Trigger Unhappy

Well, I woke up feeling like shite anyway.

Then I'm reading one of my regular forums and someone made a comment in response to one of my comments that really triggered me. I'm trying to tell myself that's why I feel this horrid combination of depressed, furiously angry, afraid, frozen...my therapist says when you hit a PTSD trigger you get frozen like that...

That and the fact that I just can't respond to the comment for various reasons, one of which being that it has to do with religion. And when people get entrenched in religious beliefs, well, there's just nothing more to be said. It's like ramming your head against a wall.

Most religious entrenchments don;t affect me this way. I can just blow them off. But having had some experiences with a particular religion that were...shall we say, less than healthy, I have a particularly hard time with that one. I want to be able to say, "Believe what you believe and it doesn't bother me." But there's an ego factor involved in this one that is curiously disguised as lack of ego. And you just can't discuss it in any rational fashion without getting "the knowing smile" and the general response that "when you reach a certain point you'll understand." Which just activates me on so many levels. It seems to assume that--and I'm having a hard time going on here without naming the religion so forgive me--when you reach a particular place in your spiritual development you'll just naturally see that everything you've believed before is wrong. I don;t believe that.

My own spiritual views have a LOT of leeway for various paths. But any path that masquerades as being open while so many of its adherants (sp?) practice a One True Way philosophy really gets me.

So I'm triggered today. I want to go back and hide under the bedclothes. I want to say, "well, of course from the inside it looks that way to you." I want to...do something to feel better. And I feel helpless and powerless and like I'm going to be punished if I do any of those things.

So I'm sitting writing this blog, for which I also feel as though I'm going to be punished, and smoking way too early in the day and feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack.

Happy New Year's Eve.

A Sequel

1:23 am Christmas Morning. Snowing heavily. I can;t sleep. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say, I am afraid to sleep.

This fear has tormented me every since I was a little girl and learned the so-called "Children's Prayer:"

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

This verse always set me off thinking about dying, of course. And at six or seven as now, having some undefinable and unknowable Lord take my soul did not seem adequate compensation for a life cut short. So I would lie in bed in terror that I would die before waking and wondering about death. I was a morbid child as I am a somewhat morbid adult.

I have never lost anyone close to me but I have known many people whose lives have been cut short in various ways. Some just lay down and never woke up again. This is the kind of death that scares me most. The idea this could happen. Without warning .

So it is Christmas morning and I am afraid to lie down beside my snoring husband and go to sleep.

There are things I want to do yet. Small things, but things all the same. I want to watch the movies we rented for the holiday. I want to finish the book a friend in Liverpool was kind enough to send me. I want to learn, one day, to play the Irish flute well. I want to eat a real cheeseburger again, not a weight watchers' substitute. As I said, little things. Not earth shaking things. Not things of consequence. Perhaps some people would even say selfish things. But does that justify the possibility of death? Nothing does.

Yet we all die. I'm having a hard time with that concept and thinking about it a lot, as this blog and my last show. I guess many people never think about it or console themselves with religion but I don;t seem able to do either. Maybe because I've never lost someone close to me I fear it all the more. But then, not many people are clsoe to me, so why shouldn;t I fear it? If you have 20 friends losing one doesn;t make much of a dent. If you have 2, losing one is half the world.

Maybe that was crass, but it's verging on two in the morning now.

I really need to sleep but I am still afraid.

Morbid Thoughts

A friend of mine had to have his cat put to sleep yesterday. Another started a thread on my fave forum about remembering those who have left us in this last year. And I suppose it's not unreasonable to be having these thoughts as the old year dies (whenever you celebrate that fact) and the new year comes in.

So I've been thinking a lot about death--my own and death in general. Well, to be perfectly honest, I think about my own death a lot. I'm terrified of it. Actually, a strange mixture of terrified of it and attracted to the idea, like looking over the edge of a tall building and feeling an overwhelming urge to jump.

I did not used to be terrified of death. I was scared of the thoughts that drove me towards bringing my own about sometimes, but the thought of death never scared me until I had a really bad acid trip and nearly died. And I suppose I had an out of body experience then, but instead of its being really full of light and love and all that crap that it's supposed to have, it was nasty. So I've been terrified of my own death ever since although sometimes I crave it.

I can;t stand the idea of me not being in some form. I can;t conceive of it. I don;t think any human can conceive of it, which is why we make up glorious stories about whatever afterlife seems best to us and go with that when we get too scared. But I don;t know what I believe anymore. I was brought up Christian, but I never believed in that much; it's hard to when your father is the minister and you know all the tricks behind the curtain, so to speak. I went through a brief period of devout Hinduism. I am now nominally Wiccan, so I should believe in some form of reincarnation. I guess I do. It makes sense. Energy is conserved somehow. It has to be; this is a natural law, isn;t it?

But then I think, if there is reincarnation then it has to apply to everything. We can't be egotistical to the point of just applying it to human beings. Every spider and every bird, every blade of grass even, must reincarnate. And how is that possible? Maybe if you equate humans with blades of grass...or maybe as humans increase certain species die out and that explains a lot of mass extinctions...I just don;t know. I can't wrap my mind around it.

One time, shortly after my last miscarriage, I saw my cat eat a spider. And the spider was there and living one moment, gone the next. The sight revolted me so much I had to throw up. It still disturbs me that life and death can be so narrowly entwined--living in one moment, dying in the next. Maybe that's what frightens me most: the thought that I am not ready and I may never be ready: that death may come suddenly from some unknown source and I will not have time to prepare.

I know this is why a lot of people turn to religion. It helps them prepare somehow. It does not do that for me.

I am home alone and writing this is freaking me out to the point that I think I have to stop or move on. Whatever. I can;t make sense of it and I can;t know anything about it and that naturally triggers me.

I guess I just have to live with that, as I have to live with so much else.

A good day?

I got out of bed. I brushed my teeth. I got dressed. Somtimes, a woman on my BPD forum says, that constittutes a good day. The fact that I did dishes is a bonus.

But I wonder when I'll feel better. I wonder how long I have to keep trying different drugs, trying to find the one that will help. Another BPD woman has told me, "When they find the right ones, everything is different." I am obviously not there yet.

Watched Live Free or Die Hard last night. I love those movies. I like watching things explode. Is that weird? At least it distracted me from this grey place for a couple hours and that's good thing. If weird.

I have a loving cat in my lap and that's a good thing.

I can;t think of any other good things right now. I can;t think of any particularly BAD things either. I guess some people would consider that a good thing in and of itself, but I don;t. I'm tired of feeling nothing at all.

A funny thing...

Funny that I should mention The Unquiet Grave last night. Today I got the letter of doom. "Thank you but it's not what we're looking for right now." I guess it could have been worse. It could have been: "Merry Christmas. By the way, YOU SUCK! BWAAA HAA HAAA!"

So all of you who are waiting to read the adventures of Caitlin and Timber are going to have to keep waiting, I'm afraid. This is one I'm NOT going to self publish, no mater if it sits on the shelf for a hundred years.

That's all.

In Between

I had a pretty boring day today. No psychosis, probably due to the fact that I've been shutting the cats out of the bedroom in the morning and thus been able to get beter sleep. I did have a bit of a migraine, but not too bad a one.

Mostly I'm in this in-between place. Which I hate. I'm in between with my writing. Locked is as finished as I can make it for now--I'm waiting for copy editing and other feedback before I submit it to my POD. I don;t really feel finished with it...or I am finished with it, but I don;t really feel done with that world, that space, so I can;t go on to another. This leaves me a lot of free time. But I'm in between with my depression too, so there's nothing to go in that free time, really. And right at the moment I'm in between with everything because I need to eat something with my night meds but I can't yet because I have to have a 12-hour blood draw tomorrow and the clinic doesn;t open until nine-thirty. Thus, I can't eat anything until nine-thirty, which is still more than half an hour away.

Waiting. I hate waiting. M. said last night that my life must be like always waiting for an appointment you don;t really want to keep and it is like that. Waiting to accomplish. Waiting to "get better." Waiting for the Solstice to come. Waiting for Christmas. Waiting for...so many things I get tired of listing them here. Waiting for the kittens to stop being total spazzes. Waiting for money to drop on me from the sky. Waiting to find out what's going on with The Unquiet Grave. Or so I really want to know that? Sometimes I imagine that I'll get THE phone call saying the publisher I sent it to is interested, at least in seeing the rest of the manuscript. That would be enough for now, I think, even if they didn;t eventually buy it. Sometimes I imagine the letter in the envelope I addressed to myself saying, "No thanks."

I'm writing this to fill up some of the time but i don;t really have anything to say. I never really feel that I have anything to say. Bad for a writer, I know.

Waiting in the in between place.

Psychotic Reaction?

So I've been taking this new med, Lamictal, three days. Only every other day, mind, because they break you in on this one very slowly to avoid strange physical reactions that are possible. but what about mental reactions? I ask myself. Because I feel almost psychotically angry this morning. It really didn't help that two of the kittens started in on me at 6 am--okay, that's always annoying, but I'm seriously thinking about killing them to make them stop and let me have some peace and quiet; that's not normal. No, that's not quite right. I'm not thinking about killing them so much as I'm worried that I'll lose control and just hurl one into a wall because I'm so angry.

This is troubling. Fortunately they have calmed down at the moment and are not tearing around the house, getting in my way as I type this, licking my eyelids with little sandpaper tongues drooling in my ear, or doing any of the other things they do to annoy me at early hours of the mornings. They're not even breaking anything at the moment. So I;m given some space to breathe and hopefully I will calm down. Maybe I'll be able to take a nap this afternoon.

But it makes me wonder: at what point do I call my doctor and say, "um, is this possibly a reaction to this medication?" I mean, obviously I want to do that before I actually have a psychotic reaction or something. But if breathing and a bath and a nap are enough, maybe I don;t need to bother him.

"Oh you're a Stoic," he said at one of our first meetings, and I guess I am, but not...It's funny to me that a Dr.'s job is to be bothered by people and I always feel so wrong for bothering them with stuff. Stuff about me. When M. had to go to the hospital I had no problem with it. But when it's me I can't make the decision for myself. I know I'm on some pretty heavy duty medications and I need to keep an eye on them and notify my Dr. if things get hairy-scary but it's still so hard. I feel like I'm just nothing, unimportant--like I said, like I shouldn't bother people with my stuff.

So maybe that's not Stoicism. Maybe that's just neurosis. Maybe Stoicism is a neurosis. I wonder how many philosophies came out of Neuroses? I'm convinced that at least half of Buddhism did. Siddhartha comes out of his palace where he's lived a very sheltered life and finally sees the world and all its grit and of course decides that "All life is suffering." Blow me.

I'm having a cigarette now and talking philosophy so I must be calming down a little. But I think no more coffee for me for a long while. Maybe a nice cup of Chamomile tea....

where's my snow?

Here it is, Christmastime in the mountains of Colorado. And for the last three days it's been RAINING! It looks like snow clouds outside; it even feels like snow in the air. The weater forecast says snow. But no, all we get is this fecking rain.

I think I would not be so depressed if it would just let loose and snow. As it is, I'm depressed, M. Is depressed, even the cats are depressed. That doesn;t keep the younger ones from getting into trouble of course; it just means they're extra bad.

It's hard getting into the Christmas spirit this year. We have no money and we're in debt so thick you can cut it with a knife. The one credit card that isn't maxed out we;re using to buy groceries with. I hate that. So there's not much room in there for gift giving, which always makes me happier. Not receiving so much as the giving.

Plus with three demon cats wrecking half our stuff--and I;m sur they have plans for the other half--we've already decided no tree and few decorations are going to be part of our "celebrations."

I refuse to give up my roast goose, though.

I really have nothing else to say so I'm just going to let this end here...

Still Depressive

And freaking out because I have no fire. That sounds like a pretty ancient fear, but I'm afraid mine has a terribly mundane source: no fire means I can't light my ciggies and I have desperate need of one right now. I found a whole bunch of allegedly "Stike anywhere" matches but I can;t get any of them to light. our stove is electric. My lighter has died. No fire is no smoke. Arrrrgghhhh. I have to wait until M. comes home in 2 hours before I can get this craving satisfied. I want to say "get my needs me," but I DO realise smoking isn;t really a need. It seems like one for me right now because I;m having a particularly bad day. But it's not a need.

Particularly bad day? Woke up very depressed and crying, cats getting on my nerves worse than usual, bad dreams, no money and no prospects, M. having rough time at school with 2 papers to write, including a really long one, in the next 2 days, and NO SMOKES = bad day.

BTW, Oni is home with us and well enough to be a total spazz once more. The vet says he had a "Bile blockage." I don;t know what that is but it sounds vile.

Rough Day

yesterday. It started with a visit to my psychiatrist, which always has my stomach in knots. But it went pretty well. He seems to be more comfortable with depression than he is with anxiety; at least when I told him I was no longer anxious but I was now depressed he seemed relieved: here was something he could do. I actually give him points for understanding that the feeling of nothingness is worse than the feeling of pain. We talked a little about that and I really couldn;t believe he got it, but he did. Good on you, doc. Then he prescribed me a new medication which is supposed to really help Bipolar Depression. It did NOT help me to hear this med can cause a reaction that is potentially fatal "in some extremely rare cases." I don;t care if the cases are extremely rare; I don't want to be one of them. Honestly, I'd almost rather not know about stuff like that, though I suppose I have to. But it makes me not want to take the meds at all.

well then when we got home it was to find one of our cats had started puking blood. Very scary. We rushed him to the vet where we spent 90 minutes standing around while she ran various tests trying to find out what was wrong and not being able to. We ended up having to leave him there overnight, poor kitty. I just callled the vet;s office and the assistant told me Oni is doing much better but she doesn;t know what the vet wants to do about him yet--the vet was out on a farm call--so we can;t bring him home. I'm suspecting he'll be there another night.

I am wearing his collar as a bracelet for good luck. It was awful when they were drawing his blood; I had never heard a cat make noises like that!!

We went out for Mexican food and I totally went off my WW program but it felt so good! Well, it tasted so good; I really didn;t feel so good after consuming more in one meal than I had in months, even at Thanksgiving! The funny thing is, after this orgy of consumption I weighed less today than I did yesterday. Only now I am having, shall we say, a volatile reaction to the beans. Oh well.

Watched Monty Python to end the day. I laughed some.

So I guess all in all it was not so Rough a day as it was a full one. And that's always a bit hard for me. I have to be something.

Did some Christmas shopping no the web today and now I have a total anxiety stomachache! I hate spending money when I know I don;t really have any.

I think

...I think I just finished Locked. It came on me very suddenly; I was just working on the final chapter and I wrote a sentence and all of a sudden it hit me that there was no more to say. It was like when you're shuffling a Tarot deck and all of a sudden you just know you're done. Maybe you've never had that experience but I have...or maybe like looking for a perfect spot to have a picnic and all of a sudden you just stumble on it. I've never had that experience, but maybe you have!

I am elated and terrified all at once. Elated that it's done; it's over. terrified by so many things. The emptiness that comes after a project is finished once the elation has worn off--yes, that. And the prospect of publishing: definitely that. I wonder now if I should even do it. I feel I cannot risk, just CANNOT risk my mother seeing it. I care about her reaction because she still has the power to hurt me. The rest of the family, well, I couldn't give two shites about whether they see it or not. But my mother, no. It would probably bring on another heart attack and kill her or something and then that would be my fault as well as everything else.

I would not be so worried about this had I not found out that my sister actually gave my mother a copy of Dragons of the Mind, which I had not intended her to see until I was ready. I only decided I was ready this last October and what do I hear back? "Oh yes, I've read it; Barb gave me a copy." Way to go, sis. Knowing Barb I have to wonder if she had some hidden agenda in that. I mention my dysfunctional family in one story. I wonder if Barb meant my mom to pick up on that. Or I don't know--maybe she was just trying to be nice and say, "Look what Kele's done." It could just as easily be that, I suppose, though my natural inclination towards paranoia where my family is concerned says otherwise.

Anyway, Locked...I think the acctual writing is finished. Now comes the (hopefully minimal but no less arduous) task of rereading it and making sure it all makes sense and all the characters have consistent names and whatnot. I don't know if it really makes any kind of sense or has any value other than being a kind of cathartic experiment for me. But anyway, I'll have some time yet before publication. Time to decide what to do. Whether publishing is even a good idea.

I have to admit, I have a fantasy about a real publisher picking it up and selling the movie rights for loads of money. I mean, it worked for Girl, Interrupted. Why not for me? :lol:

Smoking way too much today...

PS--Happy Birthday Noel, wherever you are!