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The Groups
It’s a step.
Yesterday morning GM told me that she was worried about me, that I had not been myself since I returned from Boston. Fucking brilliant. I can’t even con my old GM anymore.
But really, when your GM tells you that you are bringing her down it’s a kick in the plaid pants. (her exact words were, “I’d rather sit in my room and read by myself if you are just going to cry on the couch all day long.”) The lady is brutal.
Actually it sort of pissed me off. Why can’t I cry on the couch all day? It’s my fucking right to be weepy if I want to! I just cleaned the entire house (including heavy duty washing of all bed linens) and I have earned my emotional leaking moments. Who made your lunch? huh? The person that spreads the peanut butter gets to have a damn cry!
Sure, I’m tired of crying for no damn reason. It is also exhausting having to shift between phony Cali (the Girl that was trying to play the part of such a dutiful Granddaughter) and real Cali (the bitch crying into a quilt on the couch).
I hate that I feel like I have no control over my emotions at all. They soar from one extreme to another and in between I sink under a wet blanket of ambivalence. Seriously- there is no logic to it. I get irate over stupid things and then the very next nano second I couldn’t give a shit.
A month ago I did all of this research to find a doctor for Mother & GM. They are both on medication and need some one local to treat them or at the very least call in refills on their meds. I managed to find a cool, mostly female, family practice clinic near the beach that would treat both Mother’s MS needs and GM’s geriatric glad bag of medical stuff. As I have been in & out of my RE’s office for so fucking long I didn’t feel like I needed to find myself a doctor in the new town. I didn’t need a doctor, I needed an RE.
So yesterday I got a call from the scheduling nurse at the clinic. She was ever so cheerfully calling to remind me that GM’s & Mother’s appointment is on Monday. I thanked her for the reminder call and then before I could pull it back I found myself saying, “May I just ask you one thing?”
I tried to hush the separate conversation going on in my head. You know the one playing on repeat in my mind, “If it works I need it. If it doesn’t work I don’t need it & I am a fucktard for even trying it.” “It”, by the way, was an appointment for ME to see the doctor. Of course I was setting myself up for it not to work. I was only going to make an appointment if I could get in on Monday as well. That is the only way I was going to let it happen.
You see I know I need to see a doctor. I know I need to have someone with a degree declare me whatever it is I am & then give me something to make it better. (yes, I am still rather Pollyanna when it comes to medication. Yes I will think of them as magic happy pills. Yes I know they will take a long time to work.)
However, I also really wanted this to be impossible. As in “no, there is no appointment available until 2007″. That way I could use it as fodder to fuel my “the world is crumbling around me” monologue (which, by the way, is so worthy of a Tony). Only 5% of me really wants to see the doctor (let’s forget about the 99% of me that needs to see one.) the rest of me wants to have something to bitch about. Something specific. I can say I am upset because I can’t see a doctor for a month and then people will understand me. They will see how justified I am in my upsetedness.
So clearly I was a little pissed when the scheduling nurse, the very same nurse that wouldn’t shut up about how cool my name is a month ago when I originally made the appointments, made it a personal mini mission to fit me in on Monday. She said she would have to move someone around & I told her not to bother. & the bitch wouldn’t listen to me. What kind of clinic is this place? She was being so damn nice and helpful and I didn’t want that. I wanted her to be mean and snappy and pissy and rude and impossible. It would have made my monologue so much better if I had an evil nurse to complain about too.
Fucking nice people.
Now I have an appointment on Monday.
Is this where I am supposed to feel relieved? Is now when my shoulders will relax and my melancholy will waft away? Instead I feel like a stupid person for making an appointment. & if I didn’t have to take GM on Monday I can see how I would convince myself to cancel it. That is what I do. I am very, very good at canceling when I freak out. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out.
Oh, and tomorrow is December. And right now the neighbors to my east and the neighbors to the west both have trucks in front of their houses. Unloading began thirty minutes ago. Giant santas. Giant penguins with scarfs. Giant candy canes. Giant snowmen.
It’s beginning to look a lot like I will loose it.
Comments
21 Responses to “It’s a step.”
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Big Hugs. Good job on making (and hopefully keeping) that appointment. And, if you promise to do good and not evil, I will send you a bb gun and you can play sniper and use santa and frosty as targets.
Oh. Dear. God. Giant santas and snowmen. Love the last line.
You are keeping the appointment. You can freak out all you want until then but STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE. We do know you and your crazed cancelling behavior and we will be here overseeing you to be sure you do not cancel. You can cry and whine and hate it (as I always do when making a step toward mental health - this is because the disease wants to stick around and puts up a might self-defense battle - hell) but you are going.
I am sorry GM is being less sympathetic toward the crying than is desirable. Perhaps you should let her sit in her room all day and read if she doesn’t want to see the crying. You see - this is why I couldn’t do what you do. And why I am a specialist teacher who gets rid of kids after 45 minutes. I don’t do self-sacrifice. Sigh.
Oh honey… I am so glad you made the appointment. It will be a GOOD thing.
And of course the person who spreads the peanut butter gets to cry.
Good for you for making the appointment. I’m glad you’re going to discuss this with a medical professional.
I’m sorry your GM is saying what she is saying. Don’t let her guilt you. Caretakers are human beings, not robots. You have a right to be ill or depressed. I once had to drive to my GM’s home, clean it top to bottom, buy her groceries and make and freeze food for the week for her, and then deal with her smoking in my face the whole time. (GM didn’t believe all those *myths* about second-hand smoke.) Oh and did I mention? I have asthma and was getting over bronchitis, which I couldn’t tell her because she’d just worry.
My GM wasn’t at all appreciative and criticized me for being in a bad mood that weekend. But ya know what? I was entitled. It sucked.
I mention this just to point out that you’re entitled to be human, too. Even if your GM doesn’t appreciate all you still do for her, know that you’re doing good things for her.
Maggie sends dachshund kisses.
You should feel relieved that you have an appointment! Thank god you are doing something for yourself. It is a small step and a huge step all at once. I am so proud of you I am crying. You need to take care of yourself. I am too far away to drag you. Yay. Thank you thank you. This is the right decision. Glad to see you back online. Now if I could get you to call me…:)
I am glad to see that you are taking charge - I suspect that you will start to feel better even before you go to the Doctor. Sometimes just knowing you are going to do something about depression can help begin to lift it off your shoulders, arms and chest.
As for meds, if they are offered you should take them. I’ve been on them for 13 years and I have never looked back.
I am proud of you for making that appointment. You deserve to feel better, and having the help of a professional is a good thing.
Also - I should have warned you. People in FL go INSANE during the holidays with decorations. It’s like they are trying to make up for their relative lack of winter with plastic, lighted holiday themed crap.
If you want to have a Santa bonfire to cheer you up, lemme know and I’ll bring the lighter fluid.
Very glad you have made the appointment.
I can’t get the feel of your grandmothers hair sticking to your own (from the last post) out of my mind. It was a very visceral image.
Can I tell you a story?
I fought meds for the longest time. I did not want to be the person (read: my insane mother) who needed them.
When I finally gave in, I was at that weeping all day, why bother getting out of bed stage. And they helped. I am still me. I have not been transformed into a perky person. But they help keep me, me.
I am glad you made the appt. and I will bug you to keep it and to keep telling us how you are doing. And I think pricking holes in inflatable santas is the PERFECT use for leftover infertility syringes.
I’m so glad you made the appointment. Now, DO NOT CANCEL. We all know what you’re like with your cancelling behavior, so don’t indulge those whims. Fight them!
And lord, do I know about the giant inflatable santas and snowmen. And turkeys for thanksgiving. And ghouls for halloween. What is it about Florida that people feel the need to do that?
You know how on the morning of a long overdue hair appointment you have the best hair day ever??? This might happen to you on Sunday night or Monday morning. Don’t fall for it. Keep the appointment and then decide if you want to follow their recommendations. I fought anti-depressants too, just cause, but one thing my doctor said made sense. If I was diagnosed with diabetes, I wouldn’t reject medication, so coping with a likely chemical imbalance with medication is no different. Remember how much you’ve taken on and had to cope with recently. There is only so much one person can keep on handling. Be gentle on yourself!
Good for you! Don’t touch the damned phone, though. You need this for you.
I hated that “absolute low” feeling, and I can relate to how you’re feeling. However, a counselor once gave me the following analogy: If you had broken your arm, or were puking-sick, you’d go to the dr, right? This is the same thing. Something’s wrong, and you’re getting it fixed.
And cry over the peanut butter. Just don’t try to give any to me.
*hug*
I just want to say that I hadn’t seen this post this morning when I sent you the poem about the too perfect neighbors. Weird.
I’m not going to tell you to keep the appointment. Everyone else is doing that. I’m going to ask you to not put on a happy face and charm the doctor once you get there. You do this. I remember because I do it too. I can see you going in and the doctor asks you how you are and you give a chipper “Oh fine, fine. Maybe a little down. But some internet strangers said I should talk to a doctor and I hate to disappoint them, so here I am. Now… [and thus begins the launching of funny stories and self-deprecating humor to distract the doctor from the fact that you are LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH because you want her to like you and not think you are fucked up]“
I totally agree with what art-sweet said. I fought the pills for the longest time..I did not want to become my psycho mother. My Mother did not go on the pills..she’s still psycho and I’m on the pills…and well, the jury’s stil out on my sanity.
KEEP…THE…APPOINTMENT…
Well all I can say is thank the goddess you made that appointment and please, please, please take Tristas excellent advice. *huge kisses* *and maybe some leg humping*
I’m glad that you made the appointment. Therapy has been useful to me at different points in my life, and I hope that you also find it helpful. It’s always been an intimidating thing for me to make that therapy appointment, and I too have canceled. But when you need it, you need it, and so following through is necessary.
I wish that you lived across the street from old Italian people who put old plastic, lit-up, life-size figures of the baby Jesus in a cradle, with Santa Claus kneeling over him and praying. Oh, and then those really huge, colorful, 1970’s bulb-lights around the windows of the house… you know, the ones with sky blue and bright orange. That was my neighborhood growing up. It’s so much more bearable than the modern stuff, you know?
I remember laying in my room in the dark for days, I wouldn’t sleep or eat, I just cried and listened to Sade’s No Ordinary Love on repeat. Need I say more. The best thing I did was drag my ass out of bed and head to the doctor, well my sister pushed me out the door, but it was the first of many steps forward and back. I had other moments like that after, because as you know the pills aren’t magic, but I don’t know where I’d be now had I not. I’m not sure I’d actually be on this planet. So I’m glad you made the appointment. (hugs)
Cali: thanks for you message. So… how do I change the date on the post?
Thanks, K
I was in dienial for a long ass time, and I finally found the courage to ask for meds. I start Lexapro tomorrow.
gulp.
But I’m kind of excited about it too.
I send you SO much love and light dear Cali.
The further one is from their true path, the more blurry and distorted their decision making capabilities. Find out who you are and be your awesome and wonderful self to the best of your ability and put out as much good energy as you can. Free will is the choice each has every moment to decide either to be their awesome and wonderful self or their fragile bag of shit self.
Sending you love and light.
Learn about balance, control and energy, learning and growing, gathering consciousness, and you will be better at being your awesome and wonderful self.
My sincerest best thoughts and good energy for health, happiness and harmony to you and yours.
Sapere aude!
Peace
Rob @ guldies.net
I was asked to post here by someone who cares.