to write or not to write

these days i can't seem to write anything.  i've just managed a handful of blog posts in the first 7 weeks of the year.  BUT...i'm trying not to be too hard on myself.  i need to write this blog for my sanity and i want to be writing on a fiction piece i've been working on for a while but i'm pretty worn out these days.  

the store takes it out of me and my anxiety is very high!  this week my therapist told me that i'm the highest functioning agoraphobic she's ever treated.  i suppose that's something to be proud of(?)!  i am an agoraphobic but i go to the store every day and i talk to strangers all day all the while somewhat terrified of being out of the house.  i suppose i'm able to do it because i'm also somewhat terrified of being in the house.  (i also have no choice.)  

anyway, i'm really going to work on setting aside a few minutes a day to get myself back into the habit of writing.  i know it helps.  i don't know for sure what my reluctance is other than the general anxiety of recording some of my anxious thoughts on the blog.  that, and my general laziness and procrastination when it comes to planning and doing any additional non-bookstore related work.  (you should see the state of the house!) 

grace and peace and writing    

gratefulness

i work 6 days a week.   monday is my day off.  every other monday morning i have a therapy appointment which i need to attend for my sanity.  that means i have 2 days a month that a i don't have to set an alarm.

tomorrow is one of those 2 days.  yes, i still have to go to the store to take care of the bookstore kitty but i can do that in my pjs.  i love to have days in which i don't have to leave the house but i don't get those anymore.

i will keep this up as long as i'm blessed enough to have my own business.  and i'll be grateful

grace and peace

commit me, please!

for more than 4 years i've been waiting for the one thing that would either kill me or drive me crazy.  i've mentioned before that i felt something inside me break when i suffered my last major loss, that of my siamese kitty, kentucky. 

 

i, along with my therapist, have decided that what i'm facing is some inpatient trauma therapy.  i had no idea that these places exist but apparently there are several of them around.  since i don't meet the level of "mentally ill" to check myself into a mental hospital, and since i don't have any addictions, i can't check myself into a rehab center but apparently with a PTSD diagnosis i am eligible for a trauma center.

 

there are several problems, of course, the first being that i don't have health insurance.  second, that means i have to hope and pray that one of these places will take me pro bono.  after several weeks of my therapist making calls it seems this won't be as easy as i had hoped.  the place nearest to home offers scholarships but it seems that's not what it sounds like.  they've turned me down. 

 

i feel like this treatment is necessary.  for almost 4 years i've been in therapy.  i've been seeing a psychiatrist and taking anti-anxiety medications for almost as long and i'm still fighting anxiety with all i have.  my agoraphobia is back with a vengeance since i've been out of work.

 

i started helping a friend at her jewelry store 3 days a week and that helps.  when i HAVE to be somewhere i can get there but on days when i have nowhere to go it's nearly impossible for me to leave the house.  some days i can't even go outside to walk the pug.  luckily for him i have a fenced-in yard.

 

grace and peace

 

   

breathe in, breathe out

my anxiety is through the roof.  last night i worried all night that someone would break into the bookstore and steal orson the cat.  no one did, but that didn't keep me from worrying all night about it.  tonight i had to go the CVS (one of 2 pre-approved places that i can shop - the other being trader joe's) and the lady that is usually at the check-out went on break while i was shopping and i couldn't check out because i didn't know the guy behind the counter.  i had to stay an extra 20 minutes, and spend an extra $20, until my normal lady got off break. 

 

i finally realized once i got home tonight that my heightened anxiety has been present since the day that there was flooding in nashville a couple of weeks ago.  i've got a call in to my psychiatrist to talk about my meds but i haven't heard anything yet. 

 

i was talking to someone about PTSD today and i got anxious all over again about the fact that it doesn't go away but that those of us afflicted have to learn how to live with it instead of how to cure it.  that's anathema to me.  i want it gone and cured and in my past not just "managed!"  it's such a hard thing to accept.

 

my therapy is progressing but i always feel like it's one step forward and two steps back.  i guess that's normal.  i don't know.  i don't know much right now. 

 

grace and peace  

it goes on...

here i am again, anxious, sleepless, and sick.  one leads to the next and finally my body breaks.  friday brought with it a level of anxiety that i had not felt in a while.  yes, i am anxious all the time...but the terrifying, debilitating nervousness awoke with me that morning and since i have paced the floor, been wide awake virtually non-stop and have been hit with a sinus infection/cold or the like. 

the 3 day headache i suffered with last tuesday-thursday left me spent and weak.  the upcoming 2nd of may ever-nearing on the calendar and a complete lack of any resolution have sent me spinning.  my life continues to revolve around a long-ago day most people have long since forgotten and/or moved on from.  i'm not made that way.  my traumatic childhood and subsequent happenings have left me more prone to inertia and stress than to coping and moving on. 

as i walked winston today i heard the neighbors' fountain, installed post-flood, and i am reminded that not everyone who suffered as i did has remained stuck in the pain.  i'm afraid, literally afraid, of the sound of running water most days and i find it damn near impossible that a family who lost everything in a flood could rebuild and then go and put a fountain on the front porch!  they are the loveliest of people and have a young daughter, who is breathtakingly beautiful, who loves to come pet winston when i walk him...but i regularly think of how i could best bash that fountain to hell and remain on good terms with the family.

it's true that most of my neighbors are right where i am--nervous, angry, lost and with not a small feeling of helplessness but some people just experienced the flood and dealt with it and recovered.  i have no idea how to deal with it.  i continue my therapy, my medication, writing about it on this blog and in other forums, and yet i'm still here.

i am unable to write, to read, to watch movies or television.  i'm just not comfortable anywhere.  i mostly lie outside on my back and stare directly into the sun.  when i get cool or the bugs begin their feast of my flesh i move inside and lie on the couch staring out the skylight into the moonlight or the moonless dark. 

i pray for...

grace and peace



no more excuses...dammit!

below is the text of an e-mail sent to my therapist after yesterday's session where i was told to stop making excuses and do something different if i wanted to feel different...for me, right now, exercise is that thing... 

"i did 3 laps at the lipscomb track (a leisurely mile and a half) with only 2 terrifying instances:

1. a minivan pulled into the parking lot while i was on the opposite side of the track and proceeded to unload a shovel and some other unidentifiable item from the back--i was positive that i was going to be killed and buried under the baseball field. luckily they were gone by the time i got to the parking lot side. i may have literally dodged a bullet on that one;

2. some sort of bug flew up my nose so i'm certain that at this very moment some sort of burrowing insect is laying eggs in my very fragile brain.

so thanks for that. i hope you're happy now!" 

 

(she responded favorably and mentioned that the shovel-carrying van was most likely a groundskeeper--i never even thought of that--i knew i was a goner!)

 

i am 3 months away from my birthday and i am committed to seeing a difference in my exercise habits and seeing a change in my body and mind even if they are small changes.  i don't know about the rest of it but at least that is something that i can control.  even if i have to run down streets lined with half-finished houses with building permits still taped in windows (like mine) and dodge trucks full of building materials or use the elliptical machine in what used to be my guest bedroom but is now a storage room full of unhung doors, tools, boxes of who-knows-what, etc.  getting some exercise for my mental and physical health is at least the one thing i can choose and control. 

 

wish me well, and

 

grace and peace

alternate hot and cold

i'm very anxious today.  i've been overwhelmed with job hunting on-line and worrying about the fact that i do not own a fireproof box for my important papers (those that weren't destroyed in the flood, that is!)  there is no particular reason that i thought of said fireproof box but once the thought occurred to me i have been unable to think of much else.

my headache is better today though not totally gone.  i've spent a good part of the day with a cold pack on top of my head (i.e., like a southern belle with a book on her head perfecting her posture in etiquette class.)  i'm sure i look utterly ridiculous but i think it's helped a little.  that and sleeping (ha!) with a heating pad on my neck all night.

okay, i finally broke down and joined facebook.  i've been avoiding it forever and if i weren't so obsessed with pinterest i wouldn't have done it.  anyway, i will now be sharing these posts there as well (hopefully i'll remember.)

i have therapy tomorrow and for the life of me i can't think of any valid, believable way to get out of it.  i don't think the headache is gonna keep me from it.  i dread it more so this week than most.  i suppose it's my sheer and utter hatred of Christmas and the subsequent and ever-present green hills traffic that have added to the dread. 

grace and peace

 

6 weeks of holiday cheer (not in this house!)

it happened today...the Christmas lights at the opryland hotel were lit.  i hate Christmas.  i HATE it!  these lights, all 2 million of them, will be lit 24 hours a day through new year's.  there will be countless people from all over the world who come to see every tree, bush and all 600,000+ square feet of the hotel covered in lights.  i will turn my head and curse it, sometimes under my breath, sometimes out loud, sometimes with the windows rolled down and sometimes to locals and tourists alike.  i live very close to this hotel and there is very little nearby but the damn river, other hotels, numerous steak houses and a mall that has been closed since it was destroyed by the flood. 

i spend every saturday night all year round cursing the tourists here in music city, U.S.A. for the grand ole opry.  i don't listen to country music, i don't like country music and i hate to fight the traffic and tourists all weekend, every weekend.  now they have millions of lights that draw fans of one more institution i despise:  Christmas.  bastards!

i've had an emotional day:  therapy, another hour-long fight with metro about the money promised to me more than a year ago, the imminent death of a great-aunt due to stroke and the dreaded inevitability of an empty bank account.  more money will come within the week but i am worth $5.00 right now.  that's all i have in the world. 

i again feel totally unequipped to cope with any of these things.  if i were at all able to envision or imagine my future i'm sure i would be scared to death but i've lost that particular skill.  i just feel empty and tired.  i have no bigger concern than whether i get a decent nights sleep.  

i spent the afternoon with my beloved cousin and her two precious kids.  i always feel better with her, though i don't feel like myself.  it's kind of like seeing myself interact but not being totally present.  that's the dissociation that i'm trying to tackle in therapy.  that's one of the long laundry list of things to tackle.  no wonder i'm so tired!

grace and peace  

tooth fairy, you are not welcome here!

i am starting to feel an off-the-charts level of guilt about not writing.  this blog is all that gets written these days.  while that's good, i cannot remember the last time i sat down to bang out a page or two on my latest story.  i continue to do the things i rely on for inspiration:  read stephen king novels, watch woody allen movies, listen to the who, but i cannot get to the place that allows me to produce anything.  my attention span shrinks daily and my motivation is along for the ride.  it's not writer's block, per se; i know what comes next...i just can't get it out.

i don't feel well today (starting to think this may be mono.)  just what i need, right?  cold, rainy and miserable outside and i cannot get warm no matter what i do.  my mood always corresponds closely to the weather and it is foul today!  the sun should be out tomorrow.  

tomorrow...one of two dominant reasons for my anxiety today.  i start EMDR therapy tomorrow for my PTSD.  i'm scared.  EMDR stands for "eye movement desensitization reprocessing."  from what i gather it uses eye movement to connect the right and left hemispheres of the brain to allow the patient (in this case, ME!) to attach feelings and emotions, heretofore unexperienced, to the events surrounding the trauma, in my case, the flood.   PTSD is the brains way of protecting the trauma victim from the event but it leaves the person stuck in the "fight or flight" pattern and does not allow them to experience, process and mourn the event and its many consequences.  

i think the long and the short of it is that i have intellectualized the losses, the events and the memories to the extent that, while i acknowledge their severity, i have avoided what it all "felt" like.  without feeling it all i will continue to be an outsider to my own experience and remain numb.  that's not really working for me.  it keeps me anxious and exhausted.

the second reason for my anxiety today is less clinical and more comical:  i am terrified of losing my teeth.  this thought has lingered for months and has reemerged as the #1 ridiculous fear brought on by the book i am reading.  i admit that there are many ways in which i would benifit if i listened more closely to my best friend.  she always has my back.  she told me years ago not to read stephen king's "the tommyknockers."  her reasons don't matter and my failure to listen doesn't really matter.  what matters is that i had listened i wouldn't be 500 pages into a 750 page novel in which nearly everyone has lost their teeth.  dozens upon dozens of passages concerning teeth and the losing thereof.  i won't stop reading for several reasons:  i'm 2/3 of the way through, it's one of the few king novels i haven't read, i hold out hope it will eventually inspire the above-mentioned need to write.  BUT people keep losing their teeth and it's freaking me out!!  

y'all know that this obsession with my teeth grew worse when my pug, winston, lost a tooth a while back...and now this novel!  i just can't imagine that i will get through all this without some freak tooth-related incident. 

grace and peace