tools

So in theory, I am in the hospital (PHP), to learn coping skills. To learn how to deal with emotional chaos and the like.
my mantra:
"I am doing the best I can right this second"
And I cannot underestimate the power of breathing.

However, right now I am locked in my bedroom while jon and his mom interview a potential nanny. I feel like someone took the car keys away. Actually it is more like, I gave the car keys away. So the best I can do at this second is run away, actually just hide in my room.

These are some things that I have to try to keep in my head:
-Eventually I am not going to be depressed.
-The fact that I feel like it was a huge mistake for me to have a baby is part of the depression.
-Eventually I may even begin to enjoy this.
-This is not my fault.
-Negative thoughts are only going to encourage more negativity. Instead of saying "I hate my self I am so fucking stupid I would be doing the world a favor if I just donated my body to science."
I should say
"I deserve to love myself, I am doing the very best that I can, I will get better."

If you have read this blog, you know I am not a positive paula. It is really hard to try to flip the script on thirty years of thinking. But that shit wasn't working for me so maybe this will...

Fun with Acupuncture

Some of you may remember my last bout with acupuncture and may have wondered why I would bother again. I have two friends that highly recommended it for depression.
Last Wednesday I called this new acupuncturist, who my babysitter referred me to, and my massage guy. Whoever called me back first, that would be my treat to me.

The acupuncturist called back first.
She had a cancellation, I made an appointment for the afternoon.

She was really nice and checked my pulses and looked at my tongue.
I laid down in the face donut and she stuck all these needles in. Right away I could tell this was different. The places she was putting in the needles were vibrating.
She put them in and left me to unblock my channels. Then she walked away.

After a while, I convinced myself that she had forgotten about me. Now I have no way to measure the amount of time I was there for. It was a while more than 1/2 an hour. I started off just saying hello and listening to my voice. And then I started calling louder and louder. I shall spare you the pathetic details. But it ended with her running - I was screaming and sobbing on the table. Immobilized by the pain of the needles (because of course I tried to get up). She finally pulled the needles out and I sat up and balled for 45 minutes. She made me tea. It was horrible. It was a traumatic experience to say the least.
She forgot a needle in my wrist and the only way I found it was after a few very uncomfortable minutes it was poking me deep in my chakra or whatever it was poking. I have a huge gnarly bruise on my wrist now.

Nothing like showing up at the mental hospital with a suspicious injury.

PHP

That stands for the Partial Hospitalization Program I started last week at our local hospital.

Yes, gentle reader, I am in a mental health facility.

Things are not getting better, they are getting worse. Despite my mental health drug regime I feel shitty and sad all the time. Dr. Liz was getting concerned that my breaks with reality were becoming too infrequent. This was the next step. The next step is inpatient.

I have come to the realization that this is not going away on its own. Also my impulse control is really almost non-existent. I have had to admit openly that my son is not safe around me and that I am not so safe around myself in my current state.

So now I go to "group" therapy with a bunch of other depressed people. Jon is taking advantage of the family leave act...

So my drugs were boosted in a major way and i agreed to go to this day program to get some perspective on my life and remove the stresses so that the medicine can work and we can all move on...

I really don't know what else to say. I am passed the point of being embarrassed.

Camel Lights and I: A love Story

1994
Poser high-school senior stops secretly smoking in her car and goes to college. She smokes like it making money for her. I smoked often and a lot.
This abusive affair continues on and off through the next 6 years.
2001
I was living in Brooklyn at the time and working for Nautica Inc. I got a massive respiratory infection that threw me for a serious loop. I was on all kinds of gnarly antibiotics. I was spewing up a rainbow of phlegm samples. Cigarettes and I broke off abruptly and soundly.
Fast Forward to 2007
I am one of those people that was happy when they made it illegal to smoke in bars in NYC. I am the one coughing when the smoke gets in my face. I ask people to move in cafes if they try to smoke near my baby.
Jon calls me a fascist.

I bought a pack on Wednesday, they are almost gone.

I am supposed to report to Dr. Liz any uncharacteristic behavior. She is afraid the Zoloft is making me "manic-y", (honest Mariel!) and she wants to put me on a mood stabilizer.

I hate this road I am on. I find myself often wishing I had never gone here.

The weird thing is how delicious and enticing the cigarettes are. Occasionally, in the last years I have been drinking and tasted one just for old time. They did me wrong and made me gag. I am no longer gagging and I am craving one.
Yuck!
I know how stupid it is. Why am I doing this? I know they age you. WTF?!

I Left my Sanity in San Francisco

The only adult interactions I have lately are with therapists. It is a very surreal mindset to go from instinctual toddler care to trying to probe your mind for incidents you've been trying to forget.
For some reason I went from seeing none to four in the span of two weeks. Shopping for a shrink is a serious time investment. But I 've settled on Dr. Liz. She is the most indulgent thing I have ever had.

It has been unbelievably cold here in the City by the Bay.

Good thing about Zoloft:
I am making eye contact again.
Sometimes I even initiate conversations, instead of my usual social charm of trying to pretend I am invisible.

The Concentration man, In the last year + I may have read 4 books, Maybe. But I am back as the reading machine I once was. Please allow me to ........0000000000 myself by listing the books I have read in the last two months:
The Time Travelers Wife.
The Historian.
The Life of Pi.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the night-time.
The Kite Runner (part of the San Francisco reading club last month.)
Middlesex.
Marley and Me.
The Grass is Singing: by Doris Lessing.
Surfacing: by Margaret Atwood.
There is No You Without Me: by Melissa Fay Greene.
I didn't list the authors of the pop books. I thought this list would be more impressive, maybe I forgot some...

Anyone reading anything amazing that I may like?
I could do a book swap with you, fun mail!

anyone?

Bring on the Sticks and Stones

I had a 90 minute intake session this morning (with a woman who may just save my life).
There were words used, words like:
Manic Depressive,
Bi-Polar Disorder,
Crisis Mode,
Psychosis,
Aggressive Medication Therapy,
Disease,
Sickness,
Chemical Imbalance.

Just a little indication on how the year has been thus far...

Silver Lining?

At least while I am wearing a pad the size of a Subaru, since there is no tampon that can staunch the current without causing me horrible cramps, my jeans don't reek like the tiny pee that escapes every time I cough.
Have I mentions I am still recovering from the flu?
I cough, a lot.
Cumulatively, there is a lot of piss in my pants.

When do I know it is time to switch to pee pads? Perhaps I should grab some now, you know, just while I am coughing...