bitterfig

I really feel like my visit to New York threw me off track.  It’s been nearly two weeks since I got back but I still feel very down and ill at ease. 

 

It wasn’t that anything bad or even surprising happened.  Everything went pretty much the way I expected it to.  Every time my mother wanted me to do something, she applied pressure steadily and relentlessly and found ways of making me feel like a bad person for not wanting to whatever it was she wanted me to do.  For instance, she wanted to attend the Schenevus town fair.  I had no desire to go as Schenevus is a half hour drive away and events of this kind are generally populated by creepy The Hills Have Eyes type characters.  So I said I didn’t want to go.   To which Mum replied in a very hurt voice “I thought it would be a fun thing to do.”  “I’d rather not go,” I said.  “It’s such a long drive.”  In an effort to be kind, I didn’t even mention the scary redneck factor.  Instead of just accepting this, Mum said “Just watching other people have a good time is a nice thing to do.” 

 

I did stand my ground with regards to the fair, but I caved in on another matter.  Mum wanted me to call Owlie, a guy I used to be friends who sometimes asks after me.  I really didn’t want to because over the past couple of years, Owlie has gotten deeper and deeper into conspiracy theories to the point where it makes me very uncomfortable.  I’ve told Mum this numerous times.  I’ve even told her he smokes pot (which is just awful in Mum’s world) in an effort to make her lay off but the day I arrived she started on how I ought to call him “just to be polite”. 

 

Instead of saying outright that I didn’t want to, which hasn’t worked in the past, I decided just to ignore her.  However after a couple days she was leaving the phone book lying out and assuring me Owlie probably wasn’t into conspiracy theory any more and not dropping the subject so I finally caved.  The result, a two hour lecture on how Barack Obama is a puppet of the Rockefeller octopus (cuz you know the Rockefeller’s control the Shadow Government) and how 9-11 was actually a planned demolition.  It’s almost like dealing with a born-again Christian.  He literally told me at one point that if I could only accept “the truth” I would be “free”.  It really made me angry.  Not at Owlie, who’s just done too many drugs, but at my mother for refusing to let up on her pressure tactics and with myself for giving in.

 

Also I was really upset by the way my parents interact.  My mother has such contempt for my father.  She treats him like he’s mentally deficient, snaps at him and orders him around.  My father tries to get her attention by saying things he knows will get a reaction- mostly they’re just stupid but sometimes he’ll make really derogatory remarks about ethnic and racial groups or say really hateful things about people we know.  The whole dynamic really disturbs me.  It shouldn’t.  It’s been going on since I was a teenager but I always feel like it’s up to me to smooth things out, appease them both. 

 

I was glad to leave it all behind and yet it’s left an imprint.  Since I got back I’ve felt really depressed and off.  Very lonely and isolated yet at the same time I’ve been completely withdrawn at work, not really able to respond when people try to engage me in conversation.  I talked to my therapist today and she said I needed to try and force myself to keep going to work and interact socially as much as I could.  I started crying because I feel like my whole life has been about forcing myself to do things—finish high school, go to college, make friends, move away from the parents—I’ve forced myself to do all these things and where has it gotten me?  I’m still very much cut off from other people and barely able to earn a living.  It just seems so pointless

 

I hate being like this.  I feel like I have the emotional maturity of a six year old, I get overwhelmed so easily.  

My period started yesterday which goes a long way towards explaining why I’ve felt so lousy the past few days—tired, cold and basically hopeless as if every possibility was exhausted. 

 

It’s interesting, but I’ve been having difficulties with menstruation since I got my first period when I was thirteen.  Almost as if I’ve at odds with my own reproductive capacities.  When I was a teenager I’d have two week long periods with heavy bleeding and severe cramps.  It was a bit of a nightmare.  I’d get spots on my clothes which people pointed out with contemptuous disgust.  I remember once going to the nurse for a note to get out of gym class (swimming) and getting a lecture about how she couldn’t give every girl in the school a note every month.  Of course when I gave the note to the gym teacher (who it pains me to say was the living embodiment of every negative stereotype about female gym teachers) she demanded to know why I needed to be excused…. 

 

Despite all these physical problems, I didn’t really notice any psychological disturbances related to menstruation until I was in college.  At this point I was menstruating very irregularly, only two or three times a year, but my periods tended to last a week or more during which I’d become deeply depressed. 

 

Of course when I became anorexic at 23 all that pretty much went away.  Eating disorders serve a purpose and I think one of the functions of mine was that it eliminated the whole painful, messy business of my female biology.   For a few years I simply didn’t menstruate and for several more years I did so only because I was on the pill, I was still underweight was I wasn’t actually ovulating.  Within the last two years however, that’s changed and I’ve been having authentic menstrual cycles which unfortunately includes some low low lows. 

 

In this most recent case, I’m pretty sure that not taking proper care of myself over my vacation didn’t help things, plus I haven’t been taking evening primrose oil for a few weeks (I ran out and never bothered to get more despite the fact that I work in a health food store with a fully stocked supplement department).  I also need to keep track of when I get my period.  I don’t really have to worry about pregnancy because I’m sexually inactive so I tend to be a bit negligent about keeping track but it might be a good idea to start marking the calendar with the proverbial red x.  That way if I start feeling really bad about everything four to six weeks since my last period I’ll at least know it’s premenstrual and that it’s only going to last a few days.  I find it’s a whole lot easier to bear with depression when I know that it isn’t going to last forever. 

I ended up calling in to work yesterday and today which is pretty sad considering that I’ve only been back from vacation for two days.  I sort of knew I was going to do it yesterday.  When I saw the schedule on Sunday I really felt like there was no way I could go in for the All Store Meeting from 6:30 to 8:00 a.m. and then work a 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. shift.  Then today I was tired (I slept most of the morning) and having weird chills and didn’t want to deal with working. 

 

Exactly what is it I find work so difficult?  First there’s the sheer tediousness factor which I think everyone feels.  I of course add to that a whole level of various stresses—worries that I’ll displease a customer, that I’ll break one of the numerous rules, that I haven’t responded properly to a question, that I’m a failure, that I’m stupid, unfriendly, ugly and an all around miserable excuse for a human being.  Then there’s the level of physical discomfort and pain.  My legs and feet hurt from standing.  I grind my teeth when I’m anxious so I usually have a sore jaw and a low level headache that’s made worse by all the background noise and music.  Something with the air conditioning makes my sinuses feel very raw, almost peeled.  When I don’t eat properly I don’t really get hungry per say but I do get very, very tired and it’s an effort stay focused.  Of course when I do eat I feel really, really cold for the next hour. 

 

I’m sure it’s all psychosomatic or brought on myself.  I guess the question is why should I find my life so overwhelming that deliberately shut down like this?  Maybe because I’m unhappy with where I am and I know I can’t go back to living in my parent’s attic which means I’ll have to find something else to do, something new and different and unfamiliar the mere thought of which makes me want to give up already, curl up and disappear. 

I got back from my visit to my parents yesterday evening and tomorrow I’m back to work.  Today was devoted to reacquainting myself with everyday life, things like going grocery shopping and collecting the Kitty from my sister’s where he stayed while I was away (thankfully he didn’t scratch my niece or nephew). 

 

Upstate New York is breathtakingly beautiful this time of year, fields of wildflowers—tiger lilies, Queen Anne’s lace and blue chicory.  I saw turkeys, deer, hummingbirds, a rose breasted grouse beak and several fat, furry woodchucks, visited my grandmother everyday, went to a fascinating exhibit on Synagogue carvings at the local art museum and read a pile of comic books, mostly back issues of Elfquest and Urusei Yatsura.

 

I can’t say I’m exactly refreshed from my vacation however.  The tension between my parents grated on me like fingernails on a blackboard during the entire visit and perhaps to drown it I sort of created my own internal white noise by drastically cutting down on my daily caloric intake while drinking huge amounts of caffeinated diet soda in addition to sampling some of the prescription grade painkillers Mum had left over from a root canal she had last month (a Hydrocodine tablet and half a Vicodin a couple of days later—I didn’t really get buzzed at all but they did help with the shin splits I had from walking on hilly terrain).  

 

I’m not sure what gets into me when I go back to my parents.  Half of me that strives to be the perfect daughter and the other half works equally hard to be a perfect horror.  Interestingly I got some insight into this watching Batman Unmasked a History Channel special on the psychology of Batman.  It talked about how Batman is a person who is filled with overpowering rage and fear yet is able to master it and how in a way that strength of will is his superpower.  Joker on the other hand is described as seeing the world through a mad kind of logic wherein the existence of injustice cancels out the possibility of justice and where the fact that innocence is corruptible means that no one is innocent.  Sometimes (like this last week) I feel like I contain both these persona and they’re warring it out in every decision I make.  No wonder Batman has always appealed to me so much.

I had both Thursday and Friday (07/03 and 07/04) off so I ended up getting a bit of a holiday weekend.

 

Thursday I did mostly mundane stuff—laundry, grocery shopping, seeing my therapist—but in the evening my brother-in-law took me to see Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears.  It was playing at my favorite theater, the Music Box, which is one of the few old style, non-multi-plex movie houses left in Chicago.  It’s so beautiful, it’s been around since the 1920’s and has the old fashioned marquee outside, a huge, ornate theater, even a red curtain over the screen that goes up when the show starts.  They operate as an art house and revival theater and show a lot of foreign films and more off-beat movies.  It’s actually been ages since I’ve been there.  Lately I’ve only been getting to the movies about once a month.  Back when I was working for Biff (and making a bit more $$$$) I actually used to go to the movies at least once a week.  I rather miss being able to do that. 

 

Mother of Tears is the third installment in Argento’s Three Mothers Trilogy that began with the 1977 classic Suspiria (one of my favorite horror films) and continued Inferno (which I haven’t seen) in 1980.  These movies deal with three sister witches—the Mother of Tears, The Mother of Sighs and the Mother of Darkness—who have houses in Germany (Suspiria), New York (Inferno), and Rome (Mother of Tears) from which they spread chaos and evil. 

 

I’ve always preferred the chilling, atmospheric giallo of Argento’s early days to his latter work which is more baroque and vividly horrific.  Still, Mother of Tears was a pretty enjoyable as a gory horror movie with strikingly bizarre imagery and minimal story.  Many creative things were done with intestines, and some gorgeous Roman architecture was shown as packs of witches resembling Madonna circa 1983 descended on the ancient city. 

 

There was actually a strangely retro vibe to the whole film, as if it had come a few years after the previous chapters of the trilogy rather than nearly three decades later.  All the witches wore new-wave make-up and the scariest witch, a Japanese girl with a silver front tooth reminded me of nothing so much as a particularly menacing Tama Janowitz. 

 

The heroine of the film was played by Dario Argento’s daughter Asia.   She’s been in several of his films but this was the first I’d had the opportunity to see.  I’m fascinated by the idea of a man directing his daughter in horror/exploitation films being terrorized, raped, tortured and occasionally grotesquely murdered.  There’s something so pathological yet telling about it.  It really lends a whole other level of uncomfortableness to something like a routine fan service shower scene when you know that the director is the actresses Dad.

 

My brother-in-law Dean had brought a bottle of citron vodka along and we had spiked cokes but I didn’t drink enough of mine to even get buzzed as vodka sort of turns my stomach.  Even with the citrus flavoring it still tastes thick and chemical and sort of vile to me.  I consider this repulsion a good sign.  My ex-boyfriend, who was a recovering alcoholic, always said that one of the things that separated alcohol abusers from casual drinkers was that the abuser would drink anything available to the point of intoxication whereas the casual drinker tended to have personal preferences and wouldn’t drink if they couldn’t have something they enjoyed. 

 

I’ve been drinking again for a little over a month and it really is an experiment to see if I can drink socially and casually.  So far I feel like I’m doing all right.  I did go out of bounds at the party a couple weeks ago where I embarrassed my sister but I didn’t totally lose it.  In the past I’ve often figured that once I go past a point I might as well relinquish all control and finish off the bottle.  I didn’t do that this time and I think it’s because I’m trying to look at drinking differently, not as a huge cathartic experience I allow myself a couple times a year but as something I can incorporate into my life and do in moderation maybe once a week or so. 

 

As I said, it’s an experiment.  If it doesn’t work I’ll probably go back to not drinking at all because I know how dangerous problem drinking can be. 

This weekend was Gay Pride in Chicago but I didn’t end up going to any of the events.  .  There weren’t any signs posted about being on the float so I didn’t get to be in the parade like last year.  I didn’t even get to go to the parade because I had work and of course I wasn’t exactly in a celebratory mood either yesterday or today.  

 

First, let me explain the situation with my medication.

 

I’ve been off Effexor entirely for over a week and am now taking just 60 mg of Cymbalta each day.  A couple of weeks ago my brother-in-law had suggested that my tendency to shut down and isolate may have as much to do with over-medication as it does with depression and I think he might have been right.  I feel much more alert and engaged in the world around me now that I’m taking less medication but I’m also much more sensitive and volatile. 

 

At the beginning of the week I did some painting for the first time in ages and actually finished up my sister Vienna’s Christmas gift which I’d sketched out back in December but never completed.  On Saturday morning I rode my bike over to her condo to give it to her.  During the course of the visit the subject of my behavior at the MBA graduation party for her sister-in-law Staci came up.  This was a small party, mainly family except for Staci’s boyfriend (who she’s only been seeing for a couple months) and a guy who works with her. 

 

I was very nervous about attending but I decided to make the effort and when I got there I ended up drinking about 4 glasses of wine (I will say in my defense that at least one of them was much less than a full glass, probably only 2 or 3 ounces).  As a result of this drinking I talked much more and much more expressively than I would have otherwise and Vienna was very much not pleased with some of the things I said—mainly allusions to my eating disorder and mental health problems and a remark that I wasn’t interested in having a relationship, I’d just like someone I could call to come over and have sex when I felt like it. 

 

Vienna sort of pointed out all the things I’d said wrong and told me that she had been embarrassed and more or less scolded me for drinking too much. 

 

It was almost something I’d expected.  I’d spent the last session with my therapist going over the exact same things Vienna mentioned but we’d ended up agreeing that I need to let myself make mistakes and that I shouldn’t obsess over what I’d done wrong or feel guilty and that these things weren’t that big a deal and that is was positive that I’d attended the party despite my anxieties and been able to interact…

 

I still got really upset.  Being told my family members that I’ve embarrassed them always cuts me right to the core.  When I was in high school my father used to bludgeon me on an almost daily basis with what an embarrassment I was to him, how my clothes and my grades and my conduct were a reflection on him and I was making him look bad and humiliating him in front of the other teachers. 

 

It just really upset me, to the point where I started crying.  My 6 year old nephew and 3 year old niece were there.  Luckily I don’t think they noticed because they were playing with their tricycles across the room but I really feel bad about losing it in front of the kids like that. 

 

Even after I left, I was still really distraught.  I kept tearing up and having crying jags for the rest of the day including at work.  Today I got through work without incident but I felt drained and very sad. 

 

I can’t blame Vienna for this; my reaction has been completely disproportionate to what she’d said to me (which was nothing I hadn’t already said to myself).  This makes me think (hope) it might have something to do with the medication because it seems like the only other possibility is that I’m just weak. 

Last weekend ended up being pretty interesting from both a social and a personal growth stand point.  I wound up going out an unprecedented two nights in a row.  On Friday I went to a party for a guy I work with who was getting married and Saturday was my arranged introduction to my brother-in-law’s friend. 

 

The party on Friday was a spur of the moment thing.  When I came into work I saw signs saying where it was and that everyone was welcome so I decided to stop in on the way home.  It was fun, I really like most the people I work with and they seem to like me so I enjoyed being with in a social setting. 

 

I’ve mentioned that I am drinking again but I’m being very careful to practice moderation so I had a light beer.  I hate beer.  I hate the way is smells and the way it tastes.  I think I was basically using the beer bottle in my hand as a sort of a prop, something to show I was participating in the party. 

 

Part of the reason I went to the party was of course that I was hoping to get an opportunity to cozy up to long time crush Tycho (which I evilly enjoy doing from time to time despite the knowledge that he has an age appropriate girlfriend).  I talked to him a little but ended up having a pretty in-depth conversation with his roommate Hugo, who also works at the market.  Hugo was more or less drunk off his ass but a lot of the things he said really made an impact on me. 

 

A bit of background—A few days ago Hugo was strolling around the work place with his shirt unbuttoned to his naval inviting people to run their fingers through his chest hair (this is the sort of thing Hugo does).  When approached I said something like “Keep that thing away from me.  It’ll be six years in November since I’ve had sex and I can’t held accountable for my actions.” 

 

We ended up talking about this at the party, why it’s been no long, why I’ve only slept with two people in my life.  I gave my usual reasons—that I’m an ugly, undesirable freak and no one will ever love me.  Hugo’s reaction to this was very different than the usual responses I get.  He said that self-deprecation is just another form of narcissism.  I’ve always associated narcissism with self-love and therefore seen myself as the opposite of a narcissist but Hugo’s right.  Negative self-obsession is still self-obsession.  All I think about is me—how much I suck, how much I eat, how stupid and ugly and strange I am-- all me all the time. 

 

I’d never really looked at it that way before and honestly it did bring me down.  Accepting responsibility for my own unhappiness is not something I want to do.  I‘ve generally blamed my parents or all the bullying/abuse I went through when I was a kid.  I tried my usual whining about my upbringing with Hugo but once again he responded is a very different way than I’ve encountered before.  He told me that if these things were still holding me back I wasn’t being hard enough on myself.

 

Which is true.  It’s been a long time since I’ve really pushed myself to go against those internalized voices that make my life miserable.  I accept them, even give in to them.  I live my life as if all the things my mother said are true, as if I am as disgusting and pathetic as she always taught me I was. 

 

It was a lot to think about, maybe too much and I did feel sort of overwhelmed when I left the party.  Then on the way out I witnessed one of the more disturbing things I’ve ever seen.  One of the guys I work with is an active alcoholic.  He’s only 26 but he’s pretty far along, he’s already got that red flush heavy drinkers get and he’s been in a couple of serious accidents.  He was at the party.  Even though he’d had hernia surgery earlier that that day he was drinking a lot, showing his bandages, and handing out his prescription pain-killers.  By the time I left he was completely wasted.  I have honestly never seen anyone that gone and still conscious.  He was simultaneously flushed red and white the way my sister had been after her caesarian section.  Worst of all he was asking for more beer and his roommates were not only getting it for him but were holding the bottle up to his lips for him. 

 

It’s so horrible, to see someone doing that to themselves and not being able to do anything about it (I can’t help wondering if the people around me feel that way to a lesser degree when I start going on about how I need to lose weight…)

 

On Saturday my brother-in-law Dean and I were going to meet this guy he knew from his monster store days who had recently broken up with his girlfriend and really wanted to meet women.  Dean picked me up at my apartment so he could have a heart-warning reunion with my kitty who used to be his kitty before my two then year old nephew decided he really, really liked Kitty and started tangling with Kitty on a regular basis resulting in Kitty coming to live with me.  After the touching master and pet reunion we went to a nearby bar to wait for my prospective suitor. 

 

Who never showed up.  Or called. Apparently he didn’t want to meet women that badly after all. 

 

I didn’t really mind that much.  I had a good time drinking Merlot and talking with Dean about movies.  As I’d never met or even spoken to my prospective suitor I could hardly take his no-show personally.  Also I had the satisfaction of knowing I’d made and effort and put myself out there without all the awkwardness of actually meeting a stranger. 

 

Two late nights in a row is apparently more than enough to exhaust me.  Combined with the fact that I was working 6 days straight, an adjustment in medication and my monthly Pre-menstrual lethargy the next couple days were sort of difficult to get through however I managed to make it to work everyday whereas last month I called in sick so I think I’m gradually inching towards managing my life instead of just retreating into comfortable self-pity. 

Yesterday was really the first day of full on summer heat we’ve had this year.  I had appointments with both my psychiatrist and therapist.  Between the whole double-whammy treatment sessions and driving to Pilsen and back with the sun beating down on me it ended up being a really draining afternoon. 

 

The therapy session was difficult because it involved a lot of discussion of things that are way outside of my comfort zone at this point (though they weren’t always).  Things like how I need to try and make myself go to work even when I feel like I just can’t, looking for a new job and most daunting of all getting out once in a while and doing something fun or social. 

 

Very scary stuff given that for the past few months my comfort zone seems to involve staying in my apartment, doing a bit of useful stuff like writing and reading but mostly numbing myself by messing about on the internet, obsessing over what I eat and what a horrible, useless person I am and being lonely and miserable.  Just getting groceries, going to the Laundromat or returning library books seems to take a huge amount of planning and anxiety. 

 

Still, I’m going to try and make the effort to make things better.  I really wasn’t always this way.  In the past, I was willing to take risks and put myself out there—I was in that  writer’s group two years ago, I went to a book club for a while, I went to things like author appearances and poetry readings on a fairly regular basis, once upon a time I even dated. 

 

I already have my “fun” outing lined up for this week.  Tomorrow night my brother-in-law is going to be supervising an arranged meeting between myself and a friend of his from his monster store days who’s interested in meeting “weird girls who like weird movies.”  Given that I consider Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and I Spit on Your Grave to be cinematic masterpieces I suppose I qualify. 

 

I’m sort of nervous but I’m trying to keep things lite, treat this meeting casually—really, it’s no big deal and there’s nothing at stake.  If we hit if off fine, if not it got me out of my apartment for an evening in accordance with my therapeutic goals.  I don’t need to kill myself trying to impress this guy and I don’t need to make myself sick worrying about how things will go. 

I’ve managed to make myself ill, again.  This time it’s a combination of  things- an increase in my  new medication from 20 to 60 mg per day, having my period (which always makes me feel really tired) and a month of fairly rigorous dieting finally catching up with me.  

 

I haven’t mentioned the dieting because I knew it wasn’t something I should be doing, but I decided I really wanted to get back down to 140 pounds so I’d cut back from 1900 to 2000 calories a day to 1400 to 1500. 

 

Trying to lose weight always makes me feel good at first.  I’m a sneak.  I’ve always liked getting away with things and it feels like that’s what I’m doing, getting away with something by taking in less food than my body needs.  Unfortunately if I get away with 1450 calories in a day that becomes my new standard, the new norm and it becomes something I aspire to do everyday. 

 

And in all honesty, it really hasn’t been worth it.  I’ve been feeling progressively more run down over the past few weeks.  Yesterday I had a pounding headache and was so exhausted I ended up lying on my bed for most of the afternoon even though there was construction being done in my apartment and there were workers coming and going, sawing, arguing with their girlfriends on their cell phones, and making rude remarks about my kitty’s girth. 

 

Right now, I’m only dealing with the fact that I feel lousy.  On payday I will have to deal with the fact that I missed two and a half days of work and have absolutely no sick time incurred.  I can cover it with some of the money I got from my tax return but I’d much rather leave that in savings. 

 

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for me to take care of myself.  I did mention this to my psychiatrist on Thursday and she says it’s because I have disordered thinking patterns around food and I need to 1.) Recognize them and 2.) Resist them.  As with most things I’m a lot better at dealing with extreme cases than day to day stuff.  For instance the case of the Master Cleanser Fast. 

 

This is that cleansing fast where you live on a drink made of distilled water and organic lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper.  One of my co-workers at the market was doing this and I got really interested.  I was asking questions, looking information up on the web, earnestly absorbing testimony on how horrible it is that people are so addicted to eating (breathing too) and of course thinking of trying it myself.  In this situation, I was able to see that while cleansing fasts probably do have their benefits for most people it would be a dangerous thing for someone with my history of eating disorders to get into and dropped the idea of trying it.  However when faced with a less extreme situation, attempting to lose five pounds, I can justify it to myself as normal or even desirable behavior and give in to the compulsion. 

 

Someday I’m going to work this all out. 

 

Several years ago when it first came out, I bought a copy of the Tori Amos album The Beekeeper but never really connected with it.  Recently however I’ve been listening to it quite a bit.  The song “Parasol” sort of reminds me of where I am with this, where I’ve been for a very long time…

 

“When I come to terms with this when I come to terms with this when I come to terms with this my world will change for me.”. 

I had my psychiatric evaluation on Thursday.  I’m pretty familiar with the structure of this sort of evaluation because I worked at a Chemical Dependencies Clinic in Upstate New York for five years and part of my job was transcribing our in house doctor’s notes.  Basically they have a checklist of questions to go through to determine if you’re oriented x3 (person, place and situation), whether or not you’re having visual or auditory hallucinations, whether or not you’re a danger to yourself or others. 

 

I know this but I still feel a little insulted when asked if I hear voices.  I’m depressed, not Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Of course I suppose in all fairness they have no way of knowing that without asking (well, maybe reading the notes from the hour and a half evaluation I went through on my last visit). 

 

Anyways the psychiatrist thought that I should either bump my intake of Effexor XR from 275 to 350 mg per day or try adding a small dose of Cymbalta, an anti-depressant I’ve never heard of. 

 

I don’t want to take a higher dose of Effexor because I already feel foggy sometimes at the dose I’m on.  I looked up Cymbalta on-line and it doesn’t seem too much different than any of the other anti-depressants so far as side effects are concerned so I’m going to give it a try.  To be perfectly honest I was hoping for Wellbutrin but it turns out Wellbutrin is not recommended for people with a history of eating disorders which is probably smart as I only wanted it because I’ve heard most people lose weight on it. 

 

I haven’t started taking Cymbalta yet; my brother-in-law is rounding up some samples for me, that way I won’t have to spend a lot of money on something that might not work. 

 

I have a tendency to peep at doctors notes when I can.  I noticed that I was given a 40 under Axis V, which rates level of functioning.  I looked it up and according to psyweb.com a rating of 31-40 means—

 

Some impairment in reality testing or communication ( e.g., speech is at times illogical, obscure, or irrelevant ) OR major impairment in several areas, such as work or school, family relations, judgment, thinking, or mood ( e.g., depressed man avoids friends, neglects family, and is unable to work; child frequently beats up younger children, is defiant at home, and is failing at school ).

 

I think (I hope) I fall under the impairment in several areas rather than the impairment in reality.  Impaired reality seems much more serious. 

Yesterday I broke out my bike and went riding for the first time since November.  I went over to my sister’s place in Ukrainian Village and though I took mainly side streets I did a little riding on busier roads and it’s going to take me a while to get used to traffic.  It gets sort of daunting when you’ve got parked cars on one side and cars and trucks zooming by on the other.  I do wish my bike had narrower handlebars.  When my bike was in the shop after my accident last summer (for those of you who missed it: Deathly Hallows release + 3 way intersection + city bus + turn of questionable legality + me= smashed bike and spectacular bruising) but they still seem too wide.

 

After numerous false starts it seems like spring is finally here.  Several successive days of fine weather have done wonders for my mindset.  I feel like I’ve finally pulled out of the period of low mood I’ve been in since the end of March.  Yesterday when I was at my sisters I felt pretty content and enjoyed myself whereas a week or two ago I felt quite bad about how we were relating and everything.  I think when I get in these moods everything is off. 

 

Because I’m feeling so much better I’m almost tempted to cancel my psychiatrist appointment next week because frankly the clinic in Pilsen is seedy and depressing and I’d really rather not go there.  Unfortunately it’s what I can afford and I have to make myself follow through on the appointment.  I’m all right at the moment but if I don’t address the problems with my medication the sort of depression I’ve had to go through this winter is going to continue to be a problem. 

The weather here in Chicago has been bouncing back and forth between wintry and spring like over the past couple of weeks with each new front being ushered in by heavy winds.  I think I must be affected by barometric pressure because I’ve been very lethargic recently, taking naps during the day and not doing much beyond dragging myself to work and watching a whole lot of DVDs.  

 

Maybe in an attempt to remedy this I’ve made a couple health related decisions recently.  First I’ve gone off the pill.  I initially went on it in January in hopes that it might lessen my pre-menstrual depression however something is amiss and during the three months I’ve been taking it I’ve had my period five times.  So I’m still having the pre-menstrual depression, just every two weeks instead of every six. 

 

Also I’ve stopped drinking diet soda.  Again.  I got hooked on diet soda circa 1994 and have alternated between periods of abstinence (several of which were a year or more in length) and periods of massive consumption (three to four 20 ounce bottles a day, a liter over the course of an evening).  When I started working at whole foods back in September of 2006 their “no artificial sweeteners” policy inspired me to cut out diet pop and I managed to avoid it completely until December of 2007 when I started up again at my usual excessive levels which was a big mistake. 

 

Drinking diet soda not only makes me feel like I’m freezing cold from the inside out it increases my appetite, which is already pretty substantial to begin with.   Even though I’m at a normal weight and I’ve been eating nearly 2000 calories a day I still feel really hungry sometimes and I expect that has to do with drinking diet soda.  I really think the taste of sugar that isn’t really there makes your body want calories.  In addition to the screwed-up physical things it does when I drink diet soda I tend to go into a weird obsessive compulsive mode and treat it in the same way an alcoholic might treat liquor—that is to say I spend an inordinate amount of time planning and working out things so that I will have access to diet soda at all times (caffeinated for during the day, non-caffeinated for evenings), stocking up for the next day, and going out of my way to get certain flavors I’m fixated on (Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper is to me the holy grail of diet pop.  The only place I’ve ever seen it in 20 ounce bottles is at CVS at Chicago and Western).  It’s actually quite a load off my mind not to have to be doing all this extra worrying and plotting. 

Pa-daddy was in town from Thursday until Monday night. I had to work most of the time but I did have Saturday off and was able to attend my nephew Minya’s 6th Birthday party. It was quite an event. They rented out the Portage Theater, a big old-fashioned movie theater on Milwaukee Avenue, and were showing cartoons on the big screen. In the lobby (which was about as big as the average multiplex theater) there was cake and a table with toys and one that had stuff to color with. There were a ton of kids, they invited Minya’s entire kindergarten class plus some kids they know from outside of the class and friends of my three year old niece Kitten.

It was all pretty neat though I find it hard to get my head around the fact that Minya is already a six year old. I can still remember in vivid detail when I came out to visit the week before he was born, what the weather was like (sunny and cold then gray, drizzling and cold), the movies I watched (all horror movies—Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural, The Witch’s Mirror, Daughters of the Darkness), I even remember going to the Whole Foods where I work now for groceries. It doesn’t seem possible that it was six whole years ago.

I had been hoping to go out to dinner with Pa while he was visiting but in the end I just couldn’t. I feel really bad about my body and my weight right now, almost to the point of hallucination—when I look at my body I see the shape of a Hottentot Venus, huge distended stomach and jutting buttocks. I feel like I let my father down but I honestly don’t want to go out in public these days much less eat in public. The thought of going to a restaurant where I wouldn’t have any idea how many calories I was eating freaked me the hell out. We did take a couple of walks together which was nice. He seems to be fairly happy. He’s preaching again at a small church and very involved with the parishioners. He also has his business buying, selling and refinishing antiques and does a lot for my grandmother.

It was good to see him yet part of me feels dissatisfied. It just seems like no one in my family—not just my father but also my sister and her husband-- seems particularly concerned about me. I’ve been having a really hard time lately. I’ve had serious depression that I nearly had to the emergency room over. I’ve had incidents of cutting, they’ve had to give me a medical leave of absence at work, and most of the time I can hardly stand myself. I feel like I’m a complete mess and that no one even notices or if they do notice they’re used to it. Maybe I’ve been crazy so long my latest crisis hardly makes a blip on the radar.

I know this is passive aggressive but I kept saying stuff about how I felt like I was over weight and how uncomfortable I was with my weight and how I felt like I needed to lose weight and eat less. No one told me I looked fine or that I was okay where I was which was sort of what I wanted. Maybe I’m asking too much. I know I shouldn’t try to manipulate people into giving me validation and I’m sure it makes them uncomfortable when I start harping on how much I weigh or how unhappy I’ve been. 

I have a lot of stuff that I need to update about.

Last Friday I had my mental health evaluation at the clinic in Pilsen. They gave me a referral to a psychiatrist but that appointment isn’t until 04/24/08. The same day I had the evaluation I completely crashed out. I missed work (thankfully it’s covered under a medical leave of absence so I won’t incur any points) and was practically catatonic for the rest of the day. For the next couple day I was well enough to go to work but like a zombie barely functioning.

I don’t know what it way-- I tend to have a lot of problems of this kind in the spring when the weather goes back and forth or it might have been stress from everything that’s been going on at work lately plus the evaluation—but it really wasn’t a very convenient time for a crack-up given that the employee forum was scheduled for Tuesday morning and was set to arrive for a visit on Thursday.

Thankfully after a generally horrible weekend by Monday I felt semi-human again and I was able to participate in the forum on Tuesday morning which I think went well. It sounds like there are going to be some positive changes and that Store Leadership will be more involved with the Front End. Also team member input is going to be taken into account when the new Front End Team Leader is hired which is very important.

Overall I feel pretty positive about the forum. There was a good turn-out even though it was at 6:00 a.m. in the morning which tells Store Leadership that people are concerned and that they want change.

I have to say, my personality quirks were on full display at this meeting.

I have a very extravagant streak and I’ve always loved throwing parties and playing hostress so I ended up bringing breakfast—Dunkin Donuts coffee, munchkins, organic half and half and soy creamer, fruit, scones, and mini muffins for 40 people. A bit over the top and a bit over my budget. Luckily one of the Store Leaders offered to reimburse me for part of it.

My other bit of weirdness was that I felt the need to call on my full power for the meeting, so despite getting up at 4:30 a.m. I managed to deck myself out in full make-up and fishnet stocking (because the legs are an often untapped source of power). It’s funny, I guess I see my sexuality not as something that’s really a part of my daily life but as something I evoke at those times when I need to call in the heavy artillery (“So you wanna have some fun? Well break out the big guns” as the L7 song goes).

I was off both my jobs on Tuesday and hoped to get together with my sister or go to the movies but after running some errands in the morning I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon. I think recent events at work (plus a couple of eight hour bagging shifts) have left me kind of exhausted.

Tomorrow morning I have my much-anticipated mental health evaluation. I’d put in a request to have the morning off back in February when I first made the appointment. It was ignored as scheduling requests generally are but I was able to trade for a closing shift so I’ll be able to make it. After the evaluation I’ll hopefully be referred to a psychiatrist and can start the process of adjusting/modifying my medication.

I have been better since the time change but I’m still having difficulties—the episodes of cutting I mentioned last week as well as periods of listlessness and fatigue and times when I feel totally overwhelmed and worthless. I’ve made a conscious effort not to do any more cutting and I’ve been able to hold to it but there have been a couple times in the past weeks where I honestly thought I ought to just go to the emergency room for suicidal ideation.

Yesterday I was at work and having sort of a hard time and ending up opening up maybe a bit too much to Tycho Brahe, a co-worker I feel pretty comfortable around (I’d actually asked out in January, probably not the best idea given that he’s 24 and I’m 36. Still, he was very gracious in turning me down. Poor boy, he must wonder exactly what he did to catch the eye of a mentally unstable older woman).

He’s finishing up a Master’s degree in mathematics next month and planning to go into a program in the fall for a Master’s in humanities with a focus on literature and eventually teach in that field which sounds wonderful. I would love to do something like that but right now it seems so out of my range. Because of my depression bagging groceries for eight hours seems like too much for me to handle most days.

I talked about this to him and it honestly felt good to get it out, I just worry about imposing myself and my problems on others. On the other hand I do feel like it was part of a conversation. It wasn’t just me talking at him. The boundaries of social interactions are so confusing to me. I always worry about going too far though I suspect that most people find me very restrained and unwilling to share any of myself.

Yesterday when I was talking to one of the store higher-ups about what was going on with the forum he asked me an interesting question-- Why did I feel I felt that I needed to go through the whole process of writing a letter and gather signatures? If I had seen problems, why hadn’t come directly to Store Leadership with my concerns?

This question really made me think about the way I view structures of authority. Quite simply I don’t have a lot of faith in them. I don’t trust the system, even when I know the people who it is made up of. I don’t believe that they care about my well being or that they will protect me or look out for my best interest.

Looking at my personal history, it’s fairly easy to see where I get this mistrustful attitude—it can be traced back to the bullying and abuse I experienced as a child and the fact that neither my parents nor teachers did anything about it. When I complained about what was happening to me it was seen as something that was my fault. It was up to me to change. If I was being picked on for being fat, I should lose weight. If I was mocked for my shyness and awkwardness I needed to be more outgoing and friendly.

When I was in sixth grade I had my first serious depressive episode. The symptoms were fairly obvious. I gained about sixty pounds, cried frequently; spoke rarely, lost interest in everything. The only memory I have of anyone noticing was my teacher telling me sarcastically to “have a good cry, go down the river.”

I’m only 36 years old but when I compare things in my childhood to the way my niece and nephew are being raised it seems like it was another era, a harsh, brutal, primitive time where things like peer abuse and mental illness could be ignored by those in authority.

I think most children grow up believing that their parents and teachers will help them and look out for them. I grew up believing they wouldn’t, that they didn’t care, that I wasn’t worth their notice. As a result I have always felt cut off and on my own. If I have a problem I see it as my problem. I don’t ask for help because I don’t believe it will be given.

Unfortunately, this point of view was reinforced later in my life. When I was living in Upstate New York working for the county government one of the social workers in the office where I was secretary was viciously mean to me on a regular basis. It was a pattern with her. The secretary before me had actually left because of the way the social worker mistreated her. The office supervisor knew what was going on but her way of dealing with the problem was to advise me to wait it out as the social worker was going to be moving on to another job eventually.

Most of my life, I’ve gotten the message to put up and shut up and I’ve taken that message to heart. I didn’t go directly to Store Leadership because at this point in my life, I honestly can’t think of a time when a system has ever worked in my favor. The idea that what I had to say, just me personally, would count for anything never occurred to me.

That seems like sort of a sad statement. I’ve really internalized the idea that I lack value and power and I want to change that. I want to feel like I’m worth something, like I deserve to be happy and well treated. Yet even writing those words makes me cringe. I feel like it’s wanting too much, feeling entitled to something I don’t deserve.

I’ve finished writing The Letter and a copy is currently in the hands of my co-conspirator who is gathering up signatures.  I’m kind of a nervous wreck about the whole thing though in all honesty I’m sure that if it wasn’t this, it would be something else and at least this might yield some positive results, if not for me for future generations of Whole Foods cashiers. 

 

Maybe because I’m so apprehensions about The Letter I’ve just found it very difficult to deal with ordinary stuff the past couple days.  Yesterday I just felt ill for the first couple hours I was at work and today I almost got reduced to tears by a customer who lectured me for not handling her apples reverently enough. 

 

“They’ll bruise,” she says.  “They’re very expensive.” 

 

What about my feelings?  Don’t you think they bruise?   Aren’t my feelings worth more than $1.99 a pound?  Can’t you see I’m a delicate fucking flower? 

 

Unfortunately, I seem to be dealing with things by reverting to one of my older bad habits.

( possible triggers and stuff might not want to know )

I’ve been doing okay recently. I’m working 7 days a week but I’m starting to dig myself out of the financial hole caused by my illness in January and February. I’m also writing again which is a good sign, it means my head is getting back together. I think it really helps that spring is coming (despite recent frigid weather here in Chicago). There’s more day light and it’s really been helping. I have high hopes for the time change which is coming up soon. My difficulties really started back in November when we fell back so maybe springing forward will get me back to some semblance of functioning (I suppose I am and have been functioning, but it’s been darned difficult and I haven’t been able to go much beyond the basics of reporting to work, buying groceries and playing my bills in a couple of months).

Last week I talked with the insurance/paid time off coordinator at the Market and he’d contacted my doctor (with my permission) and been able to arrange things so my absences in January and February will be covered under medical leave and won’t be counted against me under the points system. Also any other depression induced illnesses that cause me to miss work are covered which means that I’ll be down to only half a point out of a possible six by the end of March.

This is a huge relief though I any sense of gratitude I might have for the Market is sort of tarnished by the fact that just a few days after I got my reprieve one of my co-workers, a single mother dependent on public transportation (which is fairly unreliable) was fired for absences and tardiness under the points system. She was a really good worker, much better than me and most of the front end staff agrees that it really sucks that she was fired. Really, really sucks. So yeah, I’m keeping my job but not exactly feeling the love.

It’s taken me a while to find a place I could afford but yesterday I set up an appointment for evaluation at the Pilsen-Little Village Community Mental Health Center.  It’s funded by the state so they do sliding scale fees for people such as myself who don’t have insurance coverage for mental health. 

I think this is a step in the right direction, but it’s only a first step.  They couldn’t get me an appointment until March 28 so I have a couple more weeks of being depressed to get through.  And of course I have to go through the evaluation process before I can actually see anyone qualified to mess around with my medication. 

In general however I’m feeling a bit better.  Yesterday I got through the first day with the new register system at work and it wasn’t too bad.  It’s different and will take a while to get used to but no one got mad at me for being too slow which I was afraid would happen.  I really lucked out as far as scheduling.  Tuesday nights are always fairly slow so it was probably the best time to get used to the new system. 

I’d sort of been hoping that after my unpaid sick time I had to take earlier this month I could get myself back on stable ground financially before I dealt with getting my medication sorted out.  However over the past couple of days I’ve come to realize that if I don’t do something about my depression I’m just going to get sick. 

Getting through work is just so damned difficult.  I get so irritated with the customers then I just hate myself for being such a nasty, intolerant cunt then I wonder how I’m going to get through the next six hours and just want to cry. 

I feel like I’m basically leading a joyless existence at this point- going to work, holding on by my fingernails to get through it, being to drained afterwards to do anything as far as finding another job or going back to school..  I never go out or anywhere new, I don’t see my sister’s family at all, I just feel like the world is getting smaller and smaller for me and it would be worth it to see if I can do something to get better, even if it means dipping into my savings.