please do not panic, this is just a test
You are currently browsing the archive for the Just Stuff category.
KFC doubledown is back. Really unhealthy but really good. Hopefully when this cold is easing I’ll get to have one.
The cold is really kicking my arse. My legs get weak and trembly after walking a block. Headachy, sore muscles, general crappyness. It’s a cold, I’ll survive, just sucks at the time.
I have become addicted to rice noodles. I make two meals with them. Both are technically soup, I suppose. One is more soupy than the other. That one is also a cheat, I use a pre-made paste, the Tom Yum Soup. I then add a load of mushrooms and some prawns and then ladle it over the noodles. It’s very spicy which I love. The other one is made from scratch. I made up a stock out of cheap chicken, thighs or drumsticks, whatever is cheapest and has bones in it. I make a really tasty stock and then get a good load of chicken meat. So the stock is the base of the soup, and I throw in some shredded ginger, chillies, the chicken and since I don’t have any bok choy, I add a few handfuls of frozen spinach. It’s a tasty soup/meal.
The other day, in a fit of boredom I wasted some time organising all my social network type sites. In doing that I found out someone I used to know removed me from their journal’s friend list. Now it doesn’t worry me, but I think if I had seen it a few months ago, I might have been upset by it. There was a time when we considered this person a good friend, and many of us had taken the risk of getting to know them on that personal level, as individuals not just as Shire. So I think there would have been hurt that all meant nothing to them. Of course, I am also aware that they probably have a lot of things to bitch about me. I’m not perfect, not even close, I’m not nice or a wonderful friend, so they probably felt I’d ruined everything. Blah. But well now I’ve moved on. I hold a grudge sure, as in there is no way to repair the damage done, there are hard feelings, but I am not going to get bogged down in it.
Another woman has stopped being my friend too lately. The woman in the next office that refused to respect my right to say no. I stayed strong and assertive and kept saying no as she pushed and pushed. In the end she got all tearful and said she was going to cry, well maybe she should have respected me when I said no to her giving me money the first time. Anyway, since then she won’t speak to me, she makes remarks when I’m in hearing, and told my office mate that she only agrees with me because I’d make my office mate’s life too difficult. It was all very dramatic and annoying and I have set a boundary I’m not willing to cross. She doesn’t like that. And I just don’t care.
It does make me wonder sometimes about my ability to attach. Sean talks about it not being a lack of attachment but rather me being avoidant of attachment. Although I do have attachment disorders, he also says I probably have an ambivalent attachment style when looking at the normal spectrum. I do sometimes worry that I can walk away without much pain or regret. I sometimes worry I got over my grief too long. I hold onto my anger and pain but let go of my connections. But at the same time, it seems normal to me. It is how I am.
I want soup but I don’t think my body will let me.
And to share.. here’s Jakes big up crane.
A link to my public ranty journal. It’s basically what it says on the tin, a rant about gender stereotypes in my Doctor Who.
The above link is about my neighbour. It is so not investigative journalism. In fact it is missing so many salient facts.
One: these flats are one room. Not one bedroom, one room. They are specific for one person. This is made clear when you move in. Yes you could have someone stay the night. I have had someone stay a couple of nights, but no one else is allowed to move in. The woman had her sister live with her for months two years ago. Was found out, and told it was against the rules. She was given a free slide, the landlord said he’d let it go that time. Now she’s done the same thing. The people living here are either the elderly or those with mental health disabilities. We generally need our own space and quiet. She never considered anyone else.
The kids had not boundaries. They are kids they don’t, but they weren’t reinforced. They climbed into other people’s balconies, and would enter other people’s homes without asking. No one asked how other residents felt about having to put up with the noise and disruption.
A landlord is a landlord. He isn’t there to fix your life, to be a compassionate ear. He is there to ensure that all the city council flats are run to the tenancy agreements and everything is done properly. The fact that her family is struggling is sad, although my sympathy is limited by her bragging about her son’s criminal activities. But it is also not the landlord’s responsibility to fix that.
Going to the newspaper to get sympathy just doesn’t impress me.
Easter, and the weeks around it, is a time of crisis. The craziness always amplifies, it’s like the volume keeps getting pumped up until there’s just no hiding it. We may have learnt better skills that sitting on cliff edges, but the flashbacks, the time loss, the non-cooperation, the confusion and anxiety are all on high volume.
So years ago we recognised the pattern, and we now work to protect and soothe, to make it through with minimal damage. It is a time we used batten down, hide to protect ourselves, and other’s image of us. The people I work with, share a floor, an academic relationship with, they do not have to see me go crazy, they do not have to deal with someone out of touch with reality. And yeah, more importantly I don’t want them to connect that crazy with me, I don’t want them reassessing how they think of me with the new knowledge.
So for every year my way of dealing is to remove myself from the world. It may not be winning any awards for healthy recovery but it worked. This year the same as all the rest? What do you think? Of course not, no, instead, we find ourselves committed to giving a seminar presentation a week after Good Friday. We have to stand in front of a group of people and hope enough time has passed that we no longer start hallucinating.
How did this happen? Lazy contentment. No one bothered to check when the presentation would be, no one thought, hey remember Easter. I am use to the routine now. The craziness is there, but it is expected, there is a routine about it. Cause and effect crazy is much easier to negotiate, it’s definable, understandable, and there is established containments.
Sabotage comes in many forms. Not doing the work, destroying the work is usually the most effective, but I also think pushing too hard, forcing myself into a situation I’m not prepared for is another. Doing the presentation isn’t sabotage. It will be hard, and a challenge and yes, damn scary, but that is all part of the journey, of recovery and of academia. Pushing myself to do a presentation at a time of extreme distress, with forehand knowledge of how dysfunctional I will be, that to me connects to sabotage.
And it is an almost perfect Catch-22 situation. If I pull out, then I will end up punishing myself as a failure, as giving into the crazy. It will be a sign of my incompetence, and as much as I would like to believe I have moved beyond it, it will be a weapon to bludgeon myself with. If I do it and fail, the same thing will apply. And here’s an extra degree of crunchy crazy. If I do it, and it goes ok, I will feel lost. I will feel that suffering is what is expected of me, it will reinforce all those messages in my head, and will taint the pleasure I get.
This was not a well thought through plan.
Good sign of the encroaching crazy. Decided to have some chips. Put them on, went to check I thought a few minutes later, chips black in smoking oil. Yay house fires. If I’m going to be all positive spinny on this, at least it shows the improvements in our life. There was a time that was the norm, those gaps and disconnects were how we saw life. Now it is unusual that it happens without any awareness.
There were positives I was going to talk about in this entry, things that are good, I know they are good, under the crumbling weight. And I will return to sharing them when I get my mind turned the right way around. For now even though I know they are good and exciting and I want to share, when I do I am just overrun with negativity and pessimism, more than my standard amounts. I don’t want to write here stuff that even as I write it I know it isn’t true, even when I’m believing it I know it not to be correct.
So I just got a review form for my benefit, but they are not asking for a medical certificate like usual and I’m having a dreadful panic attack, I feel sick, because I’ve convinced myself they will cut off my benefit. I worked 7 hours recently, ended up having major mental health issues because of it and didn’t work the next day like I said I would, but still I worked. So maybe they are going to be pissed, I don’t know. I’ve never not had to give a medical certificate before. I’m almost in tears about this and they haven’t actually cut my benefit. Not sure how to handle it.
Mouse made us eat McDonald’s icecream today that our roommate brought. Now we can’t handle eating any other food. Crazy brain being crazy with food issues
I had to go down to town today. I really didn’t want to but I ran out of toilet paper and cat food, two things that really can’t wait. There were a lot of people in gowns or dressed up for graduation. It was a strange feeling, because I know I didn’t want to do the whole graduation thing, I could have if I wanted to, regardless of there being no one to celebrate with me. So it really was my choice, and the right one. But I think the skiting part of me wanted to be wearing a gown so people will know. But my name is in the local newspaper, which I feel oddly proud about.
With the help of a secret theory I have $90 for my birthday/graduation. I decided to spend some of a bottle of wine and some fancy cheeses. I’ve decided instead of going out for my birthday (too crazy to be in public) I was going to make a special antipasto/ploughman’s type dinner, cheeses, pickles, preserved meats and bread. It’s an expensive treat but well I don’t do it often. I’ll get the bread and meats and the rest on Monday.
I also got my hair cut with the money. Not so thrilling but I needed a haircut. I’m disappointed, but then I’m always disappointed when I get my hair cut. It isn’t a bad hair cut it’s just a lot longer than I asked for. She cut off probably between 30-40 mm, but could have cut at least another 20 mm from it. So its not as short as I wanted. It looks ok, like I said, it just means I’ll need to get it cut again. I’ve never had a good haircut it seems. And it didn’t help that the hairdresser ignored me completely. Sometimes it seems annoying how chatting hairdressers can be, but one that refuses to even speak, its just horrible.
I have just finished my 20 minutes of exercise. For the last seven days I have been stepping up and down for between 18-20 minutes each day. It really is a landmine, only made worse by so many people getting triggered by it. There are a lot of issues, physically and emotionally. Both good and bad. Physically I think I started it for my feet and it might be good for me, but at the same time my body is bitching like crazy right now. My left leg resists immediately, it hurts when I start. And my knees are really complaining. So yay exercise. Ok I’m never going to be yaying exercise without dripping it in sarcasm.
And the final (god I hope) instalment in the mother saga. She rang yesterday annoyed because my name wasn’t in the paper. Ok first, even if she had the right day, it wouldn’t be my fault the ODT excluded my name, but second, and more headshaking, I had told her 3 times previously it would be on the 12th. Seems listening is something other people have to do. It amused me. She then said she was going to be too busy on Saturday so won’t have time to pop in and see me. There was a moment of ‘oh mummy’ but I think she pushed too hard on that button and it’s burnt out. Because really all I thought was good I don’t have to deal with her. And I think she realised she lost the power here, because when I said, ‘enjoy your lunch then’ she made a comment about ‘isn’t your birthday around now’, like she’d completely forgotten it. I know my mother, it was an intentional dig, and it missed. So she’s heading off on Saturday and by rights I won’t have to deal with her for months.
I seem to have developed hypochondria. It’s odd, it’s so not me usually. I know one of us has always craved a major illness or disability, but this isn’t her hoping. It started with the swollen feet. Usually we’d just suffer through them, go holy fuck they are swollen but not care. This time we panic. We think heart failure. The doctor we saw when we fell gave us a run of blood tests, and they were all in acceptable limits. We had our heart tested at the hospital a couple of months ago, they said it was fine. The Doctor on Friday said I was having gastro reflux issues that were causing the chest pains. So ok, he gave me pills for those, and gave me lactose for some reason. I say some reason because we were all sort of dissociated at that point. I know it was to soften my poop, make it easier to shit. But I didn’t really think I needed it, so i didn’t fill that script. Now today, two days in on the new meds, my poop is dark and jagged and there’s traces of blood in it, so I start to panic, I think of colon cancer and serious illness. I keep ignoring the fact the doctor seem to recognise this was going to happen and gave me meds, I’m ignoring that it started 2 days after starting new meds, I’m ignoring that sore anus that would indicate piles, or slight tears. Instead I go start to major illness and death all alone. God, even after just writing this I can see how illogical I was being. Just not sure what’s started this fear of illness thing, we never dealt with it before.
Of course if you read this and know we are really dying of colon cancer feel free to intervene and get us to rush to the doctor (can’t just completely give up my paranoia).
But the thing is I’m not sure why I’m suddenly worried about this. I never have been before. Being sick triggers the hell out of me at the best of times. I’m still not good with it, but that was different than getting worried my ‘sick’ was a serious illness. That is odd to me. And I’m trying to not get caught in that mess. Being sick is sign of being selfish and self-centred. It was a sign of how bad I was, how I cared about no one but myself. So I get that fear of letting anyone know I’m sick, or the fear when people start trying to nurse me when I’m sick. But I’ve never feared some terrible illness, or dying from some sickness. I’ve never made a niggle into a tumour. I feel stupid though, panicking over non-existent illnesses. I do remember saying to someone that the hypochondria is a sign of improvement. There were many years when I’d get worked up and upset about the fact I would never get up the nerve to kill myself, now I’m getting worked up and upset about dying from some horrible illness, so the paranoia and stupidity is about something that people think is normal.
Because my feet are still really swollen and it’s an issue, I’ve started sitting on the couch with my feet up. It’s not comfortable really, the couch is a little too short, and it’s old and the springs are fucked. But it’s workable. It is good, except, well my cat is really pissed off with me. The couch it seems is hers, and how dare I sit on it. She is looking at me right now like she’s planning on a way to pull my intestines out of my nose, or something similarly sadistic. But it will manage my feet swelling without stopping my life. I’m still going to run around and do things. I can still watch tv. I’m not going to give up on doing things, but then when I’m home keep my legs up as much as possible. It’s frustrating, but we’ll see.
It appears that because I’m not going to the actual graduation I have to wait a week to get my diploma. Ok slightly less than a week but it still pisses me off. The whole graduation thing has been a hassle. I couldn’t graduate on the 1st because there was no more room. But the thing was I was always going to do it in absentia, so my graduating then wouldn’t have added to the numbers. I’m not sure what takes so long that I can’t get my degree for 5 days. On the interesting note though it means I get the diploma on the same day as my birthday, so that’s something I suppose. A very minor something.
Seems my picking.. or selfharm.. or whatever you want to call it is now an official diagnosis.
Every week, well almost every week, I stop in at a cafe and get a coffee. It’s my treat, plus with the bus schedules and the wait on the street for the bus up to therapy needs a coffee. So anyway, I try to make sure I have the $3:50 in my wallet. It’s not hard to make sure, but it’s two days before payday so sometimes it’s a tight squeeze. Anyway, most times when I go in, there’s a plate of chocolate brownies. They look dense and rich and well, browniery, but they are $4 and I never seem to have $4 in my wallet. The closest I got one day was $3:80, and I can’t say how frustrating that was. So every time I go in and see it I tell myself that I need to make sure I put $4 extra aside, and then every week I realise I forgot when I go in and see the brownie and think, damn I want one. You would think after 2 months I would actually remember to put aside the money. Of course it might turn out to be one of those disappointments, you know, when you’ve wanted something for a long time and built up that desire and then you get it and it just isn’t as good as the fantasy in your head. That said, I don’t care. I want one of those damn brownies.