bone tired

because i sleep so little my body finally has to tell me when to stop.  i have no choice because it does the stopping for me.  for a solid week i've been so tired i'm unable to think, read or do much of anything at all. 

i go to work (where it's very slow this time of year) and make it through the day but that's all the energy i have.  today is my day off and i've hardly moved.  i need 6 months of sleep.  at least.  i should have done a handful of things today both inside and outside the house but i didn't. 

life of a chronic insomniac.  it's no fun.

grace and peace

mourning david bowie

when i was young, 7 or 8, my older brother and i spent a lot of time listening to the beatles, the beach boys, jan and dean.  we loved music.  we both still do.

as i became a teenager and things at our house became harder and scarier we took refuge in music often, if not always.  we listened to all kinds.  i particularly took to prince, the stones and led zeppelin.  i can say with absolute certainty that led zeppelin saved my life on numerous occasions.  in high school and college it was U2, pearl jam and a lot of the beatles (always a mainstay).  i still love all these bands. 

after the flood, in the early days of PTSD and exhaustion, i had no TV and no internet.  all i did was listen to music.  the first cd i replaced after the flood was david bowie.  i was listening to all kinds of people along with those listed above, among them:  carole king, blondie, queen, sam cooke, sinatra, elvis, adele, springsteen.  but i listened to bowie EVERY DAY.  every single day.  

on the days that i was too terrified to even open the front door, let alone go out to walk the dog, i played bowie on the turntable.  on the few days i was confident enough to take a long walk i listened to bowie on my ipod.  on the days i was able to go somewhere i listened to bowie in the car. 

bowie saved my life.  when i heard about his death on monday i was crushed.  not having known he was sick it was such a blow.  i ache for his family.  i mourn for a world without him.  selfishly, i mourn for a man i didn't know but that saved me.

RIP starman!

empathy and sympathy

when i was a teenager my house was not a happy one.  i relied on friends for a lot.  one friend in particular who lived fairly close by.  her father was the chief of police in our small town.  i spent an awful lot of time in her house.  they fed me when there wasn't food in my house, they were kind to me when there was no kindness in my house, they treated me like i was one of them when there was no place for belonging in my house.

i mourn with my friend today.  her daddy died of cancer today. 

watching my own daddy go through all he's been through in the last 4 1/2 months with cancer makes it hit even closer to home.

thank you, dean, for everything.  RIP

day off

i thought i was gonna get to spend most of this 65 degree december day at home.  it's my day off.  had to go over to a friends house to help her catalog some books she's selling (if only i could buy them!) that's 4 hours.  then i was off to the vet to get orson the cat's glucose checked.  got there at 3 and at 3:30 the vet came in and asked if they could keep him until close - 6:00 - so they could check his glucose every hour. 

 

in my past life i would have gone to hang out in a bookstore or taken my book (in my purse) and gone to a coffee shop for 2 1/2 hours.  now, of course, the former is unthinkable and the latter is downright impossible.  my anxiety allows for none of that!  i came home, through heavy traffic, and watched M*A*S*H, read my book and missed orson.  fought my way back to the vet then home again through worse traffic.

 

orson has a UTI which might be interfering with his insulin (it's not been very effective lately) so he has antibiotics to add to the insulin regimen. 

 

when i was sitting at the vet at 6:10 i was pretty upset about losing my day.  but then i heard a woman crying in another room and realized her day was far and away worse than mine in that she lost her kitty or puppy today.  i don't know which but my heart breaks for her.  i've had to euthanize babies before and it's such a terrible loss.  i came home to my 3 animals and felt thankful.

 

tomorrow will come too soon as i now have 3 loads of clothes to wash and it's already 8:30. 

 

grace and peace

is this what life is?

today is payday.  i bought gas and now i can't pay my mortgage.  that's not a good a problem to have.  not a problem i saw myself having at 41. 

 

i'm so tired. 

not a happy camper

i'm having an awful day.  tired and sick and anxious and sad and angry and tired again.  i'm completely and utterly spent.  i just want to disappear.  put the pets in the car and drive until i run out of money and/or road.

 

i don't know how to keep going like i'm going.  i'm unhappy in every possible way.  maybe all this is just the accumulation of the last 3 months of emotion and exhaustion.

 

feeling put upon and picked on.  how do you keep going when you don't want to?

 



thoughts about me

anxiety is a shape-shifter.  what i'm anxious about today may not bother me tomorrow and a new fear will rear it's ugly head.  there's no predicting it and no preparing for it. 

 

isolating is a part of who i am.  i'm an introvert to the nth degree.  i find people exhausting and infuriating.  i would much rather be alone with my books, my notebooks and my animals than be with anyone.  i've always been this way.  since PTSD it has become an even greater part of who i am - to an unhealthy degree.  agoraphobia is the term.  for the first year after the flood i was scared nearly to death to leave my house.  the very place i despise.  a vicious cycle ensued - so scared of what happened to me in this house that i found it impossible to leave it.  so mush so that stepping on the front porch would cause hour-long panic attacks.

 

now things are a bit different though i still struggle mightily with going anywhere.  it seems all too pointless and scary.  since daddy's been in the hospital(s) i've fallen into the familiar pattern of home, work, hospital, home.  no grocery store, no seeing my few remaining friends, no life but the small one i've been left with (or carved out for myself, i can't tell the difference).  the scary part, sometimes, is that i don't want to do anything else.  

 

i'm just wondering if this is all there is?  wondering if this is all i'll ever have?  i have so much work to do yet to manage my PTSD and i'm exhausted by having to do it.  part of me just wants to give up.  part of me can't imagine ever feeling better.  i know that's a symptom of the disease but it's an alluring one.

 

i touched base with my therapist today for the first time in weeks.  just today i realized that it's been at least 2 months since my last appointment and i think i'm feeling the result tonight. 

 

grace and much needed peace