checking in

Just a quick check in. I have been really struggling lately with my energy levels. It's a struggle for me to get out of bed on the weekends, I still am able to spend two entire days in bed. I don't really feel GOOD about it while I'm doing it, but when I get up and try to move around I just feel wiped out.

I'm trying to remember when I had more energy. If I remember correctly, I think it's when my responsibilities are fewer and I have less directions to go in at once, and I would still take weekends off and stay in bed. I mean Gabe is fully aware of and comfortable with the whole stay-in-bed-and-in-the-house-all day days.

I remember having the thought that when I exercised every day and was eating FEWER calories and fewer carbs and lots of fresh veggies and fruits I had more energy. Was that true? Is it just that it seems like SO much work I have to put in to just have a NORMAL level of energy that it almost seems not worth it? That when I slack off then for a couple of days how easily my body slips right back into lethargy and being bummed out at the lack of productivity in my life?

Gah. I don't know. Like aI said, just a quick check in. Went for a 2 mile run, need to jump in the shower and get to work. :)

life, it overwhelms again

Ugh!  I am fighting this urge to stay in bed all day, and it has blindsided me.  I'm eating healthy, exercising... why on earth would I be falling into feeling like this?

The anxiety med the new Psychiatrist had put me on was Buspar... we started at 5 mg pills twice a day, went to two pills twice a day, and then up to three, where I then learned that it is indeed the Buspar that is making me feel irrationally angry and hostile.  I have bumped myself back down to 2 and will then go to 1, and am trying to get an earlier day to see the psychiatrist.

It baffles me that I feel most days that life is too big, that I want mostly to hide.  It pisses me off atually and I think it is absolutely unfair, many people never feel like this and I have to experience it every day to more or lesser degrees.

A good, good friend of mine was here for a week with the intention of helping me purge my excess stuff around the house, thus helping clear my mind and life of clutter.  We ended up socializing and relaxing the whole week, and this too ended up being something I very much needed and was good for me.  Here I am though still sitting in my apartment full of clutter and chores and dust, and possibly even feeling a little sorry for myself.  No one can tackle this for me damn it.  Unless of course I decide to have someone come in like my mom used to when I was 9 or 10... "you have 1/2 an hour to clean your room and after that everything not put away goes in the dumpster".  it was the BEST way to purge my toys!

I should take a look at my long term to do list, I bet I can cross off one or two things on there.  Like my budget, got that done.

There is something about my job that I am not enjoying, I am not finding it fulfilling.  Over the past year I have actually gotten a  good handle on more tasks, more paperwork, have a more cohesive grasp on what I am capable of and how I am an active part of the work my advisors do.  Yet somehow it still feels lacking.  Finances s NOT something I enjoy.  I have always told myself that it's the challenges of the job that will keep me interested in it though, learning new things and handling more and more responsibility.  There is an underlying flatness though in the work I do.  Numbers and money do not get me all worked up.  Perhaps it is the fact that I work so hard to fully understand the things I do and yet I still struggle financially.  The payoff is not "financial freedom", but just surviving.  yeah, yeah, Im not scraping together $2 to buy a bag of rice anymore, but I do get down to $5 in my bank account with two bills still unpaid and I watch the gas line in the car hoping it makes it til pay day.  If I don't remember to pack a lunch there is no stopping at Subway instead because seriously, $7 for a frikken salad??

Running is free.

The library is free.

Again, it always seems to come down to me wanting time off of WORK so that I can adjust my LIFE to new ways of living it... but that is not an option, and therefor I am in a constant state of feeling that it is all TOO much to tackle at once, and I wish I could just stay in bed.

forgotten critters

I had a dream lat night that included a reoccurring item; a back room where I had bunnies, ferrets, umm, something that was attacking the bunnies... other fluffies... all that had been left and forgotten in a back bedroom. God, even just retelling it now makes me a little ill. Sometimes I dream about this house, I think.. oh I dont know, some how my dad factors into it, my real dad. In a previous dream someone had left behind all these animals and i had to take care of them because... because I was there, and no one else was going to (did I write about this dream before?). In last nights dream, I had long forgotten about these animals, and went into the back room to examine something in the back yard. And LO, there are these animals that are Im sure starving and completely dehydrated. It makes no sense they were even alive. A bunny was in the jaws of.. OH, maybe it was a cat! A big cat had it's mouth on the bunnies neck, and I pulled it off and held the bunny in my arms, petting it and making soothing tones, and it seemed okay, it's legs thumping on me a bit like bunnies do. And I realized I had totally neglected these animals in my back room, and couldn't believe they weren't dead. I also remembered that this was not the first time I had done this. I was in a state of dazed confusion, regret, and fear.

Wow.. am I really that overwhelmed? That is so heavy, man...

control

I feel controlled by my emotions. Is it like that for everyone? I Have a good day because my emotions coincide with the things I want to accomplish. I have a bad day when my emotions prevent me from doing the things I want to do, and instead sort of push me into being lazy, or even so TIRED that I just have to lay down and/or sleep most of the day. Then I have the self critical feelings that come in and bring me down after spending a day doing nothing-much-of-anything.

Yesterday the morning started out nice... cozy in bed with coffee, watching Lost and Dollhouse. Dishes, park, reading, then home to get more work done, when suddenly a WALL of tired hit me and *BAM* I was incapacitated for the remainder of the day.

This morning I am fighting the urge to stay home and in bed all day. I have this overbearing feeling that I need a day of nothing. Where does that feeling come from? I feel like it gets in my way.

So amidst all this struggling with having top push myself or give in, I have my food issues. If I stuck to "plan" and ate what is listed on my daily food menu, I would lose weight. Easy as pie. When I don't, I gain back. Then it takes me those 5 work days to lose what I lost, only to hit another weekend and lose the control... What impulses am I acting on? THe tiredness and the eating seem to go hand in hand... I dunno. Feel a little like my head is spinning with all this control/loss of control crap.

Go to a new psychiatrist Friday.

perception

OKay, I have an appointment with a FEMALE STUFF doctor on Tuesday to start investigating my hormone levels to see if they are the cause of my emotional chaos. I wonder though... have I only been this off balance since I went off my meds? It didn't seem that they were helping me out that much when I was on them. And the stupid hives on my legs have pretty much disappeared, reoccurring once for a week or two. My emotions SEEM hormonally charged though, that's the reason for my wanting to investigate more. What is it they call it, pre-menopausal, peri-menopausal...

What I've noticed MOST of late is a propensity towards fatigue again, which slows my brain down as well, makes me grouchy when I want to be able to function better. All from stress? Possibly. It absolutely reminds me though of when I was around 21-22 and living in SF and was introduced to meth and how I felt it solved all my problems, made me feel normal, energetic, like I could actually KEEP UP with everyone else for once instead of my tiredness holding me back. The fact that I felt like this at such a young age.... makes me wonder about the hormonal-ness of it all. Seems it might go much deeper than that.

So, yes.... the thought of therapy is running through my brain more and more. Honestly though... I analyze and study myself so much, ti will... um.. it... crap, it will just be a huge TASK to find someone who is a good fit with me. The therapist I was seeing with Michael as a couples counsellor I mostly agreed to keep seeing because Michael liked her and trusted her, and I felt this was more important than believing I found someone who was able to offer ME insight.

Anyway... all my thoughts of myself are so clouded with self-judgement, this makes it really hard for me to see the truth in situations around me, even the truth of my own motivation or feelings.

I have made my blog page my home screen, so evey time I turn on my browser it will open up, encouraging me to take just a little time to study and discuss myself.

Why is life good today? I feel that my situation in life is a safe one for my son and I. He is adjusted in school, we are not afraid for our safety in our neighborhood, we know we have friends and family that love us. My son KNOWS he is loved and important, smart, able to learn and grow. I remember my mom always giving me the bedroom in an apartment where there was only one... and I completely understand that.

Oh... speaking of mom; she brought up something I said on our last beach trip, that if her and I were the same age we would have been great friends. Seems that stuck with her. Honest though, how cool it would have been to have a female friend who understood all my feelings and internal struggles. Of course, what formed me was growing up with her as my mom, so the dichotomy of it all is that if she was my age I would have had another mom and... blah blah blah... heh heh. Anyway, it was nice to hear that reverberating in her head. She loves and appreciates me. That is way cool. :)

stress identified

It has become known to me that the cause of all the behavioral things I do that bother me is stress.  Stress causes me to eat poorly and too much; stress causes me to escape into sleeping too much; stress causes me to shop like crazy to escape my feelings; stress causes my depression when I feel overwhelmed and incapable of managing my own life.  Stress brings up all my feelings of being less than others.

I have also identified my stress.

It's money.  I am stressed about money.  I need some solid financial plan.  I can not keep adding to my debt without paying debt off, and I certainly cannot make my life MORE costly than it already is, especially since I cannot pay for the life I am living as it is.

pressure

Ever since I have gone on the Nutrisystem food thing, I feel like my mood swings have been greater. This is so not neccessariy true though, since I have been on nutrisystem for two weeks, and I think the time span that I am able to reflect on is limited to about two weeks.
I feel like I never get a grasp on how I really feel about myself, like it's always shifting back and forth, up and down. I can be feeling like I am very much on top of my life (which basically is a huge to do list), only to go to bed one night and "realize" (meaning; swing into another mood) that I am in fact backsliding into old behaviors and digging some hole I am in deeper. How does one really get to see reality when everything is clouded by self critisism or rosey glasses? ACK!!
It is as if I am constantly in need of a "get away from it all" weekend... but to feel like this every weekend? I need a life coach! Perhaps... perhaps this is something to address with a counsellor? But when I think of seeing a counsellor again, I think, "when on earth will I fit that in?".
My house is one jigantic pile of things that need to be addresed, tackled, completed. Avoidance is my only solace, because even on a day like today when I get a moderate amount of things accomplished, I can still go to bed thinking of the monumental amount of tasks that lie ahead. Especially on a Sunday, because Sunday is the day when I can no longer just focus on "me" and "house" stuff, but must prioritize JOB work, so mst of the "me" stuff gets put on hold, only to be lying in wait next Saturday morning when I finally pull myself out of bed and happen to let my mind drift into the "what should I do this weekend" zones of my reality.
Eating.... spending money I don't have... drinking and dancing... these things take me out and away from all the to-do's that seem to weigh me down.. but they have negative side affects, or consequences, that I am unhappy with. When I think about this stuff my eyes start to sting with stress tears. it is a really really sucky thing to be in a constant state of pressure. HOW does one make life NOT like this??

But you kow... I think there are days, or days srung together which make periods.. where I do NOT feel like this. I have no idea what makes it different. Perhaps staying on track with eating healthy, getting daily (yes Shardaun DAILY) excercise, making sure to do all the self care things every day like brushing my teeth, shaving, keeping my nails tidy, cleaning my hair.. things that make me FEEL good about being in my own body.

We tackled a bit more of my son's room today ... weeding out toys he doesn't play with, organizing the ones he does. It helps him appreciate the things he has; as soon as I was able to organize all the clothes and accesories he has for his bears he started playing with them, and he hasn't touched those in ages. The NEXT big thing I need to tackle is all my sewing and craft stuff. i seriously need to just get rid of crap I have not used in so many years. The PILE in the corner that was originally set up to be my sewing area is the most dismal area in the apartment now that Gabe's room is clean.

Oh how I ramble. I ramble beause I want to make sense of my saddened feelings tonight, but I don't think it will happen so quickly. Perhaps I will look into seeing a counsellor again. i could use some direction, and I feel as if I am in a slightly older, or perhaps wiser frame of mind, to be open to different levels of learning and awareness.

Last thing... while brushing my teeth tonight and having my hair pulled back off my ace, I noticed a stunning thing; I have MANY more white hairs than I used to, all sprinkled within my brown roots and making my hair look like it is actually off of someone elses head, since MNE has never looked like that before. They are beautiful! Like little strands of silver woven into my hair! If only I could keep those white hairs and still dye the rest red.

check in re; meds, schedules, and cats

It is Wednesday.

A week is like a tiny schedule capsule; there are a certain amount of things that have to get done within that week, and then when the next week comes it is basically the same thing all over again. I am living the schedule that I believe I SWORE I would never live when I was younger. heh heh. Aahhh youth.

Lately my response to any show or song that expresses deep levels of compassion, or loss, I cry. It doesn't have to be a situation I can relate to. Sometimes it can just be the emotion that seems to be pulled up from a particular melody. It has been q

uite a nuisance, but it is also.... well.. it feels like it HAS to come out. Like I have this level of sadness inside of me, not that I feel it all the time and it certainly doesn't feel like anything specific, just this low level of "sad" that has to come out, so I have decided to try and let it. It's okay Shar, cry. We all need to cry sometimes. Don't even need to know why.

My son does NOT like seeing me cry though! He seems

capable of understanding though that sometimes it is in response to something really sad that happened on a show, and that MIGHT be okay (ie; it doesnt freak him out as much).

Yeah. OI think this is still my body readjusting from the meds ending. Yes, I believe it is all for a greater good.

I had a thought yesterday, as Cutey Pie maneuvered himself onto

my lap and then became leaden. Cats do not work to please us. They kinda live to please themselves (oooh, big idea huh!!), and it is THIS that allows me

somehow to appreciate them more. I am free to admire the way their fur curves around their bodies making cool designs, I can enjoy the way they know how to look cute and try to get things, I can indulge them in some warm lap time when there really are other things I should be doing. AND THEN, I can kick them to the curb without a second thought so I can be productive again, and there are no hurt feelings! Well, none that last very long....

the food cycle

I spent the entire weekend, which was really a 3 day weekend, eating sugar and breads and pastas.  Now I am sluggish, tired, unmotivated, depressed.  THe correlation is impossible to not see.  It is such a trap though, a self perpetuating cycle for me to get into.

I think I start out by letting myself have a little treat, a day of indulging is fine (right?).  I have brownies for dinner.  I have a leftover brownie with breakfast.  I make spaghetti for lunch........ by this time I'm toast really; I am already in a bad way of not wanting to do anything really..... struggling with "you really should get ___ done" and "wow, it would be so nice if I just laid on the couch (or bed) and watched movies (or TV) for just one more hour".  In bed I of course want to eat more of that delicious pasta I made.

Anyway.. I ramble because I am SO sleepy this morning.  My point to myself is- I MAKE myself lethargic and a bit morose when I eat breads, pastas, and sugars.  Period.  How sad this thought makes me!  Because I already know how HARD it is to fight these urges.  Now that I am not on medication I feel it is even more important to listen to my brain and my body and become a healthier person, but doing this alone is SO tough.

I think also I end up mentally just adding it to my huge mental to do list, and it feels even more overwhelming, and I find myself wanting a cookie just to ease my stress.  

So the old adage "one day at a time" seems appropriate here, does it not?  I don't really ENJOY falling back on old slogan from N.A. days, but... if it ain't broke, don't fix it, eh?

TODAY I will eat healthy.  Unfortunately, I can't also say "today I will get my divorce paperwork in, finish my budget, do three loads of laundry, clean the sink full of dishes, help Gabe get all his past due homework done, cook a nutritious dinner, trim my fingernails, clean the hamster cage, go for a run, alter two pairs of pants so they fit me, get in 7 hours of work, go out with a new meet-up group  to learn Israeli dance, listen to my hypnosis CD before sleep, and get to bed at a decent hour so I feel rested in the morning.

Heh heh.  Oh well, huh?  One little step forward at a time right?

get off the drugs, man

Lets see, it was....... a month and a half ago that I stopped taking my Prozac I think.  I was running very low, I got so sick I couldn't get out of bed, and I had been wanting to get off of them anyway because it seemed the benefits had ebbed, so I just quit.  This concerned many friends of mine, so I figured I should update my status.

I'm alive!!  hee hee.... no, seriously....

Okay, I started taking Fluoxetine, which is generic prozac, about 4 years ago.  Around the same time I started dating Michael actually, which is not I think the CAUSE of my prescription needs, but possibly indicative of my deeply insecure and frazzled state of mind at the time.  I was experiencing strong bouts of paranoid thinking, where I felt on a deep level that the person in the car driving next to me was actually criticizing me just by looking at me, that the gas attendant at the station was laughing at me when he waked away, that co-workers were talking about me when I walked into the office.  I was a full time mom and a full time employee, I drove 50 miles a day to get Gabe to and from grandmas, I bought my first home, and Gabe and I  lived on a budget that was tight enough to not allow any eating out but for a fast food joint on Sundays.

I have noticed this past year at least that, although the intense panicky attacks have not been happening again, I can still get just as freaked out about myself in relation to my weight, parenting, social skills, responsibleness, and yes sometimes I do wonder if someone is chuckling at me.  More often it just crosses my mind that I am falling short of where I "should" be.  It seemed the effectiveness of the drug was waning.

The FIRST thing I find important is that I have lost these hives that I have been suffering from for at least a year.  YAY!  Seems my body was rejecting something in the fluoxetine that was causing welts and severe itchiness in random places on my body almost every day.

How do I feel?  I am... well, I seem to be crying at silly things!  It's almost like a slight case of hormonal imbalance, but it feels more REAL that PMS.  What seems a fitting hypothesis is that my body is learning how to rebalance its emotions on its own, and that may take some time.  I get crabbier, Gabe's temper tantrums but the CRAP out of me instantly, I feel MUCH more aware of how judgemental I can be towards others.  I need less sleep!  Well, I did until I got sick again, but I am recovering.

What I feel is the potential to do more self healing, on a deeper level, because I am training my own body how to self balance.  I have been considering therapy again... the trick with that is that I need a particular therapist - one that can be most beneficial with all the therapy I already have and the knowledge already in me - and that takes so much time, weeding out therapists.   Ooh, that sounded like an excuse!  I suppose it was, my to do list is enormous, and one more to do right now feels too big...

Cheek kisses to all my friends and family.  I am forever grateful to have you in my life.

drug substitute this weekend

Well, I actually extended my weekend by 1/2.  Gabe was a bit ill; diarrhea (or as he says, "diet poop") and severe sneezing and coughing.  So MOM got a day off!  I think it was not supposed to be a day off, only an opportunity to sleep in a tad bit, but this GAME has come in to my life, and as I was pushing myself into bed (away from the couch and the game console) I made some eerie comparisons to video gaming and drugs.  Its one thing to make a comparison like that when it is someone ELSE I'm talking about, but completely different now that I'm looking at myself.

In fairness, I really am not judging myself on this one.  What I'm seeing is a deep, psychological need to GET AWAY from reality.  Even before any drug addiction, fantasy and pretend was an escape.  I was SUCH a big reader when I was little; I would get super sucked into a book, and then for days or weeks afterwards I would relate everything to myself as if I was the main character in the book.

I chose playing this game over exercise, over eating anything healthy, over taking my kid anywhere, over getting laundry done, doing my JOB... blah blah blah... just like any god drug addiction.  Seemingly, escaping my life was THE priority for a couple days.  I wonder why?  I am happy with my life.  I love being a parent.  My job is rewarding-ish.  I have plenty of "to-do's"....oh, wait, the to do's, thats a whole nother blog  (YES, I said "nother", I am in a love-hate relationship with this nonword).

"Fable 2" is this role playing game with non-turn based fighting that still isn't too hard for me, a treat.  "Your" character is nicely customizable, and interacting with the NPCs is quite entertaining.  There is a strong story line and plenty of main quests and side quests to give the player something to do for... well, probably for many, many days on end.   I'm a fantastic beer slinger!  My history knowledge sucks, but it is full of wood furniture, horse drawn carts, pots to piss in, long skirts, corsets, striped pants for the gents, gypsies, farmers, and city folk.  Characters are even characterized as straight,, gay or bisexual.  And there are cross dressers.  And what you eat affects your weight.  ANd of course you can choose to be good or evil.. I have a halo of course!

Sigh... if only, if only I could play for 5 days straight!  But now I am running late!  Gabe is curled up on the couch watching TV, OBVIOUSLY not wanting to go to school today... *another sigh*... I have to be the grown up dammit, and make it look like it's a GOOD thing at the same time.  "YAy!  Let's get dressed and go enjoy our day!  Yippee!"

;)

the post that isnt

... I was going to blog this morning, but then Joe called and we ended up talking for those 15 minutes I had, and now I have to run out the door.  SO here is the post ODE to the post it could have been.  I was going to write about "its complicated", the beautiful relationship status option in Facebook, and how it has exposed a little more of what is "normal" to me.  Will write later ;)