Allie's Archives: a recovery journal

[alliematt]

Still here, reasonably healthy and sane at the moment.  My current concern is about my son, who is about to age out of his program and does not want to work. The thought of working is making him very anxious.
This is a huge transition for him and I don't blame him for being anxious. I've told him that he will have plenty of help. :-) (For anyone new reading my journal, my son has autism.)

[Hope67]

Hi Alliematt,
It's good that you reassured your son that he will have plenty of help.  I think his concerns about working are understandable.  But I very much hope that he'll be ok.  Glad to hear you're feeling reasonably healthy and sane at the moment, that's good. 
Sending you a hug, if that's ok 
Take care,
Hope 

[alliematt]

Hugs are definitely OK. I hope the time will come soon where people can do REAL hugs. 

[marta1234]

Hi Allie, I wanted to send you support and as Hope said, you're doing a great job with everything and caring for your son. Happy that you're feeling reasonably healthy. Sending you lots of hugs 
And you're right, I'm waiting when you can actually hug friends. I haven't had a hug with one of my friends for two months now, and I miss it a lot.    here are lots of virtual hugs and warm energy from me

[alliematt]

Had I written this yesterday, it would have been a long complaint about how tired I was.

Today, I feel much better.  I think my mental state was directly tied to poor sleep and some overwhelming work. Getting a little bit better sleep last night helped, and I have tackled two out of the four jobs that have been assigned to me this week. 

I wish a good night's sleep was a *cure* for everything.  It is not.  But it does help your morale. (As does chocolate. :-) )

[alliematt]

Sheesh!  Last night I was so exhausted I went to bed at 7.  I fell asleep and all night long, had very vivid, terrifying dreams.  Woke up around midnight scared out of my mind, went back to bed, had more vivid, terrifying dreams, which ended with me ordering a giant bagel and an apple from McDonald's, then driving off to Starbucks for a mocha Frappuccino . . . Only to have my alarm go off before I got to Starbucks. 

I've had a busy, mentally tiring week because I've had one job after another after another, along with a phone interview with my son's Voc rehab counselor. Last night may have been my poor brain's way of processing everything.  I'm glad it's Friday.  I do have about 50 pages to proof for the weekend in addition to about 70 pages to finish before noon.  It's 7:30 a.m. so I should be able to get those finished.

Seems most of my concerns these days are about the here and now instead of the past; although I've had too many days recently where I've mentally demanded, what did I do that was so awful that people bullied me?

[Hope67]

Hi Alliematt,

I just wanted to offer you a hug, if that is helpful  - I hope you get some more restful nights of sleep in the coming days.  You have a lot going on in your life just now - I hope you got some rest over the weekend, and that you were able to finish your proof reading ok. 

I sometimes think that people who bully people don't necessarily do it because of anything the person did or didn't do, but just because they are bullies.  I don't know.  I know you didn't ask for a comment about that, and I hope you don't mind the fact I said something - I was just thinking aloud and wrote it down.


Hope 

[alliematt]

Today I am just plain exhausted and want to cry.  Yesterday it took me SIX HOURS to proofread 127 pages of a transcript. It was medical testimony with every instance of the word "sacracoccygeal" misspelled, and it's possible I just misspelled here and I frankly don't feel like looking it up again! Work has been just mentally draining on me. And I have half of one transcript to go before I start on still another. 

I will not take any work over Christmas weekend. 

My son is seeing the naturopath today, and since my husband's home on vacation, I asked him to take him, and he agreed.

[alliematt]

Since around Saturday, I have been very tense and irritable.  I took a 180 page job over New Year's that had a LOT of names to verify. When I turned that one in, I was asked to do a 241 page job that was due yesterday by 3 p.m., with *no leeway allowed*. 

It was exhausting.

Monday I worked most of the day. I said at dinner that we needed more apples and bananas and that I would go get them.  Husband asked, are you done with your proofing? I can go get them. I said, okay, why don't you go get them, son and I will do dishes.

Husband immediately pointed to the stairs, his way of saying, you need to get back to work.

I could tell by the expression on his face that he was being tongue in cheeky . . . and then he did say he knew he was hovering . . . but WHY does he feel the need to hover over me to make sure I get my work done? I don't normally miss deadlines.  I have turned in stuff maybe an hour or so late because the job took longer than I thought. And there's only been twice where I had to say, I can't finish.  Once was when I had chest pains and went to the ER. The other was when I got word that my mother was dying.

Yesterday was awful. I keep track of my work time on an app just for my own information. Monday I put in over seven hours of time. Tuesday was over three and a half hours in the morning.  All of that was on one transcript. When I finally finished, I pushed back my chair . . . and immediately knocked over the floor lamp that I'd moved behind me in order to get better lighting.

The glass lampshade broke.

And when I picked up the lamp, there was smoke coming out of the top.

I think I killed the lamp.

This is not helping my mental state. This is going on the third or fourth day of me feeling so tense that I can barely do anything. And I need to take my son to a dental appointment today. Tomorrow the car goes in for service. Friday I see the chiropractor. Meals have to be cooked. I've read up on how to do meal planning, and a suggestion was to precook stuff that you could precook on the weekend so you wouldn't have to cook during the week. Well, guess what I was doing this past weekend?  Working, so I couldn't precook!

My husband has tried to help in the past with meal planning, but HIS idea of meal planning is to get out all the cookbooks and make a list of things that sound interesting without taking into account what the ingredients are or how long it's going to take to cook the stuff!
And lately, it seems like he wants to take over and do everything; do all the chores, especially.  Christmas I stayed out of the way. He did all the cooking. He usually cooks the turkey/ham anyway and my son and I clean up afterwards. But I sometimes wonder if he thinks no one else can do it right.  Of course, that's also MY problem; I think no one else can do it right, either!

I'm starting to think that maybe I could qualify for a diagnosis of anxiety disorder.  I don't know.  I'm trying to get up the courage to call a new psychiatrist because my old one may be going out of business. And i need to do it soon because I'm running out of meds (I have enough to last me for the next few weeks.)

I'm exhausted all.the.time.  And I don't feel like I'm allowed to be exhausted because of my "privilege".  I don't feel like I'm allowed to complain or be tired because I have "privilege".

Yesterday after I broke the lamp, I ate lunch and then stretched out on the couch.  We finally, after many months of me saying we needed one, have a new couch for the living room, one I can stretch out on. I put on a YouTube channel I enjoy and took a nap on that couch.

I'm tense, exhausted, stressed, and while I have good reasons to be tense, exhausted, and stressed, I feel guilty for it as well.



Those last two are me trying to outrun the sharks and me trying to keep running on the treadmill.

[marta1234]

Alliematt, I don't know how to word what I want to say in the perfect words, but I'm so sorry you're going through such a tough time. I could feel the anxiety and the overload (understatement, I know...) of stress you've been going through. I'm sending you my biggest hug that hopefully can shield you from some of the ongoing worries and just bad thoughts
I hear you, Alliematt. And I just want to say that you should not feel guilty of resting/taking a break/ or just laying around and doing nothing when it's overwhelming and exhausting. I feel your pain, and I'm so sorry you have to go through this.
Sending you support and care, and some fresh water to help cleanse your mind a bit from all the thoughts going around (i hope this imagery is ok...)   

[alliematt]

Fresh water is always good.  Thank you.  Both my son and I had haircuts today (after I wrote my entry). the lady who cut my hair said that hairdressers were therapists, and I agreed!

[mojay]

Hi Alliematt,
Thank you for sharing with us! It sounds like you are juggling so much at the moment. Like Marta said, the anxiety and overload is palpable, you are a very talented writer!!

I'm tense, exhausted, stressed, and while I have good reasons to be tense, exhausted, and stressed, I feel guilty for it as well.

I think you are absolutely allowed to be exhausted. I think an important aspect of privilege is twofold: (1) knowing what advantages you may have and (2) knowing the hard work you have put in to overcome struggles that you face. I think you have done a very good job in identifying both.
The fact that you may have advantages does not take away from the fact that you still put forth hard work and effort to achieve all that you have achieved. While your hard work does not erase the advantages that that are bestowed upon you, your advantages don't erase the hard work you put forth in order to succeed.

I'm starting to think that maybe I could qualify for a diagnosis of anxiety disorder.  I don't know.  I'm trying to get up the courage to call a new psychiatrist because my old one may be going out of business. And i need to do it soon because I'm running out of meds (I have enough to last me for the next few weeks.)

It can be so difficult to find a new psychiatrist and bring up the possibility of a new diagnosis, I really stand with you on this one. I have used a symptom tracker in the days/weeks/months that I have put off bringing something up to my provider, it's helped me have more of a place to start to say "See? I have been dealing with x,y,z for x amount of time." Wishing you all the courage and luck that the new provider will be what you need 

[alliematt]

It took me over a week to get up the courage, but I have an appointment with a psychiatrist on January 27th.

I have to remind myself that no one has good mental health these days, and we with mental health challenges are a bit more vulnerable. The weekend of New Year's, I was stressed; then that Wednesday, I got a haircut, which helped . . . and then all you-know-what broke loos in Washington and I was just shocked, like so many others.  "Yelling" at my counselor helped today.

[mojay]

It took me over a week to get up the courage, but I have an appointment with a psychiatrist on January 27th.

That's awesome!! Sincerest hopes that it goes well~

[alliematt]

Just tired and demoralized from current events in the USA, from work I need to do that's due Monday, and from not sleeping well last night.  Last week I put on the texting thread for my ladies' church group, just want to know if everyone's OK; I encourage you to talk to a safe person if you need to and I'm willing to be that person.

I got TWO responses from a group of 19 people, they were hearts on my comment. Maybe I'm being unfair, selfish, and self-pitying, but that hurt.  I would have liked for at least someone to say, "Thank you for being concerned." When a woman on that thread said that she was dealing with cellulitis on her foot and it wasn't getting better, there were a lot more responses to her. I suspect that it's because 1. She's over 90 and any kind of infection is especially dangerous in that age group, and 2. I wonder if we're just more comfortable offering our thoughts to the sick than we are to those who are emotionally hurting.

I wonder, too, if people are just uncomfortable when I talk about dealing with depression. Is it me? Are people just tired of my "what about me?" attitude that I fear I'm projecting? 

I sent an email off to two people on staff at my church staying that I just felt exhausted from things. That was about three days ago. I still haven't gotten an acknowledgment. I KNOW people are burnt out and overwhelmed and maybe it's not fair for me to expect responses from certain people.  But are people just tired of hearing my complaints and feeling like they can't help?

I don't even know where to start.  Everything is a priority. I'm way overweight and my docs have been after me for YEARS to lose weight and exercise . . . WHEN do I have time?  WHEN? And is it unreasonable to expect myself to go to bed and wake up after eight hours of decent sleep?

And why do I feel like I have to do all of this alone?

(Edited to add:  One of the two people I emailed just texted me thanking me for my email. I told him I appreciated that!)