June 12, 2008 at 11:45 pm (Ramblings)
Tags: disability, Rich Mullins, security, shaken
Charlotte here. Wishing that this was one of those dream sequences where you wake up and all the bad stuff was a nightmare and all the good stuff was a promise of things to come.
But it’s not. It’s real. It’s my life. And I have to find the strength to face it. Head on. Hiding in my bedroom watching television is not going to get anything accomplished. It just means another day has passed without anything changing.
An ‘overpayment’ has led to a reduction in our disability payments. No one has any idea how a family of four is supposed to make it on $700/month. All I have left to sell is our second vehicle. We’ll get about $1400 from that. That will catch up our bills, but not much more.
I have discovered that I never had security. Only the illusion thereof. “When everything that can be shaken is shaken. And all that remains is all I ever really had.” The question is – beyond putting my house back together, what is the next step? Beats the heck out of me.
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June 12, 2008 at 9:41 pm (Uncategorized)
Kendall here…I haven’t been on here for awhile as I seemingly find my preoccupied with either catching up on The Profiler or reading books or more like buying more books that I have no time to read. That little part of manic has turned into a book free-for-all and I am really trying to stop…I caught myself at work looking to order two more books. WTF. I know I am not invisible and yet here I go spending money I don’t have. I really want to use my rebate check to get me a spinner bike but I have 11,000 left to pay on my credit cards! I need to run into a freaking leprechaun so that I can find a second windfall. I know I should focus on writing but I don’t trust myself to keep going on something I start…hell I don’t even know if I can write or if I have a story to tell. Well i am going to go.
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June 6, 2008 at 12:07 pm (Ramblings)
Tags: caffeine, sleep
It’s 5:00am. I’m up. Never was ‘down.’ I laid in bed for five hours and finally gave up. I have to get moving in two hours. I could lay there for another 1 1/2 hours or I could get up and check my email. Serfing won!
Let’s hope caffeine can keep me going today.
~Charlotte
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June 5, 2008 at 4:51 am (Ramblings)
Tags: hopeful
I had a better day today. I actually accomplished a couple of things. Feels good. Felt good to want to do them. Felt good to do them. Feels good to have done them.
Let’s hope I can continue an upward trend.
I had an interesting experience this evening. Went to a meeting I haven’t attended in awhile. Talked to an acquaintance there. She had NO IDEA anything we’ve been going through. Don’t know if it’s good that there’s not gossip. Or bad because they just don’t care enough to mention our situation. More things to ponder.
In the meantime, I am having moments of hopefulness about the future. And today is a special day because it’s 13 years since my husband first asked me out.
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June 3, 2008 at 9:15 pm (Ramblings)
Tags: regrets
I have regrets.
They’re futile regrets, because I actually had no control.
Can you regret something you couldn’t control? Can you regret the actions of others?
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May 28, 2008 at 6:52 pm (Uncategorized)
Please hear me, fellow co-worker… I really like you. You’re sweet, helpful, and fun to be around. But please don’t make personal phone calls while I’m helping to cover some of your duties. My time is precious at work these days and your 30 minute phone call just cost me 3-4 projects that I could have been working on.
Thank you.
Jace
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May 28, 2008 at 3:36 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: failure, fear, kidneys, stepmom
So my there is this woman who is like a second mother to me (one that is a total opposite of my mom) and she finally returned one of my calls today to tell me that last month her kidneys went out! WTF. And I am just hearing about this now?! I know I suck at keeping in contact with people when it comes to talking to them once I get off of work…I mean I answer the phones all damn day long at work so I don’t really want to be on one when I get home. Okay so here is my fear…that she will die and I won’t be told or that she dies and I have not gone out to see her before. I could book a flight and show up at her house on Saturday but I don’t want to intrude since she is really tired…ie weak right now. I honestly don’t know what I would do if something bad happened to her…not that her kidneys going out wasn’t bad enough. I was so hoping she would have been approved for a transplant…and I was supposed to hear from her on that like in December…and yet I am just now hearing from her.
She lets me be me and talks to me straight while actually listening to me. My grandmother once accused me of loving her more than my mom…which is so not true. It is just with her that I can be me…screwed up, schitzophrenic me. I honestly on count five people as my family and she is the fifth.
I am sitting here on the brink of tears. Damn it.
Kendall
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May 25, 2008 at 4:21 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: chocolate, counseling, depression, hope, post partum, postpartum
So last time I gave a real update was when I had a counseling appointment scheduled. That didn’t go so well.
The counselor was a nice lady. Completely incompetent, but nice. She spent more time making sure she had everything spelled correctly than in really hearing me. I was finally brave enough to admit I’d been having suicidal thoughts. She totally me I needed to take 3 walks a week. I responded that some days it was just hard to get out of bed. Then she said I need to act ‘as if’ everything was fine, until it was again. God’s honest truth, the example she used of making yourself was when she has to pee in the middle of the night. She said, “I don’t want to get out of bed to pee, but I know I’m just going to be more uncomfortable the longer I wait.” Okay — my killing myself is the same as her wetting the bed. Super.
I got out of the appointment and fell apart. I did one smart thing — I called people. I called my nurse practitioner, I called my midwife (who was keeping in touch about my postpartum issues), and my sister. They immediately went into action to help me. And then my close friends became involved and just KEPT CHECKING ON ME. There were moments when my lifeline was knowing that someone cared enough to keep calling.
I have a ways to go. But being able to talk about the Dark Monster makes it not so awful, not so scary. Some people don’t understand and that is hard. I just keep listening to my precious friend’s voice: DON’T BELIEVE THE LIES.
We are playing with my medication and eventually (!) I’m going to get to see a counselor for some consistent, non make-it-worse sessions. And it really will get better. I think. (Everytime I think it can’t get worse…wow.)
In my readings, I came across the statement that depression is the chemically-caused inability to believe in a better future. That’s pretty much true. So I’m trying to focus on right now. What can I do to deal with today? Some things I’m doing are positive — spending time cuddled with my husband, playing with my children, contributing to this blog. Other things are NOT positive — eating chocolate like they’re about to pull it from the market, watching t.v. all day, curled up in a ball in my dark bedroom. I’m gaining weight at a ridiculous pace. (I’m going to be a translucent post-candy Veruca soon.)
I wanted to move forward, making plans to create a better future. Right now, all I can do is hold onto today with both desperate paws. It doesn’t make me like myself very much, but it keeps me alive long enough to somehow hope that I will hope again.
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May 24, 2008 at 1:19 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: questioning
Okay so when did this year start going so, hhhmmm what the right word, frellin upside down?! I know that old saying about “God not giving you more than you can handle” but at some point I have to ask him “what the hell looks like enough for you?” My dearest friend keeps getting shat on with one thing after the other. My family can’t seem to want to understand, learn, or listen about what is going on with me…I mean hypermanic can easily go into manicdepression with a snap of my fat little fingers…hey isn’t that an oxymoron?
So the sky is cloudy and the rain is falling here in the beautiful crappy neighborhood we live in.
Well I am going to go and sit in a dark room as flowers are projected onto a wall around me…oh wait that is only happening in my head…escapism can have its benefits you know.
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May 22, 2008 at 7:44 pm (Ramblings)
Tags: crap storm, depression, Pampers
I have so much to blog, it’s going to be hard to catch up! Most recently, I had a house dropped on my head. Now, that does NOT imply that I am a witch. It does imply that a very large issue for which I had no preparation was dropped on us from out of nowhere.
Oddly, it has been rather invigorating. No, invigorating is the wrong word. It’s like the shock of it all has jolted me. I would have said it was like being hit by lightning, except it’s still on top of me! (And not in a fun way.)
I will say that each day I have thought of important reasons to live. Sometimes, the thought that got me through the day was, on the surface, rather silly. “N doesn’t know what brands we use. If I were dead, he’d buy the wrong stuff. The baby’s diapers would leak, because he can never remember we use Pampers.”
In reality, the supposedly silly reasons were simply reminders that I WANT to be here. I am just really tired of the crap storm!
Hopefully, Charlotte
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