slipstream becomings

i didn’t quit and i didn’t bail and i didn’t run away.

i did take a road trip and while i haven’t done my regular stuff, i have been super busy and pretty good about food.

not great, but not awful. moderate really.

i need to do a bit better, but given the change between the me who was typing here a few weeks ago and the joyful me typing right now, i’m full of gratitude, hope and enthusiam for the future.

so HI!

happy summer m’freinds!

i got home last night around 9:30 from dropping the girl at her friend owen’s house for a sleepover. owen’s mom and i have been friends since university….going on 15 years now.

but.

it’s another one of these relationships that i can’t continue to have. she doesn’t listen. my life is profoundly uninteresting to her. my job in the relationship is to praise her. unerringly. everything she does. her house. her kids. her job. everything. and there is no reciprocity. i told her another of my papers had been accepted to a conference. she barely acknowledged that as a success, nevermind expressing even a remote interest in what i am doing. i kept my praise of her gardens, her kids and the renovations to her home to a minimum, but it became very clear that’s what she was looking for. i am her own personal cheerleading ever-ready pompom girl.

i have lost 22 pounds. there was only a derisory remark about how i have been off and on exercise kicks in the past. i look a bit different for sure. better. but far be it from her to acknowledge that. or maybe, sadly, even to have noticed. yet when she drop weights (which she says is easy for her - really easy. and i believe her. she is a terrible cook and i don’t think she gives a shit about food generally. she cuts the sugar and wham. she’s thin again. ohhh i’ve always bee jealous of that.)

therapy. it’s so hard to see these relationships in this new light. i laughed in that horrified way the whole drive home, shaking my head. and i am sad to realize that there is no point in talking to her. what would i say? “hey don’t you give a rat’s ass about anything i do? or anything i am interested in? why do i always feel like a second class citizen in your eyes?”

her house is a chaos factory though. the energy in there is purely frantic. i know my girl will be okay, but i’m going to pull back a bit. i’m exhausted. 

when i got in, i decided that i’m a month behind my goal to start running and i needed to get a workout in and yoga wasn’t going to cut through my upset/discontent.

so i got suited up and did the first workout of the couch to 5k. i ran/walked for an hour (because i always swim for about an hour, so a 20 minute run just seemed too short…) it was AMAZING. i took the dog. i ran by the river. i am always amazed how running spikes an endorphin kick like no other exercise i have ever done. 

why, in the past, have i stopped? oh please, don’t let me stop this time. 

i came home and did two relaxation/flexability flows from the yoga dvd and had a hot bath.

i slept and woke in the gentle symphony of rain.

namaste. gratitude for every breath.

a couple of people have commented that i look really good. and one even said i am losing weight. that felt really really nice. i’m changing my life for myself and for my life with my daughter, but the exterior recognition shores up my self doubt that anything is outwardly changing.

inwardly the revolution is on schedule.

i had an unsettling encounter with someone i had, until two days ago, considered a reasonably good friend. grad skool is tough in the friend department: you are thrown into an extremely stressful situation and you pretty much gamble and go on chemistry to build a quick support system. i chose this guy, and i chose very badly but predictably. i am surrounded by narcissists, my mother being perhaps the most deeply affected and most important character in this particular rat trap. the result is that i am often a perfectionist, as i try desperately to get the daffodils in my life to notice me. my avatar on the forum is from this friend’s birthday actually. i rented the most amazing costume and thoroughly enjoyed myself, but it’s a good indication of the lengths to which i go for these people to love me.

about two and a half months ago i got very very very upset about my inability to write. i really needed a friend, and i called jason. he essentially blew me off, telling me i was a smart girl and that i would figure it out. it hurt, and i realized in that moment that he would never be capable of being the kind of friend i want in my life. about two weeks later, he cancelled a standing dinner date when he was already late (so i had cooked and was waiting for him to show up). he flaked out a second time, and i stopped inviting him and considered the arrangement altered. i was hurt, and felt that there were always more fun things to do than have a quiet dinner wit my daughter and me. this was mitigated by the feelings i had of his insufficiency, and over time i just let it go. in the meantime i got moving, starting eating a lot better, sleeping more and shook off (knock on wood) the heinous depression that had been fogging my life for almost two years.

this week we went for lunch. and about fifteen minutes in he starts this long drawn out “explanation” of why he pulled back from our friendship, citing feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy brought about by his own behaviours in relation to my daughter. i think he said something about feeling like his father or something…it was all in a psychoanalytic frame, but very subtly accusatory. he said that two weeks after canceling on dinner he found himself back in psychoanalysis and it wasn’t until the night before our lunch, plagued by insomnia, that he had made the connection between needing to return to therapy and his behaviour with me.

no apology for fucking me over twice. no recognition of how he might have let me down when i needed help. no recognition that his “pulling back” might have hurt me or some how affected me.

nothing.

i looked at him full in the eye and told him i had thought through my own behaviours and i had no sense that whatever had happened had anything to do with me, that i was annoyed by the cancellations and pointed out that there had been no further invitations. i did not feel upset. i was not angry. i was in utter disbelief, but i did not rush to solution mode, or caretaking mode or perfection mode. i finished my lunch and got on my bike to campus. then it hit me.

he and i are profoundly done. he will never step foot in my home again. ever. i will be collegial. professional. polite. but i will not grant him any access to any part of my heart or mind again.

and then another friend called, a much longer standing friend of the very same sort. she talked about her kids ad naseum, failed to ask about mine or me or anything else and after more than an hour sighed and said “well, i guess i should let you go.” 

no dear. i guess i should let you go.

i will begin to let the relationship fade. i will slowly stop coming to her, stop being open, stop offering my bloody pitiful sacrifices for her all the time. if she stays in my life, that would be excellent. i like her a lot. but if she does not, i think it will be a healthy separation.

so this is progress. everyone in your life is there to teach you something. and i am open to what the people in my life are teaching me right now. it’s funny in a not funny way how we attract the same people into our lives over and over and over again until we recognize what kind of life we’re building for ourselves.

and my castle is plodding through a cataclysmic fucking renovation at the moment.

i’m moving like a demon. i’m resisting weightwatchers. i feel wonderful. i’m kicking my own ass. i’ll eat better/more vegetables/on plan/write it down. i will. i know what’s happening. i’ve known for 10 days. i just need to melt the mole hill. i’m eating very well, not losing it to ice cream or anything but i won’t do as i should and write and count. self destruction simmering on the back burner.

and i need to kick this fucking cold! can you believe i still have it?

i’m going to go back to student health. something’s not right. a lot of this snot’s not right

so all in all, i’m declaring it a helluva week. peaks and valleys,  furrows and mounds, skies and pits.

the car and i were flooded outo n western road today.

i don’t know what’s wrong with it, and i am over course totally stressed and utterly convinced that i have managed to crack the engine block through impatience while sitting in a small roadside lake.

but you know what?

to calm down i did a yoga session from the dvd followed by a relaxation meditation from doyogawithme.com

and it worked. i calmed down quite a bit.

i’m still almost sick with stress, but….but.

and i’m not journalling my food. i’m loosely counting points,and not freaking out or bingeing or jumping ship entirely. i just lost the compulsion to journal. (becuase i went over last week and didn’t want to see it in ink. that’s the truth of it.) i don’t know what happned. or rather, i know exactly what happened. i was a little bit successful. and then the demon of self-sabotage kicked in and a life of not really believing i have the right to be successful kicked in and this is the sound of my sliding into the comfortable nowhere zone of mediocrity. that and for all my conscious believe in the need for balance, my internal perfectionist jumped ship. fuck her. she has well and truly entered the long slow process of losing her job. 

listen up for the roaring sound of me kicking the demon’s ass and escorting the inner perfectionist from the building of my soul. (i could start the journal tomorrow. okay. i’ll start the journal tomorrow.)

i inserted the earphones dry, with the extra small caps on them and they more or less stayed in! it made a world of differenc eto my workout to have tunes to push me through the tough bits.

so i think i’ll keep the gizmo after all.

i also think this cold has finally relented. i did flip turns today (and crappitycrapcrap the bulkheads ae fixed and we’re swimming short course) but i didn’t cough or snot TOO much. a little. and i’m still stuffy in the morning, but i figure it’s on it’s way out. what a bastard rotovirus that was!

i’ve been a little more lax with the sugar treats and am now suffering craves for terribly good but awfully bad yummy things. so i guess i need to step right back. i’m not ready for moderation if it’s going to spark those kinds of physical cravings. they are icky.

i got the doctor to weight me today. 233. so i probably didn’t weigh in properly. now i know. and it’s fine. 

we also talked about meds and stuff. i told her i am actually feeling 100000x better. she said it makes perfect sense that 5 weeks in i would be experiencing the benefits of exercise. she recommends vitamin d and a grow light when the hours of daylight start to fade. amazing. and PHEW.

really.

this road is long. i’m travelling on it.

and i’m almost done shelley. no really. i am.

i think i’ve hit a bit of a stride.

food planning is a little easier. exercise is something i really look forward to, and it lends much needed regularity to my day. i think my brain is producing more seratonin, and i no longer feel utterly, blackly miserable.

writing goes along. the girl and i are getting along famously.

i need to go to bed early. really early. everyday. when i don’t everything falls apart a bit.

i’ve forgiven myself the dirty house, but i still need to clean.

the headphone for swimming didn’t fit and i couldn’t et an accurate scale reading, but i knowi’m doing it all right right now.

gratitude. i have lots.

it’s okay. everything’s working out.

allo, and sorry to have dumped and run like that. i have been trying to get to bed at around 10 to get the girl to school on time and it really cuts into my down time. she’s just 4, but she goes to the waldorf school full time. they have been amazing about my being late for almost 2 years, but she has started to express soe negative stuff about it, so i HAVE to change it. it’s ridiculous, this morning problem i have….but i’ll fix it. somehow.

i talked to two doctors and my analyst about drugs. i got some very good answers, and some excellent offers of support. my analyst tends to think that i don’t really fit the classical descriptions/categories for a diagnosis of depression (so much for self-diagnosis!) but he also feels that the drugs might help, and anything that helps me get through this is worth investigating.

do youwant to know something?

i have felt good for three days in a row. it was like monday was some kind of bottom i bounced off. i’m going to give diet and exercise a couple more weeks, but i am also going to follow up with the doctor next week.

on the food and exercise front: everything seems to be going really well. i am not having nearly as much trouble managing the ww planning and point stuff. the sugar cravings have really receded and i am loving the sense of control i have. i haven’t laid out menus like i did in the first two weeks, but rather made a list of foods i would like to eat this week and shopped for them. but for a couple of minor pit fall s(goddam popcorn) things seem to be moving along. i can see in the future as my daily point allowance goes down having to go back to daily, specific menus, but i also think that’s part of managing. ill plan tightly until i get a sense of what it’s like to eat that many points and ten i can go back to swapping. i hope.

on the exercise front: the weights during weight sessions moved up a little this week. this cold is lingering with a yucky cough, but i pushed through the whole 2600m swim workout yesterday. my bike and i are slowly becoming better friends and i’m looking forward to starting the couch to 5k in june.

thank you so so so much for your kind words. i’ll keep posting and reading and being grateful. you guys keep being you.

i am miserable. profoundly. this has been going on for so long i am barely able to remember when i didn’t feel like this, though i know it all started when i decided to sell my house. even typing that makes me start to cry.

i have almost all the classic symptoms of clinical depression. i also have been experiencing terrible anxiety, paranoia, self-loathing and the most unimaginable mood swings.

i have, on both sides of my family, a history of thyroid issues and other psychiatric/depressive issues, mostly untreated (both the thyroid and the pysch stuff).

in the last four weeks, i have added at least an hour of exercise every day. i have eliminated a huge portion of the refined sugars from my diet, including white flour. the other whites (rice and pasta) were not such a big deal. i have always eaten a tonne of fresh vegetables and fruits, but in the last four weeks i have also cut out a goodly amount of red meat and pork from my diet.

i have been working with a psychoanalyst 2-3 times a week since last august. it;s brutal and hard and i’m not at all sure it’s helping. in fact a good chunk of the time i think it’s making me feel much much worse.

i am sleeping much more regularly, though not as regularly as i might like.

i have not smoked any cigarettes in 40 days.

and last week, for the first time in almost 20 months, i got some writing done.

so my question is, when does one decide it’s time to investigate anti-depressant or anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals? 

i have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning to request a full thyroid function screen. i bought multi-vitamins today and i am really really trying to make sure i don’t let myself get dehydrated.

how much of this can i reasonably chalk up to the circumstances of my life, and how much of it to changing things like diet? 

how much of it just might suggest a chemical imbalance that needs attention?

sometimes, like last night before i could fall asleep when i actually thought about the consequences of suicide, and this morning when i could not control my crying and my utter despair, i am really really scared.

but then it recedes and i start to feel okay again. 

and for whatever reason, i am deathly, terribly afraid of the drugs they use to treat depression.

i am more terrified of being a terrible parent and a terrible failure at life because i refused to help myself.