Soul Thumping

Musical chairs - A Childhood Game Responsible for My Nightmares

Last Friday Poseidon and I were hosting one of our legendary fire pit parties and as I carried chairs from the patio to the yard, I had a kindergarten flashback that stopped me cold in my tracks (literal tracks...I was trying to step in my existing foot steps each time I carried a chair):  Musical chairs.  I hated this game with every fiber of my being.  Pressure.  Pressure to win, to be the victor.  Pressure to get through this rot of a game without embarrassing myself.  The word "game" implies fun.  Evil trickery!

If you've read any of my previous posts, my aversion to most childhood games, not just musical chairs (the Chutes and Ladders post is eerily similar), is well documented.  Stress and anxietal depression are my long-time pals (the kind of friends you really don't want to play with but are too shy to say no to them), and competitive games were enough to make me sweat and tremble in sheer terror (fortunately, I was usually able to stop short of vomiting), and musical chairs was among the worst, in my opinion.

On one particular occasion when playing this game, I remember wearing a red dress with red socks and black shoes.  I was so nervous and hoping to heck I would be near a chair when the music stopped.  The anxiousness of it all turned me a nice shade of white (which I'm sure looked lovely against my red dress, red socks and black shoes).  There were three of us left, and two chairs.  The music played and played and played.  I was ready.  As soon as the music finally stopped, I turned to plant me behind in one of the remaining seats, but one of my little black patent leather shoes had other plans for me, and headed in the opposite direction.  I ended that round of musical chairs with my behind on the floor, not in one of those two seats.

Luckily, I kept my dignity in tact by not exposing my ruffled panties or this ending would have been much worse...written from behind the walls of a padded room, wrapped in a nice warm straight jacket, typing with my nose.

 

--Fortuitous Observer

Getting a Haircut and the Looming Drama that Comes Along

Is it wrong to take a handful of valium before my hairdresser has cut one hair on my head?  I like new, fresh haircuts.  I don't like getting my haircut.  Sitting in the chair, making small talk with my hairdresser (don't get me wrong, I love, love my hairdresser), anxiously awaiting the outcome is excruciatingly painful for me.  I would rather be lambasted in the nose with a cast aluminum meat tenderizer.

I bring this up because I have an appointment with my hairdresser this afternoon.  She does a great job in coloring the little grey hairs that keep sneaking in (those jerks), and she is very creative, offering suggestions for my length, layers, new styles, etc.

I think it all boils down to a C O N T R O L   T H I N G.  I'm sitting helplessly in a salon chair that can be pumped up or down at the whim of my hairdresser, with a smock wrapped around me like a straight jacket while my hairdresser, whom I don't know all that well, is hovering over me with a pair of sharp scissors.  I'm subconsciously concerned about escaping with my life should the need arise.  

I don't understand it really, but I just accept the fact that haircut = drama.  I've never once had an  incident while getting my hair cut--other than coming away with a few lousy dos that I don't talk about, except with my therapist.  Someday I would like to be able to confidently walk in and request a T w i g g y
haircut, but I don't have the face for it and the end result may push me over the edge.

 

 

--Fortuitous Observer

My Christmas After Discovering Santa Does Not Exist - The 1979 Barbie Van and the Tissue Incident

"Santa isn't real, it's your parents who buy you Christmas presents!"  This came from my best friend's sister the summer before I turned 8 in the late 1970s.  I thought she was being spiteful because we had cracked an egg over her head (it was hollow...the egg, not her head) which made her angry so she decided to spill the beans.

Telling a firm Santa believer that the benevolent jolly man in the red suit does not exist is the worst thing one could possibly do, at least it was to this Generation Xer at the time.  I mean, we spent our youth during the Cold War, thinking we were going to be nuked at any second, so belief in something magical was more than a respite from harsh reality, it was a necessary tool in our arsenal of coping skills.

When I went home crying to my mother after hearing the shocking news about Saint Nick, she explained that Santa didn't really exist, and my twin sister and I shouldn't tell our younger brother yet, but it was still ok to believe in Santa if we wanted.  Awesome, that is all I needed to hear.  I could, if I so choose, still believe.  I chose to believe.

That summer we moved and because we were upset over the move, we felt we were going to be "compensated" with better Christmas gifts that year.  My sister and I wanted more than anything to be the proud owners of the humongous Barbie Star Traveler Van that Christmas.  Even though the awful truth of Santa's "non"-existence had settled in, I still wanted to believe.

The problem:  I obsessed (truly, obsessed, worried, stressed, puked, etc.) about Santa not being able to find us since we had moved, and someone else would get our Barbie van!  I was anxious and crying that Christmas Eve at my grandparent's house and couldn't enjoy myself, until my aunt Marsha asked me what was wrong and I told her my fear of Santa not finding us.

Being the awesome aunt that she was (still is), she told me we would write a note to Santa, and set it on top of the flames in the fireplace, the heat from the flames would lift it to the sky and Santa would find us.  What a topnotch plan, or so I thought.

Aunt Marsha couldn't find any writing paper, but she found a tissue.  She wrote a beautiful note, giving Santa our new address.  I was so excited I probably peed my pants.  We took the note to the fireplace, she carefully set it atop the flames to be carried to the sky, but instead that piece of light-weight tissue disintegrated before my very eyes.  OH MY GOD!  NO!  Doomed.

I'll skip the melodramatic episode that followed, because the story has a happy ending.  My sister and I did get our Barbie Star Traveler van.  It was waiting for us at home that night.  Santa had seen Aunt Marsha's tissue note after all.  The part that makes me smile is that I've moved several times over the last 20 years, but you know what?  That mythical magical man in the red coat and funny hat always manages to find me.  I'm glad I haven't stopped believing.

 

Check out the original Mattel 1979 commercial for the Barbie Star Traveller!

 

 

--Fortuitous Observer

 

Self Overhaul. Presto...I'm Now a Flake! - Managing Anxiety and Depression

You know the over-used adage:  "If you can't be 'em, join 'em" (this is my more colloquial version of the saying)?  I've gone and done it.  After spending decades trying to "cure" my chronic depression and anxiety with slight results, an epiphany of sorts led me to this realization:  there is no cure for anxiety, depression and stress.  There just isn't that one magic bean I have been hoping for to make me anxiety and depression-free.

In my early twenties I began a daily regimen of anti-depressants that seemingly helped with obsessive thoughts and I believed for a while I was "repaired," until my next episode of depression came out of no where.  Meds and therapy for the next decade, same results.  Last year, 2 years ago I added neurofeedback to the mix.  Magic bean?  No, but it has helped me re-train my brain to function more appropriately to stressful plights, allowing me to react more rationally in situations rather than immediately going into super-charged anxiety mode.  Without the neurofeedback, I doubt very much I would have had my revelation, which in 2 months time has led to an entirely new way of dealing with myself, and an arsenal of new tools I'm incorporating into accepting and, dare I say, embracing my anxiety and depression.

The phrase for today is "managing."  There is no "curing" anxiety and the related depression, it all comes down to accepting it is there, thereby "controlling" it so it doesn't control me.  I accept that I'm going to be anxious most hours of the day, breathe my way through it, and decide to function after all.  It is that simple (though it has taken me a rather long time to reach that mesa).

Now what?  The crow sandwich part.  I have myself become one of those people I haughtily judge as "flakes."  I'm taking a more holistic approach to living with anxiety and depression since I now realize the anxiety fairy will never leave the magic bean under my pillow.  I'm eating "happy" foods (see my earlier post on happy foods), I'm having massages, I'm researching homeopathic doctors and acupuncturists in my area, I've started seeing a chiropractor to repair some of the damage my anxiety and stress has inflicted on my poor innocent spinal column, and I'm continuing my neurofeedback (though I'm down to monthly instead of weekly).

I repeat positive mantras to myself throughout the day, and I'm attending online "anxiety and the creative soul" seminars, and I am now attending group meditation each week. 

I continue to take my antidepressants daily, but will remain at my lower dose.  I just purchased a new set of relaxation and meditation cds that use brainwave entrainment technology on my alpha, theta, and delta waves, similar to the neurofeedback, and of course, I still run a few nights each week because the endorphins are the star player in knocking the wind out of anxiety and depression.

The most important change?  I breathe.  Breathing is critical to punching my way out of the anxiety paper bag.  I was not aware, until my therapist told me last year, that I'm breathing from my chest, and not my diaphragm, which does not give my brain enough oxygen.  OK, done!  I've practiced breathing enough that it has become automatic.

Another hugely important issue came up a few months ago:  I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and have been prescribed Synthroid.  Depression and anxiety can be caused and exacerbated by thyroid issues, so I urge everyone to have blood work done and make sure they test your thyroid!  I know, it is yet another pill I have to take everyday, but it is most certainly worth it!

Presto...no magic beans, but now that I'm a flake, I have yet another great reason to laugh at myself.

 

--Fortuitous "Flaky" Observer

One Happy Circle of Niceness and No Straight Jacket Required

This weekend I had a massage and forced myself to concentrate on making the day all about relaxation and thinking and being only in the now, which is extremely difficult for someone with anxieties, as anyone who has, knows.

After my massage, I was so happy because at having done something nice for myself, focusing solely on me, not worried about Poseidon and what he was doing, or what other errands I needed to run, just all about me.  Then it hit me:  I had to make a stop at the grocery store on the way home, and if you've read any of my previous blogs about my experiences with the grocery store, you know I would rather chew my own pinky off, or stab myself in the ear repeatedly with a blunt object (blunt, not sharp...want to make sure it's excruciatingly painful) than go inside.

I took a deep cleansing breath, pulled into the parking lot, chanting a mantra to myself, something about happy flowers and little bluebirds following me.  Once inside, I quickly grabbed everything on my list without irritation, in a zen-like state, and as I walked out of the store (I paid first, don't worry...I haven't started shoplifting yet), I noticed that I was smiling, without trying, which made me notice that everyone I passed smiled, which made me smile even more!  It was one big smile circle at Kroger on Saturday it seems.  I felt all warm inside and I didn't leave the store in the same state I usually leave:  hugging myself, rocking back and forth, repeating, "I'm almost home, I'm almost home," then rolling myself into a little ball on the floor in the living room as my cats walk circles around me trying to decide if I'm coherent enough to feed them or should they go find Poseidon.

 

--Fortuitous Observer

 

Escape from Inadequate Mountain...

What I find the most difficult about being married to a wonderful, sensitive, truly caring soul, is that I am not one.  I'm hyper-vigilant with repressed anger issues, wreaking with constant anxiety, and my "psyche is more complex than most."  I put quotes around that last bit because that is what my therapist read to me when revealing the results of my Rorschach test last year (I recommend everyone visit a Psychotherapist and take the Rorschach test --a.k.a. the ink blot test.  It is eye-opening and the results are eerily dead-on...spooky).

This means a great deal many things, but an important aspect is that I'm so hyper-vigilant and will do anything to protect my feelings from being trampled on at all costs (which also explains why I didn't get married until the age of 41).  I'm not a therapist, and I'm not pretending to be one, but let's just say my entire adult life has involved sitting in the Big Chair (that is a reference to Tears for Fears album, named for the shrink's chair in the movie Sybil) and spilling it to a therapist every week, so I'm familiar with the drill and I am fully aware of what my issues are, whether or not I work on them, well, that is another story.

Back to my original idea.  Poseidon and I had an argument last night that was not pretty.  I won't go into the details, but during our heated battle of words, he called me a name, and this name feels like a brick being hurled at me with brut force, and it causes me to feel inadequate, some things from my childhood, etc.  I immediately shut down and revert back to childhood, pouting, sucking on my thumb, and curled up in bed in the fetal position with tears running down my face.  The only difference between this happening now versus when I was a child, is that mascara is now involved, and instead of tear stains on my sheets, I have tar stains, like a paving job gone severely wrong.

I've made strides in overcoming those past feelings of being inadequate and feeling lower than just about everyone else, but the brain always reverts back to those times stored where emotions were the strongest, and it isn't easy to retrain the brain, though I have been trying and making steps forward...even if they are only baby steps, at least they are heading forward, not backward.

 

--Fortuitous Observer

Thursday Night Theories

My ramblings tonight may not make much sense to most people, but I had to commit them to paper (or screen, if you will):

 

• I think most of CocoRosie's songs are written while they are doing a heavy volume of valium (I'm not dissing, I love CocoRosie...simply an observation).

• Kwinn (my Siamese) is vomiting again because he truly wants to piss me off.  He's not the most brilliant quadruped on the planet--due to the inbreeding--but he knows how to push my buttons.

• A car nearly backed into me tonight while the driver had one hand on a Wendy's fast food bag, and another on the wheel while a cell phone was glued to the driver's ear...guess the gender...yup, a stupid broad.  Most women (and I'm allowed to type it because I am a chick) should NOT be allowed to have a license.  Period.

• Insomnia is someones cruel, cruel idea of a joke (going on 4 nights with no sleep now, so excuse my lack of giving a shit).  Last night through around 4am this morning, I watched reruns of "Three's Company" for longer than I'm willing to admit and the theme song will not leave my head, and if I owned a gun, I would probably consider putting it to my temple just to make it stop.

 

--Fortuitous Observer

Saying Goodbye to my Gallbladder

"Ms. Slaven, you have gallbladder sludge."  As soon as the ER doctor said those words to me, (as I was squeezing the hell out of Poseidons hand) I knew it was official:  after 42 years together, my gallbladder wants nothing more to do with me.

The irony of this tale is that earlier in the week I had a discussion with my therapist about how down on myself I was being, and she said, in a joking manner, "Well you must not be too bad of a person because your arms and legs have stuck with you all of these years."  I felt so much better about myself after leaving her office.  She was right.  If my limbs don't hate me and they don't want to take off on their own like baby birds dropping from a nest, then I'm doing ok.  Did I mention the irony?  My limbs were still officially in like with me, but internal organs...another story.

Anyway, after a couple of weeks of thinking I could find some natural cure by changing my diet, etc., I decided I really should consult with the surgeon that the ER doc had referred me to in order to get his perspective.  I met with him today.  I discussed my concerns about having surgery and not having surgery, and he humored my neurotic ideas for a bit.  I told him of the negative things I'd read online, and he made me feel better by telling me that most of the people who bother to write about negative things online are hypochondriacs, and have no life, and I have to admit, I agree with him.

So, surgery is scheduled for July 11 and I'm feeling rather positive about it, but being 42 years old and never having had a major health problem (other than my plethora of mental issues), I'm also a bit sad that my internal organs have decided to put on a production of "The Caine Mutiny" without my permission.  Upstarts!

I'm already in pre-mourning at the loss of an internal organ, albeit an unnecessary organ for survival.  I'm still considering asking the surgeon if I can keep the gallbladder after the surgery (but I'm not sure if this will raise red flags and he demands to speak with my therapist).  It's strange to me because I've only had one other surgery in my life, and that was oral surgery to have 3 of my 4 wisdom teeth removed (and I was given some amazing drugs for that).  I wasn't upset about the loss of my teeth, but I was also in my mid-twenties at the time, and wasn't too concerned about losing "parts" of me yet.

With age, do we become more attached to those things that are apart of our being by default?  Maybe I've finally realized that I'm not invincible and parts of me are inevitably going to stop functioning?  Or, could it be that perhaps the older I get the more sentimental I am about body parts?

 

--Fortuitous Observer

Baskin Robbins Contributed to my Neurosis...Sort of

Dear mint chocolate chip ice cream.  I blame you for the start of my anxiety problems...

When I was 8 or 9, I discovered Baskin Robbins.  Baskin Robbins 81 Flavors of ice cream (OK, it was actually 31 flavors, but for a kid of that age, 31 flavors was more than my little mind could comprehend...if it was more than 5, it didn't matter if the number was 31 or 81).  It was one of the occasional treats that my parents could afford, so of course I cherished every precious minute I spent in one of those parlors.

Each time we went into the B&R store, I didn't even have to put my greasy little fingers on or breathe on those bewitching glass cases filled with rows of dazzling, creamy, sugary (we can't forget the sugar) vats of decadent delight (at that age, decadent wasn't a part of my vocabulary, but I'm telling this tale as a 40-something and that word describes the scene beautifully).  I knew exactly what I wanted:  mint chocolate chip.

We didn't go to Baskin Robbins often, but each trip started out the same:  I would sit in the car, already knowing I wanted mint chocolate chip, I would stare into space and beat myself up mentally for not trying any one of the the other 30 flavors.  I would try to talk myself into trying another flavor.  It seemed wrong to always choose the same when there were so many other flavors screaming out, "Try me, try me!"  I used to actually become anxious and nervous and upset with myself for not trying a new flavor.  I know, it is strange, but if you've read my blog before, you know all about my anxiety issues.

I sometimes convinced myself to try something else like the bubble gum or the rasperry, but 9 times out of 10, it was mint chocolate chip, and a ride home filled with self-loathing, and repudiation seemed natural.

Of course, I hadn't realized I did this to myself as a child until recently.  I don't eat ice cream so much now, but Poseidon and I were repainting our bedroom a mint green shade and it all came flooding back like a massive crack in the Hoover dam.

Last weekend, while running some errands, we walked by a Ben & Jerry's store.  As mentioned earlier, I don't really ever have a strong desire for ice cream, but I told Poseidon I wanted a milk shake.  I walked into the store, full of resolve.  I would end my childhood anxiety over ice cream once and for all.  I took a deep breath, and without looking into those charming, captivating cases, I responded to "Hey, how can I help you?" with "I'll have a mint chocolate chip milkshake please."

 

--Fortuitous Observer

 

 

I Blame the Bolts Holding the Toilet to the Floor

Poseidon and I are getting ready to put our house on the market, which means some home improvement is needed, but neither of us are what I would call "handy" (which is a crying shame because my father was a carpenter and an airplane mechanic crew chief in the Air Force and Poseidon's dad, though an Econ. Professor by day, he was a sculptor/builder on the weekends), so we are totally winging the home improvement projects (in other words, we are probably going to have to pay for people to come and fix the shit we royally screw up).

My problem is (who am I kidding...like I only have "1" problem) my time management skills suck beyond belief (which isn't good because I'm a project manager) when it comes to home repair.  For example, we are re-tiling the bathroom floors, so I think it should only take an hour total.  OK, that was about 6 days ago.  I realized we needed to take the toilet up, and silly, stupid me, thought it should take only 5 minutes to unbolt the toilet from the floor and put it in the hall.  The bolts are 30 years old and corroded beyond repair, yet I didn't take that into account.  It took a couple of days to get the toilet off of the floor.  I won't go into the entire pathetic, slit-my-wrists-now story, but we had to order a new toilet from Lowes and we are going to spring for the $99 charge to have them install the thing.

I blame God, Buddha, Vishnu, etc. for swinging down the hammer of karmic retribution.  Everything unsettling (aka life) that happens to me I blame everyone within a 50 miles radius plus God, Buddha, and Vishnu, then I start dwelling on everything  bad that has ever happened to me, including stitches in my head, sore throats, a nail in the bottom of the foot, growing up poor, not getting to buy the coolest socks, my father dying, etc.

If I could only blame the bolts instead of me, I think we could make real progress...

 

--Fortuitous Observer