Issue #21 Don't Look Back in Anger
TEH is making dinner (cheeseburgers and pan fried potatoes) and I find myself as antsy now as I have been all day. There are small chores to be done (laundry, updating new debit card information for bills, cleaning, working on front end web dev stuff) but none of it seems necessary or fun even though it IS necessary (but probably not fun). I am shirking my duties which is funny as I gave myself a talking to earlier today on not being a complete fuck up and not to shirk said duties but yet here I am, shirking away.
Scene: I am reading in bed this morning after walking the dog; a hot cup of tea on my bedside table. It's drizzling and chilly outside. I have two ARCs I need to review and post within the next week and I've been slacking. Instead of reading, I scroll through Facebook and Twitter, concentrating on people I admire (re: obsess over) and comparing myself to them. I KNOW, I KNOW. I should give no fucks but my neediness for approval has skyrocketed in the last few months. I suppose it's not so much as approval as the thought everyone thinks I've wasted my talent and opportunities, so I'm old, hopeless, and might as well be put to pasture. My golden age has bit the damned dust. Yeah, sure, it shouldn't matter what people think but in the last few years, it's been consuming my life. Something triggered this and honestly, I don't know what but I would love for it to go away.
I grab my bedside notebook and write down what I'm feeling. Mid-way through a paragraph, Twitter beckons me and I leave the notebook be never to pick it up again today. Here is what I do know: I have time and the opportunity to make myself into the person I want to be. I can do anything and everything I want. Why am I throwing this away? Then I scold myself via paper I should stop sabotaging myself. It's the same with overeating—I do it because it's not dealing whatever I need to deal with and the sabotaging means I can shirk duties and hope the adulting stuff can go away.
The even more depressing part is I've written all of this before, over and over again. I am so desperate to stop the cycle, I just cannot fathom HOW. The big step is to find a new way of thinking but I feel so blocked. Even though I continue to do it, meditation isn't helping right now. My medication may need to be adjusted again. Something. Has. To. Change.
#
I've been paying for my talking therapist out of my unemployment money and once I stopped getting UI, I told her I had to cut down to twice a month as that is all I could afford. I saw her a week ago and we made plans to meet up two weeks hence. She texted me yesterday (Thursday) to see if I wanted to see her tomorrow (today) and I said no, we had to do the two weeks. Sometime later she calls me and asks me if I have anyone I want to see in Lexington (an hour away from Lville), I said no. What about seeing something—a play? Movie? Perhaps a museum. No. No. No. Why? She then tells me she has a conference in Lexington next week and she was wondering if I could drive her. She didn't think her car could make it nor did she want to rent a car. My session for that day would be free and she would, in fact, be paying me. I said no, I was not comfortable with this. She said okay, asked me how I was doing, we talk for a few more minutes, and then we hung up. I'm firing her next week as this is not the only time she's crossed the line (her instance I get re-evaluated for my crazy via her office partner even though I told her I had been evaluated three times in the last 15 years by three different doctors with the same diagnosis every single time AND the reevaluation would probably mean I would need to go off my drugs AND she said previous evaluations may be false; she asked me why I was now paying her with check instead of cash; she once commented, when I said I didn't have money for something, I should just let Justin pay for it all). I should have fired her ages and ages ago but I feel stuck here without some kind of mental health back-up. Medicaid is useless for the mental health area. I'm paying out of pocket (or TEH is) for my medicating therapist and my talking therapist so with Medicaid out of the picture completely, I can find someone who will want me for me and not as a cash cow.
Which brings me to my medicating therapist. I see him every three months and he's not paying attention to what I am telling him when we discuss my dosages. He talks over me. He's the one who recommended my talking shrink. I am going to be looking for another APRN to do the medicating when I get back from Up North in September. Actually, I will be looking for one when I'm Up North to schedule for September. I got in touch with TEH and I's couple counselor (part of the agreement when we got back together. Everything is a-okay) and she's going to get me a recommendation for someone for me to see. I'll tell her the reason why on Sunday when we see her.
Being treated like you're not a human being AND dismissed with your concerns AND ignored by your therapists when you're mentally ill just blows my mind people could be so inhumane, callous, and have such a lack of empathy for their patients.
#
TEH and I were driving around someplace recently and I made some kind of remark I wanted to bash someone's head in. He says, "You've been awfully angry lately." (Another tell all of bipolar.) I said, "Really? I don't feel angry." But when I bit the head off of a close friend today and stubbornly remain staid in my pride, I started to think about what he said. Maybe I AM angry and maybe it's raising its head in different ways. I don't feel rage, I just feel the need to bash people's heads in. I suppose one should not want to do that. The hahaha about this is I contracted to write an article for a website ($100 benjamins in my pocket!) on—ANGER and bipolar! I dashed off my 850 word screed in a couple of hours, sat on it for a night, re-read it and read my anger simmering below the surface of the piece. You can just feel the anger poison dripping in every word. But I don't FEEL angry but by that I probably mean ragey because I always associate rage with anger. (The anger that's been hanging out probably explains why I'm grinding my teeth at night. I haven't worked up to self-harm so yay for me.)
I probably need my drugs adjusted again but I cannot afford to do it until we get back from Up North in September.
I can hold out until then. I hope.
P.S. I am looking for beta readers. How does this work? I write stuff, you read stuff, you comment/critique stuff. What kind of stuff? Poetry / flash and micro-fiction / short stories / longer prose pieces. You're not obligated to do everything sent. I would just like to have an arsenal of regular people I can send stuff to. Interested or know someone who would be? Reply to this newsletter with preferred email or head on over to the sign-up page!
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