My mom sent us a late Christmas present - stuff of family tradition that I’ve been so homesick for!
Whitman’s chocolate and Queen Anne cordial cherries!
I feel like my mama just hugged me. 
Bugger the fact that it’s all corn syrup! My mama sent me something straight outta my childhood!
By December 28, my sinus infection or whatever it was, had started to finally fade.
By December 31, my husband’s doctor cleared him to be able to go out in public again, though we’d been stepping out of the house for the past two days as it was, because of cabin fever. The doctor said that as long as one still has a cough, one is still contagious, at least when it comes to H1N1. My husband had a mild cough, and was told as long as he coughs into his inner elbow, and washes his hands frequently, the spread of the illness would be greatly minimised.
So on New Year’s Eve, we went to our friend’s house, and enjoyed a mellow evening just hanging out. Some of our friends have young children now, so the house was filled with infant and preschooler noises as well.
I had reminded my husband on the way to the party about how to cough into his elbow, since we employ this method in the Montessori school I work for.
Of course, within the first half hour, my dear husband jokingly shoved his face into a box of homemade cookies and made ‘nom nom nom’ noises.
I pulled him aside immediately and reminded him of his germs. He sheepishly said he was sorry, that he’d forgotten already.
*sigh*
On January 1st, we decided to go dancing, since we’d been screwed out of most of our vacation by being sick. We sweated and danced our asses off at Meat vs. Death Guild.
The next night, we returned to the same location for New Wave City, and danced some more. I began to get sad on the way to the club, because I realised it was our last night out together before having to return to work. We’d not been able to go to Michigan to see friends and family, and we’d not been able to go out into the world from Christmas Eve til New Year’s Eve in any capacity to hang with friends, much less go wining, dining and dancing.
Today is the end of our “vacation”. Tomorrow it’s back to work. I slept in til 11:30am, despite having told myself that would be a bad idea - that I’d have insomnia tonight. Ah well.
Throughout the past week and a half, I’ve checked flight status on the airline we were supposed to have flown. Our flight made it safely to Michigan on December 25, and safely back to San Francisco on January 2. The Cabal party we were supposed to attend still happened in our absense, and pictures and dialogue were posted. I kept tabs on the weather - snow fell regularly through Christmas into the New Year in Michigan.
It’s a bit surreal knowing all of this, and having reality be that I never got on the plane.
Meanwhile, back in California, it’s been a mix of rain and sun, and the temperature has been roughly in the 50°F range during the day, and in the 30-40°F range in the evenings.
Yesterday as we shopped for a dishwasher, I informed my husband that we’d boarded the plane in Michigan and were now on our way home.
This morning I had a nightmare that we’d overslept and likely missed our flight back to San Francisco. I spent a lot of time on my cell phone with a bad connection to Travelocity to try to pin down whether the plane had left already or not. The nightmare ended with me at my ma’s house, having gone into the kitchen and turned down the country music on an old small boombox radio, so I could hear the phone conversation about how to go about getting booked on another flight. My husband was in the living room, my brother had just walked in the front door, and the boy next door stood on his porch with his wife, who was there and then not there and then there again…like some sort of hologram. The two looked a bit Victorian.
My cough returned Wednesday or Thursday as I cleaned the house, because of the dust. The cough settled, then returned again by Saturday morning, along with phlegm, after my husband and I had gotten all kissy face for the first time in about two weeks. I was hesitant but gave in. We’ll see if I get sick again. I don’t have the best immune system…
Yesterday I was so tired all day long, despite having slept in, that I wanted to cry. I overcaffinated myself to no avail. Today I’m feeling pretty tired again, but not as worn out as I was on Saturday. I’m guessing I was just super dehydrated and worn out from all that dancing and sweating on Friday, since it is the first major activity in weeks on account that I’ve been sick. I first got the flu around December 5, and my husband’s doctor thinks it was a blend of H1N1 and the regular flu. She says it takes weeks to fully recover from it, and that relapses can happen.
So it’s back to wait and see, now that we’ve had a weekend of strenuous activity via the nightclubs.
Alcohol is a central nervous system (CNS) depressant. I blacked out on alcohol last Saturday night and spent the entire next day on bedrest, I was so hung over. As of today, I’m still dehydrated. It is not a surprise that I’m also seriously depressed since Sunday.
I had my head shrink appointment yesterday and talked a little about what happened. I expected the shrink to listen to me, but instead she spent the hour interjecting her assumptions about my behaviour, and also disbelieving my reasons and insecurities. She’s never been this bad, before. I was highly annoyed by this, and finally told her to STOP.
I told her I don’t think we’re a good fit and that I’m really doubting whether to continue with her.
Examples of the things she said to me was:
“You didn’t HAVE to go to your husband’s reunion - he makes enough money, he could have just let it go.”
NO, I committed to go and wanted to go to show support for him. He was really anxious and nervous himself about this. And although he makes “enough money”, he can be very frugal, and has actually been QUITE frugal since finally realising that I’ve become financially dependent upon him because my job pays jack shit and I’ve spent the last three years trying to make a living outside of dotcom work so that I don’t end up in a fucking padded cell.
“You could have left the room / left the reunion all together once you were attempting to take that first drink”.
NO, I couldn’t - when the anxiety sets in that way, I become rooted and fixed, like a deer caught in headlights. I endure rather than extricate. That is what my mind does to me. I’ve been going over this with you from session one.
That woman actually argued with me on this, and kept saying, “yes, yes you could have left, I think it would have been okay.”
HELLO! NOT LISTENING!!!
She began to plead with me to try rehab and at this point I got verbally combative with her. I had full on attitude at this point. Not using expletives or calling her names or anything like that - just being VERY assertive in my refusal and saying I don’t CARE about anyone else’s sob story in group therapy, it’s a total waste of my time and energy when I’m telling you up front that I’m not on board with it, and besides, sending me to a group type therapy situation when I have severe social phobia is counterproductive and will lead me into the bottle faster than you can say BOO.
And then she wanted to talk about my dysfunctional fundamentalist family again. She returns to this subject every time we’re in session. I told her she’s fascinated by this story of mine. She called my family ‘tragic’.
I told her having to talk about my upbringing and my family has dredged up a lot of anger and anxiety. I told her I came to therapy to discuss my social anxiety issues - the anxiety which leads me to drink alcohol when I’m out. I told her the family issues are a whole other topic.
Again she went back to false assumptions about my social alcoholic behaviour and I had to tell her to STOP. I told her she can’t ever think I’m making progress, and she can’t ever assume that a certain social situation WILL lead me to drink. I cited several examples of where I’d be led to drink in one case but not in the other, for the same type of event or outing.
She responded with “it makes it very hard to treat you.”
WELL! I’m so sorry I’m not nicely fitted into one of your psychological DSMs!
We ended the session with her asking me what my availability is for next week. I responded, “bedridden”. It’ll be george time again.
She penciled me in sometime during the first week of November, but I am now seriously doubting whether I want to continue with this woman.
I feel like I’m left to fight through my social phobia alone, once again.
In other news, I have not gotten another canker sore since Saturday. I threw away the chapstick with clove oil, thinking perhaps my body is allergic to it, or that it had become contaminated. And I’ve been rehydrating with pedialyte and with electrolyte water since Sunday.
The depression is the worst, right now.
We’re four days from our one year wedding anniversary, and I have no interest in celebrating it. There’s a big ugly reason in there too that I don’t want to get into. The hint is trust - ruined in May, 2009.
We’re ten days away from Halloween and have no definite plans for that day/night, or that weekend for that matter. We have barely decorated the house this year. The haunted backyard isn’t happening because no one had time to give to it this year (but I’ve been fine with that - just wanted to note that it’s not happening in case I look back and say, “what, did you cancel your haunted backyard due to depression?” No, it got cancelled and I am actually happy about that).
I need to get past this bout of depression.
I told my therapist what I need right now is ativan to help me because I’m either going to continue to get into that bottle to manage my anxiety and stress, or I’m going to continue taking vicoprofen to calm the hell down, when vicoprofen is supposed to be for my endometriosis pain, NOT stress.
She wrote a letter to my doctor urging him to prescribe ativan for me, then gave me a lecture on how not to abuse it. I rolled my eyes at her and told her I’ve been on this for short term periods less than a handful of times in my life. I basically told HER to chill out.
Seriously. She’s fired. I’m looking for a new shrink.
Two more things - my eyes are still weeping sticky, itchy goo, and yesterday the goo went from clear-coloured to white. I’ve been using Naphcon-A allergy eye drops since yesterday but it doesn’t feel like it’s helping. I made an appointment to see my eye doctor - that appointment is tomorrow.
I’ve also been wracking my brains as to what’s causing me to be so sensitive suddenly to chemicals. I had a disturbing revelation yesterday - I likely caused this myself by consenting to have my house sprayed down with Deltamethrin to rid us of the severe ant problem we had over the summer. The ant spraying happened in late August or early September, and after all the bitching I did about having autoimmune issues and not wanting the spray, I not only caved in and allowed it, I actually WALKED IN DURING THE SPRAYING because I forgot something petty before leaving the house. I had my nose and mouth fully covered by two shirts when I walked in, but still.
If the initial exposure didn’t do it, perhaps coming back to the house several hours after spraying did it and I’m just that sensitive, like I had feared. We should have stayed out of the house with the cats overnight.
I have had a lot of self-hatred going on lately, which magnifies the depression. Let’s see if I make it out alive.
Last week I talked about Triggers and Fundamentalism. I was set off because a fellow endometriosis blogger had found a site called Invisible Illness Week, which I was eager to join along with my fellow endo bloggers.
However, I found that the site is a Christian-run website. I drew a deep breath and registered to be one of the guest bloggers, anyway, because I really like the content on their website, it’s not pushing religion, and the more people voicing themselves about invisible illnesses, the better.
Then I waited, feeling in my gut that I’d be rejected. I felt this way because my website had said “contains explicit language”, and because my website currently has a black scratchy looking background, which is likely too dark and depressing for the average Christian, let alone the average anybody. I know that I exist within a subculture of people who enjoy outwardly expressing the more macabre side of life.
A day after posting my blog, I received an email from that website, commending me on my strength and resolve in battling an invisible illness. The email ended with “Best wishes!”
Immediately I knew I’d been rejected as one of their guest bloggers.
On top of what I listed above, my blog contains a section entitled Things I’ve Tried To Combat Endo, and within that section I detail how I USED to pray to God, but that “I left the fold in college”.
Being that the Invisible Illness Week website is Christian-run, it is no surprise that my blog would be rejected. I am not Christian. They rather covertly advertise their site as Christian - there is no ‘About Us’ or ‘Mission Statement’ that explains them as Christian, but there is a link in the upper right that says ‘Christian Resources’. If you look around on their busy homepage, you’ll also find an ad on the right side of the page for Rest Ministries. Clicking into that ad, you will see that there IS an ‘About’ page, and it reads, “Rest Ministries, Inc. began in 1996 and became a 501(c)[3] in ‘97. It was founded by Lisa Copen. Lisa was diagnosed a few years earlier with rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 24 and life had changed dramatically. She searched for some time, but was unable to locate the kind of Christian support that she desired to help her along this unexpected detour of chronic illness.”
I commend Lisa for being the one to take charge and put up a Christian-based support site for those who suffer with chronic illness and pain.
It still doesn’t stop the fact that I feel rejected by followers of God once again. It doesn’t stop the triggered memories of growing up fundamentalist Christian and being told from a young age that no matter what I did, I was always offending God somehow and would never be perfect in any sense of the word, but yet I had to always prove and prove and prove myself in the HOPES of one day being accepted and loved by God.
It’s not Lisa Copen’s fault. It’s not her website’s fault. It’s not the fault of the people who staff her site, who rejected my blog. I hold nothing against these people.
I’m still learning how to deal with my anger, my hurt feelings, my rejection complex, my bitterness after being raised in such a foul, miserable cult called Fundamentalism. I’m still learning how to forgive my ma for continuing to be a fundamentalist. It’s very hard work, emotionally. I am always trying to prove my worth to people because I could not prove my worth to God - religion according to my ma didn’t allow for it to happen. I am always feeling rejected by people to this day, because according to how I was raised, God had always rejected me, and yet I was always expected to keep trying to get into his club. These things are not easily unlearned and reprogrammed. It takes years, with therapy. There are moments where I feel I have transcended everything, but then something smacks me in the face again, and I find out I’ve not really come so far after all in emotional healing.
It’s a learning process. I am, as they say, a work in progress.