sueeeus

I had a rough night yesterday and flipped out emotionally with a bunch of stuff that ultimately made Skills feel bad so he ended up going home, after which I cried my eyes out.  I woke up with horrible leg cramps (charlie horses) in both my calves, and the front ankle/shin area.  I’ve had gosh awful charlie horses during pregnancy that knotted both glutes, hams, quads, and calves concurrently, which is hard to fathom and harder to relieve, but that little muscle down the front of my shin where it attaches to my ankle and foot is a whole new experience, and they were all knotting at the same time.  When I tried to gently and carefully flex my feet to pull the knots out of the calves, those front muscles would knot more, so I was basically screwed.  Ouchie.   I’m wondering if it’s the IUD, tipping the hormonal balance just enough to send me to Planet Crazy.  I found a site with SO many side effects that it’s alarming and best not to dwell there too much, lest I fill my brain with hypochondriac tendencies.  I hope things settle down soon, because this?   Is awful.

I’m going to give it a few months to see how things settle.  I’ll monitor my moods and symptoms and see if they follow any patterns.  If my emotions stay whacked, I can either go on Zoloft or Wellbutrin or something to try to stabilize, or I can just have the IUD removed and try something else.

I try so hard to make sense of things, because I want to understand what’s happening.  It’s why I’m leaning toward the thought that it’s seriously something hormonal.  I’ve recently learned that the first thing a therapist asks is if you have thoughts of suicide.  I never do, but last night when I was melting down, I tried to curl up fetal as small as I could and kept wishing I could disappear or something, crying uncontrollably, and trying to make myself as small as I could, and I thought that this must be what they’re talking about, when a person gets so miswired that they do that.  It’s like an out of body experience, to see that and wonder who on earth that person is and why is she acting like that.  No wonder Skills went home and couldn’t be around me.  The problem is, what I need most when that happens is to be held and somehow coaxed back to reality.  Not his job, though.  Good thing passing out with exhaustion causes things to rewire so I can be okay when I wake up.

I hate to think I need something to make me cope.  I would like to be able to handle it on my own.  I will monitor myself for the next couple of months and see how things are, and see if I swing like this much more.  Hopefully it will settle — it’s a vicious cycle to introduce a hormonal imbalance with the IUD, then have to add Zoloft or something to counter that.  It’s craziness!  But I’ll do what I have to do.  I wrote it all out on my blog last night, just to get it out.  It helps.

That’s a whole hell of a lot of preamble to get to the point that I was trying to reach.  I like to think that there is a reason for everything.  Walk a mile in someone’s shoes…  Not that it’s a pleasant mile to walk, and clearly it’s depression with a capital D.  But one of the things weighing on my heart is the inability to reach or help someone who I love dearly, who is struggling with emotional matters.  And this?  Perhaps this equips me just a little bit.  Maybe what I’m experiencing is something she can relate to.  Maybe I can help her to make sense of it, as I help myself to make sense of it.  Maybe we can find a way to recognize the demons before they strike, and stand tall and ready, armored up.  Maybe we can armor up without mind-altering medical intervention.

And no, I would never check out of this life, no matter how strongly I might in moments like last night want to disappear.  And yes, my brother DID check out of this life, for whatever his reasons were, and yes, perhaps and most likely there are genetic tendencies with which we are faced, but I know not to let that terrify me (so I can try to help her not be terrified as well), or give me any reason to think that I or any of my beloved family are powerless in these circumstances.  It’s just data.  It’s information.  The more we can know and understand, the better we will be able to face whatever may come.

Each day is a brand new day, and the sun will shine.

We will be okay.

We are okay.

I’m going to be a published author soon.  It’s crap, really.  A technical article in a technical magazine, and it’s been revised and edited so much it’s barely discernible as anything I could really put my mark on, but nonetheless, it has to do with the project that consumed my professional energies for the better part of the last year.  So in a way, it’s kind of a big deal.   A culmination of sorts.

There was some talk of pulling the plug on one of my other major projects today.  That’s a bit disconcerting.  We’ll work it out, I’m sure, and all will be fine.  Even so, it’s sort of a shocker.

Ex-spouses had various things to say today, both his and mine.  His?  Some squabbling over child support.  That’s always a sensitive subject, for either party involved.  They’ll figure it out.   Mine?  Is getting married.  In October.  I’m happy for him, truly.  I want him to have happiness in life, so I’m glad he found somebody else.   It seems sudden, but it’s his MO, so I’m not all that surprised.  I wish him well.

The bride to be is going through a divorce that is under contest, and a guardian ad litem has been appointed to see to the best interests of her three children.  The GAL wanted my number to inquire about Gadget, since the new family will be living with him soon.  Of course she can have my number, but he wanted to know what I was going to tell her about him.  He thinks I’m vindictive and will say things to spite him.  Shows how much he knows me.  He said she was going to ask about what went wrong with our marriage.  What went right? Not a whole hell of a lot.  Two beautiful boys.

My 84 year old dad has had his driver’s license revoked, so now he thinks he wants to move to an apartment in the city.  There is much family debate on how to accomplish this.  The logistics alone are daunting– he has a staggering collection of books.  His main complaint is the inconvenience of senior transportation.  I’m sort of cold, I guess, because time is all he has, so if it takes a bit longer to get from point A to point B because public transport is involved, what is the big deal?  It’s far better than being behind the wheel when you’re practically blind and you can’t feel your feet to know whether or  how much you’re braking or accelerating.  He would still have to deal with public transportation if he lived in the city, and it might even take longer since there is more population and with that, more stops.  He might be better off to stay put.  He lives in a mild climate.  Either way.  There is drama, discussion, mixed up communication, and bruised feelings.  Why do I think it’s my job to sort it out so that there is peace within the land?

There is the matter of my niece – she has a sadness that I don’t know how to reach or address.  It hurts me, for the people I love to be hurting, and for me not to know what to do about it or how to help it, when all I want is for them to feel joy.

There is the matter of my sisters being protective of me, and cautioning me to believe more in myself and acknowledge or give more credence to that which I have to offer, which is a lot.  This translates to ‘he better be good enough for you’.  They speak it out of love for me, not out of disregard or disrespect to Skills, yet there he is on trial, defenseless, guilty until proven innocent.  So unfair.

To compound it all, my emotional state is railing.  I had the Mirena installed yesterday, so a foreign object, extra progesterone, cramps, headache, nausea, and constipation all add to the already prevailing PMS which only exacerbates all of the above.

I can only take so much at any given time.

These are some of the things that filled my head today and spilled into my evening that had been set aside to be sweet and magical.  I totally blew it.  Had I had my wits about me, I could have taken a moment to assess each thing as it crossed my day, and said, hey, do the thoughts I have about this particular thing serve me well?  And if they don’t serve me well, then adjust the way I think about them — either dismiss them completely, or find a way to look at them in a positive light.

But no, I didn’t do that.  Guard down.  Reactionary all day.  I brought him down, I brought myself down.

And all the while, I’m frantic, because I have only the tiniest window of time in my life that I can carve out for togetherness and I want so much for that time to be rich and full.  Watching it vanish in a split second rips me to shreds and I feel so frustrated that I’ve wasted time, when time is so, so, so precious and I just can’t afford for this to happen.

Recognizing that destruction only serves to make things worse, because then I berate myself for not being stronger and more vigilant and more prepared, and there’s nothing left to do but go home, try to regroup, get some sleep, and hope to God things look better in the morning.

It’s tragic though.  I can’t get back wasted time.  It’s gone.

I can’t get out of myself.  I can curl up in fetal position and cry my eyes out, but I can’t get away.

So here I am.  Hysterical.  Untouchable.  Alone.