cliniDextrovert

Whelp... there’s that. Tomorrow the COVID restrictions are lifted where I live. Things are slowly going back to a version of normal; yet, now I feel like a failure cause I didn’t get in the best shape of my life, or change my eating habits, or master underwater basket weaving, or save gobs of money.... all I did was survive. I didn’t get the Covid.... I didn’t die..... I just survived. Now I have to return to a version of normal...

Nope, not completely useless.... but feeling close.

This weather blows! Negative freeze your face off outside. More snow that I don’t want to shovel. Need some fresh air and time in nature.

New meds are working. I think the pandemic and weather dragging on is getting to me. Wondering if I’ll know how to be social when this is all said and done.

Got another dog. He’s super cute and makes me smile.

I did get back on the therapist wagon within the last few weeks... I ducked out for the summer which was a bad idea. If anything, probably need to go more frequently. Switching meds again. Fingers crossed this helps. It’s scary what stories your head can boii

I have this guilty feeling that I shouldn’t be anxious or depressed or letting life get to me because other people have it worse than me. My therapist has to remind me to not discount my own feelings about everything and that it isn’t some “guilty pleasure” that I’m feeling guilty about; rather, depression telling me I suck.

I don’t know if this link will work but I’ve got to relearn how to play piano for this one.

https://youtu.be/4VR-6AS0-l4

This describes my mental state lately. Partly cloudy. Partly sunny. On the verge of storming. Maybe clearing. Black and white and every shade of grey.

It has been hot as h*ll for a while - not that dry heat people talk of. No, that 90 degree plus 1,000,000,000% humidity making the “real feel” f’ing hot and you sweat from places you never thought you could sweat from; just by looking out the window. Like, my cheeks sweat!?! What is that? And my elbows... really? It all adds to the general malaise; a hot, sticky, sweaty, smelly, grumpy malaise.

The unknown scares me. I’m a person with a plan. While I don’t know the path, there is a vision at the end. I don’t mind not knowing exactly how the middle pans out... but I don’t know what I’m working towards right now. Will I ever have an in-person staff meeting again? Will my kids go back to school? Do I want them to go back to school? When will I see family? When will I see friends? Will dating ever happen again? Hell, will I ever have sex again?!? When do I get a change of scenery? Travel? Live?

I assume there will be an end to all of this and a version of normality will evolve. But, will there be an end? Will my mental health survive the test of time? I mean, I went 30+ years surviving undiagnosed but now that I have the tools, they’ve been taken away. How long do you go with your hands tied behind your back, stuck in a corner before you do something drastic?

Fuck COVID. Fuck people who can’t wear a damn mask. Grow up and stop being whiny pieces of chicken shit. No one is infringing on your freedom. You never gave a flying fuck about having to wear a shirt when you go to the store. Nor shoes. Or that you can’t smoke indoors. Or that you have to wear a seatbelt. Or drive the speed limit. Or silence your phone in the movie theatre. Or wait your fucking turn in the checkout line. Or the 8 million idiotic warning and caution labels on every f’ing thing telling you what you can/can’t do cause it might fuck you or someone else up! No one is taking anything away from you. You are asked to be the decent, kind, compassionate human your fucking claim to be under a god or book or whatever apparent moral compass apparently works in your favor at the moment.

Why do I care? I don’t really -I try to convince myself; but I do. Why? Because I am a decent, kind and compassionate fucking human who doesn’t need a god or a book or a political party or an air of exceedingly more importance to hide behind in order to help my family, friends, community, strangers, at-risk humans in my bubble of influence... and I’m a fucking depressed, anxiety ridden extrovert who wants her toolbox back!! Also, did I note I can’t sleep? I’d like to f’ing sleep again too!!!!

Ugh. I don’t know if I have much more to say about it.

Too much unknown.

Too much isolation.

Too much at home.

Too much; yet not enough.

Not enough communication.

Not enough interaction.

Not enough freedom.

And truthfully, just want a hug from an adult 🤷‍♀️

I’ll leave you with this instead...

I’m a Sagittarius. I take it with a grain of salt. But... I feel like I’m in depressed prison half the time and in some crazy, scary funhouse of anxiety the other half. It’s not good to feel caged and unsure and not have any ability to change the circumstances. Yes, I can change the mental view but that only goes so far as this continues to drag on and on and on.... the darkness is closing in and I’m finding it is more challenging everyday to keep moving forward.

I need relationships with people... real people... in the flesh... coworkers, friends, family, significant others... I’m not a hugging person from just anyone.... and the hugs from my kids are the best... but they only go so far. I need that hug where you linger a bit longer and let the emotion out. There are a select few I trust enough for this and they are out of reach... and it just sucks.

Tomorrow’s a new day. I’m not sick. None of my loved ones are sick. So, I’ll pack my selfish need for human contact away and continue to wear the brave mask we all need these days.

Other than walking the dog, we didn’t go anywhere. No car ride. No shopping. No parks. Nothing. Car stayed in the garage and we were homebodies. Normally I wouldn’t find that odd. But today? Today it seemed weird. Then again, everything in the world seems weird.

I’ve been trying to identify those things that we (I) need to keep doing to maintain some normalcy. It’s Sunday, so we had pancakes for breakfast. That’s normal. I did my taxes today. That’s normal - and boring! Small wins but I’ll take it. All in all not a bad day.

I feel this is also an opportunity to work on some growth or changes. I’d be starting up my running again if my ankle wasn’t healing. It’s getting there so soon enough! I’m going to work on weaning myself off of caffeine (soda in my case). Since I’m not at work with access to soda and not really going out to eat and not shopping often, my options are limited to what I have around the house. Mini cans of Dr. Pepper and some of that energy stuff you can add to water (I don’t remember what it is called) and lots of flavored fizzy water. I don’t drink coffee or tea. But I’m not giving up chocolate so whatever caffeine kick is in chocolate I’ll take!! We’ll see how this goes. Starting tomorrow I’m going to track it. Now is as good of time as any 🤷‍♀️

Oh... I know, you are likely still trying to get over the “no coffee” deal... Nope. I’ve tasted it a few times in my life. I do not like it. Tastes like dirt. And the flavored ones are just lying - tasting like fancy dirt. I don’t like it hot or cold. No point in filling a cup full of milk and sugar to mask the taste - cause it doesn’t. I love the smell! And I’m told I can make a solid pot of coffee... but nope, won’t drink it. One less appliance to take up space. 🤪 I get asked how I function in the morning. I don’t know but I do pretty good... just don’t talk to me till after 9 am if you really want me to provide real information. Anything before that, I’m not firing on all cylinders 😄

I feel like a lone survivor of a shipwreck floating aimlessly in a dingy having lost track of time, nowhere to go, adrift and lost in my own head. It’s not a good feeling and it’s not a place I want my head to go.... that dark spiraling whirlpool of “nothing matters” letting things just “float along”, “who cares”, and “no one is coming to save you”. Shut up brain - you’re being dumb!

The noodes are back home for my weekend. It is really nice to have some human contact... no offense to the dog and cats. However, now begins a new challenge - the full time mom, housekeeper, teacher, cook, and working professional. Even without the black cloud forming over my head, there are not enough hours in whatever day it is to be all of that nor do any of it well. “Relax” they say. “You don’t have to do it all” they say. Sure, I know that - rationally.... but irrationally, I’m failing; failing at all of it.

Tomorrow’s a new day. Hopefully I sleep tonight, stay away from the news, make some art with the kids, maybe read... no naps though. Hear me? NO naps... not allowed.... save the sleeping for bedtime. Speaking of.... way past my theoretical bedtime but not 2 am yet so sort of winning - night all!

Wisconsin has declared us to be “safer at home” today effective tomorrow. What does that mean, you ask?.... it is the midwestern nice version of “shelter in place” or “stay the F home”.... we just don’t like to make things sound too threatening but still want to make sure we’re following some guidelines. Funny thing is that practically anyone can declare their jobs, businesses, etc. as essential with how open ended the descriptions are. I’m really not sure who can’t work under the order. But then again, our local health department believes social distancing is helping based on the cases they are seeing now - more family units rather than random cases. Idk... best to keep managing my own little piece of this rock the best I can with my superb social distancing skills and my midwestern nice safe at home plan.

Again, YAWN!!! Time for bed... but a random thought for the day.....

“Focus! Get your head out of the sand and the foot out of your ass!!” I feel like I need a pep talk from Col. John “Hannibal” Smith. He was a man who loved it “when a plan comes together.” Or maybe I just need one of his cigars... 🤔

Anyway, today’s isolation, I mean social distancing, plan was only partially complete. I did get the dog out; albeit I hobbled down to the tennis courts and let her sprint for a while as I hobbled around the perimeter. Fresh air is good, right? I took another drive - wanted to see how busy the dog park was. Who was I kidding, I can’t hobble on a broken ankle through a dog park and ever expect to catch up with my dog. We drove by (it was packed by the way) and did another ⭕️ but went south of thrown this time. It was an ok drive. Someone was doing a prairie burn so that was cool - if you like fire and smoke and all (🙋🏻‍♀️).

I’ve really been trying to clean the house and get better at staying on top of things. I was good for a while, and then I got mono. Apparently in my 4+ decades on this spinning rock, I had never been exposed. So.... that was fun. I get out of that virus feeling like a zombie with no motivation only to be hit by, what my therapist calls, a breakthrough episode. WTF! Sounds like that should be awesome! Nope. Depression broke through all the tools I was using to keep it at bay. That was a while ago... at least a year? I think I’m finally coming out of that episode and hope to never have one again... but now I’m waking up to the CV19... but that’s a different topic. Anywho... I vacuumed and mopped today!!! Both! I don’t remember the last time I mopped. Long enough that the dog and cat were really interested in trying to figure out what I was doing.

It’s the little things; right? That’s how you know you are moving forward through the darkness. One day you are sitting on the couch like a lump on a log; the next day you’re fraking mopping! Whatever it takes. Small wins!

Social distancing - vitamin D style

I didn’t go to bed till after 3 am and didn’t get out of bed till 11 am. Not a great start to the weekend and a serious backslide in managing my sleep routine. I keep saying I’ll get better at building a routine but it really is hard AF. Today is a new day and tonight is a new opportunity to do better.

Sleep routines are important - at least that is what my sleep retraining specialist tells me. Look it up; sleep retraining isn’t easy. It puts you in a massive sleep deprivation state and slowly weans you into sleeping more - mostly because you are so damn tired! I was doing really good! But now, with the requirement to stay home, self-isolate, social distance, work from home, etc., it is going to be a lot more challenging to keep that routine moving in a positive direction. On the plus side, I have not taken any naps today.

It’s Friday night or Saturday morning depending on how you like to cut your days... My iPhone battery is less than 20%. I’ve spent nearly the entire day indoors doing my part to social distance. I have a broken ankle so those tips to “get out in nature” are sort of backfiring on me currently. I’m feeling bat-shit crazy! I also stress ate an entire pint of Phish Food.... I guess forced hibernation does that; but... it was sooo good!

I read some articles today on the pandemic but couldn’t stomach the news. Since I was going stir-crazy, I loaded up the dog and literally drove around town - like in a circle ⭕️ - just to get out of the house. (Yes, I have a broken ankle. Yes, I am cleared to drive. Yes, I can walk. No, I can’t walk in nature yet.)

Everything is better with pictures, memes, quotes, whatever.

Be good out there!