge);

      #betterthannothing?

     I haven’t gone to any meetings yet because the ‘Arctic Chill’ snowed me in for about a week. (Also, my apartment flooded AGAIN but that’s another story). I followed the Simple Start plan for a week to the best of my ability and then switched to the full plan because I got tired of eating the same thing over and over. It’s really my own fault; I just chose a few recipes from their list and only ate those for the whole week. Unfortunately, I can’t really afford to make a bunch of their meals at the same time so I’m not sure how I’m going to conquer this hurdle but I’m working on it.

     So the Simple Start plan is this; they have a list of recipes to choose from and each meal you eat from one of the recipes on the list without worrying about or even recording portion sizes. It’s similar to their Simply Filling plan which is an alternative to tracking points. I did enjoy not having to count points and such but the tracking app for simple start was very simplistic. There’s no way to record if you don’t follow the meal and there’s zero flexibility for eating recipes not on their list.

The regular plan is a little challenging for me because it’s not like 1pt= a certain number of calories. Their points are based on the assumption that not all calories are alike and it is more difficult for your body to process some foods than others. I admit I don’t really understand it very well. So there’s been a few times when I’ve gone to eat a meal that I would usually think of as a good choice and I calculate the points later and find out that they are WAY too high for me to eat on a regular basis while on weight watchers. Such as; peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or this pesto pasta dish I get at the cafeteria at work (turned out to be a whopping 24 points!). 

     It would be really helpful for me to get to a meeting and find out what other people are eating, hopefully I will be able to make it this Wednesday!

Jane










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Fit & Fabulous: Weight Watchers and the Yoga Challenge

       I started Weight Watchers on Monday. While I was staying with my parents to get away from my flooded apartment, I came across this coupon in the mail for a free Weight Watchers meeting with purchase of a monthly pass. I didn't think much of it at first, but it kind of stuck in the back of my mind. I've never done the popular diets; no South Beach, no Atkins, mostly because I think cutting one thing out of your diet is not really the answer. Plus, I know that I would never completely cut out sugar or carbs, and once you start eating those things again, the weight will come back. 95% of diets fail*. Which is why I've tried going the route of lifestyle change.

       But lifestyle change has not been working very well for me because I just haven't really succeeded in making enough changes. Last year I lost 10 pounds using my serving size diet and jogging, but since then I've fluctuated within about 4 pounds and just lately coming back up to 171lbs. I had some real success dealing with my binge eating and I cut that down significantly. I have real meals now (whereas at my worst I would have 'cookie dinners').

       But I still want more. I can still eat half a dozen donuts in a sitting without blinking an eye and that is actually something I tend to do when I feel low or when I have cravings that I just can't forget about or control. I'm still not great at dieting more than 3 days in a row and exercise has gone down the toilet since it got too cold to swim.

        My habits are still not going to get me to my goals of getting back down to a normal BMI, not having my thighs rub together and being able to dress how I want. 

       So I'm trying something new. I'm not totally sure about their points system, to me it seems needlessly complicated, however i do like that there are 0 pt foods (bananas, mandarin oranges) so even if I hit my point limit for the day hopefully I'll still have something I can munch on if hungry. I like the idea of social dieting; having the weekly meetings and the support of a leader. I haven't gone to any meetings yet, but I've scheduled one for next Wednesday. Hopefully with some regular, positive social support I'll be able to further cut out binge eating and get more motivation for keeping up with exercise.

   So keeping this all in mind, I am also restarting my 28 day yoga fitness book^, I've done 3 days so far and I've made this thing on my wall, not sure what you would call it:

    Each circle is a day of exercise and it goes through all the 28 days of my yoga book with a cardio session every third day. I'll pull them down every day that I complete one.

    More updates on Weight Watchers to come; hopefully it will be what I need to finally reach my goals.

Jane






*The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Weight Management: A Step-by-Step Program by Michele Laliberte, Randi E. McCabe and Valerie Taylor

^Richard Hittleman's Yoga 28 Day Exercise Plan by Richard Hittleman. Note: if any of you look up this book and read it, YES, I know it's VERY sexist. But it was a gift and it's the book I used to start yoga, it also has a lot of wisdom despite the fact that it was written for 1950's-style housewives.









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Dear Universe, This is My Holiday Post

A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks; I’ve had some time off from work, my apartment flooded, and I got in some good quality time in with the family. My week off from work has flown by as if it was only one day, and I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s been nice not working and I’m not happy about going back, but I feel like I’m doing things to help my situation and that helps me not feel hopeless. I’ve even got some new year’s resolutions that I’m going to get to in a minute.

                My apartment flooded Saturday night; the carpets were soaked and even had little puddles here and there and there were about three inches in the kitchen. Luckily, my clothes closet, bathroom, and the closet where I keep my litter boxes were spared (I don’t even want to think about soaked litter boxes!). At first, it was just too overwhelming. When I got home that evening there were already maintenance men in my apartment trying to suck out the water with various hoses. My cats were frightened and stranded on the windowsills and each step I took in my apartment just made disgusting sucking noises. I was grateful I had chosen to wear boots, especially when I waded through the kitchen to check out the situation. 

                I text-ed pretty much everyone that I knew (this isn’t the kind of thing that happens every day) and was just about to order a pizza - cooking in a kitchen full of water did not seem like a good idea – when my dad texts me back saying they have an extra litter box with fresh litter and that I should go there. So I packed up my cats and headed out.

                My cats are super-pals but they’re very different from one another. I have an ultra-friendly, the-world-is-my-oyster grey tomcat (Ditto) and a there-was-a-small-noise-the-apocalypse-is-happening-now! moody little tortie queen (Cleopatra). Guess who was yelping in a high-pitched voice the whole way to my parent’s house? No, that was Ditto. Because when it comes to car rides, he’s a sissy. Seriously, I think his voice went up a whole octave. Cleopatra was uncharacteristically quiet, perhaps thinking, “dude, not even I’m that much of a diva.”

                Once I got to my parent’s house Ditto gave Cleopatra her diva-status back, and greeted everyone with enthusiasm while his friend hid under the bed for the next four days. The trip has made me consider that maybe Ditto needs a house with at least five people and two stories because he was so excited to see everyone and spent all his time wandering around, exploring every little thing he could get into.

                So I spent Christmas with a little more family time then I’m used to. The first couple days were fine, and Christmas was really nice. It really is something special that my family gets together every year to open presents and be together even though things are kind of crazy with my grandfather in a nursing home in the next state over. My mom was so busy going back and forth to take care of him that she didn’t have time or energy to do any Christmas decorating or preparation. But, my dad and sister took care of the cooking and my sister, brother and I did the decorating. We even had some family friends come by and give my mom a fully-decorated Christmas tree for the porch! I feel lucky that my parents have such great friends.

                After our little family gift exchange, we traveled to my cousin’s house for lunch and then on to my grandfather’s nursing home for a visit. My mom had to stay there to help out so my dad and I cooked a small dinner at my grandmother’s place. It was odd since that’s the usual site of our large family holiday dinners and grandpa is usually the one to do most of the cooking. It was really strange to see him unable to remember what happened in the last hour and unable to stand up or walk on his own. He was still telling his bad jokes, though; whenever he did speak it was in puns.

                We had to stay an extra day to help get grandpa to cancer care and help grandma fight the nurse who kept refusing to give grandma the help she asked for. Most of the nurses were very caring, but this was an obstinate one. My mom was able to contact a superior and I think she may have gotten the nurse in trouble, but I heard the way that nurse talked to my grandma and she deserved to get in trouble!

                Things went downhill mood wise for me on the way back to my parent’s house. Somehow I missed taking my meds for two days, probably because of the change in routine. When I was able to visit my apartment, I was super-thrilled (read angry) to find that it smelled like death and the carpet was filthy. The maintenance man had promised me that they would clean the carpets by Wednesday at the latest; which I thought was odd since that was Christmas, but he still said Wednesday! By Friday it still wasn’t done and I was seriously livid. My parents were getting on my last nerve and my apartment was still a crazy wreck. I had to throw so many things out because they were soaked and smelly. I still need new bookcases, but I think for now I can live with the old ones as long as I don’t sniff them. I lost a lot of books, too, and a ton of cat toys. One of the scratching posts was actually broken in half (how the F did that happen??). 

But anyway, if I talk too much about that I’ll get too angry again. Fast-forward a few days and my carpets are clean (I didn’t have to yell too much), and my furniture is in the proper places. Laundry’s still not done, but I can only do so much. And, I’m looking forward to a new year with plenty of optimism and a new master list of hopes and changes to make.

Hopes and Changes

•  Bring back Spa Saturday: Every Saturday morning I will pamper myself with any lotions, body scrubs, deep hair conditioners and soaks that I own. 
•  Paint nails once a week
• Get new glasses 
• Get a haircut
• Make sure to blow-dry my hair after showering because it looks 100% better
• Shower at least every other day
• Start weight watchers
• Re-start yoga 28-day challenge and do cardio every third day
•  Make a zazzle store with my photography
• Start crafting on etsy
•  Be more regular with blogger posts
•  Continue to work on getting away from the tv and doing other things that I like
•  Develop my hobbies and interests
• Set up a savings account for graduate school
•  Interview teachers, social workers and psychologists to see if I would like to do their job
•  Commit to keeping the kitchen clean
• Look at other apartment complexes, especially with second-floor apartments
•  Work on making my apartment a home that makes me feel more comfortable
• Work on preparing for things ahead of time so I can be on time and prepared in general and when I go out
•  Set up my new therapy light and sunrise/sunset-simulating alarm clock (Christmas gifts to myself)
• Spend more time playing with my cats, it helps all of us be happier

         So, I hope all of you out there had a lovely holiday. And even if it wasn’t perfect or even that good at all, I hope there were good moments that you can concentrate on. As Lizzy Bennet would say, “In such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. “ (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice)

Jane










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