Just Keep Going

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So I’m in Germany. Again. This time we’re back in a small city called Würzburg in the south of Germany. We’ve stayed here before- I’ve mentioned how two years ago I had medication problems and had to go home early. This is where we were when that all happened. And I’m really afraid that it’s happening again. The first week was tough, but I was often surprised at how well I was coping with the hectic travel schedule, the airports, the buses, the trains, the rain. Matt’s still been sick this whole time so it was especially hard for him traveling, and I think on some level, I was able to keep it together to spare him the burden of my mood swings.

He started work as soon as we got here and we hit the gym on our second full day- pretty impressive, I think. We did miss out on one weightlifting day with all the travel, but with all the running through airports and lugging suitcases on trains, I’ve managed to let it go. I also let myself off the hook on some of my run/walk days since I was walking at a good clip around the city, finding provisions for our stay. But yesterday I actually put my gym clothes on and ran in the park for 10 minutes and I felt like it made a big difference to get the running in, so I’m going to get back to it. The gym is a 10-minute walk from the apartment, so I figure I’ll walk there, do a 10-minute run on the treadmill, and walk home, and that should cover it for my cardio days. On those days I’ll be able to go in the morning, which is what I’m used to at home. Lifting days have to be in the afternoon, though, because of Matt’s work schedule, so that’s put a little kink in the works.

After our workout today, I thought Matt just wanted to rest, but after a few minutes of not feeling sleepy, he suggested we go to a cafe so I could write. I had a sandwich and started to get dressed before determining that I just wasn’t up to it. For some reason, this resulted in a deluge of tears and questioning of my life choices. Matt, already beyond stressed from work and being sick, came to my aid and tried to reason with me. I felt so ashamed and frustrated at not being able to go out- I’m just so sick of being mentally ill and being so limited in what I’m able to do. I wanted so much more for myself than what I have, and it makes my head explode that all I was able to do today was run to the drugstore and go to the gym. I used to be able to push myself, to power through and work and perform. And now I’m struggling to just get my food on track and my workouts in place.

Matt pointed out that I really did power through our whole travel debacle and days of jet lag and not sleeping through the night. I guess he’s right. But at the same time that I’m sobbing and he’s consoling me, I feel horribly guilty that he’s having to do this when he has a rehearsal in less than an hour. And that guilt just makes me want to disappear- to erase myself from the equation and not be one more problem for him. I eventually took some Klonopin and mellowed out a bit, but I knew I’d kept him home longer than he wanted and I feel horrible for that. Now the last couple days weren’t like this. I actually managed to get to the cafe twice in the past 2 days and do some writing. I even had a brief social interaction with Matt’s good friend and colleague who I know from years ago.

I don’t know, maybe I overdid it. Maybe I’m taking on too much too quickly, but I really like it here and I really want to enjoy this time away from our suburban life in Rhode Island. It’s so nice when Matt gets to do his actual job, the thing he’s really good at, and I want to support him as best I can. But crying and ranting about how my life is over and nothing I do matters and how I fucked everything up and there’s no getting it back- that’s not exactly helping him. So I’ve just got to get back to my schedule: exercise, shower, breakfast, get dressed, go to a cafe, and write something- anything. I have so much to say about this trip so far, so much I’m dying to write about. But I guess I’m still finding my feet- it’s only been 8 days after all- and there’s nothing to do but keep going. That’s how I got through all the travel and getting situated- just keep moving. It’s stopping to think that keeps tripping me up. Dwelling on the past, comparing myself to others, thinking of what could have been, if only…. That stuff might kill me. I just need to keep going.

Dublin Debacle

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We decided that this time around, we would stop over in Dublin for a night before continuing on to our stay in Germany. Due to several cancellations by the airlines, we couldn’t take a direct flight, so stopping in Dublin was our best option. And since the only flights to Europe from Boston are red-eyes, we’re always exhausted halfway through. That feeling that you’d pay a million dollars for a bed and a pillow is brutal, since neither Matt nor I can sleep on planes. So we thought we’d try checking into an airport hotel when we arrived in Dublin in the morning. The catch, of course, was having to lug our checked bags on and off the hotel shuttle and around the airport parking areas. In the rain.

Since I didn’t know what our food options would be at the hotel, I went looking for a shop to buy some prepackaged snacks to get me through the day. I found a little convenience store inside the airport and got a couple yogurts, some crackers, some soft cheese wedges, some rice cakes with chocolate on them, and a Coke Zero. I hoped I’d be able to get a salad or something at the hotel cafe, but this stuff combined with our stash of Larabars could easily cover me if I couldn’t.

After a 20 minute (not 5 minute, like the website said) ride to the hotel, we checked into our room. Relieved that they checked us in early, we opened the door to the room that time forgot. The carpet was matted down to a burgundy piece of felt, cigarette burns dotting it every few feet. The beds were squeaky and you could feel the springs right through them, and the furniture was nothing short of amazing in that it was straight from the 70s. Literally.

Matt politely called the front desk to complain about the cigarette smoke smell, and they were kind enough to switch us to a renovated room on the next floor. Meanwhile, I was so desperate to wash the airplane smell off of me that I actually ran a bath in hopes that at least there was hot water. Matt returned with the new keys to find me sitting in a pool of filth, dirt actually floating on the surface of the water. He applauded my good-natured attempt to pretend that the room was OK, but suggested I get out of the tub before I got some kind of infection.

The new room was a vast improvement. I no longer felt the threat of ringworm or bedbugs and after a long, hot shower, Matt and I descended into the plush white bedding to catch up on sleep. We awoke around dinner time and went downstairs in search of food. There was a casual pub area in the lobby where the prices didn’t seem outrageous, so we went in there and looked at the menu. I saw a green salad with broccolini, quinoa, and cranberries that looked promising. I ordered it without the cranberries, and with oil and vinegar on the side. You could add chicken for a Euro fifty, so I decided to get a double portion of chicken (I assumed that at that price, there probably wouldn’t be much). But when my food arrived, there were two massive chicken breasts on top of some sad looking lettuce and some questionable broccolini. The broccolini didn’t taste exactly rotten, but it was close. For some unknown reason, I ate it all, save some of the chicken which Matt took off my hands. Well, I paid for it dearly with awful stomach cramps all night. Neither of us was able to sleep through the night anyway since jet lag was throwing us off so badly, so we started our return to the airport just as exhausted as if we had skipped the hotel altogether.

Included with our room was a free breakfast, and Matt wanted to take advantage. We thought maybe they’d have oatmeal or fruit or something less volatile than the double chicken salad. We also thought that it would be a quick buffet since all the guests would be rushing off to the airport, but no. With true Irish hospitality, we were met at the front of a dining room by a host who asked for our room number. Matt told him, and we started to follow him to a table where we would have to order from a menu. Before we could get there, another employee confronted me and asked for my room number. We explained that we were already being shown to our seats when she insisted on taking our luggage from us. Already tight on time, this was the last straw for me, and I cursed and stormed out of the place, heading straight for the shuttle. While on the 25 minute ride back to the airport, I complained loudly about the length of the ride, the process involved with breakfast, and the horror of the first room they had given us. While no one seemed to notice, much less care, Matt suggested we simply leave an honest review on Trip Advisor, including the pictures of the first room that he took. This got me to calm down and stop being so embarrassingly rude. I turned my attention to getting through the next leg of our trip without throwing a fit.

Pill Packing

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Okay, so clothes are settled. Now for the most anxiety-inducing part of packing: pill packing. It’s a rather elaborate process for me when I’m going to be out of the country for two months or more, but I think I’ve finally got the hang of it. That said, the stakes are high and there are a lot of moving parts, so it always stresses me out.

Step One: Figure out how much medication you need. I like to start from whatever day it is, and just count how many days until I’m home from the trip. This way I account for all the meds I need leading up to the trip, plus whatever I’ll need to bring with me. Since I started the counting process on October 5th, I counted up 63 days from October 5th until I get home on December 6th. Then I like to add on a buffer period in case a volcano erupts and I’m stranded in Europe for a couple of weeks longer. So I added 14 days to my tally, bringing the total up to 77 days. Now, some pills I take twice a day, so those ones went up to 154. And fish oil I take 4 of per day, so I need 308 of those. Now that I’ve got the numbers worked out, I can move on to step two.

Step Two: Get your refills in order. Once I have my numbers squared away on how much of each drug I need, I get in touch with my doctor and have him call in enough refills to cover me.

Step Three: Get your hands on the meds. There are several ways to go about this. First, I try to time my prescription pick-up date so I get a 3-month supply soon before I leave (this happened to work out for me for the majority of my prescriptions). If the timing’s not quite right, I switch to 30 day supplies until the pick-up right before the trip when I get a 90-day supply. Another way I go about it is I get a “vacation override” from my insurance company so they let me pick up more than 30 days’ worth (I had to do this for one of my meds that wasn’t timed right for a 90-day pick-up). My final approach is to have my doctor over-prescribe. This was necessary for me for my anti-anxiety medication. You just can’t get more than 30 days’ worth of a controlled substance in my state, so even a vacation override wasn’t going to help. In this case, my doctor agreed to prescribe double the dose which, in combination with the extra I had socked away, worked out just fine to get me through the trip.

Step Four: Count ‘em up. I like to spread out my stash on a large, flat surface (the dining room table is best for me). I rip open all the little pharmacy bags and arrange the bottles according to medication, including with them whatever current bottles I have going. Then I make a written list of each drug and jot down my count as I go. For example, if I have an open bottle of 17 pills for the first drug, I write that down next to the name of the drug. Then I dump out the next bottle of the same drug and count that (call me crazy for recounting what the pharmacist already counted, but I just like to be sure there’s no mistake). If I have sealed factory bottles of pills, I trust the number on the label. I write down how many are in every bottle, so let’s say it’s 17+60+180 which adds up to 257. Next, I separate the number of pills I need for the trip and the time leading up to it, plus the buffer, so 154 in this case (2 pills a day). I set aside the rest to leave at home, usually in one of the bottles, but sometimes I have to use little ziplock bags with sticky labels saying what drug and dose it is. I repeat this process for every single drug and vitamin that I need, setting aside all the extra for safe keeping at home. That way, if something disastrous happens to my travel supply, I can always fly home and have meds to return to. This may all seem excessive, but I’m just extremely aware of the gravity of my illness and the importance of taking my meds. And I realize how complicated it is to get psychiatric medication when you’re in a foreign country. It’s not like traveling domestically, where you can just have a prescription called in to a pharmacy wherever you are. There are often entirely different medications and certainly different laws on prescribing them depending on the country.

Step Five: Leave all the pills and vitamins in their original bottles, never combining them to save space. This is in case anyone in airport security questions my possession of so many prescriptions. I make sure they all have my name on them and contain no more than the pill count on the label. Having my meds confiscated would force me to return home to my backup supply, so I like to be overly cautious in carrying them. I always, always carry them in my “personal item”- the bag that goes under the seat in front of you- so I never lose sight of them. I don’t even want to risk putting them in the overhead bin, should someone steal them or take my bag my mistake. I’m less protective of my vitamins, and since they’re so bulky, I’ll even put them in my checked baggage. I don’t know if I’d be able to replace them on my trip if they got lost, but I’m not dependent on them for my mood stability- they’re just supplemental.

Step Six: Dole out a week’s worth of pills into daily pill cases. I like to do this the night before I leave, so I don’t have to delve into my larger stash until I’ve reached my destination, even if there are travel delays. I actually have 3 pill cases- morning, afternoon, and night- plus a little pouch for emergencies (anxiety medication, ibuprofen, etc.). I keep these in my personal item, too, for easy access during travel.

So there you have it: my self-devised, step-by-step guide to traveling abroad with a bucketload of psychiatric medication. I really think it’s worth being meticulous and methodical in preparing my prescriptions. Jet lag and red-eye flights are difficult enough to cope with without going through withdrawal or developing symptoms. This whole pill-packing process can be daunting, but it’s so worth doing in order to avoid any major medical issues on the trip.

Packing Panic

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I’ve been laying low lately. Matt’s still sick and I haven’t been up to going out by myself. We’re still exercising daily, but I’ve lost several days otherwise to just staying in bed, panicking. Our departure for our next Germany trip is imminent, and I’m focused, of course, on packing.

My anxiety is probably more related to the upheaval of my routine, the stress of traveling, and the memory of my despair the last time we lived in this little town called Würzburg. That was almost exactly two years ago, and I’d had to return home almost a month early because of problems with my medication- specifically, that it had stopped working. I was taking Adderall and had had great improvement overall, but at that time it had been several months on the stuff. And as one would experience with any amphetamine, I developed a tolerance to it and was getting diminishing returns. I started bingeing and couldn’t stop, and Matt had to come home from long days at work to me sobbing and feeling suicidal.

But now, as is so common for me, my anxiety is manifesting as concern about clothes. I’m often lying in bed with Matt, going over and over various packing plans. We’ve managed to hem all our pants that needed hemming- well, Matt really did it all- but I did manage to make a decision about just how long my new black dress pants should be. It had me seized up for some time: Do I hem them to the right length to wear with boots? With sneakers? Heels? We eventually settled on a length that worked for both boots and sneakers, and I’m actually surprised at how great they look with my white Adidas sneakers. I feel very Scandi-chic. So my men’s pants are all set- I’ll pack these black ones and my grey ones.

But I want to bring a pair of jeans, too, and that’s become an issue. After wearing my newly-doctored jeans with the “button extender,” I decided it was just ridiculous to walk around with my top button unbuttoned and stashed them away in my storage bin. Then I went back to the most-recently-purchased-on-Ebay jeans: the ones marked 40 but that have a 38 inch waist. I’ve decided they look like clown pants, so they’re not coming to Europe either. So much for my Ebay denim finds. This leaves me with only two more options: my black skinny jeans, which are pretty baggy and therefore not necessarily offensive to my sensibilities, and my blue skinny jeans which I had resolutely decided against wearing in the recent past. I felt rather strongly that they were somehow objectifying and ruled them out of my wardrobe. But I left them in my closet, and they’ve started to look more and more like a decent option. I hemmed and hawed over it for days, and finally decided that I was in a desperate-enough situation to wear them. So I’ll wear the black ones on the plane, and pack the blue pair as my fourth option for pants. I rationalized this by saying how it would probably rain a lot and I wouldn’t want my men’s pants’ hems to get wet, so skinny jeans would be a practical choice. This also spared me from any panicky shopping and spending $60 on jeans that might only fit for a couple of months. So pants are finally settled.

T-shirts are pretty easy- I’ll bring all 9, knowing we won’t have a washer and I’ll have to get through at least a week between laundry days. Also, they’re small and light, so no great burden to my suitcase. Underwear are the same case- bring all 12 since they’re small and light, plus we’ll be going to the gym so I’ll need some spares. For some reason I still find it necessary to travel with 18 pairs of socks: 6 for working out, 6 for boots, and 6 for sneakers (my new thinner crew socks are designated for sneakers in colder weather). Again, they’re small and light, so I can justify it. I know I’ll bring both my coats- the parka and the raincoat, wearing the parka on the plane so I can squish it into its little bag and use it as a pillow when I inevitably get too hot. I’ve already decided not to bring any heels for opening night- I’ll just wear my boots, figuring no one will notice anyway. My black silky blouse with my black pants should dress them up enough.

But now the real dilemma: layers. Since I’ll have both coats, I feel pretty covered (get it?) weather-wise. But if it gets really cold, I’ll need to think about sweaters and whatnot. I think I’ll bring my green shirt- it can go over sweaters or be worn as a light jacket on its own. But I’ve been in a fit of anxiety trying to decide on sweaters. I only own 7, and one is strictly for summer, so you think it’d be easy. But it’s hard to not just pack your whole capsule wardrobe- when you have so little, every item seems essential. But I have to narrow it down.

My super-thick grey zip-up cardigan is really bulky, but seems absolutely necessary. My grey and black cashmere pullovers are a no-brainer; they’re both lightweight and super warm. Part of me wants to just bring those two. But I keep thinking it’ll get freezing cold and I’ll be left with not enough warm clothes. I also worry about my two favorite sweaters getting worn out, since I’ll most likely need a sweater every day. So I’m thinking maybe my thicker pink cashmere pullover would be good too, even if just to wear around the apartment, or to add a little color to my wardrobe. I also own a thinner, black, non-cashmere sweater and a really light grey cardigan with pointelle holes in the sleeves. I’ve been over and over it in my mind, thinking of what could be worn on the plane and what might be necessary in unpredictable weather. We were really thrown on our last trip to Berlin by scorching temperatures and high humidity when the summers are supposed to be mild there. This time around, Matt heard from a colleague that it’s already hit zero degrees Celsius (freezing), so I need to be prepared for winter temperatures.

After a ridiculous amount of contemplation and discussion with Matt, going through every possible combination, I hit upon a novel idea: I wouldn’t bring the warmest or the lightest options. I’d bring all 3 cashmere options, the pink one being quite thick, and then wear the thinner black non-cashmere sweater on the plane. I usually get really hot when traveling, so it seems like a good lightweight layer for both airports and mild weather.

All of these clothes fit into one half of my suitcase except for shoes- my Adidas and my running shoes. I’ll wear my belt and scarf on the plane with one of my T-shirts, the black jeans, and my boots. Now I just have to figure out everything else.

Weigh-In Woes

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We have Ebay success. I know you were waiting with bated breath. The men’s 501 Levi’s fit in the waist, although they do look a bit weird from the back. In any case, they fit. And the black dress pants from GEORGE are also a winner. I love how they look, and the fabric is exactly what I’d hoped for- definitely a suiting material but not too thin. I just have to hem them, and I’m good to go for Germany, pants-wise anyway.

Another major task in preparation for Germany is placing our Amazon.de order. The last time we stayed in this apartment, we planned ahead and ordered a blanket, pillows, an electric kettle, and a set of metal bowls with lids and a bonus metal colander, all to be delivered to the opera house and picked up when we got there. This time we’re ordering a bigger blanket, the same kettle and set of bowls, and some packaged foods that I think will help me stay on track. I found my “zero noodles” on the German site, along with those pouches of Indian food that don’t need to be refrigerated- you just nuke them for 2 minutes. Because the thing is, in addition to German supermarkets not carrying some of my staple foods, this apartment has no stove. There’s a microwave, a disgusting kettle, and a disgusting toaster oven. Hence the purchase of our own kettle, with which we can make veggies, pasta, couscous, etc. I don’t know if we need a toaster since the bread is so fresh there- last time we didn’t. Our Amazon pillows, however, were disappointing and the ones in the apartment are ridiculous. There’s no other way to describe how useless they are. We call them “joke pillows” - no matter where you put your head, the filling moves around and your head is flat on the mattress. There are so many great things about Germany- the superior windows and construction in general, the cobblestone walking villages, the coffee, the bread. But for some reason, they just can’t do pillows right. I have yet to find a German pillow I like. So we’re going to hit TK Maxx (yup, just like TJ Maxx) and see what they have in person.

But I digress. I’m especially glad my Ebay pants have worked out because I went to the doctor the other day and got weighed in. I found out that I’ve lost a total of .8 pounds. Not 8 pounds- no, no- point 8 pounds. In 5 weeks. Last time I was 176.8 pounds and this time I was 176 pounds. This is after a week of eating 1,400-1,500 calories a day because I was sick and had less of an appetite. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. But I really am grateful that I took the bull by the horns and got some pants that fit me well now. Because fitting into my smaller clothes seems further away than ever.

I keep going over that weigh-in in my head. My doctor changed offices, so the scale was in a different spot on the floor. I drank my iced coffee later than usual and so I didn’t get to pee it all out. I didn’t exercise last week- could it be that? Has my metabolism slowed down from eating less? Please, dear lord, let there be some reason for this outrageous result. Because if it wasn’t a fluke, it throws everything into question.

If I keep doing what I’m doing, will I suddenly start losing weight again? Or do I need to change what I’m doing in order to lose more weight? I know my main focus for my diet and exercise regime is to keep my mental health in check. But let’s be real; if I’m working this hard, I want to lose more weight. Is this as far as my current regime will get me? Or do I have to work out more? Do I have to try “reverse dieting” so I can eat more and rev up my metabolism? Or is this just the place where my body wants to be? The most burning question of all is, can I keep doing what I’m doing without the incentive of weight loss?

All of these questions in combination with the not exercising/eating less during my cold has me in a tailspin. First of all, while I was sick, I didn’t try to eat less, at least not at first. I just wasn’t hungry. But then, I reasoned that since I wasn’t exercising, it made sense to eat a little less. Then I started restricting myself to 1400-1500 calories a day, to account for the calories I wasn’t burning at the gym. I imagined that I might lose a little muscle, but that that would quickly be remedied when I started exercising again. Looking back, I now see this self-imposed restriction as disordered eating. I enjoyed the fact that I didn’t need as much food, and I pushed it beyond what felt natural. That’s not a healthy thing for me to do, especially with my history of dieting and binge eating. So now I’m making sure I get my full 1,800 calories, and even allowing myself to go up to 2,000 if I need to in order to feel comfortable. And I need to make sure I don’t get trapped in the idea that I’ve “saved up” this calorie deficit and am allowed to add it all up and binge on those calories. Because that’s just more disordered thinking.

But I really, really want to binge right now. Much like the trying-on-too-small-clothes incident, this weigh-in has me fantasizing about donuts and various baked goods. Between the weigh-in, the restricting last week, and the stress about the limited food options during our Germany trip, I’m an absolute mess.

So last night, I sat down with Matt (I needed a witness), and planned out my food for today. I thought it would be a relief to just know what I was going to eat and not have to think about it. Instead, I feel more restricted than ever. I mean, there’s no cinnamon-raisin toast in my diet today. What if I want cinnamon-raisin toast? Do I ignore that and stick to the plan? Or do I get to make substitutions?

And what about my workouts? Should I switch over to just weightlifting every day instead of every other day? Apparently that makes you lose more fat over time than doing cardio. And what about getting a gym membership in Germany? We still haven’t heard back about getting a short-term membership. I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t lift weights, now that I know that cardio is a dead end. Or maybe cardio will be enough for the 8 weeks that we’re there. Or maybe I could do HIIT- high intensity interval training.

This thinking is madness. I need to get myself sorted before this trip. I’m just so worried that I’ll come home and weigh in at the same weight or, god forbid, even more. I don’t know if I can continue to be this restricted if I don’t get to lose weight. I just don’t know. And I need to stay on my plan. My mental health depends on it.

More Ebay Finds, Less Leaving the House

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Well, I’ve done it again. I placed another Ebay order. This time, I checked the measurements carefully and found a pair of jeans that not only measure 38 inches in the waist, they also have a ridiculously short inseam of 27 inches which is perfect for me. They should give me that quintessential “break” over the top of my boots when worn low on my hips the way I like. They should also work well with my sneakers and not cause any treading on the backs of the hems. The tag on them says they’re a 40 waist, but good Ebay sellers always give the true measurements of jeans to make it easier to find the right fit. In addition to these latest Levi’s 501 men’s jeans, I ordered a pair of pants. I went for the same brand as my grey men’s pants, GEORGE, but in a slightly different style. They’re still a 38 waist, but have a slightly longer inseam of 32 inches (I’ll have to hem them a bit). I even checked the leg opening measurement to make sure they were a similar fit. They’re black and look more like true suit pants than my grey ones. They have that inner clasp and inside button instead of a simple outer button closure. And the material looks shinier and more slippery than a basic chino fabric. Oh, and they’re new with tags! Gotta love Ebay. If all goes well, I’ll be back up to 3 pairs of pants: my grey GEORGE ones, these black ones, and these new 38-waist jeans. This means I don’t have to rely on my black skinny jeans as my third pair of pants on our upcoming trip to Germany, or as my “formal wear” pants. I can wear the black dress pants with my silky black blouse and heels to Matt’s opening night.

In my last blog, I was toying with the idea of adding some lighter color to my wardrobe, and had my eye on some Everlane items. I ended up taking the plunge and placing an order, making sure I can return it all for free if I need to (shipping was free, too). I ordered the Air Oversized Crew Tee in XL in faded pink, hoping it works out better than the Cotton Box-Cut Pocket Tee I rejected in the past. And then I really went rogue: I ordered the Japanese Oxford Square Shirt in 3 sizes so I can try to figure out what fits. I ended up going with the white one since they had more sizes in stock. I got an 8, a 10, and a 12, taking the advice from the reviews and sizing down. It could be a total wash, but those darned promotional credits ($25) really draw you in.

In other news, I didn’t leave the house for 7 days. But not for any mental health reasons; this time I just got an awful cold and was in bed all day. The first 5 days weren’t bad- I was so sick that I could barely stand up so it never even occurred to me to go anywhere or do anything. I’d been having a hard time sleeping, too, so I was too tired to even make it out to the couch. And then, of course, Matt got sick and joined me in my misery. We both went to the doctor today and finally got some antibiotics, so we should be on the mend now. But the hardest thing about it for me was not exercising. I know, who am I? I hate exercise. I dread it every morning when I wake up. I live for that one rest day on Saturday when I don’t have to drag myself through it. But taking a full 7 days off was really difficult psychologically. We’ve been exercising 6 days a week religiously ever since January 2nd of this year. Sometimes it takes me all day to make my way onto the treadmill, but I consider it a non-negotiable requirement. I allow myself no excuses, unless it’s a simple shifting around of our rest day. But even that feels risky. We exercised throughout our Berlin trip, through medication changes, through dental surgery and menstrual cramps. So when I realized exercise was simply not an option being so sick, I decided that I was allowed exactly one week off. It sounded precise and reasonable. One week off a year sounds like something even the healthiest people do. But today, day 8 of my illness, we returned to our schedule as though we’d never left it. We went to the gym, cranked out back day, and went to our respective doctor’s appointments. And it wasn’t terrible. If anything, it was a relief to be back to normal. It’s good to get out of the house.

Facebook Shock

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I just logged onto Facebook for the first time in over 10 years. My account was always there, it was just frozen in 2008, the last time I did anything worth announcing to my social circle. At that point, I was thin, still performing, and still maintaining friendships. But I was also having a breakdown, one of many in my life, and seeking treatment for my longstanding mental illness. I was finally diagnosed (Bipolar II or Mood Disorder NOS, depending on who you asked) and medicated, a process that continues to this day.

Now Facebook never really appealed to me. I was not raised on screens and constant selfies and found the whole thing rather shamelessly narcissistic. I mean, the very idea of taking a picture of yourself was crazy to me- I was embarrassed for the people doing it. But we were entering a whole new era of social media, a world I chose not to participate in. As Facebook became more and more ubiquitous, I became more and more mentally ill. I was desperately calling my psychiatrist from random cities where Matt was working. I was raising and lowering dosages as per his instructions, sometimes trying different drugs altogether. I was struggling with my health, with my career, and definitely with my social life. I feared running into people I knew on the streets of New York in case they asked “what I was up to.”

So Facebook was just not something I could handle. It seemed like people only posted the good things, and I didn’t have any good things to post. I also had no interest in reading about everyone else’s good things, so I mostly avoided it at all costs. There was this one time in 2010 when I logged on for some reason- to grab a photo or look up some professional contact, when a little window popped up and someone started messaging me. They could apparently see that I was logged on and spontaneously started talking to me. Horrified by this event, I logged off for good, if nothing else, for fear of someone “seeing” me.

But now, having had the blog for 9 months or so, I decided it was time to announce it to my friends. The response from old friends has been lovely, but for the most part I still find Facebook horrifying. I think there’s something wholly unnatural about knowing the names of the children of someone you sang in high school chorus with 25 years ago. I mean, isn’t this the reason people have always found high school reunions so stressful? That feeling that you have to impress people who no longer have any place in your life? I mean, your actual friends, people you’ve stayed in touch with and whom you have a sincere (not purely voyeuristic) interest in can communicate with you in lots of other ways, from simple emails and phone calls to old-fashioned cards and letters.

When I logged on a few weeks ago, the first thing I saw was a woman I know in a bathing suit. That photo haunted me for days, making me feel bad about my body. The next time I logged on, someone “waved” at me. I panicked, closed the browser window, and slammed the laptop shut. Since then, I’ve had Matt disable whatever feature was alerting people to my presence, and I’ve managed to create a “blog page” where I can post a blog entry every day. And people have been lovely, sending me messages and “liking” the blog. But now there’s this pressure to respond, and that’s really not easy for me. Every “notification” from a different person brings up a wave of memories, embarrassments, regrets. I’m filled with shame for losing touch with the people I care about, and I feel rude not digging deeper into their lives, reading their posts, their statuses. But I’m just not up to that. I’ve replied to a few messages with great difficulty, but then I just scheduled a bunch of blog posts and haven’t logged on in over a week. Honestly, it’s a huge relief to not have that background noise in my life. I already feel guilty enough when my best friend calls me on the phone and I can’t pick up. So call me a Luddite, or just a social-phobe, but I cannot handle The Facebook. Because while I can see all the potential for good that it has, it’s also a huge source of mental clutter. I’ve decided that once-a-month visits are enough for me to stop hiding, but still keep it on my terms. That’s just all I can do right now. And maybe that’s enough for anyone.

Smaller Sweaters and Little Boxes

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Well, the weather’s getting cooler and I’ve started wearing my boots again. I’ve brought out my grey men’s pants to wear with them, as well as some thicker crew socks. It feels good. I made a last-ditch attempt to rescue my white pencil skirt by re-washing it and throwing it in the dryer and, by god, it worked. Of course, now it’s not really not hot enough to wear it with bare legs and I’m back to not shaving my legs again anyway.

So the idea of tights came to mind. I’ve had some bad experiences with tights. For example, while working office temp jobs, I would wear them with stretchy pencil skirts and it’d look great in the mirror at home. Then I’d spend the entire day wrestling the skirt back into position as it stuck to the tights and rode up to my waist. But I have some slippery bike-short-type things for swimming which might solve the problem.

My other concern with wearing tights with a white skirt was, what color? So I went on Pinterest and started searching. And I was surprised to find plenty of photos of white skirts worn with black tights. I do own a pair of black tights, along with one other pair in a weird purpley-grey textured weave. I got those at American Apparel and they actually work pretty well as a neutral. Except with white, in which case they make your legs look blue. So black it is. With the slippy-shorts over them I guess? The shorts are black, too, so it seems like the best option I’ve got. I don’t know if this skirt is even worth all this trouble- it just seems so complicated. I mean, don’t even get me started on the shoes and socks issue. So the skirt may just go. I just don’t feel I’m advanced enough, fashion-wise, to figure it all out in a graceful and easy manner.

I tried on a couple of smaller sweaters the other day, hoping to change up the every-single-day-oatmeal-sweater for something more exciting. I put on a pale pink cashmere sweater from Cynthia Rowley that I got on Thredup. The neckline is kind of tight and the shoulders seem a bit shrunken, so I whipped it off and put it back in the drawer. I tried a dark grey zip-up cardigan with a mock neck and these sort of structured shoulders. It fit and everything, but it looked really weird with my baggy jeans and belt. I guess it is pretty fitted through the body, and that got me thinking about this change-over to my smaller clothes. I’ve already explored theoretically whether my clothes in storage will fit my more masculine style. But trying them on is another thing. I may have misjudged how suitable certain things are for my changing aesthetic.

Which got me right back to thinking about The Men’s Pants Epiphany and what these different clothes were supposed to mean. I thought they meant more autonomy, a more authentic expression of myself, a braver, more creative me. But I feel like I’ve dropped the ball in terms of fulfilling those aspirations.

I have a fantasy of really going off the grid artistically, making things that I think are good, and are not necessarily commercially attractive. But I’ve trained myself so well over the years to fit into little boxes: modern dancer, musical theater performer, opera singer, straight theater actress. And all that I’ve found from doing this is that I never fit the mold. I’m too serious for some people, too quirky for others, always too old or too young or too fat. I tried hard to be what people were looking for, but I never really got the hang of it. It all made me nervous, and feeling like a phony, neither of which was great for auditions.

So now I’m trying to just let myself be, and do things that speak to who I really am. The trouble is, I can’t think of what to do. I’ve written some music over the years, and I guess I hope to get back to it. But it’s hard not to look at it as a commercial endeavor. Plus I feel like I’m wasting all these years of experience and training (and money) by not pursuing my old career(s). But I know I can never go back to it after the mental health crisis I’ve been through. I’m too fragile, too broken. It makes me too frustrated, too self-critical, and ultimately, too suicidal.

So what about these other things- the songwriting, the poetry? Those feel like a waste of time because no one will ever hear them or read them. They’d just be trees falling in the woods. The thing it’s hard to keep in mind is that they’d be my trees- not someone else’s songs that I learned to parrot back for old white men to judge. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like a delicate creature thrust out into the open to be scrutinized for her body, her hair, her choice of footwear. Instead I could stay protected, nurtured, private. I could write secrets only to be whispered in the safest of places. I could hide behind a screen like a violinist at an orchestra audition. I could send out anonymous work to the internet. The problem still is, I can’t get started. I don’t know how or where to start. Everything’s still trapped inside, afraid.

The Bare Minimum

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I’ve been wearing the same clothes every day. I mean, different socks, underwear, and T-shirt, but the same Adidas sneakers, men’s Levi’s, black belt, and oatmeal cotton sweater. I usually keep the sweater in my bag to wear at the cafe when it gets cold, and that has worked well for summer with it being cotton and all. The jeans have replaced the every-single-day-of-summer linen pants, and the sneakers are purely out of laziness, i.e. I don’t have to lace them up like I do with my boots. I feel kind of like I’m “saving” my other clothes (for what I don’t know). Or maybe it’s laundry-related. I’ve been strictly rotating through my T-shirt collection and only doing laundry when I run out of underwear or once I’ve worn the last sports bra for the week. I guess I’m saving a little room in the washer by not washing pants? Maybe it keeps them slightly less worn out? Or maybe I just can’t be bothered to wear different pants. I guess I’m just doing the bare minimum to get dressed, much the same way I’m doing the bare minimum at everything else.

I tried to amp up my gym workout a little bit, but paid for it dearly with leg cramps the following night, so today it was back to the usual. I thought about shaving in the shower today, but instantly decided against it and just soaped up and toweled off. I went on Facebook to post a blog and thought about checking messages, but logged off immediately instead.

Maybe part of this attitude is that I’m still recovering from the most recent medication dosage experiment. Having your brain chemistry shifted for 10 days can easily take a toll. But another part of it is that I miss the highs among the lows. Back when I was on Adderall, about 2 years ago now, I was full of energy and there were a lot of highs. I’d get amped up to go thrifting, looking for stuff to sell on Ebay. I’d grab a KIND bar and a Starbucks coffee and not have to eat for the rest of the day. I’d excitedly (and obsessively) log the items into my spreadsheets, pricing them, washing them, coming up with the best search-friendly titles. At night, while watching Netflix with Matt, I’d have to keep my hands busy doing Sudoku or little sewing projects. And in the 2 years since that time, shopping has always been a surefire dopamine rush for me- hitting TJ Maxx with my mom or tooling around Homegoods looking at every single thing. But today Matt suggested we pick up a couple things at Job Lot, our local discount store where I used to love searching endlessly for deals, and I didn’t even get the least bit excited. It was just too overwhelming to think about, and didn’t seem worth the effort. I told him, “I can’t,” which is my code for “I am not well enough to do that.” I feel like I say it a lot. I feel like I’m more passive, less decisive, more dependent on Matt than I’ve ever been. I thought I was supposed to be getting better, but somehow it doesn’t seem that way at all right now.

Matt and I have always had an understanding about my energy: I try to reserve it for the most important things and not waste it on things he could easily do for me. Sometimes we question whether this eats away at my confidence, and I’ll start pitching in a bit more. But within a day or so, our routine resumes and I’m back to doing- you guessed it- the bare minimum. So while it seems like there’s progress in certain areas (going to the cafe, writing, exercising, meditating), there are always missing pieces that I neglect (grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, painting) that inevitably fall on Matt’s shoulders. I rarely drive, take out the trash, or even squeegee the shower when I’m done. And I certainly don’t socialize. I don’t talk to my best friend on the phone. I rarely even visit with my immediate family who live 5 minutes away. So when is all this going to start happening for me? Is this as capable as I’ll ever be? Am I only leaning on Matt because he lets me? Am I just hiding from a world that seems to constantly disappoint me? (Yes to that last one.) But where do I even start? I’m so far from “functioning” and people don’t even realize it. Matt covers for me. He shouldn’t have to, but life isn’t fair, and he does.

In terms of those “more important” tasks that I save my energy for, one of them has been to have a YouTube channel. It’s been 2 years since I first decided I wanted to start a Youtube channel, and this blog is as far as I’ve gotten. There are so many steps involved, so many things I have yet to learn to do. It seems like it’ll never happen. And even then, it’s still not exactly art. It’s still just a guilty pleasure, not the serious work I’m really supposed to be doing. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. And do I continue on, letting Matt pick up my slack, aiming for the loftier goals and ignoring the rest? Or does it start with taking out the trash? Does that get me closer to the bigger things? I really don’t know. Today it all sounds daunting and hopeless. Today I’m ashamed of my inadequacies and self-obsession. I miss making money from Ebay and scoring us deals on Craigslist. I at least felt like I was helping out. Now I’m just drowning in my own self-pity. And I don’t know how to get out.

Bedroom Makeover Success, Medication Change Failure

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Well, the bedroom has been painted, through no help of my own. (Here’s the before.) This intense 5-coat project coincided with my change in medication dosage which left me in bed all day, too depressed to move. Our bed was actually leaning in the hallway so I was just on a mattress on the floor of the living room. It was right outside the bedroom where Matt was slaving away, and I was consumed with guilt and shame for being unable to do any painting. I kept thinking about all the painting I’d done in the past and screaming at myself for not being able to pick up a brush. I did help disassemble and reassemble the bedroom and living room, but that was the extent of my labor. Matt insisted that he was the one who had made the decision to go ahead with the project, even though I’d said that I wasn’t up to doing it. Once I realized I couldn’t do it, I was ready to write the whole thing off for now and wait for a better mood to make the painting possible. So he never blamed me for lolling about in bed all day while he took the project on by himself. Part of my need to stay in bed all day was attributed to the trouble I’d been having sleeping. I’d wake up early after only 6-7 hours of sleep instead of my usual 11, and by the time I’d exercised and showered, I was utterly exhausted and would crash back into bed. This interrupted sleep was the exact opposite of my expectations for the change in medication dosage. I went down on my atypical antipsychotic, which you would think would cut down on akathisia (restlessness) and interrupted sleep- at least that was the plan. But inexplicably, the reverse was true and the experiment has officially been deemed a failure. My instinct was to press on, committing to the full 2 weeks of the experiment as suggested by my doctor, but ultimately I called it after only 10 days of utter disaster. I’ve had a tendency in the past to push myself too far when something clearly wasn’t working, whether it was persisting with the washout of all my meds last summer (the disaster to end all disasters) or going through a full 6 weeks of TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) therapy despite it being ineffective and very painful. So this time, I decided not to push it.

Regardless, the paint job is beautiful and the white reflects a lot more light around the room than that dark blue-green did. It’s caused me to question some of the decor, but overall it’s a welcome change. I did end up burning the sage “smudge” around the room before we brought the furniture back in. I felt completely foolish reciting an “intention” over and over again as I walked around with the smoking bundle, but Matt was very supportive and didn’t make fun of me for it. Another change we made was to switch sides of the bed. I wanted to make everything as different and disorienting as possible, in order to really get that fresh-start feeling.

I’m sorry to say that none of this cured my mood disorder. I mean, it’s a ridiculous thing to expect from a little bedroom makeover, but I admit I had my hopes. And I was disappointed that the freshly painted walls didn’t boost my mood in the least. I was still feeling awful from the dosage change, and I didn’t even want to go in there for fear of “contaminating” the room with my bad mood. When I told Matt what was going through my mind, he pointed out that that was completely absurd and that I would surely have bad moods in the bedroom in the future. He said that painting it was never meant to cure my mood disorder. I guess I just got caught up in the clean newness of it all and entertained this fantasy of a cure. I mean, we really cleaned that room- we mopped the floor and dusted and vacuumed every item we put back in there. We washed the sheets and bedspread and even the mattress cover. We removed and replaced the immensely heavy radiator (still painted blue-green). We took down the sconces so that Matt could paint every square inch and replaced them with a new, simpler style. Everything is fresh and clean and new. I put my medication back up to my usual dose last night, and today I was actually able to get out of the house after my workout on the treadmill. So peace is restored, at least for now.

I Keep Getting Worse at Meditation

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I think I’m finally ready to talk about meditation. I embarked on a 30-day experiment to see if a) I could even do it and b) if it would have any positive effect on my mood. In terms of being able to do it at all, it’s been a huge success. The last time I was trying to meditate, I was having akathisia from my meds- this horrible, crawling-the-walls feeling of agitation. You might think that meditating would help with these kind of symptoms, but I found the opposite to be true. The more I practiced “being with” or “observing” my awful thoughts and feelings, the more exaggerated they became. I was also trying to use the Headspace app, which I don’t think is the best approach to meditation for me. I found it really distracting when that guy’s voice kept coming in and adding to the thoughts I was already trying to quiet.

Which brings me to the whole idea of technique. The way I understand it, the instructions I’ve received from various teachers, books, and conversations are to:

1. Focus on your breath

2. Observe the thoughts that naturally come into your mind with detachment

3. When you find yourself caught up in thought, return to focusing on the breath

There are a few things I’ve found helpful from my own experience in years past that I’ve been drawing on during this recent experiment as well.

First is to understand that having thoughts is natural- that’s just what the mind does, so have compassion for yourself when you have them- don’t beat yourself up.

Another thing I like to do when I sit down to start is to picture the thoughts as little clouds passing by. I label each one as “thinking” and watch it slowly drift by. This helps to slow my thoughts down. When I first sit down, my mind is usually racing and I find it difficult to get focused at all. Picturing these little clouds just gets the pace slow enough that I can detach from the thoughts and remember to return to the breath. As each cloud goes by, I try to summarize the topic or image of each thought, sort of re-thinking the thought. I think this is key to slowing things down for me.

Another important concept for me is posture. I can’t meditate lying down- I need to sit on a low cushion or stool, cross-legged but with my back perfectly straight. If I imagine my neck getting longer, it tucks my chin in a little bit and I feel this click where I feel “locked and loaded”- like my back is totally straight but totally relaxed at the same time. Posture can be a good thing to think about when you’re trying to slow down the pace of your thoughts, too.

I don’t know if any of these ideas would be approved by a Zen master, but they’re what I’ve been working with. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a consistent daily practice, so I assumed I’d start to get good at this. But lately it seems like the more I do it, the more thoughts I have. Is it possible that I’m getting worse at meditating? I guess, ultimately, it doesn’t matter- the whole idea is to not judge yourself for having the thoughts in the first place. So I guess it’s not getting worse, it’s just watching more thoughts. No biggie.

I had my psychiatrist’s appointment the other day and I reported back to my doctor on my little meditation experiment. I told him that I didn’t detect any improvement in my mood immediately after meditating or overall. His response was that it wasn’t that kind of thing. The idea is to do it for years, and eventually your brain develops a less judgmental, more detached relationship to your thoughts. He confirmed that my sense that I was “getting worse” at it was normal. He said that in his experience, sometimes you feel like you got “in the zone” of quiet breathing, and sometimes you finish meditating and say, ”What the hell was that?” That pretty much hits the nail on the head for me, so I guess I’m doing it right. I’ll let you know in a couple years if my mood improves.

I Want to Paint the Bedroom.

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I really want to paint our bedroom. Right now it’s a dark greenish-blue, with almost the same color trim in gloss. I was reading a lot of Elle Decor and Kelly Wearstler books when I chose the color, so I really went for it. I had this image of a Moroccan-inspired English library with crown moldings and oil paintings on the walls. I pored over books and magazines looking for inspiration, snapping photos and tearing out pages that really spoke to me.

This was 5 or 6 years ago, when we were finishing our complete renovation of our apartment in our new 3-family house. I sought out just the right sconces for bedside lamps on Craigslist and Matt spray-painted them a lovely muted gold. I found an amazing midcentury swivel-chair upholstered in cream with a tone-on-tone woodgrain pattern. I snagged it for $50 at a junk shop nearby, and it fit perfectly in the corner. I experimented with different textures and colors of bedding, finally settling on whites and creams. There were several incarnations of blinds: plain white roller blinds, homemade fabric roller blinds that never ended up looking the way I wanted them to, and then finally the floor-to-ceiling lined curtains in a heavy pale yellow fabric with a dragonfly pattern that Matt and I made. They’re enormous (we have 9 foot ceilings), extend from wall to wall, and slightly puddle at the floor. It’s hard to believe we pulled it off with a $60 Walmart sewing machine. We tried putting up some framed prints of vintage travel posters, but I never really loved them, so last year I took them down and adopted a slightly more minimalist aesthetic. We have a small lamp on a low grey wood crate that creates a lovely aura on the large blank wall behind it. We started out with just a boxspring and mattress on a metal frame, but finally bought a bed with an upholstered headboard this year.

Around the same time we bought the bed, I decided that we needed to paint the ceiling. It was a slightly paler blue-green than the walls and I thought a soft grey would open up the space a bit. I was in no state of mental health to embark on such a project, but Matt’s quite the painting pro, so he did most of the painting before we brought in my mom’s expert hand to cut in the exposed edge. I wanted the change because I had spent a lot of hours staring at that ceiling while in the worst of my bipolar II depression last summer. Unmedicated and experiencing fits of violence, I spent hours and days on end curled in a ball on my side of the bed, staring at the curtains, the wall, the ceiling. I’d collapse on the floor beside the bed wailing before climbing back into that spot on the mattress where I went through the worst time of my life. That spot is still my home base- the place I run to whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed or sad or just don’t know what else to do. Painting the ceiling was fine- a great improvement- but I still feel like there’s some serious bad energy in that spot that’s not helping me with my recovery. I bought a sage smudge stick, having heard that burning it could help clear the space. I have yet to burn it for fear of setting the curtains on fire, but I’ll get around to it soon.

Last summer, when I’d lie in that spot, I always kept the blinds and the curtains drawn. I couldn’t bear the light, or the possibility of being seen by passersby. But now I’m getting used to letting the light in, thanks to installing some frosted window film. The house that belongs to my horrible Trump-supporting neighbors is in full view through those windows, so I decided this was the best way to get some light in without having to look at that house. It’s actually working out great. But I’m still not satisfied. What once felt like a dark, calming, womb-like space for sleep now feels like a constant reminder of my illness. That lovely chair is where Matt or my mom would keep watch over me, making sure I didn’t harm myself, helpless to do anything for me but sit there, urging me to agree to go to the hospital.

The dark walls and doors now feel like a tomb around me. I think I need more than a little burning of sage. So I’ve got my sights set on completely repainting the room. I’m thinking more soft grey, or even just white. I need a fresh start, and what’s fresher than white? The process will be an absolute ordeal- even our radiator is painted the same peacock blue color as our trim. (We’ll leave that as it is, since we’ve had disastrous results painting radiators ourselves and eventually hired the pros to do it.) But everything else will be painted. Those sconces are going to have to be switched out for something less ornate. The chair will stay- Matt just fixed it for the third time and he still sits there all the time. And the curtains will definitely stay. I think that with everything else changing, they won’t hold negative connotations for me.

I’ve thought about rotating the mattress, but worry about the negative energy that will then be at Matt’s feet. This doesn’t concern him at all. He says that if anything bad happens to him, it won’t be from my “negative energy.” I know it’s silly to think of it that way, but I still want to make the changes. I’ve always been very sensitive to my environment and feel that if I can change my literal perspective, that could affect my perspective on life as well. I’m eager to get this project going, but so far the overwhelming nature of it is preventing me from getting started. Matt’s volunteered to do the actual painting, but I want so badly to do it myself. I did plenty of painting when we were renovating our place as well as our third floor rental apartment, so I’m fully capable. I just feel psychologically paralyzed. I mean, it’s way harder than brushing my teeth or going to the gym, both of which I struggle with a lot right now. I keep thinking about Gwyneth Paltrow in that movie Sliding Doors where she has a real “you go girl” moment and paints her office blue. If only I could channel Gwyneth. Click here to see the results.

The Artist's Way and Leaving It All Behind

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I’ve been trying out the exercises in The Artist’s Way, a book about unblocking your creativity. I consider myself a blocked artist, not so much in terms of writing the blog, but in terms of my utter lack of outside creative pursuits. The exercises in the book consist of writing “morning pages” every day: 3 pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing. This part I abhor for its tediousness, especially when I feel I could be using that time and energy for a blog entry. The other major exercise in the book is going on “artist dates,” where you spend two hours “filling the well” of creative input. The example the author gives of an artist date is to go to a “Five and Dime” with $5 and buy stickers and plastic dinosaurs. I don’t know where I’d get a time machine to do such a thing, but it’s not happening. My only ideas for the artist date have been thrifting or going to a museum or a movie. You’re supposed to go alone because blocked artists apparently don’t get enough time to themselves. I can’t relate. But last week I went to the thrift store for 2 hours and found my men’s 501 Levi’s. So it was productive in some way, but I don’t think I did what I was supposed to do. I was probably supposed to look around, exploring colors and textures and getting ideas for artwork. I didn’t.

There are also these written exercises for each week (I just finished Week 2) and one of them was to write down 20 things you like to do, but maybe never get a chance to do. I couldn’t think of many things I even like, never mind latent projects I want to get back to. It just made me realize how small my world really is. All this reading and writing made me think I should actually do something artistic, so I pulled out my old poetry journal from last summer when I was really, really sick. Sometimes I wrote in it when I was in a total rage or in the deepest of despair, but I remember thinking that some of it was pretty good, artistically speaking. So the other day, sitting at the cafe, I read through the entire notebook. There were a few bits and pieces that stood out to me, so I marked them, but overall it just destroyed me. I don’t think I could ever express just how horrible that time was. I was unmedicated, full of rage, throwing things, screaming at people, and fixated on harming myself. Reading the rationalizations around suicide, the visceral descriptions of my suicidal fantasies, the rage at past abuses committed against me. Some of it reads as kind of adolescent over-dramatization, but a lot of it was spot-on for what I was feeling at that time. I finished reading, starting to cry, and went out to the car. I shut the door and started sobbing, eventually collecting myself enough to drive home.

Later that night I had a full-on panic attack remembering what that time was like. I guess since I’ve been getting better, I’ve just kind of blocked that stuff out. And I think that’s healthy. I think that’s the only way forward. Because reading that just wrecked me. I myself had forgotten what that time really felt like, and plunging into that journal was a mistake. Maybe it put things in perspective a bit in terms of seeing how far I’ve come. But it wasn’t worth the agony of reliving those days. There were some studies I heard about that looked at trauma and how to best deal with it. The results contradicted the commonly held notion that we need to relive and “process” our traumatic experiences. Come to find out, that’s not true at all. The brain blocks out trauma for a very good reason: our survival and ability to go on. Digging that stuff up, our most common therapy technique, is actually a bad idea. Depending on how bad the trauma, it could be a really bad idea. So as much as the artist in me wanted to mine that notebook for material, I, as a person, couldn’t handle it. I sobbed that night, I hyperventilated, I took 2 Klonopin and inhaled some lavender essential oil. Matt helped talk me down and focus on putting it out of my mind. And I’ve done my best since then to just not go there. To trust that moving forward is the only way to go.

In the months leading up to that horrible time of writing in that notebook, I was still trying to practice singing every day. But every time I practiced, I was racked with suicidal thoughts. Thoughts of how terrible my singing was, how hopeless my career was, how angry at the industry I was, and ultimately how I should just end it all. I couldn’t imagine any kind of life without the hope of singing to keep me going. But I was forced to leave it behind. As my illness continued to get worse and worse, it was impossible for me to hang onto those notions of a career in music. Whenever I think about singing now, I feel deeply disappointed and depressed. I feel like an utter failure. So the solution for me is to move on. To put all that behind me and just keep going. I think it’s the only way for me to live. And so, I’m seeking a new creative outlet. Whether or not this The Artist’s Way book will be of any help we have yet to see. But I’ll just keep going.

The Mall and Morning Pages

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I went to the mall. I had to return the linen-blend pants from Old Navy, and thought I’d stop by Macy’s to see if they had any of my underwear. I’ve been wearing and loving the Warner’s “no muffin top” hipster underwear in cotton with a lace waistband. I already had 6 pairs in black, and today I got another black pair and two pairs of dark heather grey with black lace. This brings me up to 9 pairs altogether, which means I can finally get rid of my worn-out microfiber briefs that pull up to my chin when I’m being funny. All this mall-walking got me thinking about T-shirts and the long stretch of time before my smaller storage clothes fit. If I end up eliminating the 3X J. Crew T-shirts sometime soon (they really are too big), that will leave me with 7 tees. I’m also thinking of parting with my white ASOS T-shirt that was so hard-won- destroying the original, switching to a double-layer Gap Factory one, breaking down and rebuying the ASOS one. But you know, it’s never been the same as the first one, never been the same as the black and grey ones. It’s not as soft, it shrank up significantly in the wash, and it’s a bit stiff and short now. Every time I go to wear it, I end up taking it off and wearing something else. Leave it to me to order the identical T-shirt and have it be completely different. Maybe the single tees are different from the ones that come in the 3-pack? It’s a mystery. Regardless, now we’re down to 6 tees. As things have been getting too big and my wardrobe is whittling down, I’ve considered seeing just how far I can take this whole minimalism thing. 6 tees and 1 blouse, 2 jeans, 2 pants, and 1 skirt, 3 coats and 5 layers. Could I get by on this amount- 20 items? Would it even be a struggle? I think I’m going to hold out on buying anything else as far as my everyday wardrobe and see how it shakes out. I was deliberating my T-shirt options, noodling online, trying on various sizes at the mall (Why do LOFT and J. Crew not carry XXL in stores? Would that really be bad for business? I mean, LOFT goes so far as to carry plus sizes in store but no XXL. What’s going on there?). And I guess I’m still keeping thrifting in mind. But maybe I’m discovering another opportunity in all my clothes being too big. There’s the opportunity I recently found to stop looking in the mirror, but this could also be an opportunity for me to push my minimalist muscle.

There is another area of my wardrobe that may need some attention, and that’s my workout and pajama T-shirts. For summer, they’ve worked great- sleep in one, work out in it the next day. But come Fall (and our impending return to Germany) I’ll need to wear something warmer to work out in outside. I have a tight-fitting Under Armour base layer top, but that would need to go under my oversized T-shirts and therefore need to be washed quite frequently. I don’t think we’ll have access to a washer this time- the last time we stayed in this apartment we had to go to the laundromat, so there was a lot of hand washing in a bucket that I did not enjoy. I also own a water-resistant Under Armour hoodie that packs up pretty well, or I have my bulky fleece that I’ve been wearing for the last 40 pounds. Point being, I’m not sure if the T-shirt system will work in the colder months.

And do I just keep wearing the same workout/pajama T-shirts from 40 pounds ago? Do I wait the 4 months for the smaller storage options to fit? Or do I downsize now? I guess the minimalist in me says to stick it out- there’s nothing wrong with wearing oversized tees to work out or sleep in. The consumer in me wants new things! Pretty things in pretty colors! A reward for losing weight! Do I squelch those voices? Or should I channel them into thrifting?

I really go back and forth every day, focusing on the drama of my changing wardrobe instead of dealing with more difficult things. I know that deep down, I want to be more creative, I want to start writing music or poems or going through my older scraps of poems and trying to make something out of them. I got the book The Artist’s Way and have barely started reading it. I got stuck on this whole idea of morning pages: 3 pages, stream of consciousness, first thing every day to get your “artist brain” warmed up. But I just keep writing blogs about T-shirts in the afternoon instead. I’m afraid I’ll “use up” everything I’ve got if I do the morning pages. But maybe that thinking is part of the problem. Maybe there is not a limited well of creative output. Maybe I have more to say, more important things to say, than prattling on about my wardrobe. Maybe I’ve got more in me, and I need to clear the slate each day with the morning pages. It’s worth a shot.

It Was Hard To Get Out Of Bed Today

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It was hard to get out of bed today. I was tired, and in pain. I had gum surgery a few days ago and it has been a rough recovery so far. They really downplay what a big deal it is at the dentist- I mean, you’re just out in the open in a dentist’s chair with no door or anything. And they keep breezily saying how they’ll just send you home with some Motrin and you can drive yourself and whatnot. But Matt came with me- watched the whole procedure no less- and he was pretty horrified by what came out of my mouth. The point being, it was a pretty significant procedure. It’s 5 days later and I’m still in constant pain, Motrin or not. I actually took Vicodin the first two days (I have a prescription for menstrual cramps). But my stomach got messed up from that so I got off of it as soon as possible. Now I’m just on ibuprofen with some extra-strength Tylenol. The dentist claims it’s the equivalent of taking a Vicodin, but I can assure you, it’s not.

And so this morning I was teary-eyed while drinking my room-temperature coffee (gum surgery) and dove back into bed as I contemplated the treadmill. Matt rubbed my feet for a minute before leaving for work (he’s doing some house-painting) and I curled up in a ball on the bed and cried. I eventually got up to get my phone and distract myself with some YouTube. YouTube is, admittedly, my fantasy world. I love even the most mundane vlogs and styling videos and can watch for hours. I imagine my life is as clean and simple as the ones I see on the screen, and I imagine becoming a YouTuber myself one day. But I feel like my house isn’t clean enough, my curtains aren’t right, we have too many books on our bookshelves, and our bedroom is too dark, so I have nowhere to film the imaginary videos. I also feel like I’m still too fat for YouTube and that maybe when I’m thin, I’ll be perfect like the people whose lifestyle channels I love.

After a few minutes, I negotiated with myself in order to get going. Rather than lying down and watching YouTube, I’d get on the treadmill and watch YouTube. So I put on my shoes and pressed Start. After a shower and a frozen yogurt breakfast (gum surgery), I managed to get dressed and out of the house.

I’m back to wearing my linen pants- I’m finding it difficult to come up with a reason not to wear them every day- and am still debating whether or not I’m a skirt person. Yesterday’s experiment of wearing one was inconclusive. But as I put my linen pants on today, I began to question my recent resolution to stop looking in the mirror. It occurred to me that 4 months (the minimum amount of time it’ll take to lose 20 pounds and fit into my storage clothes) is a long time. It’s a long time to be “making do” with these awkward in-between clothes. Because by the time my storage clothes fit, we’ll be well into Fall. We’ll also be back in Germany when that time comes. Which raises the question: How the hell am I supposed to pack for 7 weeks when I’m still smack in the middle of losing this weight? Four weeks was one thing, especially because I had plenty of things that fit to start out with. But at the time we leave for this trip, I’ll probably be about 170 lbs., and my storage clothes will still be tight. So I could pack optimistically, assuming that those storage clothes will fit by the end of the trip, or I could pack realistically, for the 170 lb. body I’ll have when we set off. The realistic option means buying more clothes- something I was hoping to avoid doing. But then light dawned on marble head: I can thrift! It’ll be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than buying new things, and I can pick up some men’s pants for the Fall.

The only outstanding issues would be T-shirts and underwear. This is always a thing with T-shirts- how to avoid Old Navy, LOFT, J. Crew, etc. as well as the smelly, pilled options in your typical thrift store plus-size section. I’d consider looking for tops on Thredup, who seem to curate their clothes pretty well, but I don’t even know what size to look for. I guess I’m still in plus sizes (I have some LOFT XL tees in storage that are still too small) unless some XXL tops could work. And hopefully my current cotton underwear will still be OK- I just need to stock up on some more in my size. Maybe as we get closer to when we leave, I can better assess if new things are needed.

It's Not Easy Being In-Between

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Well, I don’t know how this happened, but most of my clothes don’t fit. I started removing pants and shorts from my wardrobe because they were too big, and I got down to 3 pairs: a pair of grey flannel-type men’s pants that require a belt (not ideal for summer), a pair of black skinny jeans that are too dressy for everyday, and a pair of wide-leg, linen-blend, elastic-waist pants that I’m just wearing every day at this point. It’s the middle of summer, and they’re comfortable and cool. I tried to buy another similar pair from Old Navy, but they came in the mail and they just don’t work. The fabric is this heavy, textured stuff that doesn’t breathe at all- very weird for linen-blend pants. I also seem to fall somewhere in between a L and an XL in Old Navy sizing (I ordered both sizes of pants to try). The shorts I recently determined were too big are Old Navy XL, but my Old Navy L shorts in storage are way too small. Go figure. In any case, the linen pants are going back.

In my further editing down of my wardrobe, I also eliminated two black camisoles for being too big, hanging on to all 9 T-shirts, but I’m thinking some of them have reached that tipping point of being too big. I don’t know how it happens; one day something’s fine, and the next day it’s not. And so I’m sad to say that my beloved J. Crew T-shirts have crossed over. I’ve been contentedly wearing them, enjoying how lightweight and soft they are, even enjoying the oversized fit, and then today everything changed. I had one on as I tried out a pair of jeans from storage and it looked way too big. The shirts are a 3X, which I know is not my proper size anymore, but something about seeing them with fitted jeans made it impossible to go back to wearing them. I was fiddling around with my smaller clothes in storage, trying to come up with some more options for summer bottoms. I rather optimistically pulled out a pair of size 12 skinny jeans (I have 3 pairs; two are size 10, and then these ones are a 12). And they fit pretty well. Because they have a skinny ankle, they won’t work with my logger boots, but in this heat I’ve been wearing my Adidas sneakers more and more anyway and I think they’d look OK with the jeans. Then I pulled out a white midi skirt that stretches enough to fit, but I would have to shave my legs in order to feel comfortable wearing it (I’ve kind of been letting that slide). It would be good in the heat, work well with sneakers and an ASOS T-shirt, and still give me a look that fits my current aesthetic. We’ll see about the leg-shaving, but I did hang it in my closet for now. So that gives me two more casual summer bottoms to work with, which means I don’t have to hang out in my underwear waiting for the linen pants to be washed and dried.

So I’ve found a couple of awkward bits to tide me over while I’m at this weight (181.6 at my last weigh-in), but I can’t believe I just don’t have more options. I really thought I’d saved enough pieces to get through every phase of weight loss, but I guess I somehow skipped this part. Maybe I was just wearing the grey joggers as I was gaining the weight; I kind of remember them being too big and wearing them anyway. Those are currently on the outs, partly for being too big, partly because they’re so unflattering, and partly because they’re too hot for summer. For tops, my GAP Factory T-shirts (I have 4 of them) are fitting the best right now. They were salvaged from the donate pile a few months back after a change of heart. Maybe those are what I was wearing for tops as I was on the way up in weight? Maybe that was also a time when I just wasn’t leaving the house very much anyway. I had come home early from Germany, crashing hard from my Adderall losing its punch. I was doing some Ebay and then Skyping with Matt 87 hours a day, which means I did end up with plenty of pajama pants for this weight. They’re fairly useless in the heat right now, but they do fit me perfectly.

Speaking of crashing hard, I’m still having trouble with early evenings- those in-between hours after going to the cafe but before we eat dinner and watch a TV show. These crashes are really rough- yesterday I was even having some vaguely suicidal thoughts- and it feels like they’ll never end when I’m in the middle of them. I was trying to get some activities going for these times of day: meditation, walking, OA meetings, etc., but I’ve kind of lost my mojo in that department. I’m making a concerted effort to get to an OA meeting tonight, actually planning my whole day around it. Because it really does me no good to lie in the dark. I know this already. I’ve said so before, but it’s a really hard habit to break. What happens is I feel tired and like I deserve a rest, so I lie down, but I cannot rest. Thoughts of “how horrible my life is” start flooding in and I start ruminating: What could I have done differently in the past? What should I be doing now? Why am I not doing it? It’s too late for me to get anywhere with anything because I’m too old and too out of it. It’s the same old story every day. And then we have dinner and my mood improves, and I’m fun to be around. It’s just that in-between time that sucks. Because I’m feeling good earlier at the cafe too. (I hate the gym in the morning, but who doesn’t? It’s like brushing your teeth for an hour).

So tonight, I’ll try again. I’ll try to get ahead of that crash and have a place to go where I feel comfortable and focused. I’ve also started a meditation practice, sitting for 20 minutes at night. I kind of hate it- it’s also like brushing your teeth- but I’ve done it for about 10 days or so. The goal is 30 days, every day, but I screwed up and missed it yesterday. So it’s 29 days, and then that one day I missed it. Hey, I’m trying.

Sunscreen Meltdown

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I had a bit of a skincare meltdown today. I’ve been trying out two new products since coming home from Germany: Elta MD 45, a sunscreen my dermatologist recommended, and Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser. And my skin doesn’t like it. I started applying sunscreen in the mornings last month while in Germany and had no problems with it at all. I was using La Roche-Posay 50+ sunscreen (purchased on a previous trip to Germany), then washing it off with either Burt’s Bees Cucumber Wipes or some Nivea milky cleanser. But this new Elta MD sunscreen is a little drier, and this Cetaphil cleanser is not as effective. So somewhere in combination with my Dr. Hauschka products, I’ve been getting these bumps. Not pimples exactly, just tiny bumps everywhere- along my jawline, on my forehead, near my nose. My first thought was that it must be the sunscreen. So I went online to order some more La Roche-Posay. I knew it wasn’t cheap, and it was a much smaller bottle, but I found some on sale for $23. The La Roche-Posay from Germany was really moisturizing, left no white cast (as some mineral sunscreens do), and washed off pretty easily with the wipes or the milky cleanser. I was excited when my new bottle arrived, though a little confused by the different shape of the bottle and the different SPF number on it. But it was the closest thing I could find to what I had, so I figured it was fine. I spread it on my face and went to leave the house but was met with a shocked expression from my husband. My face had such a significant white cast that I looked a little blue. I ran back into the bathroom, trying to rub it in more, but my skin started peeling and just added to the problem. It was like the sunscreen was drying out my skin instead of moisturizing it like I expected it to- like it had when I was in Germany. And so I discovered that this formulation was completely different. The bottle my husband got me in Germany was wonderful, never breaking me out and giving me a nice glow. But this U.S. version of the same product was a disaster. I washed my face with water. I washed my face with Cetaphil. I washed my face with a Neutrogena makeup wipe and then rinsed my face with water again. I felt like I still had residue left behind. I left my face alone for a day until it fully recovered, but I feel like I’m back to square one. I’m going to try the Elta MD again, but this time wash it off with the Burt’s Bees wipes instead of the Cetaphil in hopes that it’s not the sunscreen that’s the problem, but the Cetaphil. Maybe it’s not washing all the sunscreen off?

I’ll have to spend more time and money figuring this out, and that’s not a process I’m used to. I use only a few beauty products in general and I’ve never had to shop around for skincare. Dr. Hauschka was recommended to me, and it worked great with my skin. I guess I was just lucky. But I wanted to start wearing sunscreen so my skin wouldn’t get any more damaged than it already is (I spent a lot of hours running in the sun the last couple years with zero patience for sunscreen). I thought I was doing the right thing by wearing sunscreen and I’ve just ended up wasting money. That’s $11 for Cetaphil, $26 for Elta MD, and then $23 for the awful American La Roche-Posay. I’m going to try and return that one, since it’s from Rite-Aid and I think they have that policy where you can return opened beauty products if you don’t like them. But now I’m buying more Burt’s Bees wipes and I’m not even sure that will solve the problem. Plus it would be an expensive solution to permanently stick with the wipes, so I’ll probably be searching for an effective cleanser for the long haul.

Thinking about all this sent me into the bedroom to lie down in the dark with the AC on. I’m just trying to do the right thing. I’m just trying to take better care of myself. But nothing’s ever easy, it seems, skincare included. My capacity for trial and error seems to have worn away over the years. Maybe it’s all the psych meds- trying things out for weeks or months, trying to do the right thing, and then being disappointed when it’s a disaster. Or having a particular medication work for a period of time and then, with no explanation, stop working. Either way, I’m really beginning to understand the plethora of beauty reviewers out there testing these products and reporting back. I thought that going with a pricey brand that I had used before would be a safe bet, but I was wrong. I have much to learn, apparently. I’m sure most women have gone through far more than this in search of skincare products that aren’t a complete horror show. I just never expected to become one of them. I’m a minimalist on a tight budget and these little science experiments take a toll on me. Plus, I feel like I’m late to the party because I spent so many years not taking proper care of myself at all. I’ve spent years without makeup or sunscreen or even consistent use of moisturizer. And I have the dark circles and sun spots to show for it. I worry that my forehead, drawn together in agony from long depressions, will become the permanent shape of my face. I worry that after all this weight loss, my stomach won’t snap back into shape and I’ll be left with loose skin. I worry that I’ve missed my opportunity to prevent these things from happening because I was in a ball on the bed. And while these problems are way less significant than most, my face and body are my identity. Vanity is a perfectly natural part of being human. So while I try to keep things in perspective and push these issues to the back of my mind, ignoring them doesn’t make them any better. So the search for a sunscreen solution will continue. I will try and take care of myself as best I can.

Messy Cleaning

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I don’t even know where to begin. This is what goes through my head every time I even consider doing any household cleaning. I’m all about tidying up- Marie Kondo’s got nothing on me. But when it comes to actually removing dust and dirt from the apartment, I’m at a loss. It just seems like too big a task to even comprehend. I’m extremely fortunate to have a husband who’s not intimidated by vacuum cleaners or bleach and who has taken care of just about all the cleaning for some time. I have managed to hold up my end with laundry and drying dishes and making the bed, but I rarely even cook my own dinner, never mind mow the lawn or mop the floor.

There was an era though, during my Adderall days, when I was pretty much hyperactive. And I really took the bull by the horns with the cleaning. I created charts and lists of cleaning tasks and scheduled them all every week, month, 2 months, or 6 months. I tackled everything from vacuuming lamp shades to wiping down baseboards to washing windows to dry-mopping the walls. I of course enlisted my husband to help with all of these tasks, and he was very tolerant of my pathological perfectionism. But this constant cleaning of rooms that were already quite clean was not a sustainable way of life. I tired of removing everything from the kitchen cabinets and drawers to vacuum the crumbs out and wipe the insides down. My husband tired of dusting light fixtures that weren’t really dusty and pulling out the fridge to vacuum behind it. I was beyond the point of obsessiveness; no one I know could keep that up. And so once the Adderall started to wear off, as amphetamines do, I stopped cleaning altogether.

I went into a deep depression as we tried to figure out better meds, and I had zero energy for dusting or vacuuming or cleaning the shower grout. It all just ground to a halt, and it’s stayed there for the last year and a half or so. I often fantasize about cleaning, watching “Clean With Me” YouTube videos where you watch someone clean their entire house in fast motion. They’re totally absorbing, these videos, bordering on addictive. You get all the satisfaction of cleaning without any of the actual work. I think they’re meant to be motivational but I prefer just watching and not doing anything. As I said, I love tidying, putting things away, throwing things out, donating unwanted gifts to the thrift shop immediately upon receiving them. I think I have this idea that if I tidy everything perfectly, it’ll make cleaning easier. And to some extent, it does, at least for my husband. I never seem able to cross over into actually dusting the bookshelf after organizing it.

But I’ve been studying the way my husband cleans. I refer to his style of cleaning as “messy cleaning.” He doesn’t obsess over making every little thing perfect, he just does a decent job and is done with it. He’ll even hold up the vacuum canister and say, “Look at all that dust we just cleaned up.” Talk about seeing the glass half-full. This is the exact opposite of the way I usually think about cleaning, and it’s the way I think about it that’s a big part of why I don’t do it. I look around frantically for nooks and crannies that aren’t perfectly spotless. I insist on cleaning behind every piece of furniture because the dust I can’t even see bothers me. Then I tiptoe around the place trying not to mess it up. If one of my hairs falls on the floor, I immediately pick it up and throw it in the trash. When I clean my way, it’s ridiculous and impossible to maintain. But this “messy cleaning” perspective seems to be way more realistic and far more effective.

And so yesterday something monumental happened: I helped my husband clean. To pitch in with his apartment-wide vacuuming, I was handed one of those little Swiffer dusters. It’s just a fluffy thing on a hand-held stick, but it goes pretty far with just a spritz of Pledge. So I walked around looking for things to use it on: shelves, picture frames, light fixtures. My husband demonstrated how you can use it to clean our radiators, so I did that. And then I followed him around for a while, picking up shoes or chairs in his way. And that was it. It was over in about an hour and the apartment felt fresh and clean (we saved the kitchen and bathroom for another day). In my compulsive mind, this cleaning effort was a total disaster- there were sure to be things we missed! What about wiping down the light switches? And there was a certain amount of dust kicked up in the air. It was a mess. But it worked. I actually cleaned something, and that was huge.

When you lose confidence in your ability to do things, as is bound to happen in a mental health crisis, it’s really hard to get back on track. I often screamed at myself in my head about how I’m lazy and I should just suck it up and get on top of things. But cleaning turned into a real mental block for me at a certain point, especially after my bout of obsession with it. So this “messy cleaning” idea acted as a gateway for me to at least start doing some cleaning again. I had tears rolling down my cheeks as I picked up that Swiffer, worried about how terrible a job I’d do. But my husband was patient enough to get me through it, and my helping out built a tiny bit of confidence in me. So at least it’s a start.

11 Pounds Down, Hard To Get Up

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I saw my psychiatrist yesterday and got weighed in. I lost exactly 11 pounds over the course of the last 9 weeks. Last time I was 192.6 and this time I was 181.6. But it didn’t thrill me. I’ve been wanting so much to lose weight, wanting it to go faster and focusing so much on my size. But here’s this good news in that department, and I basically feel the same. I’m glad it wasn’t bad news; I’m not disappointed. But losing weight isn’t really making me happy. Now in theory, I could have told you a long time ago that that would be the case. If I’ve learned anything from Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach, it’s that losing weight doesn’t make you happy in the end. Most people gain it back. They have a fantasy that weight is their only problem, and if they could just lose it, everything would be OK. But in order to maintain this fantasy, you have to keep gaining the weight back. If you stay thin, you have to actually deal with your life.

So I’m trying to focus more on my real problems, but that’s not something I really want to do. I feel stuck in my recovery from my mental illness. I feel like I’m in the same place I was in for years- generally depressed with occasional bouts of rage or anxiety. The really bad stuff from last year when I was off my meds completely has gone away, and for the most part so have the suicidal thoughts. But instead of raging and throwing things and planning my imminent death, now I’m “just” depressed. I feel generally unmotivated, I find it hard to get out of bed, I absolutely despise the gym, and washing my hair is a big deal. I relayed all of this to my doctor and was met with basically a blank stare. In his mind, I’m sure, I’m still improving, still doing a little more each time I see him, and I guess to some extent that’s true. I went to a meditation class this week as well as two OA meetings. I had a grueling 3-hour dental procedure and an appointment with a genetic counselor screening for cancer risk. That appointment was all good news, but the dentist was a nightmare. I’m scheduled for gum surgery and then for a new permanent crown. I’m trying not to disturb the temporary crown and still eat, but it’s not an easy feat. I’m having more smoothies and blended soups than I’d like to. I succumb to the urge to just eat frozen yogurt for lunch more often than is probably healthy. So it’s been two steps forward, two steps back for the most part.

But my overall sense is that I’m stuck in this general depression, hopelessness, and negativity. I have a fantasy that I can solve all of this by starting a meditation practice and doing lots of yoga. This fantasy was even encouraged by my psychiatrist. But I’ve been down this rabbit hole before. I simmered with rage as he explained how to meditate, something I’ve done for years at a stretch and for which I require no instruction. I’ve done yoga for many years as well, and never has either practice put a dent in my mental illness. But I have this little glimmer of hope now that maybe it’ll be different now that I’m medicated. Maybe my meds give me enough of a boost to actually benefit from meditation and yoga. I think an experiment is in order. God knows I’ve experimented with enough drug combinations over the years. I think I could handle a daily meditation for a month to see if it helps.

I picked up a flyer for one of those 3-weeks-for-$30 yoga deals (I used to rotate around NY on those deals, trying all the studios for the trial period since I couldn’t actually afford to pay for class). For this one you get unlimited classes for the 3 weeks, which sounds promising. But I’m still so self-conscious about my weight that I don’t know if I could handle the scrutiny of a yoga teacher or other yoga students. Maybe I should just start with meditation.

The meditation class I attended was pretty stupid- it was a 90 minute session and we only actually meditated for a total of 27 minutes. The rest of the time was this rando white guy talking real low into a microphone trying to explain “Buddha nature,” pandering to the typical 9-5 office worker with kids and a full social life. Since I relate to none of those things, and because he didn’t have any brilliant insight into the subject at hand, I was bored out of my mind, watching the clock and hoping we’d just meditate already.

My psychiatrist suggested just doing it on my own, which sounds a lot better than all that bullshit. It’s just so hard to self-motivate. Having a time and place and people around to help you motivate really helps. But I do have a little stool in the corner in my closet for this very purpose. I just usually err on the side of lying on the bed and ruminating about the wreckage that is my life. Maybe scheduling a specific time for it would help? Well, it’s all I’ve got to work with for now. The only medication change I have to report is to take out the Metformin (a blood-sugar regulating drug). Matt read an article about how it might be holding me back with exercise endurance-wise. Since I’ve lost over 40 pounds now, taking it out couldn’t do any harm, so my doctor agreed to it. Maybe this will make exercise less tortuous? We’ll see.