Therapy Monday

Wow.  Today was intense.  It started with a discussion about Father’s Day.  And all the loving posts you see on Facebook.   And the whole industry we have.  And how it makes me feel.  Jealous.  Green with envy.  I don’t love my  dad, or grandpas, or God father.  Nope.  No way.  And that good old Catholic guilt and “honor thy father and thy mother”.

From there Dr. D asked about something we talked about a few weeks ago.  One of the things I felt was that I lost something of myself with the use of Lupron.  I lost the ability to reproduce.  Not that I want to reproduce.  I read somewhere (maybe on Not My Secret) about defining yourself by what society considers to be the defining traits of a woman.  That post really resonated with me.  So we talked a bit about other ways I could define myself.  Funny.  Blah Blah Blah.  Dr. D said that I was smart.  I couldn’t say no fast enough.  Which of course lead to another whole discussion.

In the end, I said that my mother said I was smart when it suited her, when she got to brag.  Any other time, I was dumb, and idiot, etc.  Then I said something really significant.  I said that I hated her for that.  That was really significant.  I had never said that word before.  I didn’t know how deep it ran.  That scared me.  It felt overwhelming at the moment.  Thank God that Dr. D was there because I was overwhelmed.  I was shaking and crying.  On some level it felt good to let out those emotions.  On the other hand, it was really scary.  I knew I had a safe place in her office.

I tend to stuff things down.  Dr. D told me it was a defense mechanism.  And now that I’m home, the old defenses are coming back.  I don’t feel safe to experiences the anger and sadness that I felt earlier.  At least I know now that I can feel without becoming overwhelmed or out of control.  I was even going to write a blog post in all caps.  I still may.  Maybe I can do it at the library where I feel safer.

It’s amazing how seemingly innocent trains of thought can lead to breakthroughs.  I see Dr. D again on Thursday (and on Mondays too).  I think at this point, that’s what I need.

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Survival

Much of my childhood and adolescence was about surviving.  Surviving the best I could given the circumstances.  In some ways, I still feel like I’m in survival mode.

Two in a Row?

Lots of rest today.  I knew that was going to happen.  But I did do my cardio and about 75% of the ab workout.  Oye, my abs sure do feel it.

There’s a punching part to the cardio workout and while I’m doing it, I find myself angry.  Ten years ago (actually longer) my therapist promised I’d get angry someday.  I never really believed him.  And maybe I’ve had flashes here and there, but never Anger.  When I’m doing those punches, I’m pissed off as hell.  And I have a picture of certain people in my mind.

Now I’m sweaty and tired.  I’m going to try to take a shower (ugh, night showers, still rough) and chill out until bedtime.  I’ve got “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” queued up in VLC.  So I’m up for a good laugh.  Either that, or I’m going to put a season of Star Trek: TNG (the best one, IMHO) in queue.

And if a certain cat doesn’t stop walking across the desk as I type, there will be cat soup for dinner.  I won’t mention any names but she’s chubby and brown and her name starts with a G and end with an idgette.

 

Laters all

Do You Have a Brain?

Sorry, work rant again.

These new books.  I have one that I need two days to teach one unit.  I have one day a week with the class.  My boss is the co-teacher.  I initially asked for help, especially the reading comprehension section because it was difficult.  No problem she says.  We aren’t doing any comprehension now.

Today she comes by and says, you didn’t do the comprehension questions with them.  Me: speechless.  Uh, you were supposed to do those.  But they’re more conversation based and I think you should do them.  Me: speechless.  I only have one day and I need to do the vocabulary, speaking and grammar parts.  She says it’s better if the Korean teacher does the grammar.  Me: speechless.  The last unit of grammar?  “there is” and “there are”.  I can teach a blind, deaf, mute monkey how to use there is and there are.  So now the students have to translate the reading (hahahahaha, like that’s going to happen).  This still leaves me with trying to do 2 days of work in 1.  And my boss wonders why I get stressed out.  I have no idea.

Why the change?  She can’t keep up with the material she has to teach.  She put the class in the wrong level.  Not my problem.

Now I’m going to see what might be on TV but probably will watch a movie.  “Instinct” is queued up in VLC.

And someday I promise I’ll get back to the real reason I started this blog.  But in a way, it’s all relevant.  Stress makes the fibro makes the PTSD worse.  On and on like an oh so wonderful merry-go-round.

Crap

I swear I can’t do anything right at work.  Oh, I let an activity go on too long.  Let me rephrase, “a useless activity”.  You know, one that reinforces grammar skills.  Well crap.  Two students.  One finished in 15 minutes.  The other can’t make up his mind for anything.  I can’t go on in there book because they are on a strict schedule.  So who the hell cares if the activity takes all class.  At least they were thinking.

And what makes it just peachy?  I have to go play nice at a baby shower for a teacher whose leaving at the end of the week.

Art

I’ve been doing some art lately.  I’ve been experimenting with different media.  I splurged on a large set of watercolor pencils.  You can draw with them like colored pencils, but a little water on a brush changes them into watercolors.  Actually it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  I tend toward the abstract end of the scale.  I can’t draw anything beyond a stick figure, and still my students laugh.  I laugh right with them because my drawings are actually pretty funny.  Put they do get their point across.  And that’s the number one goal of my drawings while teaching.

So here are the two watercolor/pencil ones I did today.

Butterfly of Life

Anger and Sadness

 

I hope you enjoy them or they inspire you.

It’s Not in My Head

What is with Dr. K?  First he says fibro, then he says psychosomatic, then he says fibro, now we’re back to psychosomatic.  He wants me to see a friend of his, a psychiatrist.  I pointed out that I had one and I’m quite happy with him (for the most part).

I don’t understand how the pain can be in my head if it responds to medication, trigger point injections and physical therapy.  I left his office (after he did the injections) feeling like crap.  This is not in my head.  Stress makes it worse.  The stress level at work now is through the roof.  My so called breaks where I usually do lesson planning and grading were filled with stupid shit like making a transcript out of a YouTube video so Sky Class could do it as a dictation exercise for homework.  Do you know how long it takes to transcribe 6 minutes of video?  Approximately 90 minutes.  I give it to my boss who starts to type it up.  She comes in and says “I think you forgot part of it.”  Uh no E, did you turn the paper over?  I wrote on both sides.  “OHHHHHHHH”.  Yeah.  That was my day Friday.  I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I think the worst part is the brain fog and the fatigue.  When I have a bit of energy, I have to take advantage of it.  Today I got a new desk chair (I was tired of sitting on a card table chair) and a printer/scanner.  Do you think I bought paper?  Nope.  Which, is OK because the few other things I did buy (glue and scissors for my classroom) fit it my backpack.  But here I am lugging two big boxes into a cab.  Then getting them out of the cab.  And then getting them to the second floor.

The chair got put together with a reasonable amount of ease.  Except I put the arms on upside down the first time.  No big deal.

The printer is hooked up, but the scanning software wants to be smarter than me.  Maybe there’s a setting someplace I’m not seeing.  But for the love of God, I want it to scan the entire piece of paper I put in there, not what it thinks I want scanned.  Amazingly, I didn’t curse at the thing.  I just kept on trying different thing.  Speaking of software, who would have figured out that a program named “Seashore” with an icon of a fish would be a basic image editor.  Not me.  I didn’t even think to click the stupid thing until I did a search on image editors for Macs.

Now, speaking of the brain fog, I’m trying to do a python course through LinuxChix.  Units 1 and 2 were fine.  Unit 3 should have been fine, but even copying other students’ answers I still couldn’t get it to work.  So I’ve yet to finish Unit 3 and Unit 4 arrived in my inbox earlier today.  I think I’m going to print out the original emails (when I buy some paper that is) and mark it up.  I don’t do well reading heavy stuff online anymore.  It’s like my brain can’t process it unless I can actively make notes on it.  It’s sad.  I feel like I’m getting dumber and dumber every day.

I started some art therapy today (see saga with scanner and saga with finding an image editor).  I like what I did even if it’s ugly…  and I wanted to post it here.

 

 

There’s no head in my picture, that’s because the pain (represented by red) isn’t in my head.  My head has little to do with it.  Unless you want to get highly technical and then all pain signals and processed in the brain so it really is all in my head.  But the pain in my back and chest and shoulders and neck and elbows and wrists and knees and ankles…  all of it is real.  I’m not making this up.  This isn’t some kind of neurosis or psychosis (not my words, but Dr. K’s or possibly his friend’s words).

Where Are the Words?

I have no words to describe what I’m feeling.  The Gabapentin is helping with the pain.  I’m thankful for that.  PT can be unbearably painful at times, especially the massage part.  I want to cry, but I feel like a little baby if I do.

I feel like nothing I do at work is good enough.  I try my hardest.  I put in 110%.  One project finishes and another one gets dumped on my plate.  I can’t get a real answer as what we should we do with a certain class.  They need a new textbook next month.  They can’t keep going along the curriculum series.  They essentially need to start from scratch.  We’re going to start them on a new textbook series.  But again, I can’t get an answer for anything.

I’m tired of fighting.  I’m tired of the pain.  I’m tired of the depression (which, IMHO isn’t being treated adequately).  I’m tired of the politics at work.

I feel like a heel for complaining.  There are so many people out there without jobs that I shouldn’t complain about mine..

Anger Dreams

Wow.  I’ve been having some vivid dreams lately.  I’m thinking the Paxil is probably responsible.   On the positive side I am feeling a bit better.

The theme of the dreams has been anger.  It’s usually me being angry and doing a lot of screaming and yelling.  I don’t like this.  I don’t like anger.  I’m not angry with anyone or anything right  now.  What is my unconscious trying to tell me??

Teeter Totter

I don’t want to go all pessimist here, but it’s not going to be a good week.  I’m already teetering on the brink of insanity as it is.  The last couple weeks have been rough.  But it gets oh so much better.  I show up at Dr. P’s office for my weekly appointment to find out he’s in the hospital.  OK.  Fair enough.  But he didn’t leave orders for med refills.  Uh.  Hello!!!!!!!!!!  It’s a good thing I’m not bipolar of schizophrenic.  Yeah, depression and anxiety suck and goodness knows they can kill.  But imagine a bipolar yanked off his/her meds.

Oh yay.  Just googled up on tricyclic and Lexapro withdrawal.  Looks like I’m in for a week of hell.  If I don’t kill a kid by Friday, it’ll be a miracle.  As it is, I lost my cool with my last class of the day today.  A month to do 3 pages of homework and 1 out of 5 did it.  None of them did their weekly writing assignment.  They got an earful from me and then an earful from their Korean teacher.  And given their recent lackluster performance in class, they deserve every word they got.

Stupid GP doc won’t prescribe the meds even though I had a list and I was only asking for 1 week as it is somewhat of an emergency.  I can’t exactly walk into another GP’s office and say “Hi.  You don’t know me from Eve, but here’s a list of meds I need.  And oh, by the way, one of them is a benzo.”  Yeah.  I can see that happening.

I see myself tottering right over the side into the land of insanity.  Oh yes.  And to make life all the more fun, it’s that time of the month.

I’m not ready for this.  I feel weak and defenseless.  I feel like they have all been stripped away in the past few weeks.

*sigh*