OMFG - autumn edition

Holy shit, it was the most gorgeous fall weekend here. Warm, sunny, breezy - all the leaves blowing around, all the trees red and gold. Beautiful, gorgeous, wish you were here.

And with the exception of a three hour dog walk on Sunday, I huddled indoors and scoured the internet for news about the election. Well, and I studied a bit. But mostly combed the politicosphere for some indication that I'm not going to be making a trip to the gin aisle at Costco on November 5th.

Oh, and I went to the gym today for the first time in months. And it was entirely this woman's fault. She looks freaking awesome. Some people are just born to kick ass.

I have a new emotion every five seconds...

Gah! That line is from the movie Singles, which i can't believe i couldn't place it considering that it's just about my favorite movie in the world.

Here, I even found THE SCRIPT online. Now I can just sit and read it and revel in the wonderfulness of pre-Vanilla Sky Cameron Crowe, and my grunge wannabe days of the early 90's.

So I wanted to update that I'm doing much better, again, both physically and mentally. Some days are harder than others. Today I feel like everything's ALL better, but I also felt that way on Saturday, and then sandwiched in between was yesterday. And yesterday sucked a little, but not as much as previous suck-days had. I can still find myself in the canned-vegetable aisle, trying not to cry, while Wake Me Up When September Ends plays over the loud system and for some reason THAT song has become oh so emotion-inducing.

Sigh.

So it can sneak up on me. Have you ever felt like that? Betcha have. You know, I'd believed for so long that I'd really gotten my life under control, that I was relatively emotionally stable. It continues to be a little disturbing how fast it all went spinning out of control - and how far it spun.

However, I have also become very good at being my own shrink. This whole becoming-a-psychologist crap is really for the mental masturbation, I've decided. But it helps. I won't go into the intricacies of Being Dr.M. these days, since you're probably driving while you're reading this and I'd hate to have you fall asleep at the wheel - suffice it to say, I was kind of surprised at the direction some of the emotional fallout of the last several weeks, and it took me a good few days to work through. But I did have that A-Huh moment (slightly more bewildering than an A-Ha moment) and it helped put things in perspective.

Now, having gotten my head around a number of issues, I find that as long as I don't consume more than 2 glasses of wine and don't listen to sad sappy wahhn wahhn music, I'm carrying through just fine. It's been a definite learning experience. But, as my father recently said, maybe I could stand to go without some character-building for a little while.

Every day is a new day

I feel a new emotion every five minutes (god, my brain doesn't even work well enough now for me to remember what movie that's from). But some days I wake up, and I start crying immediately and not just because eBoy's shaved his head over the bathroom sink without cleaning it up again. Yesterday, I woke up and I didn't cry. I didn't really feel much of anything, not good, not bad, not even really numb. Just blank. You know, like the weather when it's that sort of exact temperature that it feels like there's no temperature? It's not the slightest bit chilly, not the slightest bit warm, it's just the same temperature as me.

I'm not sure what today is like. I've cried a little bit hearing from some old friends. But still none of the overwhelming despair from earlier in the week. It's quite possible that the emotional circuits in my brain have shorted out. That's some pretty hinky wiring in there anyway.

Life goes on. The Dodgers lose. The Red Sox lose. If Obama loses, well then I will have just HAD it. The weeds have taken over my garden, the dust bunnies run loose through my home. If I don't get stuff moving again soon, I feel like the jungle will reclaim me like some ancient Mayan ruin. Time to get some coffee and go for a walk.

Update: Holy Shit, the redsox won last night!!! I turned the game off when it was 5-0. see people, this is why there are NINE innings and you don't give up in the 7th. There's probably a metaphor in there that i should be learning from.

Thank you to you

You are wonderful. Thank you for your support - for working to try to make me feel better, rather than try to make yourself feel better.

I will admit, while this is too personal and too emotional, that I have been suicidal at three points in my life. One was 7th grade, which was painful and awful, but maybe unremarkable. The 2nd time was during my parents' divorce. I'm not saying it was their fault, i'm saying that I was so numb and so incapable of dealing with my life at that point that I drank myself to the point where I could feel emotion and had very little impulse control.

I do, however, have little tolerance for pain and an extremely poor understanding of how to OD. In 1993, I was hoping that I could OD on Actifed, but I was scared that I would just oversleep and be late for work, and so i never tried it.

I've had moments, significant moments of suicide ideation over the last week. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a plan (I'm still just as ignorant of methods) and I don't want anything painful, and most of all, I don't want to hurt my father, ma-Mer, and my husband. They are hurting enough, and I don't have the capacity to help them right now, so if I'm alone, then they are really fucking alone. And you can't OD on Tylenol PM, apparently.

But I really really fucking get it. The appeal of suicide. The idea that this is the best and only choice at that moment And I could really lose my career, my job, my education, by attempting suicide.I sat in the library today taking two midterms and sobbed audibly for 4 hours straight. I have no focus, no concentration. I don't know how to make it through this without falling behind in schoolwork or missing class. A professor has already let me know that my only option is to take a leave of absence.

I was pregnant for four and a half months, but I worked night and day for six years to get into a doctoral program. I don't know what to do, but it seems on top of everything else, I have to give up school because I can't regulate my emotions for long enough to be the student that I know I'm capable of being. Rules are rules. I've missed more than two classes, so I can't pass. I can't even take a week off.

Thanks you for the cards and flowers. I really really needed those. I needed to know that my friends support me and see this as real. i know I couldn't talk to you. I still haven't been able to talk to my father - because I can't have a 20 minute conversation in which I just cry. I can't hurt you like that. So thank you for reading, and thank you for understanding.

And for those of you that reached out with unconditional understanding - there is a special place in my heart for you. It means a lot.


ps - oh, in case you're wondering if there's actually a god, I discovered today that there is a preschool/infant care directly across the street from my school, AND, my remaining 16 year old cat has one tooth left, so she is now eating baby food exclusively. so i get to spend a good 5 minutes in the baby aisle every other day, because if I send eBoy, the cat ends up getting strained peas.

I'll try to be short and sweet about this.

As of Monday, I was 18 weeks pregnant. I was thrilled, excited, it was very much a wanted pregnancy. Right around the time that we were getting to the point where we could announce to world, we started to find out that there were seriously things wrong with the baby. Now, as I have already been told that my communications are too personal and too emotional, I'll try to spare you some discomfort. Suffice it to say that there were enough things wrong with the baby, that I miscarried on Thursday and Friday. This has been scary, devastating, extremely painful both physically and emotionally, and completely isolating.

I share this with friends and strangers because this has been the single, solitary thing that I has been going on for me since the beginning of July. Migraines, nausea, exhaustion, a complete loss of control over my own body and mind, and absolutely nothing to show for it at the end except a medicine cabinet full of little yellow bottles full of hopes and dreams.

I am going to do my best to start eating and acting healthy, and hopefully my brain and emotions will follow. Right now, i'm at bottom, and I have to get out of bed sometime - especially since school is threatening to fail me for missing class last week


Sorry if this is too personal or conflicts with your values in any way. Truth be told, at this point, I could give a shit.

Interesting article about parenting choices

Here's a thought provoking piece from the NY Times today. Aside from your opinion on Sarah Palin's qualifications, how do you feel about the choice she's making to to run for VP while she has so much going on in her family? What do you think your reaction says about you and the choices you've made?

I need to think more about this - not sure what my opinion is yet. But my initial reaction to her choices has been this: she might make different choices than I would, but I would not fight to take away her right to choose. And that is a very significant way that she and I differ.

Oh how I WORSHIP her

Jillian Michaels has an AWESOME podcast every week on KFI. She's so kickass! If you're trying to lose weight and/or get in/stay in shape, here's a great resource.

OMG my first husband

This nearly killed me. In a good way.

The occasional post

Sarah Palin apparently was annoyed by Katie Couric for asking those hard-hitting questions like What Magazines Do You Read (answer: All of em!) instead of just letting her rant about how Barack Obama is going to raise taxes (on folks making over $250K).

She's really taking it to a level we haven't seen in a few years: