Filling Time

Sometimes things will really hit me. Like tonight, maybe it's the super-red-moon or the fact that there's someone outside my window looking at the moon and I kinda wanted to go out and look at it too, but I saw myself in the mirror and I look like an insane homeless person right now. So I can't go outside.

Then I think: this is why I'm not married, it's because I'm fat and ugly and I never really mastered the use of clothing and makeup. Then I feel angry-sad and frustrated and I think of the people in my life who have what I want and how picking out bridesmaids dresses with my sister is super frustrating and awkward because I'm so hideous. Then I think about other frustrating things like my job and how this one coworker is always interrupting me and talking over me to tell me how 'precious' and 'adorable' it is that I have a backbone over some issue or another, and then I start to see red. I get the tunnel vision and I tense up and wander angrily around my apartment, looking for things to eat.

My body image issues have been pushed up-front with the bridesmaid dress thing. Trying on dresses with my sister's other, thinner bridesmaids made me feel very on-display. Plus, my sister dancing around my size issue is like an old white man trying to pander to a minority crowd. She will never really get it and she makes these terrible, cringe-worthy comments. I had to come up and tell the sales-lady that the corset they gave me was two sizes too small, and I made a joke about it that I thought was fairly funny - the saleslady chuckled. But, I look over at my sister and she makes that 'tsss - oh' face and I think: what the hell?

Sometimes I hate my family. I know I can be rude sometimes, but I don't treat them the way they treat me. My rudeness is just repressed rage that comes out in little bursts so I don't literally explode.

So I decided I needed a break from family for a little while. Except, my sister keeps texting me about wedding stuff and I keep thinking about it because I'm not good at letting things go.

AND work has become 100% more stressful. Having staff is the worst. I'm getting frustrated with a few people who are not treating me with respect and taking me seriously.

My work environment is very informal, so some of rage-y Jane is starting to show herself. I'm getting a little too comfortable and a little too stressed, I think. I'm a quiet person and I don't have a lot to say most of the time but when I do want to talk, I expect people to listen. Because it's my turn, I listened to them and they should listen to me; that's what's fair. But certain people at work like to interrupt me or talk over me and not let me speak. And that is one of my biggest pet peeves ever. So... last week I just kept talking, and cut them off when they cut me off and did what I had to do to say my piece. But it did not feel good at all. I felt angry and disrespected and dirty. Polite conversation is my thing, I don't like what I have to do to talk them. I mean, it's not like I yelled or anything but it would be nice to find a different solution to this.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this post really has any cohesive point. Maybe just that I would like to begin separating my personal and professional lives a little more, now that I'm beginning to have distinct differences there. And, focus on work during work time only, so that I can try to cut down on some of this extra thinking about work that is not productive and just angers me. If I can make my personal time more fulfilling then I'll be more refreshed to deal with work stress.

I went on two dates with a guy, but that didn't go anywhere and wasn't very eventful. I've been going to play board games at this couple's house who I met though meetup.com. I was going to a game night at a church but recently have just been gaming with this smaller group at their house. It's been pretty fun. Kinda stressful at times, because I'm not used to having friends and socializing in a non-work setting. Especially awkward was when they were talking politics, partly because they all seem to be republicans and I'm a democrat. But, they seem to like me so far so I'm trying to keep that going.

I met up with an old friend from high school who I had a falling-out with in college. We caught up and I'll probably meet with her again. (The falling-out was partly over religion. Hooray, religion and politics - worst topics to discuss with people, ever)

I started counting my steps when I work on Saturdays since I do a TON of walking, and I'll count it as an exercise day as long as I reach 10,000 steps. I did 23,000 last Saturday and at least 15,000 yesterday (I forgot to check again at the end).

So, I guess that's it. Miscellaneous update about stuff.

Jane                

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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 & 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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Fit & Fabulous: November update

Let me take a minute to acknowledge all my accomplishments these last couple weeks. I ran outside guys! It was more of a jog, but I didn’t get a migraine afterwards!

I actually dieted for two days! I don’t care what anyone says (mostly talking to the voices in my head here), this is an accomplishment and I’m going to be proud of it. Anyone who says differently can kiss my ass.

Last time I blogged was 11/14 so here are the badges I’ve earned since then;

Swim badge!

Yoga badge!

Ran outside badge!

3 Walking badges!   

2 Healthy Eating badges! 

Go me!! I’m making progress on being productive, although it hasn’t been quite enough to meet my goals.

 (Note: I wrote this post on Wednesday morning)            

I had a weigh-in this morning and I’m at 172lbs. So, it’s not my highest weight but I’m definitely still stalled. I haven’t been waking up early enough to go to the gym and swim (except that one day). This might be due to the fact that I’ve also been staying up pretty late. I guess I’m trying to make myself happy in one way or another and I’m just not really succeeding. Or perhaps I like watching TV so much that I just have no interest in going to bed because bed means I’ll have to get up for work where my soul dies each day.

When I get home from work I feel like a dead slug and all I want to do is sit in front of the TV and try to forget that I’m dead inside, so I haven’t been doing my physical therapy at home. I haven’t really been doing p.t. at work, either, because we haven’t had work to do. This means I feel just good enough not to do my stretches but it doesn’t mean I won’t be feeling that awful weird painful/stiff feeling in a couple of hours because I’m still spending the day sitting like a lump at a computer. I haven’t been recording my meals faithfully, either.

It could be because my routine has changed lately; I’m doing all that extra volunteering outside of work. It always takes me a few weeks (read months) to adjust when there’s a change like this

I don’t know what the solution is but I’ve got to keep tweaking my plan until I find it. I need to get out of this damn rut.

So I’ve had this yoga book forever, it’s called ‘Richard Hittleman’s Yoga: 28 day exercise plan.” It was my first yoga book. I’ve never done the whole 28 days before; I always get stuck after day 3. But this time I’m going to do it. I’m going to do the full 28 days and then I’m going to do this ‘getting your body back’ workout in my Women’s Health “Big Book of Exercises”. I’m also going to still do cardio; I just wanted to find a way to do something like physical therapy but not physical therapy because obviously I’m not motivated to do those exercises at all. So here’s this week (I’ve already done day 1 of the yoga book)

Wed (11/27)	Thur (11/28)	Fri (11/29)	Sat (11/30)	Sun (12/1)	Mon (12/2)	Tues (12/3)
cardio	Day 2 yoga	cardio	Day 3 yoga	cardio	Day 4 yoga	Day 5 yoga

So, what am I going to do to solve the ‘I haven’t been doing cardio’ obstacle? Well, first I need to be doing things during the day that will make me feel good and not dreading the morning. 

…

Shit. 

Maybe I’ll just focus on feeling better during the day. What will make me feel like a real person?

•  Getting work done at work/ being responsible and professional
• Looking good
• Getting some personal stuff done/ being organized and on top of my personal finances, the RA thing, blogging, housework, cat stuff, etc.
• Knowing I have friends out there to talk to and hang out with
• Doing something really fun.
• Record your meals. Just do it!!!
• Make sure you get your p.t. in during the day. Unless you want to be in pain. Prevention is worth a million cures (or however that saying goes). 

OK, so I’ll make a master list of all the things I need to do to accomplish those 5 things and put them in my calendar.

Master List:

1.       Check to see if I have work to do on all of my three projects and then do it.

2.       Since I’m already at work today there’s not much I can do to look better. And, since it’s a short week there’s no one here anyway so I’ll just leave that alone. Once I get home I can shower, put on some nice clothes and some makeup since I’ll be heading to see family for thanksgiving.

3.       I need to pack some stuff to take with me when I see my family, pay my rent, do laundry and iron my clothes, renew my library books and put flea treatment on my cats. I need to get Cleo a new collar and clean the litter box. I need to get that box of my old books and try to sell them to half-price books, and take that box of old, ugly jewelry to the pawn shop so hopefully I can get some money to buy Christmas presents for my family.

4.       For RA, they didn’t ask me to do anything so I’m good on that, but I could take a few articles with me for when stuff gets boring or my family starts talking politics.

5.       I’d like to write a draft for each of my blog series’, edit this one today and post it later tonight.

6.       Housework; I should probably straighten my apt and do the dishes before I head out. Maybe make my bed. And vacuum. I dusted and scrubbed last week so no need for that again.

7.       I talked to a friend today already but I’m going to put on my list to contact someone tonight as well. Even if it’s just a text.

8.       Something really fun? I’ll pick something from my fun list to do, maybe I will play piano.

9.       And of course, I need to go running again

         That’s a lot of stuff. Some of it may have to wait for Friday. I’m not really counting Thursday because it’s Thanksgiving and I’ll probably be with family most of the day.

So that’s the plan, I’m glad I’m able to end this post on a hopeful note. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Jane







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