(Photo credit: www.pbase.com/camera0bug/image/13107594)
I am trying my hardest to fight off whatever bug that's decided to settle itself in my throat and chest and hoping it's nothing more than an early winter cold. I truly feel like crap though. I'm also trying to cool a fever that is determined to not go anywhere. Hopefully this last dose of Tylenol will do the trick. It's most likely nothing more than a cold and a combination of the stress of the upcoming move and...finding out last night that Meg was told there is a 90% chance she will be deployed to Afghanistan.
Deployed. Afghanistan. The middle east. War Zone. My daughter. Deployed. My daughter deployed to a war zone.
I keep saying the words over and over again and not letting the meaning behind them sink in. I tell myself I'm not "going there" until I have to because if I go there and work myself up over something that's not happening for a few more months, I might completely come unglued. In addition to that, I don't feel like I have any right to loose it over Meg being deployed because so many other parents have gone before me and so many parents have nothing to show for it. The bottom line...I don't want to be one of those parents...again. So I'm not going to think about it or deal with it until I have to. I'm going to put it in a box, put the lid on the box, seal it and then shove it in the deepest, darkest recesses of my internal closet; out of reach.
In light of all the "feeling crappy" and the thick coat of denial that I'm wearing, I'm going to repost something from around this time last year. I wanted to take a proverbial look back over my shoulder to see if I really have made any progress and after reading several posts from last winter, I think I can say that finally, I see the outlines of baby steps forward through the dirty mud I've been trying to trudge through. Occasionally I can see the treads from where I've fallen and slipped backwards again, but there are always a set of hand prints next to the reminders of where I've fallen, showing me where I pushed myself up off of the ground and picked myself back up. More than that, there are the heavy marks in the ground around me of the steadfast footholds of those near me who continue to reach into the darkness and pull me forward, up and out into the light.
I really feel like I am, for once, beginning to not only see the light at the end of the tunnel, but feel it's warmth.
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Reposted from December 6th 2008
On a Completely Different Note
Wow, a non-paint related post!
Believe me, I'm still suffering from severe paint-angst; I just decided to step away from the situation to try and gain a little perspective. I thought for sure I was sold on Sagey and that was going to be the final chapter in the "Auds Paints Her Kitchen" saga, but then I started fooling around with the colour-picker-thingy on the Behr site and now I can't decide between Sagey and Bahia Grass. On the computer, Bahia Grass looks lovely. But with my luck, on my walls here at home...not so much.
In all honesty, it's sort of a bad thing that I don't have any more colour-crisis' to share with you because if it weren't for the past couple days of bad paint choices, I'd have nothing for ya. Technically I still have nothing.
I'm sitting on the precipice of wanting to open up to you guys and spill my guts about a couple of things that have been bothering me but I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do. I feel like I have spent so many of the last several months complaining and moaning and groaning about the depression, the "very bad thing" (which, legally speaking, I can't talk about anyhow - and probably, once all is said and done I most likely still won't be able to - - which sucks balls!), weaning the little imp, and all other various and sundry issues that my few readers have little tolerance for anything more in that vein. It almost makes me wish I'd find myself entangled with another household appliance, jump through yet another window, or maybe even have a paint crisis of such immense proportion that you'd all be weeping with laughter at my comical misfortune.
The cold hard fact of the matter is; little by little every day I feel like I'm losing a bit of myself because I can't get it together. I didn't think, nearly a year after the "very bad thing" happened, I'd still be on anti-depressants, nor did I think we'd be ages away from closure, and I certainly didn't think that I would have fallen head-first into a vat of teeming, steamy, disgusting eating disorders. But this is the kind that no one likes to talk about because it's not pretty (anorexia - yes I say pretty because Hollywood and the media have made it glamorous), or acceptable. I'm trying to bury the ugly fat girl with more and more food, and it's gotten to the point where if I don't make myself sick because I'm intentionally eating something that makes me ill in the first place, I'll intentionally make myself ill just to get rid of it. Not such a glamorous picture is it?
Let's just say that I'm pretty fucked up right now.
To make matters worse I went and read this post over at Dooce and not only did I read the post, I read the comments. Comment #167 (I can't hotlink to it directly) particular has stuck in my head and I can't seem to see past it:
167. Anonymous said:
"I really really hate to add a slightly different note to the barrage of positivity, but it is very weird to a European reader such as myself to read about all these drugs. Prozac, Wellbutrin, Zoloft - antidepressants are very rarely prescribed to anybody in a national health service before you get sectioned and not necessarily if you do. I had a nervous breakdown five years ago during which I was perpetually suicidal and was never once offered drugs and I am glad that I was forced to rehabilitate without developing a substance dependence. Oh, and since we're not 'customers' who pay our doctor's wages you can't just shop around until you find a doc who will. I just think it's worth bearing in mind that this is not the way that the whole world is - most people out there are not medically treated in this way and it might be a little dangerous to presume it's totally normal and high-fiveable. Blah, by all means ignore me - it's honestly just a bit odd."
You might come away, after reading that comment, thinking that anti-depressants are rarely prescribed in Europe, even after being committed (sectioned) to a mental crisis until/asylum. That's not the case at all! I lived over there and know first hand that the rate at which anti-depressants are prescribed is not too far off the American averages.
What really got me about the comment was the phrase; "...rehabilitate without developing a substance dependence."
Truthfully that little sentence has been much like a thorn in my side. Is that what's going to happen with me? Will I never be able to live off of these meds again? Will I ever be able to rehabilitate/get over what's happened and move on, without the aide of an anti-depressant?
Everyone who reads this blog, or those who have read it for a while know that I have been battling with debilitating depression as a result of the "very bad thing" which left me with PTSD, and I finally bit the bullet and took the meds that were offered. Well, there were problems. Huge problems! Add to that, I wasn't fully informed about possible side effects of some of these drugs and as a result I spent a couple of weeks wanting nothing more than to sit in my bathtub and slit my wrists and watch myself, and my life, slowly bleed out. Prior to that I was nauseatingly dizzy and sick to my stomach on an almost perpetual basis. I tried Zoloft, Cymbalta and finally Lexapro before finding a happy medium where I could function and wasn't crying all the time, or wanting to sleep 24 hours a day.
Even when it's all said and done and everyone involved in "the very bad thing" have all gone their seperate ways, I will still be the one left dealing with the after effects. I will still be the one sitting here wondering if I will ever be able to stay completely away from the edge of the abyss without the aide of pharmaceuticals. And I am forever going to wonder if everyone in the world sees me the same way as the assholes that did this to me, see me?
Maybe my issues with trying to find the perfect colour paint are symptomatic of a much bigger issue. It's easy to paint a wall a new colour if you don't like what's there. It's not so easy to take a brain that's been chemically altered and change it back to the normal (well OK, I don't think I've ever been normal!) organ it was before. More than that, I can't just slap a few coats of paint on myself and assume it's going to take care of the shit that's broken on the inside. I wish it were that easy. I have a feeling though that I'm going to have to raze the entire building, and not just redo the outer facade, in order to get through this.
I never used to think that the words and actions of others could be so emotionally and physically devastating. Sadly, they are.





