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Borderline Personality Disorder Blog. Bipolar Disorder Blog. BPD. DBT. Cleveland. A Fragment in Orange.

11.26.2010

Thanksgiving

Mom and Dad came from Tucson for Thanksgiving. The second best Thanksgiving ever. Being a single girl most of the time, I’m usually alone for the holiday, eating something from a can and grumbling that I’m forced to take a day of vacation time in the almost-middle of the week. Wah, poor me. I’m actually pretty okay spending the holidays on my own; I think of them as just another day.

So yes, Thanksgiving was great. Mom cooked, Dad did dishes and I lounged around in my pajamas all day long. We went for a walk with the dog in the hazy gray afternoon, and watched TV in the evening. Dad was mortified that a character in a sitcom farted. Out loud. Twice. “That shouldn’t be on television,” he said. Then Mom and I watched a show together:

Me: “This is my favorite show.”
Mom: “This show is stupid”
Me: “You’re too stupid to understand it.”

A few minutes pass.

Mom: “Do you realize that you just called me stupid?”
Me: “Do you realize that you called my favorite show stupid?”
Mom: “Oh.”
Me: “Tit for tat.”

Alright, so that was borderline personality-ish of me. I have my moments.

Tomorrow my parents and I are heading to Barbados; We’re meeting up with my seven-year-old niece, my brother and his girlfriend, girlfriend’s mom and girlfriend’s mom’s boyfriend. I would have preferred a vacation with only my parents; As much as we annoy each other at least we’re still on the same page and know one another pretty well. My brother is an enigma; time spent with him can be awkward. More on my relationship with my brother later (probably during the next ten days when I’m around him).

11.24.2010

A Change in Mood

It's been a week of the latest meds change. I've gone from sleeping too much to not being able to sleep at all. But the mood is up. Definitely up. If only I wasn't too tired to enjoy it ; )

11.20.2010

Shrink

I had an appointment with my psychiatrist the other day. I thought it was going to be one of those typical fifteen minute twice yearly visits for the sole purpose of getting prescription refills, but Dr. H. ended up spending almost an hour with me. No judgments, he said, but you’re barely functioning. I told him that I was actually feeling pretty okay with my life as it is. Sure, I never thought that this, my life as it is now, would ever be my reality. But I’ve reached a point of accepting it. Dr. H. thinks I’m giving up on myself, and that I should be fighting for change. Well I’ve been dealing with mental health issues since my early teens so excuse me for not being all gung-ho about trying something different, for the millionth time, when different has never worked.

The new plan is to go back on Abilify, a smaller dose this time, and to wean myself off of Effexor. Dr. H. suggested that I try Lithium, but I went that route when I was nineteen and gained eighty pounds within a year, which I’ve never managed to lose. No thanks.

So maybe something will change. Maybe not.

11.15.2010

I am the most sentimental person I know. I'm afraid of ghosts. Seeing animals knock over small children makes me giddy. One of my coworkers is a bully. My dog Billy likes lettuce. These things were all a part of my day. And I'm now going to watch some television shows about ghosts in the dark. Or rather, I'm going to watch, in the dark, some television shows about ghosts. Then maybe some shows about snakes so that I never go to sleep again.

11.14.2010

A change in meds

I stopped taking the Abilify a while back. After the first month I no longer felt that it was working. I was depressed again. And the side effects were many -- Feeling tired all the time but not being able to sleep. Grinding my teeth. The worst side effect was the lack of emotion. I felt like a zombie. Still depressed but not sad. Not anything. Just numb. I don't like the super high fruitcake ups, and I don't like the keep-the-sharp-knives-away-from-me downs. But I do like some emotion. Sometimes it feels good to cry. There's a release. And the occasional good day feels spectacular. I'd rather be moody than flatline.

Yesterday was one of those good days. I had a little smile on my face. Everything tasted good and smelled good and looked good and felt good. But when I went to bed a random bad memory flashed across my mind and I started weeping. I lay there for a good little while, tears plopping onto my pillow. Crying felt good (I'm alive!) so I conjured up worse memories and reveled in sadness. Sadness over, I stopped crying and went to sleep. And this morning I felt fine. I'm glad to be back to my same old abnormal self. Seriously.

11.13.2010

Dirty Underwear

Six hours of bliss today, a Saturday, tucked away in the little nook in my room at work. With no work to be done. Six hours of drinking coffee and reading blogs, eating cookies and smarties I pilfered from the break room, writing a grocery list and messing around with the pitting edema on my shins. I've had too many cans of SpaghettiOs lately -- the crazy amount of sodium in each can makes my legs swell. Legs -- I haven't shaved in seven weeks. Since the last time I met up with my fuck buddy. Hate that term. Fuck buddy. My leg hair is the longest it's been since I first started shaving. Half the length of one of the hairs from my dog (a lab, if that helps with imagining). The end of things with the fuck buddy came uneventfully. After the last time I suddenly felt that I didn't want to see him again. The feeling must have been mutual because I haven't heard from him since. Actually, he did text me once about his latest news -- he had cleared out a part of his garage to make space for tools. Umm, okay. How do you respond to a text like that? I didn't. The end.

All this blog-reading has gotten me psyched to start blogging again. I like having the record of my days. I need to write more often. Erase previous entries less often. Filter myself less. But I don't know what I should write about. The recent me, on most days, wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats (and eats), cuddles with the dog, and sleeps (and sleeps and sleeps and sleeps WAY too much). Weekends are more sleeping and lots of television. I've declared this the year of no-spending (don't ask me why but "this year" started in September), so I'm not going out and doing anything of great interest. Sometimes I hang out with friends. Sometimes I take the dog to the park. And that's about it. What do I have to write about?

This year of no-spending is also the year I stop beating myself up for not having an exciting life. This is the year I'm content with the mundane. Okay with the mess and clutter in my house. Fine with wearing a pair of underwear twice before doing the laundry. Hunky dory with not shaving my legs and not taking my vitamins every day. Satisfied with meals of SpaghettiOs and peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

So there.