I've lost myself again

I will try hard to explain how I feel. Right now I am going nowhere. I just ate two helpings of Tin Roof flavour ice cream, the latest in a long line of junk food I've eaten today. I want to know why It is I want to destroy myself eating. It's almost like I am defying somebody or something when I shove junk food in my mouth. Who am I angry at, why am I so depressed and where is the magic pill to put me on the straight and narrow.

I was always told by medical people that they didn't have a "magic wand to wave over me" and make me happy. That only made me more depressed and close to tears. It was like, they felt they had offered me all the help they could, it was the end of the road. Now all that could help me was a magic wand which we know doesn't exist.

I have been told when I was younger that there are people worse off than I and they seem to be able to cope and struggle upward. As I grew older and had lived more of life the medical people had to give me some credit for having made it thus far.

I know it doesn't help that I have bipolar disorder, leaning more towards the depressed end. I haven't been able to have a social drink for years because of the medication. I can't dance because of my back and knees and ankles, when you are that much overweight they have strain enough to keep you upright at all.

I have said before I am not ready to keel over and give up on life and end up in a wheelchair in the nursing home I work in. I have too much to struggle against to give up on life. There is a spark down there that makes me want to press on. Other depressed people will understand what I am talking about.

Next week I have to see the dietitian in preparation for weight loss surgery. I should have lost weight not gained it. I feel like my life is in a shambles and I can't fuss with measuring food and making diet meals. It's more like reaching out my hand for food, any food, and eating whatever it is that I find in my hand.

They say depression is anger turned inward. I am a very angry person. I am a very nice person, eager to help and listen and put myself last. I am very, very angry and i am taking it out on myself. I need somebody to show me how to deal with the anger

I wish I had a Tea Set

I don't know why I am writing this. Tea nowadays is a mug of water with a teabag tossed in and somebody asking you what you want in it.
I have some teapots but why bother id no one is around to take the time to relax. Maybe that's what I miss. People took time back in the day to sit down and have a cup of tea and a bit of something sweet. It was just the normal thing to do.

I can remember my "first cup of tea" when my mother and aunties were around, maybe a few other people. Teapot was out, cup and saucers and always some home-made cake. Usually plain cake but then some people didn't just make fruit cake for Christmas, they made it around the year. Momma would slice the cake and put it on a plate cut narrow, like "fingers".

Somebody decided at 8 years old I needed to learn how to drink tea so they set me up with a proper china cup and saucer, some milk and a couple of teaspoons of tea stirred in. I think that's how everybody was introduced to tea and you better not drop anything!!! You learned to respect bone china and not to break anything of Momma's nice tea set.

In Home Economics one of the first things I had to sew was a simple tea tray cloth. My mother still has it. It was hemmed and had blue embroidery (simple running stitch with "X's" in between. My stitches had to be perfectly straight if I wanted to get a decent mark. I was proud of it anyway.

When I went home in May my mother and I visited an old family friend and her husband and we were in time for tea. Every afternoon around 4 they have tea together with some cake just like the old days. She had a nice pot with a cozy, tea cups and saucers, and fruit cake and digestive cookies to nibble on. As well as the creamer and the sugar bowl which had sugar cubes rather than regular sugar and silver tongs to use with it!!!

When I don't feel good a cup of tea makes me feel better, even if it's just a mug with a tea bag thrown in. I still have some loose tea in the cupboard somewhere and my mother gave me a tea ball but I don't take the time.

Maybe I should.

There's something I am missing. Maybe life is going way to fast. Maybe if I had a tea set, pretty English china with pink roses, matching teapot and a pretty cozy to keep the tea warm, creamer and cubed sugar (and the silver tongs!!) and a tea strainer and all the rest you need for 4, I would feel better. Even if I never use it, at least it is there just in case

here is a link to tell you something about serving tea and the reasons why tea is served the way it is. Then there's the Etiquette. To me Etiquette is just plain common sense just like good manners. Everything you learn is for a certain reason. Once you know the reason, the rest is easy!!!

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HighTeaHistory.htm

When the Stars go Blue

Where do you go when you're lonely
Where do you go when you're blue
Where do you go when you're lonely
I'll follow you
When the stars go blue, blue
When the stars go blue, blue
When the stars go blue, blue
When the stars go blue

This just about says how I feel now, except there is nobody following me, and if there were, what would I do when they caught up with me?

Let's just say my life is very confusing now and I wish there was somewhere I could go to get away from it all. People do what they want. There's nothing I can do about it so I guess I just have to go on with my life the best way I can and let the cards fall where they may.

I just get so very tired of drama, it only adds to my depression and how I feel about myself. There were 2 times today that I ate junk after something happened. I feel sick to my stomach now. I started off with an orange at 7:30, well that is OK. Then I ate about 10 of those small powdered donuts and after those about 8 cream filled cookies. Later I went back for more cookies and they were hone.

I imagine my daughter hid them for my own good but then I ate 2 pop tarts and here I sit. It was explained to me a long time ago that when you eat for emotional reasons, it's because you are stuffing down the bad feelings with what you're eating. This is why I am so large and I defeat my own self.

Just because I know this doesn't mean it keeps me from destructive behaviour. I wish I had a different life but I don't want change. Meanwhile I am 55 and not getting any younger. I desperately want a thin body but it seems I don't want it bad enough to leave the junk alone.

I don't even care about myself enough to at least eat a nice quality of sweets but the cheapest junk finds itself going down my throat.

I don't even care enough about myself to gain weight on something that is worth eating. Exotic chocolate, expensive pastry made with the best ingredients or the best ice cream I can get my hands on

If I could only find out who was following me when the stars go blue

Life and Death

Please don't read this if you are depressed or upset

Most of you know I work part-time in a nursing home as a house-keeper. I clean in 2 and 3 East on weekends. These are the locked Alzheimer's wards. I've been there almost 3 years and I have seen many residents come and go, for lack of a better way to say it.

When the family is gathered to be with a loved one in their last moments, the kitchen provides coffee, tea and pastry as well as soda on a wheeled cart as a courtesy. This morning I rolled my cleaning cart into 2 East and saw the trolley and this poor woman crying against the door frame. I am a person who gives hugs when I feel they are needed and I let her cry against me until she felt she could go back in.

The social worker and I imagine the woman's husband were there and I heard the social worker say she was sorry and I knew what had happened.

Tomorrow I will clean that bed and furniture, once the family has gathered whatever they want of their loved one's belongings. Wash everything down, make the bed and get it ready for the next one.

Sometimes I run into the funeral people who come to collect the body. There's two of them and a stretcher on wheels. I call them "the Dark Angels of Death".

Next Saturday when I go back to work that bed will be filled with another person who needs total care. They may be able to walk, or use a walker, or wheelchair or be bed-ridden. They may talk or not. You do what you can for the poor old dears because everybody there could be your mother or your father and perhaps someone else is doing the same for them, or maybe sometime down the road.

It saddens me when the ones who were there when I first began work, who I had conversations with, gradually go down hill until they live their life out, like the lady who passed this am.

I had to walk by that room on my way back up the elevator to the 3rd floor and I couldn't help but to see that woman lying in bed with her grandmother who had passed and at that moment I was thankful for every pill I had taken that day, especially the Xanax. So sad, so sad

WHO AM I?????

It suddenly seemed clear to me that I am 2 people and while that sounds crazy it's making more and more sense. One side of me is depressed and negative and the other side of me is happy with a great outlook on life (focused on the positive). I've blamed Seasonal Affective disorder, Bipolar disorder, lack of a decent life etc but it seems what I get out of life depends on how I feel.

Take weight loss. It is summer now, my mood should be elevated, my ambition great and I should be able to focus better. My "summer way of eating" hasn't cut in yet. I am trying to put this down on paper so it will make sense.

One half of me is depressed, negative outlook on life, a doormat because I have no confidence at all and eat junk and make myself feel sick to my stomach, and do it over again. I seem unable to learn. I don't want to go out. I can't keep up. Other people see to have goals in life and they let nothing stand in the way of achieving them. Any old clothes will do as long as they cover, a fat body isn't worth spending money on.

Then there is the other part that of course I would love to hang on to forever. I would be such a better person. More outgoing, more ambitious, with a good, clear head. I listen to my hypnosis, don't eat after 6 and look forward to another day. I can see myself wearing my favourite type of clothing, a kind of hippy-BoHo style with leather sandals, long Indian skirts and embroidered peasant tops. When I am this person I am 55 but not a typical granma type. I like to swim against the tide and be different.

I don't know if I am explaining this well enough to get my point across. When I look back at my life it's always been that way, only I never put two and two together. I don't think any pill can put both my parts together to make one well-adjusted person who copes and doesn't get left behind in the dust while everyone else moves on.

I had a flash of my better self on the weekend when I had my nose pierced again. I saw some women in Swizzle Inn. Bermuda with those long tropical dresses on that I wish I could wear.

When I went home in May I actually felt a flash of this better person when I went swimming and having lots of laughs with family and friends. I feel very restrained in this house. And at other times it becomes a safe cave for me to hide out in.

It reminds me of that movie "The Three Faces of Eve" but there are only 2 of me and I am present in both cases. It's something in my brain that makes me feel one way or the other and I wish I could control this. It would make my life so much easier and I would be a happier person to be around

A JOURNEY TO MYSELF

I haven't updated this since BEFORE I went to Bermuda. Things are looking a little different to me now. I needed the blue skies and turquoise sea to set me straight, also to laugh all the time and live in the moment, not thinking about tomorrow. I always say I carry my loudness with me where ever I go. I know this because everybody says things are so quiet when I'm not there

I had a chance to take a good long look at myself between the laughter and the beach and decided that I choose health, long life and an identity of my own to exist. I am 55 and most definitely in the Crone stage of my life. I have a grown daughter and a grandson and have spent 50 years of my life in The School Of Hard Knocks. I have something to say. People can come to me with a problem and either I can answer (having been through the same thing myself) or make suggestions as to where they can find other answers.

I wear silver and rose quartz jewellery and that's enough. I want to pierce my nose again. I want to become a person, not somebody who has given up on myself and life.

To this end I have resumed listening to my hypnosis recordings, twice a day. Once to calm myself down for the day, and later on in the afternoon so I don't comfort-eat at night. I ride my recumbent bike 2x/day, 30 min each and I burn up about 300 cals/day. This might not seem like much but it's less I have to go around my huge mid-section.

I can't quite pinpoint the exact time that I went from just existing from day to day and changed over to wanting to make today and tomorrow as good as I can make them. It was sometime during our visit to the island where I was born and brought up, and seeing My Own People again.

Nothing like trying to find yourself after 50 years of age. Better now than never, I guess