Grog

I can't stand the groggy morning. Up by ten, and it's 12:15, I've showered, and I still can't say I'm awake. The lids are heavy, the body leaden. I'm still third person twice removed from the world. I couldn't care less about anything, except maybe something to eat. But the idea of going out is a heroic endeavor. I'd like to crawl my ass back into bed and stay there. But Jb's home this weekend, so there's no hope of me getting away with such a thing. I'm just glad he wants to go out for sandwiches so I'm not required to do dishes, look at the kitchen, or bake the cheesy sausage thing I told him I'd make for breakfast. I really can't deal with making anything. Thank god, he likes tuna melts. It was an easy dinner last night. I just ... I'm not pulling my share this week. And I feel guilty about it, but I ... can't. I really can't. Everything is such an effort. The depression is back again. Some of the bad thoughts are back again, as well. At bay for the moment, but there at the edges.

Got My Mad On

So, there's nothing like getting a mad on to shoot you up out of depression. Over the last few days, a couple who've, for some reason, decided that I and Jb are evil, though we choose to have as little to do with them as possible, have made it their goal to flame both of us, ad nauseum, on a forum that we both frequent. It's been drama up the ass with these two. They both got kicked from the forums and their inflammatory threads removed, but I'm still furious. Who's so immature as to begin a character debate and slander campaign against another adult online? I know we're in an election year, but dear god. I have to tell you, though, I went from weepy, crying depression, to livid, absolute fury in the course of two forum posts. Anger as a cure for depression. Not a suitable thesis topic for the average psych student, I'd imagine.

Today's Playlist

What About Everything -- Carbon Life

In search of some rest, in search of a break
From a life of tests where something's always at stake
Where something's always so far
What about my broken car?
What about my life so far?
What about my dream?
What about.....

A Girl and Her Horse -- Carbon Leaf

And away she rides,
To the great beyond.
You can wave goodbye –
To a girl and her horse
With a bond you can't deny.

Not Only Numb -- Gin Blossoms

In the shade below the eaves
Think I could chain smoke anything
Im not only back, Im not only numb
When the air at home is thin
Getting out, then looking in
Yeah she knows, she knows, she knows
It aint awful hard to tell
What its like, my little hell
Yeah she knows, she knows, she knows.

Toy Soldiers -- Carbon Leaf

We find the people of our dreams
We find that they're not what they seem
I've learned that people come and go
I've learned that families break and grow
Toy soldiers brave away those tears
Toy soldiers hope for better years.

The Riverflow -- The Levellers

Life goes on and round we go and words can kill these things I know
Often you cut me, deeply so, but on the river flows.

[ . . . ]

But I still remember the day you said
That the river flowing through my head
Would take me far or leave me dead
And all you said was true .

Stop and Stare -- OneRepublic

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're 'here' not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, can you see what I see.

Follow Through -- Gavin DeGraw

So since you wanna be with me
You'll have to follow through
With every word you say
And I, all I really want is you
You to stick around
I'll see you everyday
But you have to follow through
You have to follow through.

Work Song -- Dan Reader

I've got all the fucking work I need
I've got all the fucking work I need.

Studying Stones -- Ani Difranco

I am out here studying stones
Trying to learn to be less alive
Using all of my will
To keep very still
Still even on the inside.

Life Got in the Way -- Sister Hazel

And I wanted you so much
Just like I do right now
I wanted us to be the one the poets write their books about
I wanted it to last
I wanted to grow old
But life got in the way.

Over My Head (Cable Car) -- The Fray

I never knew
I never knew that everything was falling through
That everyone I knew was waiting on a queue
To turn and run when all I needed was the truth
But that's how it's got to be
It's coming down to nothing more than apathy.

One Green Hill -- Oysterband

It might he tears of laughter,
It might be tears of rage
You hate it and you love it
And it rattles at your cage
My people are survivors, living in the cracks
Whatever bad luck hands them,
They keep on coming back.

What was Wrong -- Storyhill

Roll the window down
Turn the car around and get the hell outta town.

Hard Day's Night

This is a hard day. I wake so depressed that I immediately go make brownies to make myself feel better, which it doesn't. (I always tell myself that eating the almost burnt edges doesn't count.) It makes me feel as if I just gave Jb more ammunition to criticize me for. Then I'm chatting online to another person who is probably as fucked up in the head as I am sometimes, though he's far more passive-aggressive about it than I am. It's one of the few social things I get to do all day, and there's something in knowing he's as fucked up in his own way as I am. We're both in foul moods this morning, though, so the conversation is short, and that's fine with me, except that it isn't. I spend the morning listening to Pandora.

I am doing nothing. I am achieving nothing. I have anxiety about what Jb'll say when he comes home, about the mood he'll be in, about how much he'll hate me for the nothing that I do or feel. I cannot focus on any one thing, and the only emotional hit is music. "Ten Year Night" by Lucy Kaplansky comes on, and I'm triggered back to Michigan, flying down the highway along the railroad tracks far up toward the peninsula from a little town called Cheyenne where I braved a bar to get a cheeseburger that tasted better than anything I'd had. And the shifting of gears was so necessary to my running, the control of the down shift, the letting go as you up shift, the jump of the gas as your foot grows heavier, and all around you country you couldn't know. There's a certain face, too, that comes to mind with those times and that song, and it's as hard to out run that history and burnt bridge as it is to shift through the old melody line.

The tears are in my eyes before I ever realize I'm crying.

I remember what it's like to fly.

Fight Club

Jb comes home in a mood before he even hits the door. I can hear it on the phone when I call to see when he's coming home. Early, apparently, and pissed. It doesn't take 10m for his mood to invade mine. He shuts me down until I'm so mad at myself for allowing him to have any such control over me that I can hardly look at him. He pushes. I push back. We keep at each other, picking, ignoring, picking at the scabs of a fight waiting to go. It's the shutdown I hate. It's my mother and me all over again. I don't want to feel anything, but all I have is rage, and I can't do anything about it.

Oh, So Girl, Interrupted

I'm also having this need to read things like The Bell Jar, and Prozac Nation, and Girl, Interrupted. Or to at least Netflix the movies made from the books. Everything is so Sylvia Plath. In the hospital, you'd have morning group, right? And they always wanted us to start out with some pithy quote on the board that was meant to buoy us through the day. There were more than a few of us that looked around at each other, all aware that the only thing we had in our heads were snippets of Plath, Parker, lyrics and rhymes of the mentally ill themselves. We were the girls who did not know how to play nice in the ward, the ones that complained about the staff late at night in the dining room, the ones who didn't care if they left group in the middle of it, the ones who slept during the day to make it pass. Except for visiting hours, we thought the whole thing a farce. The only thing they cared about was that you took your pills at 9am and 9pm and kept yourself washed and clean.

What Day Is It?

More and more, I'm losing track of time: day, date. I have to ask Jb, "Is it Wednesday?" There's no reason for me to know. I have to use gmail calendar to send me reminder e-mails for appointments I have to make, except when I forget to put my appointments on gmail calendar. In the interim, I sit here, sometimes I take my morning meds, sometimes, like today, I forget. I smoke. I sleep. I listen to Carbon Leaf and Barenaked Ladies. I eat because I should. I haven't cooked in a few days. Just couldn't be buggered to do it. Care so little about things these days. Slept the entire day away yesterday. The entire day.

I got my stimulus check, still flapping in the wind over waiting to receive my medical assistance packet, running out of meds with no money or insurance to get them, and all of it, good and bad, I couldn't care less. (And to all those linguaphiles out there, "could care less," "couldn't care less," that's right, both work. Sarcasm is a wonderful thing.) Are we catching the drift of my mood? Indeed, I do believe we are. (Snarky is up there with sarcasm in my book.) I can't get through making this goddamn list for the grocery store. I can't do it. It's shoddy at best. How have I managed to stretch $100 for two weeks of food for two people? I am fucking clueless this week. I'm up to $110 on only 8 dinners and breakfast for the weekend. My mind will not focus.

And Jb's killing me last night. He's nagging me to go out, take walks, exercise because I'm out of shape from sitting around the house. Might as well call me fat on top of it. Then when he's all, "No, just, you sit home all day and we eat crap." Newsflash: you eat crap. You eat freakin' honey buns for breakfast and McDonald's or 7-Eleven hotdogs for lunch. What do I eat? Freakin' Special K and an apple during the day. A South Beach Diet granola bar. You've got to be kidding me. Of course, he works all those calories off. Yeah, he works manual labor, and I'm sure that helps him, but he can't pull the "we eat crap" card because I, at least, try. And you know what bites rhinos? I'm still not losing weight.

In a complete fit of pique, I went out and walked this morning. I hate exercise. I have always hated exercise. My body is not build for it. Never has been. I swear to god I'd love to be one of those people you see every weekend, biking, running, sweating off every goddamn thing they eat, but I'm not. I can't even begin to fathom that kind of dedication and commitment. My commitment is focused elsewhere. My cheating days, my days of blithe duplicity are through since Jb. I don't lie. I don't cheat. I don't look for that rush that goes with the chase. And I used to. God knows I used to before him. And sometimes I miss it. The rush, the high of it.

I wonder, sometimes, if that's what it's like for people with bipolar? I went years in which I was overly sexed, constantly trolling, but it was never the sex, never the actual act, that was satisfying. It was the chase, the knowing how to play a scene, or a person. And that, I know, I've had since I was little. I have always known what to be for a person. I would make a game out of being exactly what someone else needed to hook them, then get bored with the game, and the person. It was the challenge, the testing of myself, like sitting down to get a 4-hour tattoo to see if I was "man" enough to take the pain. It may not be "conventional" self-mutilation in the world of the mentally ill, but there was something freeing in the pain it brought on and the way it felt to feel something, and to master it. Reading things like that, I can think: yeah, that's fucked up.

Success!

Very brief post here, but I wanted to jot down what happened at the Department of Health and Human Services today. I got there an hour early (Because, face it, it's not the kind of appointment you want to miss; they can give and they can take away.) My new caseworker was so much better than my old caseworker, who made me cry. Of course, at the time, I'd only been out of the hospital a month. But this caseworker wasn't trying to tell me that a cell phone bill didn't count as a phone bill and yada yada. In fact, when I told her I never meant to have Jb on my food stamps account, she went ahead and took him off, even though I'm technically supposed to send in a form. And get this, with him off, my food stamps go from $58 to $168. Wee bit of difference.

As for the Temporary Disability/Cash Assistance, that's reviewed in December, and she's going to review the food stamps in December, too, since she wants to be efficient and not make me come in more times than necessary. She also said that as my medical assistance (i.e. health insurance through Maryland) lasts until April, my food stamps and cash assistance will probably be approved and renewed until then as well. Whew. One less thing to worry about.

On the down side, I still haven't received the packet from the medical assistance program that has my card or the information I need to start receiving those benefits. And the two therapists I was referred to through the mental health program don't work for the assistance program anymore. So yet another set of strike-outs. I swear, getting a therapist has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do out here. One guy offered to take me, but only for $350 up front and another $200 each session. I nearly cried I laughed so hard.

Oh! And my stimulus check came from the government. $600 big ones. And all of it is already spent. Go figure. But it's on necessary things. Some very expensive, out-of-pocket medical things, a couple new blouses to do interviews in when I'm ready for that, and a haircut that I've been dying to get. So, things are looking up. And despite the nerves, I felt okay today.

Morning Check-In

Sleep: Up since 8:30ish. Not so bad. Had Jb still been around this morning, I'd have begged him to take a day off. Don't want to be alone today. Slept fairly well last night, though, I think.

Dream: Had a dream about my ex-husband. How we were both dating now, how we'd both changed, seen the changes in each other, and wondered if those changes would have made a difference when we were still together. Sure that they would have. But that all passed us by.

Cigarettes: Still smoking. Probably a good 4-6 yesterday. It's good I bum off Jb so they're not around during the day, though I could use some later when I go to the DHHS.

Weight: Don't want to look. No need to ruin an already stressful day. Besides, we ordered in last night and I had a P'zone, so that can't be good.

Meds: Compliant. Took them last night and this morning.

Food: Protein Boost Special K (the psych says I need protein) with a little milk and an apple.

Mood: Enh. I'm here. Like I said, this morning I was a little grasping, would have wanted Jb to stay home, which he wouldn't have and couldn't have. I'm intensely lonely and isolated right now due to the unemployment. It's made me needy and restless. Think it might be time to find that part-time job when I get my stimulus check and can afford a new blouse to interview in.

To Do: Should call HealthChoice and see if they sent my insurance package yet. Need to reschedule psych appointment. Need to schedule a PCP appointment for blood work. Need to find a therapist, which means making some calls.

The Bad Part of My Day: Have an appointment at 4:30pm at the Department of Health and Human Services to review my need for food stamps and temporary cash assistant/temporary disability assistance. Both rather important things that are helping us get by right now. So, of course, the stress about this started last night.

Relationship: Jb and I are snapping at each other a great deal. I'm ugly and mean a great deal of the time, irritated by everything and hateful. It shows in contempt and so many other ways that I feel like if I can't control this, get even somehow, I'm going to ruin everything. I used to treat my ex this way, and it's little wonder he never wanted much to do with me. He was always happy to go his own way. I'm sure, toward the end, he never felt loved. How could he?

I miss friendship, though. Not the constant caretaking of a relationship, but the ease of a friendship where you're allowed to be who you are without having to worry about stepping on someone's overly sensitive feelings. Everything becomes internalized in relationships, when I'd really rather just have someone to listen and say, "Yeah, that really sucks, you know?" And affection, an arm around the shoulder, a hand at the small of my back, some actual caretaking, the kind you get from a parent if you have good ones: a shoulder rub, a smoothing back of your hair, a body to curl up into and hug, a sense of safety and being loved. I get tired of paying bills, doing dishes, doing the grocery list, cooking, doing this or that, being responsible for this or that. I feel like I'm only good for the things I do in this relationship, and I'm tired of taking all the responsibility for these things. It's too much, and I resent it.

8:24am Aargh

Could not go to bed last night. Tried. Honestly, I did. Sort of. Jb crashed around midnight, and I was still wide awake. Read some of Nora Roberts' Blood Brothers. Still convinced that she is a deceptively good writer. Stupid me, I held out for years thinking such a prolific writer must be a hack. Way to go, jackass. Granted, her novels--the ones I've been reading, the more supernatural ones--have the same structure: 3 women and 3 men brought together to battle some sort of evil, and in the process of the three-book series, they all hook up. But she does a wonderful job of characterization and creating a sense of a non-nuclear family, but a family all the same.

Anyway, off track. Could not sleep last night. Woke up several times. Up at 8:24am. Groggy per usual, but I don't know, my sleep pattern is definitely shifting. I'm finding it harder and harder to not stay up half the night like I used to. The fact that I resist sitting there watching Adult Swim all night helps, I'm sure. But reading with the light on probably doesn't. Still, I can't just lie there and think, and think, and think. Because I start thinking of blogs to write, or scenes to write, and what's happening in the book, or what I'd do or say if X, Y, or Z happened. Feh. Useless, stupid things.