30 day writing challenge *DAY 1*

I thought it would be beneficial to my mental state if I made a 30 day commitment to myself to write. Something. Every day. It's 5 minutes til 8 p.m. and I finally opened this blog page. Okay OKAY I will write.... something... sheesh.

Wednesday nights Abe goes and bowls. It's a great thing. He gets out of the house and does something he loves with other people. I get to spend time with my son. We already have a tradition of getting junk food for dinner and watching a movie. Tonight it's ICE CREAM for dinner and Gulliver's Travels. Gabe loves Jack Black. In fact I think he just said 5 minutes ago "Best comic person ever!".

We went in to get my car finally registered in Florida two weeks ago. There is a military waiver for the huge one-time state registration, if we got the car registered within 6 months of Abe's retirement date, and given that we lived in the state of Florida before he retired. It hit me while we were in the tax assessors office, omg we have lived here 7 months already. That's over 1/2 a year! And while I feel settled in our home, everything else still feels new, even transitory, not stable. I've spent more time hiding out in the house then getting out and going through all that obligatory, droll, awkward getting-to-really-know-people stuff so that I can build solid friendships.

There are good activities in place to help me, and us. Gabe and I have started going to this Unitarian Universalist church in Pensacola, and it's the perfect place to be. Church is REALLY big thing here. I worried Gabe felt more alienated from his peers because we did not subscribe to any doctrine. So I found a place to GO to CHURCH where we don't have to! It was rough for me until I got stabilized on the newest medication my Pdoc has me on, Seroquel. Now my panic has subsided and I am starting to actually talk to peop

le there.

I also have a therapist, and though we still can't really afford it, we have decided it is necessary. I go every week, and every other week Abe comes with me.

I enjoy my job. A lot. Strange, I am doing the same thing I was doing in Cali, but it's funner here. Perhaps Tom, my new boss, let's me do more and learn more. Perhaps it's because I'm in a real office instead of someone's spare bedroom/office. I dress the part every day; make up, heels, up-do, nails kept up. Maybe it's working for a man instead of a woman. Honestly. I don't have to deal with any of that misplaced mean-mother energy that seems to attract itself to me in the workplace.

My meds have caused me to put on some weight. 1o pounds. Blech. I'm running again, working myself back up to 3 miles a stretch, but my eating is kinda out of control. I think I am hungry almost all the time! I'm still holding on to this shining hope that cutting out the drinking and being consistent with the running again will make it go away. It went right from being too hot to run outside to, today, being almost too cold to run outside! Perhaps I am just acclimated to the heat, honestly it was like 55 degrees. But it felt very, very cold to me.

Lastly, I am getting ready to make

halloween costumes. I will be going pattern-less this time, after pulling up a few ideas on line with Gabe for ghost robes/shrouds. I got the fabric. I have some plastic chains. I have a whole room dedicated to my crafts, with a tall make shift table right in the middle for me to do my thang on. I was going to get to it today but lost myself to Twitter, Tweekdeck, device syncing, and getting my scanner to communicate with my computer. Tonight was still an option, til Gabe and I ate ice cream until we couldn't eat one more bite! Now it's definitely CHILL time....

Til tomorrow... here are some Florida gators!

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. :)

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.