Sometimes I’m too depressed to post

Sometimes I feel so down I don’t even know where to begin and so I don’t bother. That’s how it’s been lately. I’ve just learned that I have bipolar disorder.

The psychiatric nurse practioner said to me, “You look…” What was the word she used? Unhappy? Disturbed? Upset? I don’t exactly remember but I’m sure it wasn’t “thrilled” “excited” or “happy”. I probably looked the way I did when I found out I have diabetes. Who wants that? It does explain a lot though.

So here I am and I have depression, anxiety, low thyroid, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and God knows what else and she prescribes seroquel to replace the Ambien (I think). I was in such a fibro fog she had to write most of the stuff down and I don’t even know where I put the list. I do remember she said to call with questions.

I have a lot of questions but it’s Sunday.

I didn’t get the script filled until Friday–or maybe it was Saturday. At that point, I read all about seroquel and the more I read, the more scared I felt.

Before you take Seroquel, you’re supposed to tell your doctor if you have diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, high cholesterol and high blood pressure because–guess what?–this drug can make all that stuff worse! So instead of taking it, I called the pharmacist. She did some research and then said to me, “Boy, if this was me I sure wouldn’t start this drug.” She suggested one of the older drugs, like tegretol.

I have been in a really foul mood the last week or so. I’m either in a rage or I’m crying. Some of that is probably the mood disorder, some of it is coming down off the zoloft (I’m supposed to decrease my intake of that and eliminate the Ambien, which is why I think she was giving me the seroquel).

My DOD, who’d been fired from the grocery store near our home, was almost immediately hired by another one 20 minutes from here. She went for her training and came home in a horrible mood. She’s screaming she hates customer service and doesn’t want to work for another grocery store. Why didn’t she say so before, when she could have called OVR for an appointment?

OSD and that NGSOBSIL husband of hers are going to be arraigned tomorrow. She’s been fired and they’re going to have to move in with his mother and sister. The neighbors petitioned the landlord to evict them as undesirables.

YSD continues to lie and take advantage of people with no feelings of guilt at all. The only time she gets upset about anything is when you catch her at it. Then she’s just mad she’s caught and thinks it’s all none of our business anyway.

I feel like I spend more than half my time in a car, at a doctor’s office or in traffic somewhere and I wonder if I will ever sit down to write my story.

Dysfunctional Soup

Once there was a little girl who wanted her mother to love her. Something was not quite right with her mother but the little girl didn’t know that. All she knew was that her mother pushed her away and said things like, don’t bother me and I didn’t want to have children in the first place and why do you have to bother me with your problems? Sometimes the little girl’s mother would get so angry with her and her brother she would just get in her car and drive away, leaving the kids alone for hours. The kids would cry and beg her not to go but she went anyway. Then they learned to stop crying and begging because it did no good. Sometimes the little girl’s mother would get so angry she would hurt the two children or refuse to give them lunch or throw their belongings out the window. Sometimes the parents would go away to their club and stay there for hours, socializing with friends and drinking. One time the little girl had a high fever of 105 and cried and asked her mom not to go but was left alone anyway. Sometimes the parents would drink so much they would start fighting and hitting each other. Mostly, though, the little girl just had the sense her mom didn’t want her. When the little girl no longer wanted a hug, her mother started asking why don’t you ever hug me anymore? That was a surprise to the little girl. The little girl had become quite adept at stuffing her feelings and it was almost as if she didn’t really feel much of anything anymore…except anger.

Why had no one helped her?

First of all, times were different. In those days if parents beat or neglected their children (unless it was grossly horrible) it was no one’s business. It was the same way when parents fought, drank and beat each other up–no one’s business. Still, the little girl wished she’d had someone who could rescue her. When I grow up, she said to herself, I will never do this to my children.

First she thought she just wouldn’t have children–or marry, either. Surprise! She did both. And she was amazed at how fiercely protective she felt about her children. She held them and played with them any time they were awake and probably spoiled them, going in the exact opposite direction of her mother. In fact, her mother said, “why do you hold them so much? I would never have that kind of patience.”

No. She never did.

At that point, the little girl–now a mother–realized she needed to go get help to deal with the dysfunctional soup bubbling in her stomach and so she went for counseling and to ACOA and things seemed better…

And then there were grandchildren and a wicked stepdaughter that didn’t give her baby boy everything he needed.

The all grown up little girl felt the dysfunctional soup starting to bubble bubble toil and trouble all over again. And realized she needed more help to deal with those feelings if she was going to be able to deal with the new messes.

The old issues don’t go away, not with prayer and not with counseling. They come back and when they do, you just start over again with more prayer and more counseling.

And so it goes.

My life is a soap opera

Actually, I don’t think people would even believe it as a soap opera. They’d say, no one has this much shit happen to them all at once and without letting up. This is just what’s gone down in the last couple of days–since Friday.

OSD and my NGSOBSIL were arrested Friday morning on varying charges of possession and sale of drugs–prescription narcotics, I think. They were part of a drug sweep, an on going investigation that spanned 4 months. My NGSOBSIL was arrested late in the summer because –OOOPS! He forgot to register in that state (for the last 5 years) as a sex offender. No surprise that the cops were keeping a close eye on him.

Under all of that stress is the ongoing stuff brought on by YSD and whatever is going on (or not) in her screwed up brain and the laziness and emotional issues of my kids.

Generally ignored in all of this is the increasing health issues of me and my DH. He’s had laser surgery on one eye, is due for a spinal epidural tomorrow and has a whole bunch of doctor appointments coming up.

We are almost completely out of money. We can’t pay a lot of our creditors. This is really sucking big time.

I really feel like I’m having a complete meltdown, an emotional Chernoybl.

Dreaded DMV

I hate New Jersey’s DMV, have had nothing but grief there. They tightened their security after 9/11 (and they were the ones that issued the licenses to the terrorists in the first place, the idiots) and now they treat everyone like Al-Quaida. This was my second go-round with them and although it was less painful than the first time around, they still give me agita.

The first time was a frakkin nightmare. After we moved to New Jersey and got settled in, I headed on down to the local DMV with my new DH. I had my birth certificate and our marriage license. The first hitch was that they didn’t like my birth certificate, never mind it’d served me well for over 30 years getting the stuff I needed. No, they couldn’t see the raised seal and so I had to order another one.

On the second visit, I was rejected at the information desk because my license from New York had my first marriage last name on it and it didn’t match the name on the birth certificate or the new marriage license. So now I had to go back and get my first marriage certificate and they still weren’t satisfied, they wanted to see a death certificate–the bastards.

At this point, I was ready to move back to Long Island.

Why didn’t someone just tell me to get all that stuff the first time I went there instead of telling me something new to bring and then everything will be fine? So with hatred in my heart, I got my first husband’s death certificate and only then did I get the friggin license.

In December, my wallet with all my ID disappeared and my heart sank. I absolutely dreaded going back to the DMV and finally mustered up the strength (or the masochistic mood) to go today with DH. I did it basically so I could drive in the event he can’t do it, otherwise I think I wouldn’t bother.

The first thing I learned was that my license expired in August. What???? I thought DMV used your birth month as expiration dates, at least that’s how they did it in MD and NY. I told the woman I never look at my license. She seemed greatly astonished that I haven’t been pulled over since August. “But I’m a good driver,” I explained and she said totally amazed I hadn’t been pulled over in a routine stop.

Really? Me, an overweight, fibromyalgic grandma? Do I look threatening or something? If I’m not doing anything wrong and if the car is well maintained, why would they stop me? The cops don’t have better things to do?

Anyway, it also turns out that even though they have all that crap from before in their records I still have to bring in my birth certificate, yadda yadda every single time I renew my license. We had to drive back to the township where we got married to get more certified copies of our license because apparently the resident poltergeist disappeared the one that was in our safe (as well as my wallet).

We got back to DMV and for once, there was no line. I got my license within minutes. The lady told me that I have to renew it by August 31 in 2011. I said, hopefully by then we’ll have retired to Delaware and she laughed. She works there so she knows all about the DMV.

Nagging by any other name…

…is still just nagging. My MIL brought over an article about men’s waistlines and how they shouldn’t be more than 40 inches and stuck it to our refrigerator door. I threw it out.

My pet peeve of the day: bigotry.

There are all forms and not just racial. I can’t stomach any of it, maybe because I had to put up with so much of it when I was little and still have to put up with it.

For instance:

My parents are deaf. When I was a kid, people would say “deaf and dumb.” Well, they’re not dumb. Not only are they intelligent, they can make sounds too. The stereotypes and prejudices about deaf people still exist now but the further back you go, the worse it was. That’s a whole other story I can rant on about another time.

The now: I am obese. So is my husband. So was my first husband and so is my son, daughter and stepdaughters. Two of my grandchildren are overweight. We do not eat junk food. We are not lazy. We try to maintain a healthy lifestyle…we are still overweight.

We are judged and found lacking. Sometimes people turn to look at us as we go by.

I get angry about it because we are more than what some people see. I shouldn’t let it bother me but I guess it does because I don’t want to be dismissed so out of hand.

Most recently, I am angry about those kinds of attitudes because of the snot faced doctor who refused to give my husband the epidural he needs to treat spinal stenosis and a herniated disk because “I’m afraid you’ll break my table.”

Is it too un-Christian to be happy to hear that his practice is disbanding? Ha ha ha, I laugh with glee.

Too Much Crap To Shovel

DH’s alarm clock went off this morning but he’d already gotten up. I don’t know how to shut his clock off and hit the snooze button. Then it went off again in 20 minutes but already I wasn’t able to fall back asleep. I have too many worries in my head, too much crap to get out of the litter box and down the toilet.

DH hasn’t been able to work since mid-September because of a combination of terrible chronic pain from spinal stenosis, herniated disk, sciatica and other related problems with his back. When he walks more than ten minutes, the pain intensifies and then his leg feels like it’s going to collapse out from under him. He’s had rotator cuff surgery three times in 2 years, has a lipoma in his right hand and has major arthritis all over his body. If you haven’t guessed, he is in an industry that beats the crap out of the human body. He’s always been a hard worker and a solid provider so not being able to work is causing its own problems emotionally.

Anyway, not long after we got married, he tore his rotator cuff at work and had to go out on workman’s compensation. We had to tap into his annuity fund and also the money I’d invested with the insurance from my first husband’s death. I guess we did not set aside enough money for the Tax Man because the IRS wants us to pay them $5000. We set up a payment plan to start sending them $500 a month so that they don’t put a lien on our house or anything. You have to send them enough money so that they are satisfied and don’t suddenly turn on you like a vicious dog.

On top of that, DH was in a car accident with a rental last June. We were having his car serviced and the dealership gave him a car to use. So he was on the way home and in the wrong lane (trying to pass in the right lane) after the light turned yellow and smacked into a car that was making a turn on the yellow. Our insurance paid for everything but the $500 deductible so now we have to start paying that this month too.

Our gas and electric bill runs $534 a month–why? I don’t know! We’ve even left the heat off when it was cold and still they say that our bill actually is over $600. Is it our C-PAP machines? Is it the computers? The whole house runs on electric which is a curse these days but then so is just about any way to heat and cool a home.

There are 7 of us in the house, only two of whom are minors. There are three other adults beside DH and me. Two are my kids from my first marriage, DS and DOD (older daughter). Then there’s YSD (younger step daughter). Until very recently, these three had the misbegotten idea that they could live and eat here for free, use all our stuff and not have to help out. Now I think they’re beginning to get it that if they don’t contribute they will be homeless.

I have fantasies of just selling the damn house and moving into a two bedroom apartment, me, DH, DYD (the 15 year old daughter) and the cats.

Things could be a lot worse, it’s true, but all this is bad enough.

There are days like today when I feel so worn down I don’t want to do anything. There are other days when I feel like we’re hanging in, just barely, and rare days when everything seems to be just great. I feel overwhelmed by financial stress, emotional problems, emotional issues of my DOD who has bipolar, the emotionless logic of DS, the financial irresponsibility and neglectful parenting YSD shows our little grandson…it’s just too much poop to flush sometimes and I just want to hide under the covers.

Anger

I started this blog so that I could vent about things that are bothering me instead of storing it all inside. The writing part is like a laxative, I guess, so that I can eliminate all that nasty stuff from my body. Anger IS a nasty emotion and causes all forms of ailments, especially when you hold it back.

Anger and stress are ver closely related, practically hand in hand. I don’t know that you can have one without the other because you are usually angry with the person or about the situation that brought down the stress. It can be anyone or anything: President Bush, a sudden disability, a freeloading child, and so on and so on. Stress is defined as “a force that distorts the body”. Well, it certainly has distorted this one.

I try really hard not to be bitter or negative and I’m usually okay with that. I wasn’t always trying to be upbeat and keeping my sense of humor. I have a daughter who never sees the shining in her dark clouds and never seems satisfied with anything. She’s totally an empty glass person. I used to be that way too. Too late, I started to change my point of view.

Yeah, they say it’s never too late for a change. Some things, though, I can’t change now. I can’t take back bad things I’ve said, I can’t give back my diabetes or fibromyalgia, axiety, depression and other assorted physical problems. I guess the most I can do is try to minimize them.

Today I was getting aggravated over the fact that I can’t upload a picture to my title header on the “real” blog. I fussed and fumed and finally decided to walk away from it and give it a rest. Stupid computer–it’s not worth developing a headache and muscle spasms over a silly glitch. After lunch I’ll search out ‘help’ and see if I can find anything…or maybe I’ll just read a good book instead!

My mother-in-law is church lady

Today is my husband’s birthday.

My mother-in-law (MIL) comes over unannounced while he’s out with the youngest daughter, buying sushi to have with his special birthday dinner. I’m wary around my mother-in-law. Remember Church Lady from “Saturday Night Live”? Sometimes my MIL reminds me of her, going on about Satan and how you have to go to church and all that stuff.

I thought you had to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I don’t remember Jesus or the Bible talking about church attendance as a prerequisite to get into heaven.

I was in the middle of something so I was not real thrilled when my MIL came in. However, I was brought up with manners so I got her some tea and sat down in the living room with her. She and my younger stepdaughter proceeded to look through the Sunday newspaper.

Why am I sitting here? I wondered, annoyed.

Then my husband and daughter get home.

My MIL brings out her birthday gift to my DH–it’s tapes of her pastor preaching. MIL has been after us for the last 5 years about not going to a church. There’s a reason why DH hasn’t been going and one is MIL’s preacher.

DH and I were both widowed. DH’s first wife died from complications of a rare pulmonary disorder. As she got sicker, MIL’s preacher came to visit and prayed over her. Later, when she didn’t get better, this preacher told her it was because she didn’t have enough faith. The pastor and other members of DH’s church never bothered to visit or call at all. Is it any surprise he has no interest in going to church?

So DH hands the gift bag back to his mother and says he can’t accept it, can’t watch tapes made by the fool who said such a cruel thing to his first wife.

And MIL says, “Now I’m out $42.”

I had to leave the room.

Why is it that some of the meanest, most thoughtless people think they are the best Christians?

First Post: Bad Computer!

There is a lot going on in my life and I need a place where I can vent without worrying who is reading what I am saying about whom. This blog isn’t listed and so if people read it, it will be by accident or by clicking “next blog”. That’s the way I want to leave it. I won’t use any names here…at least I hope I remember not to. I also won’t tell too much about myself or give a who’s who because I want to stay anonymous…I also hope.

Today I am just aggravated by my computer. It was attacked by a virus before Thanksgiving or thereabouts and many of my files were corrupted. It runs slower than molasses in January and my hubby hasn’t had the time to reformat it yet. It is a big pain in my backside right now.

Compared to all the other poop in my life at the moment, this is just a small leaving.