Tree and flower sex, Hushed Whispers, blanket monster, new meds, and laying it on the table.

Hushed Whispers by Katorius on Deviant art.

Last night I began taking new depression medication. I'm not sure how that's going to go, but today I'm feeling pretty good. Well, aside from my OTC allergy medication not quite cutting it. It is that time of year when all the trees and flowers are having sex and spreading their yellow sex dust around. Every time I go to the car I see a thin yellow layer of it on the windshield. Still, I have far less trouble living in the Northwest than I did growing up in Kansas. But the last couple of days I have had watery eyes that somehow still feel like sandpaper every time I blink. On top of that, I suspect an algae bloom or something in the water because my stomach is not happy. The weather has also turned hot and sunny this week, thus I have turned on the air conditioner. 

Thorin loves to sleep with Amanda and I. Often times, he will sleep between us but lately, since it's been hot in our bedroom and we've not used blankets, he's been sleeping near my feet. Well, that's fine, until he attacks your toes and feet for daring to move. When there are no blankets, the blanket monster is on vacation, but try telling him that. So, not only is it hot in the bed, not only is Amanda a veritable furnace when she sleep, not only does she snore and laugh in her sleep, not only does she like to slip her hands under me and try to push me off the bed in her sleep, but Thorin likes to attack me. It is a miracle that I get any sleep.

Hushed Whispers, the art piece above, felt oddly appropriate today. Sometimes it feels like the characters from my stories are the phantom in the picture, whispering to me, trying to pull me in their direction, which is freaking awesome, except several are doing it all at once and I can't seem to decide who to go with. I get a little discombobulated with it all and sometimes even feel a little guilty when I am giving one set of characters attention over the others. To normal people that probably sounds absolutely bonkers, but if you are a writer, that might make sense or at least you might be able to sympathize. Needless to say I haven't written anything since I finished the fanfic story, but I have been going through some of my old stories, some of the short ones, and there's so much I want to play with. 

Okay, as uncomfortable as this is, I'm going to lay some things out on the table in the hopes that I can help myself get the ball rolling again. I'm trying to lose weight. At the moment I'm sitting at 403 lbs and with my pear shaped body (thank you Great Grandma Ester), I look more than frumpy. I've been given the "okay" by my doctor to start doing light exercise like walking and other things, so long as I don't aggravate the herniated disk in my lower back and I am to be careful of my core muscles because I should be finishing up the healing from the hysterectomy. Just because it was five small incisions, my abdominal wall was cut into and the doctor doesn't want me to get excited do some crunches or something and hurt myself. That said there are some sit and be fit exercises I want to look up and try and we blew up my yoga/palates ball for me to sit on. Funny story, I actually fell off it recently, or rather I lost my balance and rolled back into the sofa. I hit my back and got stuck and Amanda had to come and save me.  

So, I told Amanda no more fast food. If we are going to eat out, let's just go to a restaurant. It will cost more so we don't do it as much and it will be more enjoyable. Secondly, we have to cut down the portion size. It's hard sometimes. When I was having hormonal fluctuations with the PCOS and bleeding all the time, I could never get anything regulated. I am hoping that I can now. Speaking of, something weird is going on, I have been craving sweets. I have always been a salt person- as in eating it plain, but lately, I just want chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream every day. I'm a little weirded out by that.

Anyway, those are just some things I want to try working on or with. I am kind of hoping that I can lose some weight before m wedding. I have no high expectations, but if I could lose twenty lbs, that would be nice. I've got 4-5 months to do it in. 

Therapist, doctor, and The Goblin

Just to see if it worked, I added the Dramafever channel on my Roku and then perused the selection. When I stumbled on Goblin the lonely and Great God, I thought it looked really cute and decided it would be the show I tested to see if I could watch. Yep, I can watch stuff from Dramafever for free but it has a lot of repetitive and obnoxious commercials. The show is really cute by the way and if you like Korean Dramas or want to try one out, I think this one is going to be a good choice. 

Moving on. I went to my doctor's appointment this week. The verdict is that we are going to try me on another antidepressant medication and if I do well with it, she is going to put me on a weight loss medication in a month to get the ball rolling. I am able to begin exorcising but it has to be low impact and nothing that's going to work my core too much, but only for a little while longer. My doctor just wants to make sure everything is nice and healed up and that I don't aggravate the herniated disk in my lower back. When we were talking about my depression she mentioned that she thinks I have some PTSD from the whole mess with my cancer scare and the crap I went through with the gyno and getting the surgery. I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around all of that and now I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the notion of my having PTSD. 

So I talked to my therapist yesterday about it. She also thinks I have PTSD and not just from that but from a few other things. But I didn't that was possible. PTSD is for people who have been attacked or abused and most certainly for combat veterans. My therapist said yes to all of that but it's like there are certain type or varying degrees of PTSD. I talked to my Dad about it and he is of the impression that to say I have PTSD cheapens what happens to people like combat verterans- which was kind of how I felt in a way. He said that yes, I had had some trauma but it wasn't anything like what veterans have experienced. But on the other hand I am struggling what that too. It;s hard to explain. I'm not playing a victim card because I don't do that, I think I am too self depreciating to have that sort of thinking. However, in a lot of ways, I feel as if what I experienced and dealt with was just dismissed as nothing. And THAT is something that I am really having a problem with. That is something that I can't just keep sucking it up and getting on with my life about. I've been doing that for too long and its not okay. 

One of the assignments I had this week from my therapist was to write down what my depression monster says. So I did and these are the things I think whether I want to or not and more than that, these are things that get reinforced a good deal of the time, sometimes every day. 

You are worthless- the proof is in everything.

You have no right to complain and even if you did, no one really cares.

People like Amanda more than you, you know it in how they look at you and react.

People have already written you off.

You have no value. (this is even more so since you had to get a hysterectomy)

You will never be anything.   

You can work as hard as you want to lose weight, health mentally and emotionally, and even physically but it's not going to matter. 

You will never have control of anything in your life every again.

You are alone because no one will ever choose you and it doesn't matter how willing you are to jump up and help someone else. 

Why try to come out of your shell, no one will like the real you anyway. 

The most frustrating thing is that I know at least some of this isn't true but these thoughts run through my head all the time. I can't stop them and no matter how much I try to reason with myself that its just the depression, its really hard to shake this shit. 

Anyway, yeah, I'm having trouble a lot of this stuff but I am hoping the change in meds will help take the edge off so I can start getting back on my feet a little. 

Other than that, I have been down the last two days with a migraine. I ended up taking some meds and sleeping a little yesterday but then Amanda and I stayed up all night watching a scary movie. It was actually a little freaky so we had to watch something light so we could go to bed but ended up watching several episodes of something and then I had to take her to work. Oops!

1st dumb thing my therapist has said and what's been going on lately

Apparently I am really drawn to my moon sign's element of fire lately. I keep gravitating to art and such with fire. It's weird, I usually go for water, the element of my sun sign. But, I'm not going to argue. Maybe it's part of the who Rune draw I did at Ostara. I drew Kenaz. A description of it is in the picture below. 

I would go into more explanation of this and why it actually means a great deal to me for this year, but I am bit exhausted. I've actually been internally at war with my depression monster and its getting worse. To be honest, I hate myself because I am so depressed most of the time that I can't stand to breathe. I'm either angry, apathetic, manic, or so depressed I just want to scream, cry, or break things. I don't tell anyone how bad it really is because no one can actually handle it or they just don't care. I pretty much try to stuff it all down so I can be as calm as possible, but it's so exhausting. There have been some new problems that have arisen for me personally that have made me feel even more defective and worthless. I actually was so upset and angry the other day I beat the shit out of my legs and then grew more furious because I didn't even get the satisfaction of having bruises. I couldn't even leave proof of my own anger somewhere. And then that made me angry because I swore to myself that I wouldn't get this bad again.

So I took most of these feelings and thoughts to my therapist the other day. She asked me about a coupe of things and then said the 1st dumb thing I have ever heard her say. She basically said that I made myself fat to become undesirable to push people away so they couldn't hurt me. What?! No, I got fucking fat because my damned hormones were out of wack and sometimes I eat my feelings. I never wanted to be undesirable. I never wanted this. Sure, I want people to leave me alone so I can write, but I want friends and family around. I want to go out and have fun. 

And with everything going on my Mom told me yesterday that she has a black spot in her mouth and she said without saying that she's afraid that it's cancer. It's possible. She's been a smoker since before I was born and at one time she smoked a pack and and half a day. 

Well done good Sir, up all night, looking at houses

Thorin Oakenshield being fancy.

I had plenty of cat company last night while I cleaned the sink/vanity part of the bathroom last night. Naricisa held down various towels for me, stared at me, judged me, that sort of thing. Thorin mostly played in the bathtub of the other half of the bathroom. He likes to chase his tail and bite the shower curtain liner, rip the magnets out of said curtain liner, and play with any bit of trash that happens to fall on the floor. Of course when I had the vanity counter cleaned and everything out back to where it needed to go, both cats wanted to be on it. So, I grabbed one of my vampire fang hair bows, and decided to see if the cats would let me put it on them. Narcisa mostly wanted to eat it and she hardly deigns taking photos, but Thorin actually let me put the bow on and get a couple of pictures. This one was a bit blurry, but the best one overall. He looks so adorable!  

So yeah, I got one little bit of my house cleaned up last night. I am hoping to get the kitchen cleaned up this afternoon and maybe work on the living room while watching something. Of course now that I have said that, I will probably do the opposite... here is the hoping that now that I have said I will probably do the opposite that I will actually get something accomplished. If you made sense of that, you get 100 cool points because I don't even know if I made sense of it. 

I've been up all night. I think the energy of the full moon is playing a role in that. Amanda dropped her soda the night before last and then the laundry detergent fell off our dryer (we have a stacking washer and dryer, the washer was going and doing it's wiggle shake thing and boom! Detergent everywhere). She was convinced that we had bad juju in the house. It is possible. I mean, I've been uber depressed or apathetic lately and she's not been much better. That shit collects. 

Amanda and I have been looking at houses. Our state has a first time home buyer's program that we are looking into. We're going to their class this weekend. I don't know how it will go or if this is even something we can or will want to do, but we need something different, a sense or permanency. So we've been poking about some online house listings. 

I actually think I am starting to get tired. I'm going to latch on to that. 

Blood Bank, Don't Trust the B**** in Apartment 23, and what goes up must come down

Shell Overlord 

Amanda wanted to have someone to fangirl with her over a yaoi webcomic she found called Blood Bank. So I decided to start reading it last night. I finished it this evening and it was really good. I adore Shell Overlord, the impossibly adorable Vampire. The comic itself is about a post cataclysmic world in which Vampires are on top and humans are subservient. Its sexy, fun, and then gets dark, but I enjoyed all of it and recommending checking it out if you don't mind vampires, BDSM, or yaoi (m/m). 

My cousin Shi-chan recommended I watch Don't Trust the B**** in Apartment 23. It is a comedy series starring James Vander Beek and Kristen Ritter. So far, I really like it and bonus, Amanda is watching it with me! She doesn't really like Kristen Ritter, but I do. She also doesn't always like comedy shows, but well, I do. But I like lots of things. Anyway, it's on Netflix. 

I didn't sleep well last night. I was reading until I fell asleep. I woke up for a little bit this morning but had the beginnings of a migraine, so I lay down on the sofa and slept more. I got up when Amanda came back from running an errand, we watched netflix for a little bit, then we decided to make dinner. Only for some reason I had a strange burst of mania and was extremely energetic, singing, rolling back and forth through the kitchen in a chair, and then it all came crashing down without warning and I ended up having an ugly sob-fest. Amanda took over making dinner and I went to the sofa to read for a little bit. I'm a bit freaked by it actually. I've never had a swing so quickly like that. I'm okay now, actually, I feel a lot better, but I've spent the last couple of hours reading and then Amanda and I talked about some writing stuff. I don't know, but it will be something I talk to my therapist when I see her again and then maybe even my doctor. 

Aside from that, we're lamenting the loss of the coffee pot. Thorin decided he simply had to jump up on top of the refrigerator, the only problem with that was that he knocked over the coffee pot I had just cleaned and also a glass that banged into and broke the coffee pot. So now we're going to see if we can find a replacement at a thrift store, because the replacement is 15 dollars on Amazon and to get the coffee pot plus the maker is like 24, which we think is really dumb. So, yeah. And wouldn't you know it our little boy had quite the little bitchy face! I love it! 

3:30 out of touch, awake, and pissed

It is 3:30 in the morning and I'm tired, sure, but also very much awake. I tried to go to bed with Amanda, but I'm in enough pain that lying in bed is too much. Worse, I no matter how hard I tried to ignore it and lie still, I had a headache that wouldn't quit. Of course now that I am up, the headache had subsided and while I still hurt, it isn't as bad. It is so frustrating. Chronic pain sucks ass. I hate it. How the hell am I supposed to love my body when said body won't work with me and when I try to push through stuff, it only hurts more? 

Whatever. Since I am awake, I decided to catch up on some blog reading or in my case, my general lurking. I read peoples blogs but don't always comment. Now that I have done that, I'm going to read a web comic Amanda read and loved so I can fangirl with her about it. 

I've felt very out of touch for a long time. Out of touch from the spiritual aspect of my life. Out of touch with friends. Out of touch with family, and so on. A very large part of it is that I had surgery. But it is also that my depression monster is working overtime. And then there's the writing. Lastly, by the end of all of it, I've just been so apathetic that I'm like, fuck it all. I don't want to see anyone, deal with anyone, and those that I do want to see and have dealings with, I barely see anyway. Hello hermit life, it's been  a long time. 

I have spoken with my Mom recently. Apparently someone gave my aunt a lift chair, apparently they donated it to hospice. Well, that lift chair, when my Mom went to vacuum it, had quite a few surprises in the form of fleas, cockroaches, and spiders. Who the fuck donates a bug ridden chair to people on hospice?! I mean really, how disgusting and mean do you have to be to do something like that? Needless to say, my Dad put it in the back of his truck to take it to the dump.

Fixed Sink, Inuyasha, Pinch and stab

Lord Sessohmaru- my first anime crush

Yesterday I watched the entirety of Inuyasha: The Final Act. All 26 episodes. While I have had the last season for some time, I've kind of put it off because I didn't want to the ride to end, so to speak. Inuyasha was the the first anime I watched where I knew I was watching anime. I used to listen and semi-watch Pokemon and Digimon when I would get ready for school in the mornings but didn't know they were anime.

Anyway, my friend Jeffery called me up during the summer after we'd graduated high school and told me I needed to watch Inuyasha because he just knew I'd really like it. *enter awestruck music* I didn't just like it, I loved it. I was fascinated, hooked, and wanted to see if he demons matched the lore in the show and hence my gateway anime became my gateway into Japanese culture as well- no, I don't know a lot, but I know a tiny bit. 

Well, I can honestly say I was satisfied with the ending. I still can't stand Kikyo, but my annoyance with her is a little less. Sesshomaru is still bad ass and had some major character growth. I still want my very own Kirara and Shippo. Suffice it to say, it was well worth the wait and I'm glad I saved it for a day when I felt like shit, because it helped a lot. 

Speaking of feeling like shit. No, that really hasn't gotten any better. My body still hurts all over and today I've got a pinch in my back that hurts every time I take a breath. I can't seem to find any position to lay down sit, or stand that helps. I even tried sitting on the sofa for a bit with the heating pad, but I only fell asleep. Stretching, moving, sitting absolutely still, nothing seems to work. So I get to deal with it and hope I don't puke one of these times that I inhale too deeply.

Our bathroom sink has been a clogged bastard the last month or more. We've been able to wash our hands quickly but then it takes forever to drain. Well, the maintenance men came by, woke me up, and fixed it. It's like a whole new sink! Strange that I feel so excited about it.

I haven't really written anything. I told Amanda that I think part of that is because I want to be finished with one project before I start another. She said that was an excuse. Bitch. Seriously, I'm much nicer when I encourage her to write and I am a bit miffed about how she said it considering that all through writing my near 400 page fanfic I felt guilty for not paying enough attention to her. Ugh! So for the last couple of days I have been staring at a 170 question character building worksheet for a new novel. One that I am actually a little intimidated by. Again, it's that, it could be a really great story if I don't fuck it up, kind of thing. 

I don't know. I'm probably not making sense or maybe it's that I have a flicker of drive to do things but feel like shit so I am a little bit apathetic to just about everything- which kind of makes me angry and want to cry. I hate forcing myself to do things.