Happy Easter. Today is supposed to be a time of new beginnings and changes and beauty in the world. The Easter Bunny didn't visit .. I think I was forgotten in the tomb, because it is still so dark in here.
Yesterday was a good day, please make no mistake about it, I didn't cry at all.. after 9 am anyway.. We spent the day meandering about, walked around Yorktown and had a delicious dinner at Surf Riders. There was absolutely nothing in the world to complain or worry about, except the thoughts that continued to bang around in my head, they were and continue to crash into each other, and sometimes they even blend together and that makes things even more fun. I laid in the bed an hour and a half after waking up this morning trying to calm them, trying to quiet the storm, it didn't help much.
As I was googling images for today's post I came across one that just kinda stopped me in my tracks. "Alcoholism is a well documented pathological reaction to unresolved grief". First off I still don't believe I am a alcoholic, and I am still not saying that I will never have a drink again, but, what I do know is that for almost 8 years I would say the majority of the nights were spent drinking enough that I would likely not pass a sobriety test. So you are wondering why I say I am not an alcoholic, for the same reason I am not an addict. I just don't have that personality. Maybe you think I am lying to myself, and that is ok for right now, but what I can tell you for a fact is, any time I chose to not drink, I just didn't. When I made the decision to stop taking enough Xanax a day to sedate a small horse (they were prescribed and most days I didn't take the full dosage) no one made me cut back, I did it on my own until about 3 weeks later I just stopped. The problem is when I stopped the Xanax I drank more, when I drank more I got even fatter. Vicious cycle going on. Re are you spinning here? No.. no I am not.. this is going somewhere I promise.
The last time I stopped drinking it was for 90 days, I documented that and we have talked about it and it wasn't horrific. This time I am 44 days in, so roughly half of the time and I am losing my mind. Not because I want a drink, not because I have this overwhelming desire to drink all the vodka's and all the wines (they are still surrounding me.. I have enough in the house to throw a small party if anyone is interested in hanging out). It is because there is absolutely nothing to stop, calm, or dull the thoughts that are inside of me, I know I am quite literally losing my mind. The last time I went cold turkey with no substance modifications, it was late summer into early fall, I was absolutely hopping at both jobs, I was working out at 530 in the morning, my life was complete and utter chaos and I made it that way. If I am doing so many things that require me to be out of my own head, the scrambled mess that is happening in there can't take over completely, maybe just a few weeks of the morbs. This time, I stopped 2 days before Deanna' birthday, 2 weeks before Little Dustin's angelversary, 60 days before De's angelversary... and there is absolutely NOTHING to stop or slow down the thoughts and this pain. Fun times.. fun times.
So what does that have to do with anything else, every damn thing. I guess the first thing we should get right on out of the way and I know I have said this before, I know I am crazy. I know that what is happening to me mentally isn't right or normal, I also can't stop it. You know how I was talking about burning stuff down? Picture it like this. You are standing there, and you see this little fire, just a flicker of a flame close to some dry brush, you think to yourself, "Oh, I better put that out before it starts a forest fire." So you grab the hose and you rush over and you look down to turn on the hose and realize that oh shit.. you grabbed the hose to the gas pump.. you are screaming in your head "DO NOT DO THAT!!!! DO NOT TURN THAT ON!!!" Yet every other fiber of your being can't hear you.. and you turn it on. That is what it is like, you know you are burning shit down but have absolutely no ability to stop it. When my brain is not working, when there is no chaos or substance on the outside to dull the chaos that is happening on the inside that is exactly what I do.. burn shit down.
I am going to give you a few examples of what I mean.
Let's take a friendship first.
Me: Hey your friendship means absolutely everything to me, but I really need XYZ (yes I use letters and numbers to redact details)
Them: I don't want or need that so no.
Me: I understand but I need it for my own sanity and security
Them: I don't want or need that so no.
Me: Can I try to explain why?
Them: Sure but I don't want or need that so no
Me: Explain Explain
Them: annoyed a bit
Me: Panic Explain, shit that makes no sense, retract, explain, anxiety.
Them: you know this is stupid and still no.
Me : full blown panic, jumbled up confused explanation
Them: you are making no sense.. you don't need this either
Me: ABORT MISSION! F YOU.. GET OUT OF MY LIFE.
Let's look at works situation:
First thing that should be noted is I have many more items on my to do list than can easily fit into a 40 hour week, yet I am limited to a 40 hour week, so that is a cause of stress to start with. Add in the stress of what I actually do, there is a double whammy, add in that I no longer work insane hours so I have so much more head time in my not at work hours, triple whammy. So we end up with scenarios like last week.
Small fire.. ut oh.. got to put that out.. oh no another has sprung up.. put that one out, crap the other one wasn't fully out, it is refueling, omg there is a third one! It goes on and on and on until the last day you are in a meeting, and you are Anderson the Expert (video here you really want to watch this ( https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg ) but at the same time you are explaining perpendicularity and why you can't make red lines with green ink, all of the insecure thoughts, and questioning yourself, and trying to understand what exactly it is that someone wants when you can't understand their question to begin with, and panic sets in and you may not make sense anymore, because you can't even pay attention closely to what you are saying because you are so busy trying to figure out what it is everyone wants and the solution because you are the expert and you know full well that the way they are asking it to be done doesn't make sense but you can't explain why, oh hey I know you are trying to figure this out but by the way your daughter died 8 years ago, do you remember that? Also you are fat and stupid and how did you even get this job anyway! So the meeting ends with you in tears and apparently everyone else mad.
Minutes later you get an email from your boss telling you how frustrating you are, there were people named by name who found you frustrating and how you need to perform better and present better, but you are already in full out tears, then you see one of the people he named you considered a work friend, and for the life of you, there you can't figure out what you did to annoy them so badly. So your brain immediately goes running for the water hose because EVERYTHING is now on fire... which remember from above is actually gasoline and your only out is quitting the job you have had for 20 years, because you suck, you are stupid, and all you do is frustrate people and you can't even soften this with a bottle of wine at the end of the week!!! You then spend the rest of the day trying desperately to figure out what you did to your friend, only to find out the only thing you did was nothing, it wasn't even true.
What needs to happen, what honestly full on absolutely SHOULD happen is I take the week off of work, I find a doctor willing to help me sort through some of this shit and I go somewhere alone and work on me, because 8 years of wine and xanax suppressed emotions, grief and feelings are RIGHT THERE and are little sparks by that brush, I see them.. sparking their little selves all around. I should be able to go to my boss and say, "Hey, I really need to talk to you, I need to take this week off, I realize it leaves everyone in a bind but this is incredibly important, not only for myself but all of my future work as well." but we don't live in a place that is ok. I don't work in a place that is allowable or accepted, especially since as I have been told " I present myself as a strong, confident and arrogant woman" If they only knew inside I am absolutely trembling in fear that I am going to mess up and get fired so I am constantly trying to help everyone with everything so the wheels don't fall off and our customers have everything they need. Except like the mechanic my own damn car is falling the hell apart!
It is so weird to me that I can write all of this out, and I know exactly what is happening but I don't have the ability to fix it and or explain what I need, or apparently explain to others what they need without the chaos of all of the fires banging together into my thoughts and confusing things. One sure fire way to know I am spinning, I talk too fast, I interrupt, and repeat a word over and over. Like Hang on.. I may say it 4 times before I can get the rest of the thought put together, it happened Friday on my call, I was fussed at for it. I was seriously treated like that 4 year old who had annoyed you in his retelling of something exciting to him when he got hung up on and then and then and then... "we heard you say hang on the first time" and I literally outloud said "Oh I thought that was in my head" to which in my head all I heard WAS YOU FUCKING MORON.. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!
Over the years I have been diagnosed with so many stupid things that I could use an entire alphabet behind my name. Likely some of them are true, some of them aren't, but which ever they are, other than my medications I take to go to sleep at night (it is the only peace there is right now), I am fully non-medicated. Why would I do that to myself, why don't I just find someone to give me something, because no one is invested in helping the issue, they are fully invested in try this pill, try that and if they don't work, they up the dosage or change it again and never ever have I felt healthy when taking them. What about therapy? Yea what about it? I had a good therapist once, she felt more like a friend, but at the time I was so medicated it didn't help, it was literally just me talking and talking and talking. You now like I do here, so tell me how does that help? Other than the total stress of spending $500 bucks or more a month that since you are now only working one job don't really have.
What I want to do .. right this very minute.. is quit my job. Enroll in school, study psychology figure out how to fix myself and help others! But that just is not possible, neither is taking off work and helping myself, or finding help, or even finding a few days of peace.
So tell me.. how am I supposed to do this again? I so badly want to snuggle on the sofa today, watching bad tv, with my snuggly blanket, and a bottle of wine or two just to shut up the damn thoughts, so I can go back to work tomorrow, face the fires, and see if I can articulate my thoughts so everyone gets what they need. Instead I am going to the park to walk the dogs.. yay more thinking time.
Fuck me..
Peace Love and Light
Re
Yesterday was a good day, please make no mistake about it, I didn't cry at all.. after 9 am anyway.. We spent the day meandering about, walked around Yorktown and had a delicious dinner at Surf Riders. There was absolutely nothing in the world to complain or worry about, except the thoughts that continued to bang around in my head, they were and continue to crash into each other, and sometimes they even blend together and that makes things even more fun. I laid in the bed an hour and a half after waking up this morning trying to calm them, trying to quiet the storm, it didn't help much.
As I was googling images for today's post I came across one that just kinda stopped me in my tracks. "Alcoholism is a well documented pathological reaction to unresolved grief". First off I still don't believe I am a alcoholic, and I am still not saying that I will never have a drink again, but, what I do know is that for almost 8 years I would say the majority of the nights were spent drinking enough that I would likely not pass a sobriety test. So you are wondering why I say I am not an alcoholic, for the same reason I am not an addict. I just don't have that personality. Maybe you think I am lying to myself, and that is ok for right now, but what I can tell you for a fact is, any time I chose to not drink, I just didn't. When I made the decision to stop taking enough Xanax a day to sedate a small horse (they were prescribed and most days I didn't take the full dosage) no one made me cut back, I did it on my own until about 3 weeks later I just stopped. The problem is when I stopped the Xanax I drank more, when I drank more I got even fatter. Vicious cycle going on. Re are you spinning here? No.. no I am not.. this is going somewhere I promise.
The last time I stopped drinking it was for 90 days, I documented that and we have talked about it and it wasn't horrific. This time I am 44 days in, so roughly half of the time and I am losing my mind. Not because I want a drink, not because I have this overwhelming desire to drink all the vodka's and all the wines (they are still surrounding me.. I have enough in the house to throw a small party if anyone is interested in hanging out). It is because there is absolutely nothing to stop, calm, or dull the thoughts that are inside of me, I know I am quite literally losing my mind. The last time I went cold turkey with no substance modifications, it was late summer into early fall, I was absolutely hopping at both jobs, I was working out at 530 in the morning, my life was complete and utter chaos and I made it that way. If I am doing so many things that require me to be out of my own head, the scrambled mess that is happening in there can't take over completely, maybe just a few weeks of the morbs. This time, I stopped 2 days before Deanna' birthday, 2 weeks before Little Dustin's angelversary, 60 days before De's angelversary... and there is absolutely NOTHING to stop or slow down the thoughts and this pain. Fun times.. fun times.
So what does that have to do with anything else, every damn thing. I guess the first thing we should get right on out of the way and I know I have said this before, I know I am crazy. I know that what is happening to me mentally isn't right or normal, I also can't stop it. You know how I was talking about burning stuff down? Picture it like this. You are standing there, and you see this little fire, just a flicker of a flame close to some dry brush, you think to yourself, "Oh, I better put that out before it starts a forest fire." So you grab the hose and you rush over and you look down to turn on the hose and realize that oh shit.. you grabbed the hose to the gas pump.. you are screaming in your head "DO NOT DO THAT!!!! DO NOT TURN THAT ON!!!" Yet every other fiber of your being can't hear you.. and you turn it on. That is what it is like, you know you are burning shit down but have absolutely no ability to stop it. When my brain is not working, when there is no chaos or substance on the outside to dull the chaos that is happening on the inside that is exactly what I do.. burn shit down.
I am going to give you a few examples of what I mean.
Let's take a friendship first.
Me: Hey your friendship means absolutely everything to me, but I really need XYZ (yes I use letters and numbers to redact details)
Them: I don't want or need that so no.
Me: I understand but I need it for my own sanity and security
Them: I don't want or need that so no.
Me: Can I try to explain why?
Them: Sure but I don't want or need that so no
Me: Explain Explain
Them: annoyed a bit
Me: Panic Explain, shit that makes no sense, retract, explain, anxiety.
Them: you know this is stupid and still no.
Me : full blown panic, jumbled up confused explanation
Them: you are making no sense.. you don't need this either
Me: ABORT MISSION! F YOU.. GET OUT OF MY LIFE.
Let's look at works situation:
First thing that should be noted is I have many more items on my to do list than can easily fit into a 40 hour week, yet I am limited to a 40 hour week, so that is a cause of stress to start with. Add in the stress of what I actually do, there is a double whammy, add in that I no longer work insane hours so I have so much more head time in my not at work hours, triple whammy. So we end up with scenarios like last week.
Small fire.. ut oh.. got to put that out.. oh no another has sprung up.. put that one out, crap the other one wasn't fully out, it is refueling, omg there is a third one! It goes on and on and on until the last day you are in a meeting, and you are Anderson the Expert (video here you really want to watch this ( https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg ) but at the same time you are explaining perpendicularity and why you can't make red lines with green ink, all of the insecure thoughts, and questioning yourself, and trying to understand what exactly it is that someone wants when you can't understand their question to begin with, and panic sets in and you may not make sense anymore, because you can't even pay attention closely to what you are saying because you are so busy trying to figure out what it is everyone wants and the solution because you are the expert and you know full well that the way they are asking it to be done doesn't make sense but you can't explain why, oh hey I know you are trying to figure this out but by the way your daughter died 8 years ago, do you remember that? Also you are fat and stupid and how did you even get this job anyway! So the meeting ends with you in tears and apparently everyone else mad.
Minutes later you get an email from your boss telling you how frustrating you are, there were people named by name who found you frustrating and how you need to perform better and present better, but you are already in full out tears, then you see one of the people he named you considered a work friend, and for the life of you, there you can't figure out what you did to annoy them so badly. So your brain immediately goes running for the water hose because EVERYTHING is now on fire... which remember from above is actually gasoline and your only out is quitting the job you have had for 20 years, because you suck, you are stupid, and all you do is frustrate people and you can't even soften this with a bottle of wine at the end of the week!!! You then spend the rest of the day trying desperately to figure out what you did to your friend, only to find out the only thing you did was nothing, it wasn't even true.
What needs to happen, what honestly full on absolutely SHOULD happen is I take the week off of work, I find a doctor willing to help me sort through some of this shit and I go somewhere alone and work on me, because 8 years of wine and xanax suppressed emotions, grief and feelings are RIGHT THERE and are little sparks by that brush, I see them.. sparking their little selves all around. I should be able to go to my boss and say, "Hey, I really need to talk to you, I need to take this week off, I realize it leaves everyone in a bind but this is incredibly important, not only for myself but all of my future work as well." but we don't live in a place that is ok. I don't work in a place that is allowable or accepted, especially since as I have been told " I present myself as a strong, confident and arrogant woman" If they only knew inside I am absolutely trembling in fear that I am going to mess up and get fired so I am constantly trying to help everyone with everything so the wheels don't fall off and our customers have everything they need. Except like the mechanic my own damn car is falling the hell apart!
It is so weird to me that I can write all of this out, and I know exactly what is happening but I don't have the ability to fix it and or explain what I need, or apparently explain to others what they need without the chaos of all of the fires banging together into my thoughts and confusing things. One sure fire way to know I am spinning, I talk too fast, I interrupt, and repeat a word over and over. Like Hang on.. I may say it 4 times before I can get the rest of the thought put together, it happened Friday on my call, I was fussed at for it. I was seriously treated like that 4 year old who had annoyed you in his retelling of something exciting to him when he got hung up on and then and then and then... "we heard you say hang on the first time" and I literally outloud said "Oh I thought that was in my head" to which in my head all I heard WAS YOU FUCKING MORON.. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!
Over the years I have been diagnosed with so many stupid things that I could use an entire alphabet behind my name. Likely some of them are true, some of them aren't, but which ever they are, other than my medications I take to go to sleep at night (it is the only peace there is right now), I am fully non-medicated. Why would I do that to myself, why don't I just find someone to give me something, because no one is invested in helping the issue, they are fully invested in try this pill, try that and if they don't work, they up the dosage or change it again and never ever have I felt healthy when taking them. What about therapy? Yea what about it? I had a good therapist once, she felt more like a friend, but at the time I was so medicated it didn't help, it was literally just me talking and talking and talking. You now like I do here, so tell me how does that help? Other than the total stress of spending $500 bucks or more a month that since you are now only working one job don't really have.
What I want to do .. right this very minute.. is quit my job. Enroll in school, study psychology figure out how to fix myself and help others! But that just is not possible, neither is taking off work and helping myself, or finding help, or even finding a few days of peace.
So tell me.. how am I supposed to do this again? I so badly want to snuggle on the sofa today, watching bad tv, with my snuggly blanket, and a bottle of wine or two just to shut up the damn thoughts, so I can go back to work tomorrow, face the fires, and see if I can articulate my thoughts so everyone gets what they need. Instead I am going to the park to walk the dogs.. yay more thinking time.
Fuck me..
Peace Love and Light
Re
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