Etsy as Therapy

Well, yes.  I haven't written in quite a while.  Sadly, the reason is that my headaches have continued to be an issue.  Not only has this meant I haven't been thrifting, it also means I haven't been getting dressed in "real" clothes very often; I spend most days in t shirts and shorts.  I was actually excited to pull together an outfit today and yesterday, but the bedroom is in no shape for me to start taking pictures of myself again.

This does not mean, however, that I have made no purchases at all.  In fact, jewelery has been something that I have purchased a great deal of: With accessories, such as jewelry, you can see it online, judge the length, width, size, etc, and as long as you fit that measurement, you know it will look good!

The most exciting purchase has been my eternity ring, which I got ahead of our 10th Anniversary, which is next month.  I actually received it in April, and DH has received his (a different style) as well.  Unfortunately, he has to resize it (NOT our fault), but it is a lovely ring.  The ring I got was a narrow (2m) rounded yellow gold band, with 15 tiny white sapphires embedded inset into the gold, i.e., not channel set.  I personally am opposed to diamonds, although DH got diamonds (tiny ones, very discrete) in his ring. Anyway, here is mine: 

This ring seems so much prettier to me than the standard diamond channel set ones.   I love it, and I wear it on my ring finger with my wedding ring.   These days, because our anniversary is a month from tomorrow, I have also been wearing the ring DH got me for our 5th anniversary, a blue sapphire in a gold art-deco style setting.

Plus, this ring got me excited about white sapphires. Sapphires are my birthstone, and I know that they come in all colors, but I had never thought of white sapphires as a work around for my dislike for diamonds, which is based on my political beliefs.  And the quality of stones is better, because it is not as expensive a stone in the first place. 

This discovery had me digging around for white sapphire earrings.  My ears are very sensitive, and need good quality earrings in them as "retainers," so when I want to wear a base metal, I can get away with it for a day.  Then I immediately put good earrings back in again.  Well these are my current "retainer earrings," white sapphire studs: 

Now these were more "fine jewelry" purchases, which I admit to wanting because an engagement ring was not financially in the cards when DH and I were engaged.  I am so glad we didn't wait, but if we could have afforded one, I would have liked one.  So this is kind of my overcompensation for that.

Let me recommend Etsy for fine jewelry:  You don't have to pay the retail markup, and even though my ring is "fine jewelry," it cost about half of what it would at a "real" jewelry store.

The rest of my purchases were costume jewelry, including a lot of 50 bracelets I bought from the online shopgoodwill.com site.  That was like having a corner of a Goodwill shop in my home, and I found a lot of vintage, and even a couple of antique bracelets!  One of the antique bracelets I saw online for $125!

Aside from that one foray into the world of mixed lots, there have been many Etsy purchases.  I am Etsy's bitch.  It has almost been like I have been using purchases from Etsy to make me feel better about how lousy I feel so much of the time.  Well, actually, it isn't "like" it; I have definitely been using purchases to cheer me up.

One of Etsy shops that was not only the first store at which I made a purchase, but that I have returned to most often, is Wychbury, which is in the West Midlands of the UK.  I have purchased hair pins, brooches, necklaces, and bracelets, they just seem to feed into my obsessive anglophile-ism.  One recent purchase was called an "herbal tea bracelet."  Of the many things I have purchased from them, this is my very favorite:

 

I also recently replaced a pretty necklace of theirs that I wore to pieces; my original one was more "english garden" themed, but this one is definitely "bluebells:"

 

They also sell hairpins made of vintage fabric and buttons.  Since my migraines have become so incredibly bad, I have had to start relying on hairpins.  Barrettes, or even the weight of my hair pulled back into a pony tail, is enough to give me a "hatband headache," which is lovely melange of both a migraine and tension headache.  Yes, you can have more than one type of headache at once.  Joy.

So I have also been active with a kind of strange charity, April's Army, which is a spin off of the hysterical site, Regretsy.com, which scours Etsy.com to put a spotlight on some of the more questionable merchandise.  One of the advantages of being a member of this charity team is that people often give discounts to other team members for no reason other than to be nice.  One instance of this was in the case of WrensEye.  She had an "Apocalypse Sale" the week of the Apocalypse that wasn't on May 21, and I swooped in and snatched up two items I had been eying covetously, at 50% off!

Coin pearl necklace

Blood drop earrings

Both really pretty.  I wear the coin pearl necklace a lot, it is just very simple and elegant.  And I love the somewhat baroque look, even though they are freshwater pearls.  

The final purchase I am going to show off for now is some more fabric hairpins, that I really love.  They are simple, and come in all different colors.  I got this set, as well as a set in neutral (white, black, brown):

These are made by PaisleyMoon

 Oh! Just one more purchase, a bit of a surprise for DH, in honor of the theme of our wedding, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, as well as the Jabberwock Inn, where we honeymooned, celebrated our first anniversary, and are scheduled to celebrate our 10th!

Alice In Wonderland Light Switch Plate

Now this seems like a ton of stuff, but I have purchased it over the last 4 months, so it isn't as dreadful as it seems.  The big (exciting) expenditure was on my ring. 

The last week has been better than the week before.  If this week is as good or better, I might finally be able to go thrifting for the first time since December!

Pain and Purchases

First, DH's grandmother died yesterday.  He is flying back East for the funeral on Saturday, and will be back Tuesday.  He is not freaking out, but he is more upset than he is letting on.  His dad didn't think we should go, so he decided he is going alone; tickets are so expensive, PLUS all the fees they now have.  He wants to go is to see his grandfather, who is 95.  I never really knew his grandmother, because she already had Alzheimer's when I met her.  So her funeral would be more dutiful than cathartic for me.  

And having been raised Jewish, open caskets freak me out.  Just not a Jewish thing.

In migraine news, I GOT A REFERRAL TO UCSF'S HEADACHE CLINIC!  I had to stop the nortriptyline because of side effects.  They included mental confusion, urinary tract issues, lethargy, poor balance.  And when I went up to a higher dose, my mood was definitely acting up.  I was afraid I was teetering on the edge of a mixed episode.

There may have been just a bit less intensity to the headaches I am getting, but not enough to make the potentially worsening side effects worth it.  After 7 weeks, the side-effects are probably going to last as long as I take it.  I thought I was getting depressed, but now I think it was all Nortriptyline side effects.  

So finally it has come to this:  My neurologist said, "We have a lot of options!"  and immediately suggested Botox  Um, no.  Not under his supervision.  Maybe if UCSF suggests it.  Maybe.  It creeps me out.  Although, the one person I actually have "talked" to about it has loved it, and said it changed her life.  Hmmm.  Blech.

"Well, I've heard fever few an butterbar might help."   Yes, my neurologist thinks I should try herbs.  I asked about acupuncture, and his attitude was, "Sure, try whatever you want, but good luck getting your insurance to pay for it."  We shall see.  I think I am going to go see Angie at Lohaki Acupuncture, even if my insurance won't pay for it; I can start doing that about twice a month.

He also said becoming vegetarian might be a good idea.  I keep saying I want to do that, even if it is just at home.  But it boils down to my being lazy: it seems like all the recipes for main dishes are complex.  And I have trouble gauging how many fruit and vegetables we will eat before they spoil.  Part of the reason for this is that Nortriptyline lethargy has meant I haven't been cooking. At all. We have been grazing, eating cheese, cereal, canned soup, fruit, and too much candy. I keep meaning to learn how to really use beans.  I mean, I use them now and then, but I should soak and freeze batches, or something, they really are so versatile.  And I have a rice cooker, and I love oatmeal.  I guess the first step would be to take stock of which appliances I need, and which I don't, I have way too many cooking appliances.

So anyway, gah.  Oh, and after promising me he would fax the referral to UCSF on  Monday, Dr. Shithead told me it would be out by Friday.  UGH.  I already faxed stuff yesterday (Tuesday), because he TOLD me he was definitely faxing it Monday!  And he had to throw in that he couldn't see what UCSF could do that HE wouldn't already have thought of.  This is the man who does research on Google right in front of me.  I am always far more up to date on migraine treatments than he.  Whatever.  Passive aggressive shmuck.   Seriously, a passive aggressive Dr?  Could there be a worse type of MD to try to develop a relationship with?  And why wouldn't he want me to see a headache specialist after I have been having migraines for over 35 years?  Pussy.

I am his SUPAH DUPAH  NUMBAH ONE migraine patient.  Awesome for a teaching hospital, I am his walking, talking "refractory" specimen.  But he no longer has any idea what to do with me.  And I guess what this is really going to boil down to is poly-pharmacy for my migraines, as well as the BP.  He wouldn't be able to handle a poly-pharmacy approach.

I just have been out of it.  Almost 100% because of the nortriptyline, I am pretty sure.  It takes two weeks for it to be totally out of my system.  

 This is the worst period of migraines I have ever experienced, bar none.  Since last I filled you in, I also tried an stopped using propranolol, because it was clearly working as well as a sugar pill for me.  Next, I tried atenolol, which is in the same class of meds as propranolol (beta blockers), but it gave me a rare side effect: bruxism.  Because of my response to the nortriptyline, other tricyclics are also out of the question.

ANYWAY. I wanted to get back into posting items I bought.  It is an enjoyable pastime for the acquisitive Bipolar part of me, even though this time, it was all full price.  And it gives me something to riff off of, if I am desperate.

First, I was recently pointed towards a website I really like: Dog is Good.  First, I tried their t shirt grab bag: pay $25, and get three random ts. I get a tank top with bling, a light weight logo tshirt, and a tshirt with a logo that actually won a national pet product design contest: KNOW DOG, KNOW JOY, KNOW LOVE.  All very cute, and fun because of the surprise aspect.

Then on FacebookPJs, with a Frenchie on the top, "Le Chien Est Bon."  Very cute.  There is a Frenchie on the top:

There are nice details on it, like ribbon piping around the ankle, from which the hem falls away into a serge stitch hem, so a little ruffling.  And the same with the top.

Now, I really only have a bunch of new costume jewelry to show, but I am a real sucker for costume jewelry.  Unfortunately, one of my favorite necklaces' coating has rubbed off, and now the nickel is exposed to my nickel-allergic skin.

I have a pair of earrings and a necklace that are made by Kerfufle Jewelry, which I bought from one of my favorite little boutiques, Eni-thing, which supports local handmade products.  I bought the earrings first:

It's kind of hard to see, but they are small coin-like hammered metal.  I bought this necklace later:

To be honest, I go back an forth about this pendant.  Sometimes I think it is really cool, other times too garish.  Each strand that goes up to the fastener is different strand one side made of those coin-like beads, as well as a crystal strand.  But it holds up pretty well with a very simple top, because it would be too much for a pattern, imo.

On another visit at Eni-thing, I got a very inexpensive blingy elasticized bracelet.  Very simple but it goes with a lot of things:

Another fun set I collected was the Betsey Johnson French Puppy series.  I got the pendant, both pair of earrings, and best of all, the almost impossible to find charm bracelet:

There are these cute asymmetric dangle earrings, plus there is post version with the same charm: 

I also got a pendant from the same series, but it basically the same Frenchie charm as the earrings, just larger.

I also got some cool t shirts besides those from Dog is Good.  One was from Imogen Heap's Ellipse tour.  Mine actually has a white tree on a white background which is cool up close, but un-photographable, so this is just to give you an idea of the pattern: 

I also bought a cute Honest Kitchen t-shirt.  The Honest Kitchen is the freeze-dried food I feed my Frenchie, Violet.  This one says "Raw + Love = THK:

Wow. Quite a post.  

And none of it that interesting.

Blog fatigue

Hey!  I haven't been around for a while, but there are a few reasons for that.  I have been having horrific headaches, and a couple of mood bobbles and when I have had the energy to blog, I blog on a support site for the crazies.

When I just feel like splatting words onto a page, as a writing exercise, I have been using 750words.com.  A great place to write garbage safely. I still fixate on myself, too much, I need to be more conscious of having an idea or topic upon which to riff.

So with all the writing I was doing here in December, followed by my spreading my writing efforts on other websites, and the headaches, I have been neglecting this blog.

Well, I hope to both get back into the "What I wore," and thrift shop finds. I do believe I haven't shown you some of my final finds before this total collapse of my health.  Not to mention general the discussions about body image and BP illness.  I can sense it will be coming soon....

Sinking feelings

"I was more at the point where I felt like I wanted to be dead, but wasn't thinking about acting on it. I didn't have any plans or desire to do it myself. I just wanted to stop existing."  -Me, February 13, 2011

So I off-handedly shared a major crisis in my life on a thread at Crazyboards Sunday.  It didn't even bother me when I wrote it.  Later, when I went back to the thread, and saw it, it made me do a double take.  So blase, this has happened so many times, I think I know just what to expect.

My stomach dropped at rereading this hubris, this nonchalant dismissal of a time when I longed for death, as just "one of those things."  To be clear, I am NOT longing for death at the moment, exactly the opposite.  I would hardly use a forum to announce my impending suicide where people know me in person, and how to find me,   I may be crazy, but I'm relatively intelligent.

It isn't that I am depressed at this moment.  It is more that I am afraid.  I feel like something may be stirring in Crazyland, but I can't tell for sure.  Is it a bad mood? Might it be a side effect of medication?  Or am I just due for a visit from the Mood Fairy?

Or perhaps my DH deserved to have his head bitten off this afternoon.  Yes, I have snapped at him for the exact behavior before.  But this afternoon I was very assertive about explaining what about a particular behavior bothered me so much.  On the one hand, I interpreted in the most negative way possible.  On the other, he admitted given the language he uses, he can understand how I might come to make that interpretation.

But irritability could be a sign of a mood swing in any direction, regardless of our eventually coming to an understanding.  It's the fact that I initiated the discussion with anger that is different and troubling.

I will never entirely know what to expect.  Bipolar is a difficult disease to treat.  Its patterns change over time, confounding previously accepted truths.  Drugs that work for years poop out, and drugs that don't work can make one even crazier than before taking the medicaton.  I blandly assume that I have learned how to recognize a pattern or rhythm to help me anticipate episodes, to cut them off at the pass, so to speak, before they become too bad.

Then, suddenly, my brain decides it is time to clean house, and throw out all the knowledge, patterns, and tips I have accumulated over time, and make a fresh start.  New types of episodes.  More instability.

I can remember the year to which I so indifferently referred yesterday so distinctly.  I had been laid off, yet was still teaching another semester at that school before I left, so that wasn't fun.  The day I was laid off was also the day I had evacuated a busload of teenagers from the school campus, as wildfires raced towards it.  The next day, I heard about the murder of my friend.  Then came the week+ hospitalization for my kidneys.  Followed by very, very severe depression.    I ended up calling a crisis line for the first time in my life.

The first few psychiatrists gave me medications that either sent me into a manic frenzy, or were toxic to me.  I ran out of money. Next stop, a crash landing in my parents' basement.  I was so ashamed, and my mother made sure I knew she was ashamed of me, too.  Her verbal brutality was just one more thing to hasten my downward spiral.  And the headaches.  Never forget the headaches.

Awful.  I remember thoughts: "It would just be so much easier if I died.  If I just went to sleep and never woke up."  I never acted on it.  I think there was only one time I was ever truly serious about taking action to bring about my own death, and that was a depressive episode that turned into a mixed episode.  But that was several years in the future.  This episode's theme was inertia.  Hunger and inertia.  I ate at night, to avoid my mother.  I lived at night, to avoid my family.  My dog, Bess, would lie next to me on the bed all day as I slept and hid, if I needed her to.  She was my best friend.  I never want to be without a dog if I am depressed again, even with my husband around.  No person near me can understand the place I am living when I am so depressed.  I need a dog to just shower me with love and affection when I am wanting to die, because it is such a simple straight-forward love, it is easy to return.  No baggage.

And there's more.  I have been on a new medication, a type of anti-depressant, a tricyclic. I actually am not taking it for depression, but to treat my intractable migraines.  I was quite excited to try it, it was the first drug of this "class" of medications I had ever tried.  I have basically tried multiple versions of all the other classes that my body will tolerate.   Ironically, I seem to have magically stopped my standard rhythm of migraines 2 out of 3 days as soon as I started the new medication.  Sheer coincidence, it actually still needs time before it will start working.  But it has coincided with a 13 day period when I have only had two bad headaches and a three or four of mild ones.  The first 5 days, I didn't have *any* type of migraine (migraine is a disease, the headache is just the worset symptom of it).  I am still suffering from too many headaches.  But less pain is less pain.

But with this exciting new (to me) class of medication, comes a caveat: While the amount of tricyclic used to prevent migraine is quite small compared to the therapeutic dose necessary to treat depression, as a rule of thumb, anti-depressants + bipolar =  not a good thing.  This is one of those rare instances where I have run out of other options to try to stop headaches that are ruining my quality of life.  We are trying to delicately balance contraindicated treatments, hoping we can find the magic amalgam that will help with my head, but not hurt my mental stability.

So while we wait to see if the tricyclic helps, we also are watching closely for signs that it might be activating my bipolar illness:  That is, triggering a mood swing.  My doctors biggest concerns are that I have any lability of mood at all.  My biggest concern is having a mixed episode:  Mixed episodes are kind of like having a pocket-Hell that you are forced to carry around, and you have to negotiate life and cope with the havoc Hell is creating at the same time.  No one else can see Hell in your pocket, you just seem flat out insane.  Which I am.  And part of that insanity is believing that others intentionally try to do everything they can to provoke Hell into bursting out of my pocket, and breaking things, forcing words that I know are dangerous even as they fly out of my mouth to come pourng out, throwing things, berating myself and my loved ones.  Of course, I understand intellectually I am the one doing those things.  But my intellect is being over-ridden by sick brain.

As a reasult every time I feel a petty thought, or am irritated, or tear up, or get overly excited about things, I begin to worry.

Usually, when I talk about depression, it is something in my past.  My last one was a brief one in 2001.  I almost had forgotten what it felt like. But re-reading the sentence I quoted above makes my stomach clench, makes me hyperventilate, makes me want to cover my head with a pillow.  It made me remember a tiny inkling of what it was like, and now I am scared that the reason I can suddenly so closely identify with that feeling is that I am headed in a bad direction.

Ending 2010: Deflation #reverb10

Well, it is the New Year.  I admittedly threw over the final set of prompts.  I was tired of their sameness, and while self-reflection is good, this exercise was beginning to strike me more as self-absorption.

The year ended with a completely crushing disappointment for me.  Atenolol, the medication to which I switched two weeks ago in my attempt to control my migraines, started causing side effects that were intolerable, and/or precursors of more severe side effects.  I left a message for my neurologist on Friday, Dec. 31, knowing he wasn't expected back in the office until January 4.  I knew I couldn't stop this medication cold turkey without endangering myself, so I thought I would have to wait until Tuesday, and just cope with the side effects, making sure they did not take a turn for the worse.

So I was surprised that he called me at 9:30 PM on New Year's Eve; perhaps he was the Neurologist On-Call for the evening, but he uncharacteristically checked his messages on a Friday.  He told me to titrate of the atenolol.  I already had an appointment scheduled for mid-February, but I said to him I guessed I should reschedule the appointment for an earlier date.  He began to hem and haw a little, and said something like, "I am always glad to see you, we can talk about the frequency of your headaches.   I really think you should go back on Depakote in the fall."  First of all, no.   I will not go back on Depakote, and I have told him that repeatedly.   But his message was clear.  There is nothing else left in his pharmacological arsenal for me to try.

I had thought I was going to try the SSRI Cymbalta, until my psychiatrist nixed it, seemingly out of nowhere.  He is now adamantly opposed to my using it, even though he told me in early May that the dose of Cymbalta used for migraine were so tiny that it would have no activating effect on my mood.  SSRIs are generally no-nos for bipolar people, which was the whole point of that visit, to see if he thought I could handle it.  I have in my notes that he said I could.  He either changed his mind, or forgot, but it made me feel foolish.  I really don't like to give the impression that I am pushing around my doctors (not that it doesn't happen).  But this time I really wasn't, I was suggesting a medication that I have a record of his permitting.

But the long and short of it is, I have reached the end of the medication merry-go-round.  With SSRIs eliminated, there is no other class of medication left to try as prophylaxis.  I am now officially reliant solely on OTC analgesics, sumatriptan, and medical cannabis.  As far as my neurologist is concerned, I can visit him sooner, or I can visit him later, there is nothing more he can do.  I am going to beg and plead for a referral to the UCSF Headache Clinic. I have no idea if they have anything to offer, but they are the West Coast center for people like me.

Planner that I am, I already have contingency plans in case the UCSF Clinic, to which I have not yet been referred, is unable to help me.

So yeah.  Way to end 2010.

Which just puts me in a morose mood for all of the challenges we already know we must face in 2011.  I have foot surgery again.  Then my husband has brain surgery.  And at some point in 2011, I need to get over to Berkeley medical school, to have an eye I am losing vision in examined, and treated.

If all those events go smoothly, 2011 holds a lot of promise.  But it also holds a lot of pitfalls.  It seems as if the entire duration of my relationship with DH has been stumbling from one drama to the next.  Our health issues have definitely meant there are dimensions to cope with beyond the usual loving and cherishing we would naturally provide each other:  There is frustration and fear, for starters.

I burnt a candle on the Solstice, and again on the New Year, to send up all the bad vibrations and echoes of 2010 into the ether.  I have my superstitions.  Although if you ask me, I'll admit, I don't truly believe in them.  But I like rituals, and superstitions are ripe for ritual.   Rituals give me a false sense of control that is comforting, in spite of my knowing I am fooling myself.

2011 is also the Chinese year of the Rabbit, which is my birth sign.  I turn 48.   I fall under the water element, and am supposed to have a good career year.  That would be nice for a change.

I know good things are in store, too.  I am looking forward to further involvement in the Medical Cannabis community.  Our tenth wedding anniversary is a huge milestone for us.  And my third Oregon Country Fair is another anniversary of sorts.  My French Bulldog Violet turned 7 on New Year's day, which is always auspicious.

Now if I could just locate my wallet....

The Helpful Crone: Prompts 19, 20 & 21 #reverb10

Dec. 19  Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011? -Leonie Allan

Dec. 20  Beyond avoidance. What should you have done this year but didn't because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?) -Jake Nickell

Dec. 21  Future self. Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?) -Jenny Blake


Dear 47 year-old me:

If 2010 was the most chaotic year of your marriage, 2011 was still a doozy.  But as usual, the two of you pulled through.  The lesson of 2010 was that in order to heal, you must learn to endure the pain with patience, because things may get much worse before they get better. The bottom may have been a lot further down than you initially realized, but there was a bottom.  And once you hit it, you found it was something to push off of, to stabilize you during your climb back up.  It was a good lesson to have under your belt for 2011, with both of your continued health challenges.

First and foremost, were all of the surgeries.  First the foot surgery, to remove the metal you had developed an allergy to.  After what you endured after the foot surgery in 2010, this turned out to be a breeze, and you were back on your feet within a month. Then DH's brain surgery, both planned, yet scheduled abruptly, when his epilepsy and seizures took a turn for the worse.  As scared as you were for your husband, and as concerned as you were about your finances, both survived.   Not without a little too much angst on your part, crtclms.  But the fact that you both had endured so much in 2010 made your bond and your faith in yourselves stronger.

The outcome of the brain surgery wasn't the miracle you had hoped for, but it did help with DH's seizures.  He became much more responsive to anti-epileptics.  He even got his driver's license back.

Then your right eye, the one that was practically blind, and which worsened considerably in 2010, was finally treated.   You had been so frightened of the idea of eye surgery, or worse, of losing sight in that eye altogether, that you had totally ignored the problem from that day in October, 2009 that you were told your eye was beyond regular opthalmological care.  Then suddenly, the scare in December of 2010, when your sight got abruptly worse.  That was scary.  And the fact is that it was an unusual and uncomfortable treatment.  But the results were worth it:  No more night-blindness, no more cars and street lamps throwing halos of light, rather than beams, no more holding books inches from your nose to read regular-sized print, no more hitting the apple key and + over and over again to make sites legible, if distorted.

And on top of that, you worked hard at pulling your financial picture together again, at the same time that you planned a somewhat extravagant 10th wedding anniversary.  10 years of physical disaster after physical disaster, 10 years of joy in and with each other.  Years of penny-pinching as you got your marriage started, then years of largess.  Followed by 2010, when you became two of millions of victims of the Great Recession.

But while 2010 proved your marriage, 2011 celebrated it.  All your life, you had resisted being so reliant on one other person, fearing the idea of merging with them.  You feared loss of identity.  But in 2010, you realized the strength of two individuals, joined like a mortise and tenon at Stonehenge, create a simple but strong and durable bond, that is stronger than either person alone.  The quotation from your wedding ceremony by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  seems to have proved an important tenet in your marriage:  

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."   

While you lived your marriage day by day, you both were committed to keeping your marriage moving in concert with both of your future dreams.


In 2013, you finally made the big trip to Australia, so that DH could see the country you love so much.  It was odd to have a sister living permanently abroad, and you will always feel a little sad that you never had the chance to live overseas.  But you made different choices than your sister, and have a happy life.


That was for your 50th birthday, and now your 60th is much closer than I would like to admit.  But if I could offer advice to the 47 year-old me/you, here are some of the tidbits I have to share, in my extreme decrepitude:

• Everything is going to be okay.  Yes, the unknown is scary, and makes you anxious.  Yes, the path may be difficult.  But your failures have often been more rewarding than your successes.  
• Stop feeling guilty for not living a life you are not suited for, even if it is what was expected of you.  I can't believe this still bothers you, frankly.  You know better, and have given this exact advice to dozens of friends.  Now take it yourself.
• You still do not owe your mother any more of your life.   Be polite.  Accept that you will be devastated by her death, but will have a hard time feeling anything positive about her until then
• You are very much like your father.  His life did not end happily.  Learn from his example.
• Live in the now, stop trying to get a jump on the future.  It isn't possible in the current space-time continuum.
• This is very hard, but try not to live in fear of your illnesses:  Don't let fear of the next episode invade your periods of good health, and enjoy your wellness.
• Your psychiatrist has prescribed you Xanax because you need it.  Now listen to his advice, and stop being afraid of it.  It will improve your quality of life.  Needing a medication is not the same thing as being addicted to it.

Yes, you are still working on those same old problems.  You will be for the rest of your life.  And every time you think you have met a challenge, it will create another, bigger problem.   Such is life.  But with DH holding your hand, facing forward, you can best any hardship it presents, and bring joy to its labors.


And of course, you took the time yearly to renew yourself at the Oregon Country Fair, with Nakedjen and friends.

You still miss Bess and Violet.  You always will.  Your current dog is as lovable as they come, but different.  Sometimes you still cry from missing both of them.

Bess

Violet

DH and I are about to celebrate your 20th wedding anniversary.  Congratulations to us all!  May we share many more years.


Love,


57 year-old me    


P.S.  And after all these years, I still can't get the fonts to work properly on Blogger!

Dec. 18 Try: Cleaning House #reverb 10

Dec. 18  Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn't go for it?   -Kaileen Elise

This is a mundane answer on one level, but a more serious one on another.  I want to try to organize my house.   This year, it was a real struggle for me, especially because I was off my feet for 4 months.  Right before my foot surgery, I had had a hypo manic episode, and one of the characteristic behaviors of hypo mania is frenzied cleaning.  This is not universal, but is so common as to be considered a warning sign to see your doctor.  It is also a source of jokes among those of us who find cleaning very difficult, except for these outbursts.

I was never really taught how to clean.  My mother had a cleaning lady for as long as I can remember, and she felt that teaching us housework was sexist.   Of course what was sexist was that they weren't expecting boys to do housework, not that girls had to do it.  But at any rate, it means the few cleaning skills I have are self-taught.

In addition, because bipolar illness causes brain damage to certain parts of the brain, I suffer cognitive defects in my Executive Function, which is sort of the overarching cognitive meta-structure that allows one to live an orderly and organized day to day life.  I flat out can't do this.  I also have bad impulse control.  It is connected to damage done to the frontal lobe, Phineas Gage via neurotransmitters.  Well okay, not as bad as Phineas Gage.

Anyway, I went into my foot surgery with the house cleaner than it had been in some time.  Which meant it was clean, but crammed with "stuff."  And things have deteriorated from that point.

So I have made a couple of decisions about how to approach this in the coming year:  I am going to throw being Green to the winds for a little bit, and use all the "magic sponges" and "swiffers," and wasteful but convenient things:  The easier the better.  And then, we are going to invest in some storage.  I am already measuring spaces for shelves and storage units.  We are buying shoe racks, and hangers.  We are going to make a real go of it this year.  We kind of landed in this duplex in June of 2006, when DH lost his license due to a seizure:  Where he was working at the time was a mile from this house.  Now he actually commutes to an office two blocks away from where we lived before we landed here.  But we never sat down and "organized" the place, the furniture is pretty much where we dumped it upon arrival.  And while this is technically not the smallest place we have ever lived, the smaller place was designed to maximize use of space.  And we owned less 11 years ago, of course.

So we have never really pulled this place together.  We are always soooo proud of ourselves when we do even the tiniest amount of decorating.  For instance, At Goodwill last week  I found a matching trio of colorful but muted cushions that look great against our beige-y sectional.  Oh yes, I am still "thrifting"; I am taking a break from the daily photographs of outfits while I work on this #reverb10 challenge.  

Anyway, not my most riveting entry, but I needed to start catching up!  Part of the reason I am behind is this has been a very challenging week, for all the reasons I have been discussing this month, and I now need to sleep.  So this is a bit rough, sorry for any garbled sentences.

Love and Spontaneity #reverb10

Dec. 16 Prompt: Friendship. How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst? -Martha Mihalik

Dec. 17 Prompt: Lesson learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward? -Tara Weaver

Perfect.  Just as I sit down to write this, another headache is coming slamming in.  The barometer is changing, and like many migraneurs, barometer changes can give me headaches.  More often than not they do.  But I had gotten away with the first 24 hours of this storm, so I had hoped maybe I would be spared.  Sigh.

I couldn't decide how to approach the friendship prompt.  I feel like I have endured a lot this year, but most of it was spent in our duplex, just my husband and myself.   It was much more a year of physical and emotional stress than it was of perspective change.  I know that stress and mayhem are supposed to build character, but my character can only be built up so much before it topples me with its weightiness.  I know how to get through shitty times, because so much of my life has been shitty.  That sounds awful, and I should make it clear I am very happy.   But that is almost entirely because of my marriage.  This is not to disparage my friends.   And perhaps it is just a way of pointing out how dear of a friend my husband is to me.  But he was the person's whose shoulder I sobbed when it all became too much.   And vice versa, frankly.  

We have become better friends this year.  We both talk about it a lot:  It is as if we have just met each other again, 10 years later.  Again, a horrible year in terms of events, a fantastic year in terms of my marriage.  Our family is mostly on the East Coast.  I have a sister in Dallas, and a sister in Australia.  We are a pretty self-contained unit, and both being shy introverts, we aren't the most social people, so we really rely on each other.  I actually am more of a social person than he, which is almost scary.  

Although I do think my sociability would be enhanced if I felt I could confidently accept invitations in advance.  But I always risk being sick the day of.  Which cleverly segues into my lesson learned in 2010.  Heh.

It is hard to get me to do things at the spur of the moment.  Yet I have more "memorable" moments when I say "Fuck it, let's do it," than when I try to plan ahead.   I mentioned in an earlier post that I plan compulsively, and while I do not have OCD, it is considered something I need to pay attention to as part of my overall mental health.  Of course, keeping an eye on over-planning is kind of a Catch-22 for me, but I do as best I can.

Whenever I say, "Okay, let's do it," I have fun.  Always.  Whether it is to run to a restaurant at the last minute, or catch a movie, stuff that may not seem very bold to you.   But I can't even be sure I will be functional the next day, so planning for things is no good.   In fact, I know I use the obsessive planning as a defense mechanism for my lack of control over my health.  

And I also have a tendency to "hoard" the hours I am not in pain.  Sometimes I just enjoy hanging out doing not much, when I am feeling all right.  Add that time to the times I am down with headaches, and that leaves not many opportunities for spontaneity.  

Spontaneity for me could mean deciding on the spur of the moment to order a fun dinner from Whole Foods for New Year's Eve.  Then ordering it two weeks ahead of time.  But hey, I ordered it as soon as I thought of it!  And some of the joy I do find in planning comes from exactly this type of anticipation, so I actually was not being as much of a freak as usual.

But it can also mean moments of truly plunging in, and challenging myself, such as sharing the communal showers at the Oregon Country Fair, and overcoming just a little bit of my body-hatred.  It also meant I decided to go to a class on the Medical Cannabis Industry.  And at the moment, I am annoyed, because I had another great example of when taking a chance did something positive, and the migraine has knocked it out of my head.  Grrr.  Planning does have its place, I guess.

I will never be able to stop planning entirely.  I see the same behavior in other family members!  But I am trying to take risks, however tame they may seem to others.  

In fact, I just decided to let my hair grow out its natural color (with plenty of gray), and made the hair appointment for early next week!   And earlier that same day, I am going to stop off at my favorite tattoo shop to discuss my next tattoo.  Wheeee!

Baby steps, people.

Action: Walkabout #reverb10

December 13 prompt: Action. When it comes to aspirations, it's not about ideas.  It's about making ideas happen.  What's your next step?  -Scott Belsky


"A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step." -Laozi

I don't have an extensive bucket list.  While some things on it are not unusual, other things  are going to be a little more difficult to accomplish, especially now that I have a husband to consider.  Some things on my bucket list that I have already crossed off are: Going "behind the ropes," and touching Stonehenge; driving across the United States on both the Northern and Southern routes; having sex on a train in Europe (no more detail than that, sorry); and going to Australia, not once, but three times.

Australia is featured in several further wishes on my bucket list.  One item is to travel to Australia with DH to show him a place I have come to really love.  A really fantastic trip, at least 3 weeks, and a month would be even better.  I have been to most of the major cities, except Perth and Hobart.  I have seen, felt, touched, smelled, and tasted so many amazing and beautiful things in Australia, to describe it all would require innumerable posts.

Another item I have yet to cross off is living in a foreign country for two years, minimum.  But truly, I want to emigrate to a foreign company permanently.  And while I do have a back up country (New Zealand), when I say I want to emigrate to another country, what I really mean is I want to settle in Australia, Melbourne ideally.

We started the process for applying for my husband's work visa, once.  He had plenty of points.  But when we checked out the health requirements, his epilepsy clearly was an insurmountable obstacle to a visa, at least while his seizures are so poorly controlled.  They don't want to put the burden of assured multiple hospitalizations onto their health care system.

But if DH's neurosurgery in 2011 were to either stop his seizures entirely, or allow them to be controlled with medication, that obstacle would be gone.  And while we pretty much emptied our savings during DH's recent period of unemployment, we agreed to create a special account, and to put a minimum amount into it every month, for the dreamed of fantastic trip to Australia.  Our goal is to make it a trip for my 50th birthday, which is just under 3 years away.

But my (not very) secret agenda doesn't stop there.  Unless DH were to have a job already lined up, with an offer letter from the company in hand, he has only 5 more years before he is too old to get a visa (45 is the cut-off.  Yes I robbed the cradle). As an accompanying spouse my age wouldn't matter.   If this trip is as fantabulous as all my other trips to Australia have been, DH will see why I love that country so much, and why I want to live there, and I hope be equally excited at the prospect.  It would be a tight schedule, but I have it all planned out.  Heh.

To fulfill this fantasy, we would have to start the application process as soon as we got back from our vacation. I know, I know, "unlikely" is probably an optimistic assessment of our going forward with an application.  But you never know.

But first, the great vacation. We plan to open an Australia-dedicated savings account in January.  DH will have his surgery in 2011, and that will answer the question of whether or not we can ever permanently settle in another country.  And even if the surgery isn't as successful as we hope, we will be going to Australia in late 2013, or early 2014.  I know it seems far away.  Hence my opening quotation by the Chinese philosopher, Laozi (Lao tsu).  I am already excited.

So both my medium and long term goals involve Australia.  And whatever the end result, the first step to pursuing those items on my bucket list, will be the first deposit into our Australia savings account.

Body Integration: Where I end, is where I begin. #reverb10

December 12 prompt:  Body integration.  This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body?  Did you have a moment that wasn't mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?  -Patrick Reynolds


I thought long and hard about this prompt.  I was beginning to feel as if I was going to have to talk about the same thing I talked about for "Moment," which I had already cited again in my post for yet another prompt.  Next I tried to think of one of my rare athletic moments.  The few times I exerted myself, there was not any particular moment I got into some kind of zone, where mind and body melded.

Suddenly the phrase "mind and body" leapt out at me.   How could I have missed that?

One of the dilemmas of being bipolar is determining the point at which one's personality ends, and the influence of the illness begins.  Mental illness is a biological illness, but it manifests in our behavior and mood.  Are our "real" personalities and our bipolar symptoms, which are, after all, largely behavioral, too intertwined to be teased apart?  It certainly can feel that way, especially when you are in the midst of an episode.  The fact that sometimes a particular mood will really bring out a troubling personality trait fills me with trepidation that I am directed more by my illness, than my own volition.

One of the things I have found on Crazyboards (which I mentioned in the "Community" prompt blog post) by listening to other bipolar patients' experiences, from childhood to the present day, so much of my life is an echo of theirs.  From similar yet unusual childhood mishaps, to relations with our parents, to our delusions and/or hallucinations,  and how they spill over into our day to day lives, no matter how rational and responsible we try to be.

So is the startling similarity of so many bipolar people's lives just a correlation, or do precursors of our first "official" mood episode start appearing way earlier in our lives than one would think?  The traditional age of onset for bipolar illness is late teens, or early 20s.    But while we may not have an acute episode until after our childhood, sometimes it seems as if our early behavior and personalities are strikingly similar.

And because bipolar illness is a genetic one, our parents offer suffer from mental illness of one type or another.  So many if not most of us had unstable and chaotic childhoods.  If anyone needs structure, it is bipolar people, and that kind of tumultuous upbringing often causes us to find ways of sabotaging and undermining ourselves.  Crazy parents are often unable to provide the support and nurturing we need, through no fault of their own. The more regular our lives,  the better we fare from day to day (although I will admit that I am very unlikely to impose structure on myself).  I don't really know how a "normal" family interacts, but our family gatherings are almost always tense affairs, involving a great deal of teetering on egg shells.

Unfortunately, the mood episodes that make me feel most alive are mixed episodes, which are widely accepted to be the worst and most dangerous episodes in terms of the risk of a patient harming themselves or others.  Rages, sobbing, over-sensitivity, self-loathing, sensory overload; the sensation of my body trying to crawl out of its own skin, the pacing, the inability to sleep.  Things taste awful, so I stop eating.  My frustration threshold is non-existent, and I can feel anger coursing through my body.

Mixed states are the most visceral and terrifying periods of my life.  I hope that no one ever judges my overall personality based on my behavior during such an episode.  But I would be disingenuous to tell people that mood episodes are somehow not a genuine part of me.

Just because I haven't added any media for a few days, and this is supposed to be a post of the uniting of body and mind, here is a picture I took of myself during my last mixed episode, in the early summer of 2010.  Most of you of course have no idea how I normally look, but here I am drained of color, my face is set and furrowed with anxiety, and I look exhausted because I had probably gotten about 12 hours sleep in the last 4 days.

Nasty Little Things #reverb10

December 11 prompt:  11 Things.  What are 11 things your life doesn't need in 2011.  How will you go about eliminating them.  How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?  -Sam Davidson


1.  Migraines.  I will probably not ever be able to totally eradicate migraines from my life.  But I am trying a class of medication I have never tried before for migraine, SSRIs.  SSRIs are anti-depressants, but are used off label to control migraine. Cymbalta seems to be the SSRI I hear about most often in relation to migraine.  If the Cymbalta doesn't work,   I am finally going to risk hurting my neurologist's feelings, and ask for a referral to the Headache Clinic at UCSF Mount Zion.  35 years is enough with generalists, I need a specialist.  Any lessening of the numbers or severity of migraines is quite frankly a quality of life issue.

2.  Seizures.  My husband's that is.  2011 will be the year DH has surgery to see if they can lessen the number or severity, or maybe even stop altogether, his roughly weekly seizures.  This would be a wonderful change for both of us.  He would be able to drive again, which would make him so happy.  I would be so happy with any improvement.  My life with DH will be wonderful no matter the number of seizures, but of course I want him to stop having them altogether.

3.  The metal in my foot.  In January of 2010, I had my left foot entirely reconstructed:  My heel bone was severed, and pulled over; a ligament was pulled and pinned to help create an arch for my foot; metatarsal bones were moved, and either screwed into a new place, or were fused together. An X-ray of my foot reveals one HUGE bolt on the outer side of my foot, and a cornucopia of small screws holding my foot together, in an entirely different shape than it had been before the surgery.  It looks like there is a porcupine in my foot.

My foot is much, much, better.  But it turned out I am actually allergic to the metal in the bolts they used.  I have had a peeling rash all over my foot since the surgical wounds healed.  It looks like athlete's foot, too, which is embarrassing.  The only solution is to go back in, and take all the metal out, so I am having another surgery in January or February.  Getting rid of the metal will mean I won't have horrible itching and peeling anymore.  

4.  Mixed episodes.  Mixed episodes (sometimes called agitated depression) are generally considered the worst kind of episode by bipolar patients. One has all the sadness and self-hate of depression, and all the energy and irritability of mania.  It feels like you want to crawl out of your skin, like energy is pouring out of every pore of your body, but it is all energy directed into self-loathing and anger.  My psychiatrist and I are trying to stop these by adjusting my medication.  Not a very dramatic solution, but unfortunately, the only thing dramatic about treating mental illness is when the treatments don't work.

I only started having mixed episodes consistently 5 years ago, although my first one was over 10 years ago.  I was diagnosed with bipolar illness when I was 24, and it is accepted that I experienced my first depressive episode when I was 18.  Depression and hypomania are bad, and I don't like to experience them.  But I am the most likely to harm myself or others while I am in a mixed state.  The closest I have come to being hospitalized was during a mixed state, and in retrospect, it was agreed if I got that bad again, I would be admitted.  Not having to experience horrible periods of disordered thoughts is once again a quality of life issue, for the very rudimentary reason that it would mean that I would be less likely to harm myself or others.

5.  My current state of unemployment.  Can't really do anything about this until the headaches stop, but I plan to find employment by volunteering with a couple of different Cannabis oriented non-profit organizations, in the hope of making the type of connections I need to find a good job in the Medical Cannabis industry.  Working in that field would mean I was involved in a cause I feel strongly about.  And I feel happiest about myself when I feel like I am doing something to change the world, however small the piece of it over which I have influence.

6.  Clutter.  Who's the world's worst housekeeper?  I am.  Add to that our place is cute, but tiny, about 700 square feet. DH and I are on a campaign to both get rid of stuff, and to find ways of organizing things so that there is at least a place to put everything:  I can't tidy up  if there isn't even a place for everything to go.  Clutter depresses my husband more than it does me, so an attempt on my part would make him happy.  But I am full of guilt about my lack of housekeeping skills, and finding a compromise would mean I spend less time ruminating about what a bad person and wife I am.

7.  Compulsive planning.  One of the things about being bipolar is I don't handle stress or change well.   One way I try to compensate for this is by planning for every. possible. contingency.  Ever.  For anything.  Work, trips, what to make for dinner, phone calls, when I will switch into the exit lane as I approach my exit.  Everything.  It might sound like that would be a good thing, but when I can't stop, and my mind is always racing through "what ifs," and "just in cases," all day long, it is enervating and exhausting.  At the suggestion of my psychiatrist, I am addressing it by using the technique of Mindfulness.  Just to free up the part of my brain that is constantly at work, vamping and revamping imaginary schedules, to feel quiet, and be able to accept things as they come, sounds wonderful.

8.  Friends of friends.  One of my tendencies is to try to expand my circle of friends to include the friends of my friends.  But just because someone is a friend of my friend doesn't mean I have anything else in common with them, will like them, or be able to trust them.  And eventually, if I don't like someone, I am going to say something nasty, although it is usually in response to his or her nastiness to me.  I have to realize I do not have an obligation to make nice to people I am not interested in knowing, and who usually are flummoxed, or even intimidated by me.  That sounds very, very snotty.  And I am not as impressed with my accomplishments as others might be.  But on paper, I am formidable.  It's in person that I am a sickly, whiny, lazy hermit.

9.  Compulsive shopping.  This one is going to be interesting, because I think I may have already created a work-around for this problem.  But it is equally possible I am fooling myself.

When I have mood swings, I spend.  It might be on things I need, but it usually is not.  I buy kitchen gadgets, and books, and Cd's, and DVDs, and clothes, and purses, and shoes, and gifts for my friends and family, and costume jewelry (an area of particular weakness, organic brain syndromes = love of SHIINEEE).  It is easy when my mood is stable to pretend I have a plan for dealing with and preventing it next time, but to say that is to imply I can be rational when I am crazy.  And mental illness doesn't work like that.  If it did, I could just tell myself to "cut it out," as my psychiatrist will say when he is teasing me: He knows it isn't as easy as that.

Rather than a solution, I found a work-around:  Thrift shops.   I am in a thrift shop at least once a week, and when I am feeling well, more often.  Sometimes I hit 3 or 4 in one day. But I can buy lots of items, and not spend much.  And realistically, I do need clothes, as my work clothes used to be for working with dogs, and are basically stained jeans and t-shirts.   But this way, I can spend very little, yet sate my compulsion.

I do realize this is at odds with my desire to cut back on clutter.  I'm human, so sue me.

10.  Dog nails that are too long.  I'd like to take a quarter inch off the nails of the right paw of Violet, my French Bulldog.   I use a dremel with a sandpaper bit to grind back her nails:  She has black nails, and guessing where to press down with a blade is too risky.  With a dremel, one grinds the nail back millimeter by millimeter, so one can see the approaching quick before hitting it.  And if there is a small nick, the speed of the rotation of the dremel bit cauterizes it.

But as much as I like the dremel, it took me several years to realize that the way I hold Violet when I use the dremel (football hold, if you care) meant that her right front paw was at an angle that was extremely difficult for me to reach.  Bit by bit, the two center nails of the four that hit the ground began to grow longer and longer.  Now Violet has the equivalent of coke nails.  This can be remedied by diligently trimming that paw weekly, while staying on my regular monthly schedule with her other paws.

This will make my life better because when Violet stands on my stomach, she will no longer stab me with her ridiculously long nails.

11.  Obeisance  to my mother.  My mother and I have a very difficult relationship.  We always have.  I have 3 sisters who do not have the problems with my mother that I do, but see what goes on.  They often run interference for me.

My mother has a diagnosed personality disorder, but only receives treatment for the depression that often accompanies the disorder.  It took me years (and a few shoves by some therapists and psychiatrists) to realize that my mother treated me the way she did because while she loves me instinctively, she doesn't really like who I am, and isn't really capable of loving me unconditionally.  That is heart-crushing.  

All my life, I have tried desperately to win her favor.  I wore the clothes she picked out.  I took the courses she wanted me to.  I went to the college she picked out for me, even though it was not my first choice.  I went to law school because she told me it was the only possible next step after I got laid off from a teaching position. But it was never enough.  And being the type of person who is almost never ill, she tends to think my chronic conditions are more gambits for attention that anything legitimate.

My craven attempts to placate her will be the hardest thing to give up, because her anger scares me.  But my husband has urged me to stop deferring even the smallest of life decisions to my mother.  I have begun to stand up for myself in little ways, and while my mother doesn't like it, all of my positions have been so clearly reasonable, she had no choice but to accept it.  I know from experience there will be a face to face confrontation at some point; DH will have my back in the resulting shit storm.  

Finally feeling like an adult member of the family, and not a cowed child, is a change I look forward to n 2011.